How to identify a history book not written for accuracy.

Why is it that professors with Phd's are still publishing academic books asserting as a historical fact that George Washington and "all of his successors" appended the phrase "so help me God" to their oath of office? In a brief recent correspondance with one such history book author I heard several of the common defenses. Here are the defenses and my reaction to them.

One response is that there are a number of eyewitness accounts. This is simply incorrect. There is insufficient reason to assume that Washington Irving's claim that GW appended that phrase was based on his hearing that phrase being appended as a six year old. The others who first made this claim in the mid to late 1850's, 65 years after the event, were either not born, illiterate infants, and/or not in the vicinity of the inaugural at that time, and were as a group in social contact with each other. We have one eyewitness account from the French minister that quotes the oath. I explain this in more detail below.

Another, more common response is that the presidents used religious themes and that this lends credence to accounts that they finished with SHMG. This is OK as an argument in defense of the opinion that all of the presidents appended SHMG, although as a defense of a such a sweeping opinion it is weak, but this does not even come close to justifying claiming that GW, let alone all presidents, appended SHMG as a historical fact. The bottom line is that there is no evidence that our presidents appended that phrase to the presidential oath of office prior to Confederate president Jefferson Davis doing so. It is my opinion, for example, that Jefferson Davis wanted to confer upon the Confederacy a sense of moral superiority by appending that phrase as a contrast with the United States presidential inaugurals which up to that time apparently did not include that phrase. I think the evidence supports my opinion much better than it supports the contrary opinion that all presidents appended SHMG. But professors with Doctorates of Philosophy who falsely publish that it is a historical fact that all presidents appended that phrase in serious acadamic reference books and textbooks for history and political science students are in effect suppressing the legitimacy of such justified opinions that are consistent with the evidence. This is a foul thing for such professors to be doing, they are in effect abusing their professional titles for the purpose of misleading propagandizing.

Another common response is to simply ignore the fact that there is no evidence that any other president, let alone that all of the other presidents, appended that phrase prior to the Civil War. Instead, the professor tries to change the subject and question the motives of the person protesting that there is no evidence at all, and/or emphasizes the catch all "you can't prove they didn't all say it" defense as if that is sufficient justification for claiming they did say it. The motives of the people criticizing the professors who make this assertion of historical fact, for which there is literally no evidence whatsoever, is to challenge the falsification of history by monotheists for sectarian political purposes. It is the professors responsibility to show that there is sufficient evidence to qualify this 'they all appended "SHMG"' assertion as a historical fact, not the critics responsibility to show that they are religious monotheists who support establishment of monotheism and have proof it was not said in order to have credibility as a critic.

Because I consider all email exchanges to be private unless both parties agree to publish them, I will not reveal the name of the professor or the academic reference book he authored that falsely claims it is a historical fact that all presidents appended this phrase. I will display the emails below with identifying information removed:

My initial email:

The following is from your book [removed]: [removed]

I am not aware of any contemporaneous eyewitness evidence that any president appended "SHMG" to their oath office prior to the Civil War. The confederate president, Jefferson Davis, appears to be the first who we can say with any confidence appended that phrase to a presidential oath of office. If you are aware of evidence that "all" presidents appended that phrase to their oath of office, or for that matter to anything else that they said during their inauguration, then please tell us know about that evidence. Otherwise, please refrain from publishing such a sweeping statement in a textbook as if it is a historical statement when it clearly is not.

The notion that George Washington added "So help me God" to his presidential oath made its debut in the mid-nineteenth century and was first promoted in a published format by Rufus W. Griswold (February 13, 1815 – August 27, 1857) in his book, Republican Court, or American Society in the Days of George Washington, pgs 140-141 (1854). A website maintained by the Edgar Allen Poe Society identifies Griswold as "a failed Baptist minister turned editor" who slandered Poe after Poe died, claiming that "he forged letters by Poe and made changes in the texts of Poe's work to support his lies, portraying Poe as a fiend and a drug addict."

Here's how the debut took place. Early on in Griswold's inaugural narrative, just after Washington had completed pronouncing the words of the oath, he writes:

The Bible was raised, and as the President bowed to kiss the sacred pages, he said, audibly, 'I swear,' and he added, with fervor, his eyes closed, that his whole soul might be absorbed in supplication, 'So help me God.'

Soon afterwards, when Griswold has finished describing Washington's inaugural ceremony, he then adds this tidbit about Washington Irving:

Few persons are now living who witnessed the induction of the first President of the United States into his office; but walking, not many months ago, near the middle of a night of unusual beauty, through Broadway - at that hour scarcely disturbed by any voices or footfalls except our own - Washington Irving related to Dr. [John Wakefield] Francis [1789 - 1861] and myself his recollections of these scenes, with that graceful conversational eloquence of which he is one of the greatest of living masters. He had watched the procession till the President entered Federal Hall, and from the corner of New street and Wall street [a sideway's location about 200 feet away] had observed the subsequent proceedings in the balcony.

One may want to assume that Griswold had used Washington Irving as his source for asserting that Washington had added the "supplication, 'So help me God'," to his presidential oath, but if that is the case, it is not spelled out by Griswold. Furthermore, could six year old Washington Irving, from a distance of 200 feet in a crowd, have seen George Washington momentarily close his eye and then accurately recalled this sixty years latter? Irving's nephew's long biography of his uncle, The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, by Pierre Monroe Irving, 1869, G.P. Putnam's sons, doesn't mention Washington Irving viewing the first presidential inauguration, even briefly, although it did describe Irving's personal encounter with Washington as a young boy. Irving had discussed his biography project with his nephew since the 1840s, and Pierre was assisting his uncle with writing it in the mid-1850s. So if Irving was recalling the inaugural based on his personally witnessing the events then Pierre would certainly have been privy to this and presumably would have recognized its importance to his project. This lack of confirmation that Irving witnessed the first presidential inauguration thus leaves room for doubt that six year old Irving really was a witness to the inauguration as Griswold claimed.

Three years later, when Washington Irving's narrative describing the inaugural ceremony was published, he, too, left out any reference to a source he might have used. That may not be unusual by itself for historians of that period, but what is extremely problematic for Irving's reliability as a credible historian is that he apparently stole his narrative (with the exception of GW adding SHMG) from the Memoir of Eliza S. M. Quincy. Here is the footnote at bottom of page 52:

The previous pages, which describe the entrance and inauguration of Washington, were sent to Mr. Irving, in 1856, at his request, by the Editor, and are inserted in his "Life of Washington," vol iv. pp. 510, 513, 514, but without reference to their source.

Elsewhere in Irving's GW biography, Irving says that two horses pulled GW's Carriage of State. Newspapers of the day said that the Carriage of State, loaned out by the Beekman family, was pulled by four horses. It was one of the few carriages that had four horses. So much for Irving having "watched the procession" while it moved, out of his sight, along Broad Street. Indeed, Irving apparently did little if any original research for his popular biography of George Washington. According to The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, by Franklin Steiner, 1936, most of Washington Irving's biography of George Washington is copied from the biography written by historian Sparks. Similarly, in his article on Washington in the Dictionary of American Biography (1936), J C Fitzpatrick wrote, "Washington Irving, Life of GW (5 vols., 1855-1859) is satisfactory from most viewpoints, though its reliance on [Jared] Sparks lessens the confidence it would otherwise command."

For more information see the January 12, 2009 History News Network article, “So Help Me God”: A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded, by Professor Peter Henriques.

Furthermore, the notion that George Washington initiated a precedent, tradition, or custom by adding SHMG to his oath that other presidents have followed appears to have first materialized in the middle of the 1900's during the height of the Cold War! The earliest document we have found that explicitly characterizes appending shmG to the presidential oath as an inaugural tradition is from an article in the Herald Press, January 20, 1953 . This particular notion appears to be a twentieth century invention. A book The Soul of George Washington by Joseph Buffington, (1936) page 144 says 'When he took it in that form and he then bowed his head and kissed the Sacred Book and, with the deepest feeling, uttered the words "so help me God." These latter words, now accompanying the foregoing one in official oaths we owe to George Washington.' In other words, he is claiming that the post-Civil War legal oaths that "now" included that phrase were following a GW precedent, but he did not claim it set an earlier precedent for presidential oaths. As far as we have been able to determine it appears nowhere in anything published in the 1800's.

Sincerely,
Mathew Goldstein

The professors first response:

Aside from the considerable number of eyewitness accounts (you mention several, although you have decided they are not credible), you also might take a look at Washington's first inaugural address, which goes on and on at great length about the Deity. Even if you are correct (I don't see how you could prove it, but that's a question about the logic of social science and historical inquiry) on the particular SHMG issue, the fact that Washington and other presidents used religious themes at their inaugural is simply a matter of historical fact, easily developed through a simple reading of their addresses. This lends credence to accounts that they finished up with SHMG.

So I wonder what point you are trying to make. If it is some point about separation of church and state at the time, the historical record indicates that such separation, while existing under the Constitution ("No religious test...") for certain purposes, did not generally prevent people from swearing oaths to God at judicial and political ceremonies.

My second attempt to get the professor to address the issue of the evidence for his assertion:

Thank you for your quick response.

The 1850's publications claiming GW said "SHMG" are not eyewitness accounts, only one of the authors was alive, old enough to be fluent in English, and in the vicinity. That one author, Washington Irving, did not self-claim to be recalling an oath recitation he heard as a six year old. Again, Irving's published account of the event was copied without attribution from an eyewitness, Eliza Susan Morton Quincy, who, like all of the other known eyewitnesses, didn't claim that GW appended that phrase (someone else later added the "SHMG" to her original account about a decade after she had died, a copy of which, without the SHMG, can be found in The Inauguration of Washington, by Clarence Winthrop Bowen). The best eyewitness account we have of the oath recitation, the only one that actually quotes the oath recitation, was written by a French minister who stood on the stage near GW. That account does not mention GW appending "SHMG".

Donald Ritchie, co-author of the Oxford Guide to the US Gov't, made this statement to Lisa Miller in a Jan 20, 2009 newsweek article titled God and the Oath of Office
Did Washington swear to God? That legend may be as apocryphal as the one about the cherry tree: "The fact is, according to Donald Ritchie, a historian at the Senate Historical Office, we have no idea what most 19th-century presidents have said about God as they were sworn in because for most of American history there were no microphones and no recording devices." Maybe you had a secret "recording device" hidden away somewhere to support your claim about "all his successors"?

If Donald Ritchie can publically make this modest statement then so can you. Of course we shouldn't hide or disguise the fact that most presidents, including GW, utilized religious themes at their inaugurations, just please confine yourself to the evidence when doing so. We have no evidence, for example, that GW made any reference to deity during his second inaugural, which, unlike his first inaugural, was conducted according to GW's direction. In the first inaugural the presence of a bible, the lifting of the bible to his face, the church service, even the writing of the inaugural speech, were actions initiated by or carried out by others on short notice, which is why the absence of any religious references during his second inauguration is significant. Regardless of any other history, the significance of the oath history stands on its own and shouldn't be modified to match the religious preferences of the textbook's author(s) or the potential readership or purchasers.

Given that it is your textbook that asserts GW appending "SHMG" set a precedent that was followed by all other presidents, it seems to me kind of hypocritical for you to accuse me of making too big a deal about this. Are you going to continue to spout this so-called history as real or are you going to fess up to the fact that there are no, zero, known eyewitness accounts that GW ever said "SHMG" during either of his inaugurations?

The professors refusal to engage the issue of the evidence is final:

Please don't e-mail me or contact me again. I am not interested in exchanges with people who are obnoxious. Go write your own reference book if you don't like ours.

Supreme Court threatens to undermine our political free speech rights

The Supreme Court is currently weighing a free speech dispute. At its narrowest, the case tests whether it is constitutional to prohibit the primary election season broadcasting by a cable television video-on-demand service of a movie attacking candidate Hillary Clinton that was promoted by a non-profit organization. Congressional law restricts the spending of money by corporations and labor unions for partisan purposes during elections. Money and speech are linked since money buys access to billboards, pamphlets, signs, research, letters, radio, television, internet web pages, transportation, hotels, meeting hall rentals, telephone calls, etc. The Supreme Court could just rule on the specifics of this case, but the conservative Supreme Court majority appears to be eager to make a sweeping first amendment free speech decision against the existing court precedents upholding congressional restrictions on partisan spending by corporations and labor unions.

All free speech law should be firmly rooted in giving priority to the speech of individuals because all speech originates as an action of individuals and because civil rights are people-centered. Corporations, as legal constructs, should not have free speech priority over individuals, particularly with regard to political speech which has civil rights priority over other forms of speech. Individuals have free speech rights to associate with others of like mind and pool their resources to promote their shared viewpoint. Accordingly, corporations and labor unions in the United States can sponsor Political Action Committees, or PACs, which are associations of individuals to promote the partisan political interests of the corporation or labor union. PACs fulfill the requirement of rooting free speech in individuals and give both for-profit and non-profit organizations, including corporations and labor unions, equal opportunity to influence the political process with all other associations of individuals.

The conservative judges on the Supreme Court are endorsing weak arguments that corporations are entitled to the same free speech rights as individuals. They are claiming that somehow the 1st amendment free speech right for individuals is being denied when corporations and labor unions can't spend their general funds on political parties and candidates. Those are strange arguments, they defy common sense.

The fortune 100 companies in 2007 reported over 500 billion in profits. The profits of major United States corporations is no doubt well over a trillion a year. Political parties and candidates in the United States take in about 3 billion dollars a year. The numbers demonstrate that when corporate general funds start flowing to political parties and candidates they can, and probably will, dominate over the speech of individuals. Corporations tend to favor more freedom to sell anything, no matter the costs to health and future generations, using any means, no matter how dishonest, while paying the least salaries and benefits to workers, without accountability to anyone else and without paying taxes. They also favor unfair restrictions on and advantages over competitors. Corporations will contribute their profits to the political party and candidates who agree to favor laws that will impose such skewed outcomes. Giving the same legal privileges to labor unions doesn't create a balance here, corporations have much more money to spend than labor unions do.

For most people, the bulk of their stock ownership is in publicly traded stock. Shareholders get to vote for the corporate board of directors, but its far from an epitome of a democratic process. The board of directors nominating committee selects the candidates and shareholders can only vote yes or no for the nominees. Furthermore, voting is weighted by number of shares, and retirement, insurance, and investment funds, who collectively hold a large portion of corporate stock, neither disclose their votes nor ask the individual investors who own the shares how to vote their shares. Most corporations either do not issue public stock or place all ownership of the company's stock in the hand of a relatively small number of people who do not trade the stock publicly on the stock market, so there isn't even the pretense of larger public democratic control over how such corporate profits are spent.

Even if shareholders did have control over the policies of the corporation, which in practice they mostly do not, the fact remains that shareholders own stock because they want to make a profit, or at least not lose money to inflation. Similarly, the employees, who enable the corporation to accumulate profits, are working for the corporation to earn money. Employees usually own little or no stock in the corporations that employ them. Unlike contributors to corporate and union PACs, shareholders and employees are not a group of like minded individuals associating for the purpose of promoting or opposing political parties and candidates. It is anti-democratic to place investors and employees and union members in the coerced inferior position of having some portion of their investments and earnings that are under the control of corporate and union executives spent by those corporate and union executives on behalf of (or against) political parties and candidates.

If the Supreme Court rules that corporations and labor unions have a first amendment political free speech right to spend their general funds on political parties and candidates then they will be undermining the political free speech rights of individuals.

Robert Wright's defense of theism falls short

I recently encountered part of a Huffington Post interview titled "Q&A with Robert Wright (Part 2): Is Belief in God Any Weirder Than Belief in Electrons?" Robert Wright, author of a book entitled "evolution of God, exemplifies the weak nature of the arguments that some intelligent liberal monotheists use to defend theism against atheism.

Robert Wright starts by pointing out that electrons have internally contradictory wave and particle properties from which he concludes that belief in God is not weirder than belief in electrons. The weirdness of electron's dual character is a symptom of our lack of an explanation for the particle and wave properties being simultaneously present, but we know the properties are true because we have excellent empirical evidence for it. We have no similar empirical evidence for God and that is a key difference here. If we were to one day find an explanation for the electron's combination of properties then its weirdness would be diminished. Robert Wright mistakenly forecloses that possibility by asserting that the electron's properties are "beyond human comprehension." Of course, what we don't understand is, ipso facto, beyond our current comprehension. Maybe it is also beyond human comprehension forever, but we don't know that it is. We actually have good reason to think that one day we will have an explanation for the dual particle and wave properties of electrons. What is that good reason? Its the history of science and the surprising and unanticipated nature of many of the explanations that have been identified. For example, no one imagined nuclear fusion as the source of the sun's heat and light before it was discovered. There are many historical examples of phenomena which we didn't even know existed and which once discovered were very puzzling but were later explained in ways that no one had previously imagined.

Robert Wright then answers affirmatively this question: "If thinking of divinity as something that exists leads people to behave in a morally progressive fashion, might that give validity to a conception of divinity?" The correct answer is no, because any benefits derived from thinking that a deity exists is an entirely distinct and separate phenomena from the fact of that, or any other, deity existing. If you believe you will be punished by god for violating some rule then you may be more likely to respect that rule even though, in fact, you will never be punished by a god for violating that rule because there is no god. Again, Robert Wright defends his conclusion by making an inappropriate comparison with electrons, citing an unnamed physicist who allegedly said "I'm not sure electrons per se really exist. It is, however, useful to talk as if electrons exist. You get good scientific results using that kind of language." The physicist here probably is expressing the fact that our empirically based representation of electrons is an oversimplification, and thus strictly speaking incorrect, because it is at best incompletely explained. Again, the electron existence question is substantially different than the God existence question because for the latter there is no supporting empirical evidence.

Robert Wright expresses incomprehension for atheists: "Strictly speaking, I don't understand how people can call themselves atheists, if the term means you're sure there's no God. I don't see how you can be sure of anything in this world. I'm technically an agnostic, although one with spiritual and religious leanings. But I don't know anything, and I don't know how anyone can say they know there's no God." But the term atheist doesn't mean certainty by absolute proof that we know there is no God. Atheism is a viewpoint that the weight of the evidence justifies the conviction that there is no God (my view), or at least it doesn't justify the conviction that there is a God. Atheists are also often agnostic (I am).

Robert Wright expresses understanding for theists: "If you have a religious experience and God appears, I can see how you'd be pretty convinced. Strictly speaking you still don't know that it's not an illusion, but it's easier for me to understand someone who says they're a religious believer than somebody who says they're an atheist. Because the religious believer says, 'I saw it.'" If a God existed that made its presence known via religious experience, which would be an inefficient way for such a God to make its presence known when it presumably could utilize a more direct and confirmable method for making its presence known, then why do Hindus experience Hindu gods and Muslims experience an Islamic god and Catholics experience a Catholic god and Africans experience tribal African gods when many of these gods have incompatible attributes and identities? The well studied and documented pattern of people experiencing the particular and specific gods that they already know is strong evidence that those experiences are driven by their pre-existing beliefs and as such are strictly mental experiences, much like the experience of imagining monsters under one's bed or behind the nearest closet after watching an alien monster invasion movie. Thus, on closer examination, the religious experience phenomena evidence favors atheism over theisms.

Robert Wright ends by discussing meditation: "This gets at another thing William James said, that our ordinary state of consciousness, the one we use to drive to work and get through life, is just one possible state of consciousness, and there's no reason to assume that it's any more valid than a lot of other possible states. I think in some ways it's manifestly less valid, because our ordinary state of consciousness was designed by natural selection to serve our own interests. And it is an illusion." If a state of conscience serves our own interests then it is validated against something external to ourselves. That is a far from perfect form of validation, but it is also far better than nothing. If a state of conscience does not serve our own interest then it isn't validated against anything external to ourselves. So which is less trustworthy? Logically the unvalidated form of conscience is less trustworthy. Robert Wright isn't particularly logical when it comes to justifying theism.

Netroots National Convention and Bruce Ledewitz promote bad EC arguments

The Netroots Nation Convention panel meeting in Pittsburgh drafted a proposal concerning the future of the separation of church and state in America. The proposal blatantly first assumes the conclusion that government establishment of monotheism is constitutional and then tries to justify that conclusion instead of starting with the constitutional principle and then trying to reach the proper conclusion:

"The old liberal vision of a total separation of religion from politics has been discredited. Despite growing secularization, a secular progressive majority is still impossible, and a new two-part approach is needed--one that first admits that there is no political wall of separation. Voters must be allowed, without criticism, to propose policies based on religious belief. But, when government speaks and acts, messages must be universal. The burden is on religious believers, therefore, to explain public references like 'under God' in universal terms. For example, the word 'God' can refer to the ceaseless creativity of the universe and the objective validity of human rights. Promoting and accepting religious images as universal will help heal culture-war divisions and promote the formation of a broad-based progressive coalition."

Before proceeding I must digress a little to blast the call for "without criticism" censorship in the above paragraph. The fact is that when anyone proposes public policies based on religious beliefs those religious beliefs necessarily become part of the public debate and thus subject to criticism. This notion that somehow religious motivations for public policies, unlike all other public policy motivations, are immune from public criticism when debating the policy is an indefensible double standard. That is an intolerant and one-sided censorship on the debate and is completely unreasonable and unrealistic.

The Establishment Clause is not about religious believers and their religious beliefs, its about government and the law, so the burden here is on the law and government to avoid unnecessary religious partisanship in word and deed, the burden is not on religious believers to assert the universality of religious expressions and practices in the laws and government actions by substituting non-religious language that derives from their particular partisan religious beliefs. That should be obvious. Yet somehow a Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law named Bruce Ledewitz actually endorses this unbalanced and superficial approach. According to the Professor “As long as government plausibly justifies religious imagery in nonreligious terms, its use would be constitutional.” He gives an example:

1) The phrase “In God We Trust” can also mean that we acknowledge that there are binding standards of right and wrong.
2) IGWT is constitutional.

For a monotheist who believes that God is the source of morality, but not the source of immorality, and that God must be obeyed, it is indeed plausible to assert that almost any religious imagery consistent with those religious beliefs serves the dual purpose of upholding "moral standards". It is worth pointing out here that exactly what those "moral" standards are is going to vary with the religious beliefs and may not actually be ethical at all, there is much content in the bible and other holy books that is nasty, cruel, ugly and brutal. The key point here, however, is that Ledewitz is applying a partisan Christian compatible monotheistic methodology to constitutional interpretation of the Establishment Clause and consequently undermines his assertion of achieving universality to comply with Equality before the Law and the related Establishment Clauses of the constitution. As an atheist the notion that God is the source of morality and therefore references to God belief are synonymous with references to upholding morality is simply mistaken, its a non-starter, its not at all plausible just like the gods beliefs they are rooted in are not plausible. Furthermore, those theists who think gods are the source of immorality or that god(s) should not be obeyed would consider it wrong to assert IGWT. Bah humbug to the arrogant and ridiculous claim of universiality for his own partisan IGWT religious belief.

A central purpose of the EC is to carve out a sphere of freedom for everyone, especially for minorities in a democracy that tends to favor majorities, to be themselves without the interference of unnecessary government favoritism for or against their religious beliefs. We are not achieving that purpose if we start to call the exclusivist religious beliefs of a majority universal for no other reason that they can be rephrased into non-religious language by the people who hold those religious beliefs because those religious beliefs also claim various roles in the secular world. If most Americans believe that poverty, or illness, or natural disaster, is due to failure to worship the God properly then according to Professor Ledewitz we have a plausible secular justification for government to justify religious imagery promoting proper worship. Religious believers thus get to have their majoritarian religious beliefs laundered by the law into secular beliefs by self-declaration.

Isn’t it obvious that these are not secular justifications at all? They are partisan religious justifications for partisan religious phrases rooted in assigning a god particular attributes. It is only by making the partisan religious assumptions inherent in assigning particular attributes to a personal god that people can generalize that a partisan religious phrase is equivalent in meaning to a non-religious condition or event or outcome in the first place. And it is only by giving special privilege to majoritarian religious beliefs over the beliefs of minorities that such religiously partisan imagery backed by religious partisan arguments can be adopted into law.

Ledewitz’s method gets us nowhere with regard to first amendment jurisprudence, its a closed circle that starts and ends with the same legal privileging of majoritarian partisan religious beliefs it falsely claims to discard for EC purposes via the all-purpose, catch-all contrivance of substituting religious imagery with religiously derived non-religious imagery. Then, with a wink and crossed fingers held behind one’s back, Ledewitz's approach disregards the actual exclusivist religious imagery in dispute and the exclusivist religious derivation of the transformation to non-religious imagery while pointing to the remaining non-religious substitute in isolation and insisting that it be labeled as universal and be judged as constitutional as a proxy for the actual religious imagery. If would be a shame to our nation if our Supreme Court were to adopt Professor Ledewitz's blatantly disingenuous contrivance to avoid upholding the EC no less than it would be shame to our nation if our Supreme Court were to more directly endorse the same unfair result by adopting Scalia's unprincipled endorsement of inequality before the law with respect to the EC for "nonbelievers", Buddhists and Hindus.

Why Mooney is wrong about improving scientific literacy

Chris Mooney's argument is as follows:

For instance, if evolution is true, but also in some sense leads to or entails atheism (the Coyne/New Atheist view), then we are going to have a vastly harder time getting much of religious America ever to accept evolution.

I believe the central reason we have such massive problems with the teaching of evolution to be precisely this—millions of America believe, incorrectly, that they must give up their faith in order to learn about it or accept it. This misconception is highly prevalent, and is regularly reinforced in a number of ways: Through the media, by church leaders, by the New Atheists, and so on.

If this incorrect view could somehow be dislodged, then, we might also have a better chance of defusing tensions over the teaching of evolution, and thereby improving “scientific literacy” (a term we define in more detail in the book, but that I won’t get bogged down with here). Such are some of the premises that I’m working from….

It really is harder for religious America to accept evolution because evolution does in some sense lead towards atheism. There can be no doubt about this, Mr. Mooney's "if" equivocation regarding evolution favoring atheism is mistaken. We know why religionists don't devote much effort to disputing the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics. It is the theory of Evolution that directly challenges the central role for their gods in creating everything. Indeed, there is arguably no place left for gods outside of fiction and questionable speculation once we properly give evidence pride of place in determining what is factual, as Coyne and the New Atheists correctly argue.

Traditional religion is an all-encompassing (and therefore also fragile) world-view that people consider foundational and central to not only their own happiness but to world justice, peace and future utopia. Somewhat impolitely, we can accuse traditional religion of being a dogma. According to this closed minded religious world view, atheism is not just wrong, it is bad, and not just bad, it is evil. Evolution in particular, and science more generally, are therefore a threat to what is good, they are steps towards evil, whenever they contradict or just encourage doubts about the factual assertions of traditional religions.

Mooney's argument relies on scapegoating Coyne and the "New Atheists" as if they were responsible for this state of affairs. The conflict between religious faith and evolution exists in the real world such as it is because religions, including our most popular religions, make assertions about the world that conflict with the evidence. Accordingly, step one in a realistic approach to scientific literacy must be to accept the obvious reality that this conflict is intrinsic to traditional religious beliefs. Religionists may be mistaken about some things, such as their fear of atheism, but this conflict between their religion's factual assertions and evolution is not one of the things that they are mistaken about.

Denying the reality of conflict between traditional religion and scientific literacy and hoping that the conflict will resolve itself if we don't identify its source, as Mr. Mooney is doing, may be a good strategy for the Catholic church and various other religious institutions, but it is a poor strategy for resolving conflict. By what passes for intellectualism within the Catholic church and among liberal religionists, it suffices to just declare that theistic evolution is consistent with contingency because god is great and all the divine intervention that made the recent appearance of humans on earth inevitable is hidden beyond the veil of quantum uncertainty. This modern divine hiddenness is fundamentally inconsistent with the talking god of the bible who actively makes visible and instanteneous macro-scale changes to our environment and deploying the declaration that god is great as a catch-all resolution for any logical inconsistency is insufficient. For the rest of us, theists and atheists alike, the conflict between scientific literacy and religious faith is not a misconception of the media, church leaders, the New Atheists, and so on.

Mr. Mooney's strategy of denying that religious faith is 100% to blame for this conflict is a prescription for perpetuating the conflict between religion and scientific literacy. The justification for this denial appears to be that tackling the conflict more honestly and directly is too difficult. Mooney is insisting that everyone else should join him in refusing to blame religious faith because pretending that the conflict doesn't exist independently of the New Atheists is his idea of the best strategy for managing the conflict, because blaming faith in traditional religious dogma somehow isn't nice or civil, and because Catholics and liberal religionists mostly accept evolution even though that acceptance is compromised with various qualifications that are unsupported or even contradicted by evidence and arguably irrational. That is a defeatist strategy. Mr. Mooney shouldn't be surprised that his counsel of self-censorship will be rejected by people who have the gall to think worthwhile goals that are hard to achieve are still worthy of pursuing and that any strategy for overcoming conflict, to be effective, has to confront the real source of the conflict that it claims to be addressing. This is really a conflict about the role of evidence and how we determine what is true.

Library of Congress Historian promotes George Washington myths

In May 2005, Dr. Marvin Kranz, historical specialist, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, was interviewed by Senator Durbin about the history of presidential inaugurations. About three and half minutes into the interview Dr. Marvin Kranz says "George Washington took the first inaugural address, and when he was about to take the first inaugural address he said 'where is the bible?'. Nobody had a bible. He wanted to take it on a bible." About four minutes into a video on the Library of Congress web site page titled Presidential Inaugurations: Historical Insights, George Washington's First Inauguration Dr. Marvin Kranz says "Washington said he wanted to take the oath on the bible".

I don't think so. There is no eyewitness evidence that I am aware of that supports the assertion that George Washington "said he wanted to take the oath on the bible" or said "where is the bible?". If he had wanted a bible he could have brought one with him. The first chief justice of New York state, John Jay, was also the second president of the American Bible Society. It is possible that he thought that the swearing-in lacked legitimacy without a bible and made the initial request that one be provided for the ceremony. Chancellor Livingston, Grandmaster of the New York Masons, apparently sent someone, maybe fellow Mason Jacob Morton, to the nearby Masonic lodge to fetch a bible. George Washington's only role here was probably as spectator to all of this. Unfortunately, when it comes to George Washington, it appears that religionists have introduced a number of propaganda myths, and those myths have been repeated so many times that even PhD historians employed by our Library of Congress have been repeating them.

The truth is there is no known eyewitness account stating who requested the bible so we don't know. The first account that I know of which claims Jacob Morton was the person who obtained the bible and the red velvet cushion from the Masonic temple is found on page 124 of Washington and His Masonic Peers by Sidney Hayden, 1867. That is a long time after the fact, its not an eyewitness account, so it appears that we don't know who fetched the bible either. George Washington neither requested the bible nor did he append "so help me God" to his oath of office. Shame on Dr. Kranz for asserting otherwise while speaking as a government employee and historical expert on presidential inaugurations.

The never-ending attempt to reconcile science and religion, and why it is doomed to fail.

Jerry Coyne convincingly argues that the empirical nature of science contradicts the revelatory nature of faith in his aforereferenced article published in the February 4, 2009 edition of the The New Republic.

I think its fair to say that for almost 100% of theists, and most deists, one of their key arguments for their theism or deism is that god belief provides explanatory utility - it explains what otherwise is unexplained, and therefore theism or deism is rational. Whatever is explained by a hypothesis ipso facto connects that hypothesis to the corresponding elements of our knowledge base that are being explained. So if the theism hypothesis is defined as claiming to be a total explanation for "everything", as is often the case, particularly as asserted by Muslims, Christians, and Jews, but also by many other monotheists and even many polytheists, then such theism must ipso facto be connected to all of our knowledge base.

The problem for theism is that its explanatory value added assertion is vacuous. The god did it concept is like spinning wheels, it is a mere declaration lacking any explanatory substance that advances us not an iota toward explaining anything, precisely because god, in fact, has no connection to our knowledge base. God is a "there is no need for this hypothesis" hypothesis that theists just arbitrarily insert into the discussion by relying on the Special Pleading fallacy. This is the insight that virtually all theists, including liberal monotheists like Kenneth R. Miller and Karl W. Giberson, who advocate full acceptance of our knowledge base by redefining god to fit somewhere in the remaining knowledge gaps, and conservative theists, who falsely keep selectively insisting that our knowledge base is wrong whenever it conflicts with their concept of god, keep missing.

Appeals to faith as a replacement for reasoning from knowledge to defend beliefs makes no sense because faith alone provides no intelligable way to distinquish what we should believe from what we should not believe. Faith alone provides no restrictions, no boundaries, no rules, no genuine justifications. Quoting from Steven Pinker, "The same standards of evidence that rule out unparisimonious, unfalsifiable, or empirically refuted hypotheses in science also rule out crackpot conspiracy theories, totalizing ideologies, and toxic policy nostrums."

It would appear, then, that one cannot be coherently religious and scientific at the same time. That alleged synthesis requires that with one part of your brain you accept only those things that are tested and supported by agreed-upon evidence, logic, and reason, while with the other part of your brain you accept things that are unsupportable or even falsified. In other words, the price of philosophical harmony is cognitive dissonance. Accepting both science and conventional faith leaves you with a double standard: rational on the origin of blood clotting, irrational on the Resurrection; rational on dinosaurs, irrational on virgin births. Without good cause, Giberson and Miller pick and choose what they believe. At least the young-earth creationists are consistent, for they embrace supernatural causation across the board. With his usual flair, the physicist Richard Feynman characterized this difference: "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." With religion, there is just no way to know if you are fooling yourself.

—Jerry Coyne

Secular Platform for the United States of America

By rooting our laws and government actions in universal, rather than religion-specific, values, we show respect for equal protection before the law for all citizens, including those who dissent from current religious orthodoxy.

• Federal, state, and local government officials, starting with president, should affirm their oath of office without a bible. The Chief Justice should recite the presidential oath exactly as it appears in the constitution without appending any religious comments.


• Remove the words “so help me God” from civilian government and military oaths of office and from the Oath of Allegiance for Naturalized Citizens. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service should provide full instructions regarding the right to affirm the oath and deleting the phrase “So help me God“ on the U.S. citizenship application form and during the naturalization ceremony.


• The White House and Congress should refrain from turning religious holiday celebrations into government sponsored events. For example, during the Winter Holiday the White House can either sponsor a “Winter Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony” or no tree lighting ceremony. The White House Easter Egg Roll can become a holiday egg roll or be ended.


• Require churches require to file tax returns annually on the same terms as other 501(3) non-profit organizations.


• A clearer definition of how to measure lobbying activity for compliance with the 501(c)(3) organization lobbying restriction is needed. For example, the existing expenditure test can be combined with a time test for lobbying activity and this single standard applied to all 501(c)(3) organizations.


• Require religious non-profits to create a separate corporate structure to receive government funding under the Faith Based Initiative. Require accounting systems and firewalls that separate government dollars from funds that support religious activities. Require a clear separation in time and location between government funded-social welfare activities and an organization's religious activities.


• Remove the words “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance law. Replace the national motto “In God We Trust” with a religiously neutral motto.


• End government subsidies and grants to membership organizations that restrict membership based on religious creed, including monotheism, such as the Boy Scouts of America. Judicially enforce anti-discrimination laws and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibition against such federal support.


• The Congressional Chaplaincy is a deviation from “the immunity of religion from civil jurisdiction”, which James Madison called “a favorite principle with me” in an 1822 letter to Edward Livingston, and should be eliminated.


• Add a comparative religion course that covers polytheistic religions and philosophical naturalism to high school curriculums. Require high schools students to study the United States constitution, including the main text, the bill or rights and the subsequent amendments.


• The teaching of the “evidence against evolution” is incompetent as there is no scientific evidence that evolution has not occurred. Prevent religiously motivated attempts to teach “scientific creationism,” “intelligent design,” and other non-scientific conjectures as valid scientific theories. These beliefs ignore empirical data and fail to provide testable hypothesis.


• Require that medical prescriptions be filled without delay. If a pharmacist has a personal objection to filling a legal prescription, the law should require that it be filled immediately by another pharmacist. Refusal to fill legal prescriptions should be valid legal justification for firing pharmacists.


• Congress does not have the right to tell federal courts they cannot hear cases dealing with the freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights. Court stripping bills such as H.R. 699, the so-called "Pledge Protection Act of 2007," threaten the separation of powers and undermine the function of the federal courts to interpret the law.


• The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) unfairly privilege certain religious sects over the rest of society and imposes federal authority on purely local issues. At a minimum, modify RFRA and RLUIPA so that if a religious practice is deemed safe and appropriate to qualify as an exemption under a law then that exemption is also made available to all Americans in similar situations.


• U.S. passports, money, and other documents should not be printed with religious statements or quotes.


• Choose an Attorney General, Solicitor General and, if necessary, Supreme Court Justices who demonstrate a healthy respect for the Establishment Clause.


• State should prevent and prosecute child sex abuse without any exemptions or exceptions for religious communities and individuals.


• Laws that unfairly privilege religious groups in local zoning conflicts should be revoked.


• Ensure that Employers can legally prohibit religious proselytizing in the workplace, prohibit religious condemnations of co-workers, and prohibit inserting religion into secular workplace practices and activities.


• Workers and volunteers at federally medical and research facilities should serve all patients. Do not allow refusals to serve patients for reasons of personal “conscience” to become legal justification for discriminating against some patients.


• The Department of Defense should improve chaplain training to make it clearer that chaplains must respect religious diversity and must not defame soldiers for having opposing beliefs. The DOD should ensure that its EEO offices are prepared to defend atheist soldiers against defamation and discrimination. Implement effective internal controls and corrective actions to ensure that all military institutions provide a climate of religious tolerance for all staff and soldiers, including those who profess minority faiths and beliefs or disbeliefs.


• Revoke the global gag rule requiring all entities that receive federal funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries.


• Give same-gender couples the legal contract rights of marriage.


• Sexuality education for teenagers should be as comprehensive as necessary to be most effective. Abstinence, contraceptives and barrier methods should all be discussed.


• The Dickey-Wicker Amendment restricts federally-funded stem cell research. President George W. Bush executive order prevents federal funds from being used for research on stem cell lines that have been obtained from embryos after August 9, 2001. Revoke both restrictions. In their place the laws should require informed consent from the egg and sperm donors, guarantees of no financial or other personal incentive to donate, that any health risks associated with the harvesting of the eggs is minimized, and embryos created for research purposes must not be grown further than necessary for obtaining stem cells.

HUD permits funding of Boy Scouts

The Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernment Relations from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Sheila M. Greenwood, in a recent letter to Representative Barney Frank wrote that no action would be taken at this time to stop a $940,500 HUD grant to the Greater Alaska Council (GAC) of Boy Scouts of America (BSA) for a high-adventure camp near Blair Lake, north of Talkeetna. The federal grant would help pay for design and construction of some initial facilities, including a generator building, warehouse and administrative office. How does HUD justify the grant?

Sheila Greenwood said that the GAC promised that "the facility would be made available to both scouting and other organizations on a first come - first served basis, and with no discriminatory fees imposed on these users of the facility." Those other organizations don't own and operate the facility nor are those other organizations receiving the HUD grant. As Sheila Greenwood acknowledged in her letter, "the organization [BSA] does not accept atheists and agnostics as members or adult leaders." What does the law actually say about this?

24 C.F.R. § 6.4 Discrimination prohibited.Title 24 - Housing and Urban Development Part 6 - Nondiscrimination in programs and activities receiving assistance under title 1 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 Subpart A General Provisions states: "Section 109 requires that no person in the United States shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity funded in whole or in part with Federal financial assistance, on the grounds of race, color, national origin, religion, or sex." How do the provisions of this regulation compare with the facts in this case?

It is the GAC, not the camping facility, that is receiving the HUD funds. The GAC will own and operate this government subsidized camping facility. This appears to be a tangible benefit targeted primarily for the GAC that favors the GAC theist only Scouting program over competing programs. Furthermore, the administrative office building is probably going to be staffed exclusively by the GAC. The other organizations will probably not be permitted to utilize the available federally funded but GAC owned office space on a first come - first served basis.

Apparently, it is the GAC that will determine the rules and procedures for reserving and using its government subsidized camp and that will decide who reserved its government subsidized camp first. The BSA organization, as one of the competing consumers of its government subsidized camping facilities, has a self-interest in the outcome of its own decisions. Because the GAC runs a theist only camping related program this results in a glaring conflict of interest with the anti-discrimination provisions of the federal appropriations regulations. The GAC's ill-defined and self-conflicted first come - first served promise should not be considered sufficient to qualify as compliance with the law.

Congress raises money for theist only organization.

The Equal Protection and/or Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment should prohibit federal funding directed to particular private organization sponsored programs that restrict participation based on religious belief for hiring, volunteer opportunities, and membership. The Bush administration has made a sustained effort to chip away at these nondiscrimination protections with respect to hiring and volunteering for its Faith Based Initiative and, even worse, by permitting the government funds to be intermingled with the sectarian organizations' general purpose funds. Nevertheless, even the Bush administration has respected in word, if not 100% in deeds, the long standing consensus that targeted federally funded programs (as opposed to untargeted funding via vouchers), including the FBI funded programs, cannot refuse to serve a citizen on the basis of that citizen's beliefs concerning religious claims, included beliefs that are in disagreement and dissent from claims made by various competing religions and by various religious believers.

Yet the "Boy Scouts of America Centennial Commemorative Coin Act" (H.R. 5872) was fast-tracked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for a floor vote, and passed by unanimous consent on Saturday, September 27, 2008.
The bill mandates that the U.S. Mint create and sell as many as 350,000 one dollar coins commemorating the Scouts' centennial in the year 2010. A ten dollar surcharge on each coin goes directly to the Boy Scouts of America, who will net as much as $3.5 million in the deal. The Boy Scouts exclude people they categorize as "atheists, agnostics, or avowed homosexuals" from participation in their membership only Scouting programs.

So what gives? Is there a principle in constitutional or federal law that exempts just Boy Scout programs, or just youth organization programs, from the otherwise generally recognized nondiscrimination legal standard for direct federal funding with respect to beliefs regarding religion? Apparently not, since no other program that so discriminates against any other competing belief regarding religion receives such direct federal funding. The legal principles that are claimed by Boy Scouts to justify the government funding are free expession and free exercise. But those are general principles that must exempt all government funding from nondiscrimination constraints or none. Does the Congress not know that Boy Scouts denies membership to atheists? Clearly they are aware of the Boy Scout policy because the Boy Scouts openly states its policy on its legal web site, lawsuits challenging the discrimination have been widely publicized, and many people have written to their Congress people about this dispute.

The only explanation for this disparity is that the target of the discrimination are atheist leaning agnostics and atheists. As far as Congress and the American public are concerned atheists are not citizens who are entitled to the full anti discrimination protections that they recognize as generally applicable to themselves and everyone else. Didn't George Washington once say "And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion"? There is one word that characterizes this, it is bigotry, pure and simple, whether it appears in the context of someone's misuse of an eighteenth century quote from George Washington to justify government supported discrimination against the non-religious or a vote of the Congress or the membership policy of Boy Scouts of America. As always, there is one proper response to bigotry: Fight against against it.

Complain to people who participated in people of faith only event

The initial event of the Democratic national convention, held Sunday August 24, was an of people of religious faith, by people of religious faith, and for people of religious faith only event "reaching across partisan and ideological lines in this Convention to address the values that matter to Americans".

The people listed below apparently already participated during this initial convention event so send an email to each of them (if you find the missing email addresses then post a comment here) politely requesting that they not participate again if people without faith are deliberately singled out for exclusion from such "big tent" "unity" events to "address the values that matter to Americans" (scroll down for sample letter):

Archbishop Demetrios need email
Rabbi Steven Foster foster@congregationemanuel.com
Rabbi Steve Gutow need email
Reverend Lucia Guzman lucia.guzman@denvergov.org
Bishop Charles E. Blake, presiding prelate of the Church of God in Christ Inc. and pastor at the West Angeles church bishopblake@westa.org
Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America imattson@hartsem.edu
social activist Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking" hprejean@dpdiscourse.org
Imam Abdur-Rahim Ali of the Northeast Denver Islamic Center need email
Rabbi Amy Schwartzman of Temple Rodef Shalom in Maryland senior.rabbi@templerodefshalom.org

Sample letter:

Reverend Lucia Guzman:

While outreach to people of all religious faiths is good, the deliberate and explicit failure to acknowledge and recognize to role of people without religious faith at the opening "unity" event of the Democratic convention was unfair and wrong. Since you appear to be listed as a speaker at that "of, for, and by" people of faith only "big tent" event I would like to share with you my disgust with the Democratic party and with everyone who is responsible for denying representation to people without faith and my disappointment that you would agree to speak at such a discriminatory event. My impression is that you have a positive record with regard to sensitivity to issues of prejudice and bigotry. I respectfully request that not participate in the future in such "inclusive" events if people without faith are intentionally singled out for exclusion. Celebrating various religious faiths to the exclusion of alternative\competing beliefs (including rejecting religious faith) is not a proper Democratic party function anymore than celebrating various manifestations of Protestantism over alternative\competing beliefs (including Hinduisms, etc.) would be a proper Democratic party function. Thank you.

Christian cross communicates primarily nonreligious messages?

U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns, in his decision filed July 29, wrote "When the cross is considered in the context of the larger memorial and especially the numerous other secular elements, the primary effect is patriotic and nationalistic, not religious" and "As a result, the specter of government endorsement of religion or favoring a religion is not apparent, let alone obvious and primary." This "smaller" 29-foot crucifixion cross, originally designated the "Mt. Soledad Easter Cross" when it was erected by San Diego county in 1954 (which was at the end of the anti-communist McCarthy era, a time when government establishment of monotheism was promoted), towers 43 foot over the top of Mount Soledad and can be seen for miles around San Diego county. What about the patriotism and nationalistic sentiments of non-Christians? Is judge Burns implying that the Christian crucifixion cross primarily represents "patriotic and nationalistic" sentiment for Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and atheists? If so, then the judge is mistaken. Indeed his implied assertion that the cross is more secular than religious for many Christians is also far-fetched. That is just one of multiple falsehoods implied by his arguments in this decision provided that we respect the simple and foundational concept of equal protection before the law for all citizens, including religious non-Christian, religious Christian, the non-religious, and anti-religion minorities.

Another argument behind the decision is that because crucifixion crosses are so popular in cemeteries and memorials such crosses are now primarily secular cemetery and memorial symbols. The judge expressed this perspective when he said "The court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily nonreligious messages of military service, death and sacrifice." This is upside down reasoning. The reason that crucifixion crosses are popular in otherwise secular cemeteries and memorials in the first place is that the Christian religion, whose deity Jesus was crucified on such a cross before being miraculously resurrected, is popular with the citizens of San Diego and the United States. If Wicca or Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam were the majority religion in the United States then governments wouldn't be placing 29 foot crucifixion crosses in our government veterans memorials. Furthermore, this crucifixion cross was placed in the Soledad park by San Diego county over three decades before the cross was first declared to be part of a veterans memorial by the county in 1989 (after a lawsuit was filed against the cross). Another skewed argument made by the judge is that because there are no words on the cross monument it doesn't "express acknowledgement of anything". We communicate with symbols, words are themselves represented as symbols, and this crucifixion cross is clearly communicating a message of acknowledgement of Christianity even though it lacks words.

Judge Burns wrote "In fact, in terms of the number of elements the memorial comprises, secular symbols predominate with over 2,000 individual memorial plaques, 23 military bollards, numerous inscribed paving stones, a tall flagpole and large American flag, and a bronze plaque commemorating the dedication of the memorial in 1954. And except for the cross, there are no other religious elements such as altars, statues, religious texts, or a chapel." Turning Establishment Clause (EC) jurisprudence into a count of secular versus religious elements is little more than a method to avoid confronting the problem of the unnecessary government sponsorship of any religious element. Many of the memorial plaques have religious elements also but because those represent the individual choices of the families of the deceased they are not a government non-establishment problem like the single government sponsored cross. Setting a vague ratio threshold for how many discrete times the government must violate the EC relative to how many discrete times it didn't violate the EC in a given setting before the violations are considered to be unconstitutional is an anti-EC standard. For every other clause of the 1st amendment, one violation of that clause by government is unconstitutional regardless of how many times the government didn't violate that same clause in a given setting.

Judge Burns also wrote "The physical setting of the memorial, moreover, neither compels nor encourages religious devotion." A more logical and probably more accurate conclusion regarding "the physical setting" is that the prominent placement of this large cross will encourage expression of religious devotion by Christians while discouraging such expression of religious devotion by non-Christians. Judge Burns wrote "Finally, the location of the memorial makes it an unlikely venue for government indoctrination. Located away from the hub of downtown and the seat of government, Mt. Soledad park is more a destination than a way station." The notion that the EC is violated only if the government overtly engages in direct religious "indoctrination" at the "seat of government" disregards government use of government property to promote or favor religion over non-religion and in this case, Christian religion over non-Christian religion, as also violating the EC. The EC says "government" and "religion", it doesn't say "seat of government" and "indoctrination". The highly visible and prominent location of this large sized monument makes it a valuable government sponsored advertisement for Christianity. That location for any similar sized commercial advertisement monument, including this identical crucifixion cross monument, would probably sell for a hefty price if it was placed on the market.

People who support government establishment of their Christian and monothiestic beliefs like to accuse us defenders of the EC of being "extreme" or even "fanatical" for opposing such biased government sponsored displays of Christian symbols and Christian compatible monotheistic slogans on government properties. So to put this in a broader perspective I will selectively present a few quotes from the other side. Thomas Bock of Colorado, the past national commander of the American Legion, was quoting as saying the victory "is great news not only for veterans but for all freedom loving Americans. It has been a long battle, and may not be completely over, but when good people take on a good cause they will eventually succeed over evil." Al Lennox, commander of the 130,000-member American Legion Department of California, was quoted as vowing to "continue to stand, as long as it takes, with our allies in the Thomas More Law Center, and the Alliance Defense Fund, in the legal fight to protect Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, and all other veterans memorials, from desecration by the abusive legal assaults of the ACLU and others who have no respect for veterans or our American heritage." You will never hear such dogmatic misdescribing of the opposing side as representing "evil" or such incitefull and hateful mischaracterizing of the opposing side as seeking "desecration" of veterans memorials and having "no respect for veterans or our American heritage" from me or from the leaders of the prominent organizations that defend the EC.

Is it a blunder to challenge establishment of monotheism?

We cannot know in advance how individual or groups of judges will decide any given dispute over constitutional interpretation anymore than we can know in advance the outcome of a tennis match or baseball game. However, such judicial decisions are unlike sport contests because of the prominent role of politics, precedent, and ethics in law. The ethical consideration can favor an Establishment Clause (EC) lawsuit while the strength of the political opposition and potentially long lasting bad precedent impact considerations can disfavor the same lawsuit. Furthermore, no matter how unfavorable the political risk and bad precedent impact considerations are, once such a lawsuit has been filed the issue of whether or not initiating such a lawsuit would be poor strategy due to unfavorable political risk and bad precedent impact considerations has operationally become moot.

This frames the controversy among civil libertarians over the Pledge of Allegiance "under God" and National Motto "In God We Trust" lawsuits and similar lawsuits challenging establishment of monotheism. Some civil libertarians who agree that technically the Pledge of Allegiance is a violation of the EC are nevertheless unwilling to publicly argue it is a violation on the grounds that the political climate is such that we cannot prevail. The argument against publicly opposing establishment of monotheism asserts that if the conservative leaning Supreme Court were to rule that the Pledge of Allegiance ritual in public schools violates the EC and/or that the Pledge of Allegiance or National Motto laws violates the EC then the Congress and the states would respond by voting on a constitutional amendment to establish monotheism that could pass. So it would be better if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of establishment of monotheism to avoid that political risk. Furthermore, the conservative leaning Supreme Court will probably rule that the Pledge of Allegiance public school ritual and the Pledge of Allegiance and National Motto laws do not violate the EC, thus entrenching establishment of monotheism as a legal precedent. So it would be better to not pursue such lawsuits at all. These arguments can then be generalized to oppose public advocacy for any controversial lawsuit that asserts a constitutional violation because the lawsuit is unpopular even though that lawsuit otherwise has merit.

Yet the fact remains that the Pledge of Allegiance and National Motto lawsuits are proceeding and there will be more decisions. Anyone can file such a lawsuit (although it takes lots of time and effort and is expensive to hire a lawyer), and if Newdow doesn't argue against the Pledge of Allegiance on behalf of his plaintiffs or against the National Motto then there will be other plaintiffs and other lawyers who will pursue such lawsuits, particularly as more states continue the ongoing trend of passing more laws establishing monotheism. Judges, in their written decisions, have asserted that disputed government laws and practices gain constitutional legitimacy simply by virtue of having gone unchallenged for a long time, thus becoming a national "tradition" beyond the reach of constitutional restrictions. So there is a "tradition" entrenchment cost to not challenging establishments of monotheism. Furthermore, the Pledge of Allegiance lawsuit has legal precedent merit, enough merit to have resulted in a favorable ruling by a 3 judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2002. Judge Alfred T. Goodwin accurately reasoned that the Pledge ritual in public schools violated the three most common tests used to analyze EC cases — Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s endorsement test, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s coercion test, and the Supreme Court’s Lemon test from its 1971 decision Lemon v. Kurtzman. Arguing that lawsuits against establishment of monotheism should not be publicly defended because they are too unpopular to succeed is, by itself, a political argument that ignores the favorable legal precedents, the inherent uncertainty of outcome for such lawsuits, and the importance of the laws being rooted in universal ethical principles.

Government actions and laws that conflict with ethical principle, such as government establishments of monotheism, need to be publicly criticized because such public criticism is the right that all citizens in democratic society can exercise to change the prevailing opinion that prompts and protects the disputed government actions and laws conflicting with ethical principle in the first place. Ultimately, the argument that we shouldn't advocate for our civil liberties because we cannot win becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our refusal to publicly advocate against establishment of monotheism entrenches the pro-establishment of monotheism political context that makes it appear to be impossible for establishment of monotheism to be defeated. To break that circle, we have to begin somewhere, and the only place to begin is always here and the only time to begin is always now. There is no easy, straight, guaranteed path to realizing civil rights for unpopular minorities such as atheists and polytheists. Civil rights for minorities have to be argued for, defended, and pursued against prevailing public prejudices relentlessly to eventually prevail.

Custom license plates and legislative voting

Custom license plates are a way for states to raise a little extra revenue. If a group of citizens of sufficient number designs a plate and promised to pay for them then the state will issue the plates. At least some states, such as Florida and Virginia, impose the additional requirement that the custom plates be approved by at least one of the two state legislative bodies. This legislative approval requirement for issuing custom plates is a problem.

Some of the custom plates will advertise or promote a religiously, politically, or maybe commercially partisan message. The moment the legislature puts the question of whether to manufacture a partisan license plate to a vote they have necessarily asserted for themselves the authority to decide which partisan viewpoints have government sponsorship and which do not. The legislature isn't voting to approve or disapprove custom license plates because they intend to always vote for "Praise Satan" license plates. There can be no enforceable limitation on the rationale for elected officials voting against any particular partisan plate and no judicial remedy for outcomes that favor some religious beliefs over others short of eliminating the use of the legislative voting itself as a method for approving religiously partisan plates. The legislative approval process, when applied to custom license plates which have religious messages, therefore intrinsically violates the government obligation to avoid assuming the power to favor majority and disfavor disliked minority religious viewpoints.

The custom license plate laws in states such as Florida and Virginia need to be revised to remove the legislature from the custom license plate approval process. State legislatures need to limit themselves to approving religiously neutral license plates in general. They should also restrict themselves to politically and commercially non-partisan license plates. People can put partisan messages on their vehicles using bumper and side window stickers, license plate frames, and the like. Custom license plates for an additional fee is workable provided that the state department of motor vehicles accepts all license plate designs that are properly requested by the required minimum number of citizens and that meet generally applicable, non-partisan standards for politeness. The Establishment Clause and Equal Protection Clauses of the constitution dictate that citizen designed custom license plates with atheist messages must be issued if similar license plates with theist messages are issued by the state.

MRFF mishandles lawsuit.

Specialist Jeremy Hall is in an unenviable position due to no fault of his own. He has a valid complaint against a superior officer, Major Freddy J. Welborn, for disrupting a meeting of an atheist and freethought group he was trying to start. In a sworn statement Jeremy Hall says that Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them for trying to form the group. Major Welborn says Jeremy Hall's version of events is "a false story", but another soldier who attended the meeting backs Jeremy Hall's version of events. The problem here is that Jeremy Hall's lawyer, Mikey Weinstein, the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, by filing a lawsuit against the Army without first attempting to resolve the problem through the Army’s Equal Opportunity Office, did not act in his client's best interest.

It is understandable that Specialist Hall would not want to file a complaint with the Army’s Equal Opportunity Office because of mistrust of his superior officers. Nevertheless, a competent lawyer, who was acting in his client's best interest, would patiently explain to his client that first taking the complaint EEO and giving the accused a fair opportunity to confront the accusation before proceeding with a lawsuit is the proper procedure. The lawyer would explain why not going to the EEO would undermine his standing for asserting a right to a lawsuit and weaken his case as a plaintiff in the event the lawsuit is accepted regardless of the outcome of the EEO process. No soldier is going to find his superior officers more trustworthy after the soldier files a lawsuit without first going through the EEO process. On the contrary, doing that actually provides a reason for the soldier's superior officers to distrust that soldier. Judges, confronted with such a lawsuit, are going to question why they should be deciding a discrimination complaint that was not first brought before the EEO and whether, by skipping that process, the defendant was denied his right to a fair hearing and negotiated resolution before being charged in a lawsuit.

The EEO would probably have upheld Jeremy Hall's right to form the atheist and freethinker group and hold meetings without threats or negative career repurcussions. If problems continued from there, then the plaintiff would have been in a much stronger position to pursue a lawsuit, having first exhausted the EEO process for resolving the problems.

The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers referred Jeremy Hall to MRFF. My advice to the MAAF, and to other soldiers, is this: Unless Mikey Weinstein acknowledges that he made a mistake by not insisting that his client go through with the EEO process before proceeding with the lawsuit, don't refer anyone else with a discrimination or EC complaint to MRFF. Tell them to avoid the MRFF and find a good lawyer who is committed to his clients who specializes in EO or EC cases instead.

HUD initiates review of grant to Great Alaska Council

Robert L. Ashworth, Director, Program Integrity, (Hotline) Division of OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, announced on March 24 that HUD opened a case to review the "HUD related issues addressed" by me and by others, who also sent complaints based on my public appeal, regarding the grant to the Great Alaska Council of Boy Scouts of America. He promised "We will notify you when the case is closed and provide you with information on how you can obtain the results of the review."

I would think that no grant would be awarded while it is under review by the Inspector General's Office for possible incompatability with HUD regulations. However, no statement was made that the grant would be delayed pending completion of the review.

HUD grant to theist only Boy Scouts violates law

BSA National Council, Litigation, "Duty to God" cases says "Because of Scouting’s methods and beliefs, Scouting does not accept atheists and agnostics as members or adult volunteer leaders." (see Policies ● Youth and Adult Volunteers).

Section 109 of Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (see A-6.4 Discrimination prohibited), as amended prohibits discrimination in Community Development Block Grant Programs on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, or sex. Pertains to all Title I programs, including employment.

Excerpt from Anchorage Daily News article "Boy Scout adventure camp planned north of Talkeetna" (warning: this link may expire) follows:

HELP'S ON WAY: Federal grant could get project started.

By S.J. KOMARNITSKY
skomarnitsky@adn.com

Published: March 21st, 2008 02:27 AM
Last Modified: March 21st, 2008 03:15 AM

WASILLA -- An Anchorage-based Boy Scout group is in line to receive a federal grant of nearly $1 million that could kick-start construction of a long planned high-adventure camp near Blair Lake, north of Talkeetna.
The Great Alaska Council, which serves 6,000 Scouts, most in Southcentral Alaska, hasn't yet received the $940,500 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But the group could get the funding as early as next month once the camp environmental assessment is finalized. A copy of that assessment, which concluded the camp would have "no significant impact" on the surrounding wilderness, is currently being circulated for public comment.

Scouts project manager Tom Barnett said this week that the federal grant would help pay for design and construction of some initial facilities, including a generator building, warehouse and administrative office.

....

Take action: Complain to HUD that this grant appears to violate non-discrimination provisions of Section 109 of Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act for grant recipients because participation in Boy Scouts Scouting programs is restricted to theists (select link for email, phone, and mail contact information).

Imagine No Religion v. Why Do Atheists Hate America?

The Rt. Rev. Council Nedd II, Bishop of the Diocese of the Chesapeak and Northeast of the Episcopal Missionary Church, is the Director of the Alliance for Health Education and Development (AHEAD). AHEAD is sponsoring a "Why Do Atheists Hate America?" Billboard Campaign in response the the Freedom from Religion Foundation's "Imagine No Religion" Billboard Campaign. A Chambersburg, PA newspaper published an editorial critical of the AHEAD billboard Our view: Defensive billboard goes a bit overboard. The Rt. Rev. Council Nedd II's response, Editorial puzzles billboard sponsor, represents an articulate and dense expression of the emotion laden and unreasonable thinking that unfortunately appears to predominate among substantial numbers of people who advocate establishment of monotheism. So lets review his editorial.

Thank you for your editorial, "Our view: Defensive billboard goes a bit overboard" (Public Opinion Online, February 10, 2008). I'm very glad you're letting people in the Chambersburg community know about the two "dueling billboards" and challenging them to consider the signs' meaning.

However, I'm surprised you seem to find the atheists' billboard so harmless, while you seem to take offense at our sign. The atheists' sign says, "Imagine No Religion." Perhaps if our sign had said, "Imagine No Atheists," it would be easier for you to see why I am so troubled by the atheists' message. "

The proper analogy is "Imagine no Atheism". People are not religion or atheism or any particular belief. This failure to distinguish between people and people's beliefs is a recurring theme in Nedd Council's argument. He is incorrectly elevating what is a sincere disagreement between people over conflicting pro-religious and anti-religious beliefs into a personal attack against the people who hold religious beliefs.

"Imagine No Religion," they urge, and you say you find that non-judgmental. Really? To me, the judgment of America's largest atheist group seems obvious: They think America would be a better place if all people of faith would simply disappear. Where should we go? Where do they want to send us? I suppose it would make their crusade to ban religion easier, but I don't plan to go quietly, and neither do the 64,000 supporters of In God We Trust.

People are not religion. Inviting people to consider a future world without religion is not the same as telling people who are currently religious to physically disappear. For example, Dan Barker is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and a former minister and evangelist. Ned Council, like Dan Barker, could abandon religion without moving from his current location.

Opposing is not banning. The FFRF is not engaging in a "crusade to ban religion" just like Catholics are not engaging in a crusade to ban Protestantism and Protestants are not engaging in a crusade to ban Catholicism. Expressing opposition to some beliefs is not an attempt to ban anyone from having or expressing those beliefs.

Instead of rushing to condemn people who want to defend freedom of religious expression by calling us "manipulative" and "craven" as your editorial has done, perhaps you should start asking a few questions that go right to the heart of this matter.

Promoting the false assertion that atheists hate America is not a defense of freedom of religious expression but it is manipulative and craven as is much of the content of Nedd Council's editorial.

First, how is "Imagine No Religion" different from "Imagine No Christians" or "Imagine No Jews"? The anti-religious bigotry is more obvious, but otherwise the statements seem interchangeable to me. (Now are you starting to see why we find the atheists' sign so troubling? I'm not sure where they're headed with this line of argument, but I don't like its direction one bit.)

Advocacy against a set of beliefs is not bigotry. People are not anti-Catholic or anti-Protestant bigots by virtue of advocating against Catholic or Protestant beliefs. Ditto for people who are against religion in general.

People eat, dress and have beliefs but people are not food, clothes, or beliefs. Again, a significant difference between Imagine no Religion and Imagine no Christians is that the former focuses on the beliefs some people hold and the later focuses on those people themselves.

Second, "Imagine No Religion" also means "Imagine No Mother Theresa," "Imagine No Martin Luther King, Jr.," and "Imagine No Gandhi." Do you really believe America -- or the world -- would be a better place if the atheists got their wish? Are you starting to get the picture?

Historical people are not retroactively lost to history due to a subsequent loss of their beliefs because historical beliefs are not the same as the historical people who held those beliefs. Famous dead people who referenced or believed in various no longer surviving religions during their lifetimes did not lose their role in, or contribution to, history when their religion disappeared.

Regrettably, religious people are more often defined in the media these days by a caricature that is not very generous, and I assure you it does not apply to In God We Trust.

Criticizing an action taken by a group is not the same as caricaturing that group. The newspaper editorial criticized the contents of the AHEAD's billboard, it did not caricature religious people. The only people who are caricaturing anyone else here are Nedd Council II and his AHEAD organization who are mendaciously caricaturing atheists and the FFRF in their billboard and in this editorial. Nedd Council's complaint about being caricatured is shameless hypocrisy.

We are not even a religious group. There are already plenty of religious groups who want to be involved in politics, and that is not what we are. Instead, we are a political group that is concerned with defending the traditional role of God and religion in American public life, because we believe it makes America a better place -- for believers and non-believers alike. I urge fair-minded people who agree with me to visit our Web site at www.InGodWeTrustUSA.org for more information.

Ned Council II now recognizes and acknowledges a distinction! A political group "defending the traditional role of God and religion in American public life" is different from a "religious advocacy group"! After building an argument on ignoring major distinctions he now insists on highlighting a relatively small distinction. How is that for consistency?

We live in a diverse country, and In God We Trust believes it is wrong to try to imagine an America where the people who disagree with us have all disappeared, or been sent away. History is full of bad examples like that, and they didn't work. Instead, why not try to work out our differences?

Falsely accusing people who advocate against a set of beliefs of seeking to physically remove or deport the people who hold those beliefs is slander. Ned Council II is slandering atheists in his billboard and slandering the FFRF in his editorial.

We don't address racial issues by all pretending to be black. We don't address gender differences by all pretending to be women. So why on earth should we address our Constitution's guarantees of religious freedom by all pretending to be atheists? Now that's going overboard.

Inviting people to consider abandoning religion is not the same as calling for religious people to disingenuously pretend to not be religious. The FFRF has never claimed or implied that "we address our Constitution's guarantees of religious freedom by all pretending to be atheists" and I can say with confidence that they never will make such a claim. This is more mendacious caricaturing of the FFRF and atheists.

Who or What is(are) God(s) is not a legal issue.

The issue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in Newdow v. Rio Linda Unified School District is not whether a particular patriotic ritual is or is not a prayer, the issue is whether that patriotic ritual violates the Establishment Clause because of the 1954 addition of the religious phrase "Under God". Kevin Hasson of the Becket Fund, properly addressing this issue, recently argued before the court that the God in the Pledge of Allegiance is the same God referred to in the Declaration of Independence who is not the deity in the Bible. "It wasn't the Christian God. It wasn't the Jewish God. It was the philosopher's God," Mr. Hasson said. He said the "under God" phrase refers to a creator who early philosophers and scientists like Aristotle concluded "could be known by reason alone." How does Hasson read all of that into just those two words?

The 1954 law itself does not define God. But at least one of the authors and one of the advocates for the law did make it clear that atheists were knowingly and deliberately being disparaged by the law. Congressman Louis Rabaut, the 1953 author of the congressional resolution to amend the Pledge, said "an atheistic American is a contradiction in terms." While President Eisenhower listened from the front pew, the Reverend George Docherty of the New York Presbyterian Church in Washington DC advocated passing the 1954 law. He called atheists "spiritual parasites" that live off of the "accumulated spiritual capital of Judaio (sic)-Christian civilization" and "deny the God who revealed the divine principles upon which the ethics of this country grow." Atheists "cannot deny the Christian revelation and logically live by the Christian ethic. And if he denies the Christian ethic, he falls short of the American ideal of life." The 1954 Washington Post treated Docherty's bigoted sermon "like the act of a true hero."

Some of the Founders appeared to endorse the syncretic belief that the same God is worshipped by people from all religions, including American Indian religions, Hinduism, etc. However, it is unlikely that most Americans either then or today, or even most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, let alone most of the Congress people who voted for 1954 law, conceived of God that way. Even if most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and most of the Congress people who passed the 1954 law believed at the time that God is "the creator who could be known by reason alone." as defined by Aristotle how would such a fact validate the constitutionality of the 1954 Pledge law? A religious belief doesn't become non-religious just because some philosophers professed that belief.

Aristotle was wrong, we do not "know the creator" from reason alone. But even if you incorrectly agree with Aristotle, our government has no jurisdiction over which philosopher's metaphysics is right or wrong. Philosophers disagreed about God. Thales (546 B.C.) said that a stone had a soul. Melissus (440 B.C.) said what exists has always existed. Anaxagoras (428 B.C.) said there is no creation and no passing away, just an eternal mixing and reshuffling of elements. Protagoras (440 B.C.) said he doesn't know whether the Gods exist or not. Euclid (440 B.C.) said only the Good exists, its opposite is nonexistence. Atheism is a legitimate belief, as legitimate as any of the competing beliefs, indeed better justified than any of the competing beliefs in my opinion and the opinion of millions of U.S. citizens. Our government is acting outside of its constitutional powers when it passes laws whose primary purpose and effect is to imply that our atheism, or anyone else's polytheism, is less patriotic than monotheism.

These disagreements regarding god(s) are not questions that can be settled by passing laws. These are issues of personal conscience and government's only constitutional role on such issues of personal conscience is to respect our individual freedom of conscience to disagree or agree with Aristotle or any other philosopher, or with any signer of the Declaration of Independence, or with any Congress person regarding who the gods are, who god is, or whether a god exists. It should be obvious that it is well outside the bounds of the Establishment Clause for our government to be defining on behalf of all citizens who God is and is not or what God's attributes are and are not or how God is or is not "known".

Government teaching the words of the Declaration of Independence or any other historical document is not a government endorsement of the religious beliefs contained therein just like government is not endorsing atheism when it teaches science. As long as government teaches history and science according to the expert consensus among historians and scientists based on the evidence then government is being neutral with respect to religion regardless of whether or not the science or the history is itself neutral. The harm to atheists of government endorsement of monotheism, especially in a government led participatory ritual for impressionable young children, is not abated by the Declaration of Independence anymore than a similar historical document that was Christian would abate the harm to non-Christians of government endorsement of explicitly Christian beliefs. Either we oppose government establishments or we don’t. If we oppose government establishment then no historical document that appeals to religious beliefs excuses justifying current and future government establishment of those beliefs.

The text of the official Pledge, codified in federal law, impermissibly takes a position with respect to the purely religious question of the existence and identity of God. A profession that we are a nation "under God" is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation "under Jesus," a nation "under Vishnu," a nation "under Zeus," or a nation "under no god," because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion. "

Judge Alfred Goodwin, Newdow versus United States Congress, No. 00-16423, UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT, June 26, 2002.

Damon Linker's rant against advocating atheism.

At least three arguments and a definition are found in "Atheism's Wrong Turn: Mindless argument found in godless" by Damon Linker published in The New Republic, December 10, 2007. As a classical liberal I am dismayed by Damon Linker's article because, by declaring liberalism to be incompatible with promotion of atheism, he is actually legitimizing the illiberal sentiments expressed by some atheists that he claims to oppose. Before proceeding with the criticism of his thesis I will first quickly summarize his three arguments and one definition to spare you the need to read his article.

His guilt by association argument divides atheists into illiberal, "bellicose", "combative", "unremittingly hostile", "strident", etc., atheists, currently exemplified by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, and liberal, "thoughtful", "cautious", "generous", "intellectual", etc. atheists, such as Socrates, who don't act as "missionaries for atheism". Historically, the illiberal, ideological atheism emerged in the late, fanatical phases of the French Revolution and was embraced by Auguste Comte, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Karl Marx on the far left and Friedrich Nietzsche on the far right.

His don't criticize argument cites as representative of the liberal attitude "pragmatist" atheist Sidney Hook, who said religious views such as theism should "fall in an area of choice in which rational criticism may be suspended."

His false dichotomy argument characterizes liberal atheists as those who confine their advocacy to defending "the secular politics favored by the American Constitutional framers". It is only the illiberal atheists who "have the much more radical goal of producing a secular society--a society in which the American people, as a whole and individually, have abandoned religion."

Damon Linker ties all three aforementioned fallacious arguments together with the following misdefinition of liberalism:

It is to accept, in other words, that, although I may settle the question of God to my personal satisfaction, it is highly unlikely that all of my fellow citizens will settle it in the same way--that differences in life experience, social class, intelligence, and the capacity for introspection will invariably prevent a free community from reaching unanimity about the fundamental mysteries of human existence, including God. Liberal atheists accept this situation; ideological atheists do not. That, in the end, is what separates the atheism of Socrates from the atheism of the French Revolution.

He concludes as follows:

The problem is that the rhetoric of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens will undermine liberalism, not bolster it: Far from shoring up the secular political tradition, their arguments are likely to produce a country poised precariously between opposite forms of illiberalism.

The first problem here is that the claim that theism is outside the sphere of "rational criticism" is false. Theism is a fact claim. The central claims of atheism that theism is unjustified because it is a pseudo-explanation, lacks supporting evidence, and is contradicted by evidence, are certainly within the realm of rational criticism.

His definition of liberalism wrongly asserts that reaching a popular unanimity regarding theisms and atheism is illiberal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Liberalism is not about any particular fixed outcome, it is about process. The liberal process is open, vigorous, debate. If the outcome of this process is less diversity of belief then that is a success of liberalism, not a failure of liberalism. Respecting diversity of belief is not the same as respecting an unjustified belief. Turning an unjustified belief into some kind of holy writ that renders it beyond rational criticism for no other apparant reason then it is entangled with religious dogmas is illiberal, not liberal.

Furthermore, the liberal goal of secular government is not in contradiction to or incompatible with the goal of secular society. On the contrary, popular antagonism against atheism is rooted in widespread ignorance of atheism and this is one of the biggest obstacles to eliminating government establishment of Christian compatible monotheism. Ultimately, the only way to attack the anti-atheist stereotypes, prejudice, and ignorance that blocks the liberal goal of secular government vis-a-vis theism is to explain atheism to the public and maybe convert more people to atheism in the process. It is not possible to try convince people that atheism is a reasonable belief without also asserting that atheism merits more widespread adoption. There is nothing at all illiberal about advocating atheism.

Finally, it is certainly not the case that everyone who actively and vigorously advocates for atheism is doing so because of "furious certainty" or because of other illiberal sentiments or goals. On the contrary, actively and vigorously advocating for atheism makes a positive contribution to the intellectual environment of civil society in and of itself and should be encouraged by everyone who values liberalism. If some advocates of atheism have linked their advocacy with illiberal sentiments then that reflects those particular individual's illiberal tendencies. That is not an illiberalism inherent to atheism advocacy as Damon Linker falsely claims. It is illogical and unfair to label all atheism advocates as illiberal on the basis of a few marginally illiberal sentiments expressed by some advocates of atheism.

I share Damon Linker's strong preference for liberalism and agree with some of his criticism of some mildly illiberal sentiments that have occasionally been expressed by some of the "new atheists". But he goes too far by unreasonably labeling the new atheism illiberal despite the overall liberal orientation of the new atheists he criticizes and by perversely advocating censoring public advocacy of atheism in the name of "liberalism". Damon Linker's insistence that atheists respect theistic beliefs in the name of "liberalism" is not liberalism. Genuine liberalism supports open debate regarding the truth of dubious and debatable fact claims regardless of whether those fact claims are made under the banner of religion or not. Damon Linker's essay misrepresents liberalism, the new atheists, and atheism. The New Republic did a disservice to the cause liberalism and to its readership by publishing his atheism-phobic rant instead of more sober, balanced and sensible critical analysis of some illiberal tendencies exhibited by some of the new atheists.

Overview of book "Taking on the Pledge of Allegiance"

Reproduced as originally published in November 2007 Washington Secular Humanist newsletter.

"Taking on the Pledge of Allegiance" by Ronald Bishop. State University of New York Press, 2997, ISBN 0791471821

The book's Foreword, written by Nadine Strossen, has a good concise summary of both the lawsuit's assertions and the media's distorted characterization of the lawsuit. Newdow maintained that the public school policy of requiring teachers to daily lead the students in pledging allegiance to one nation Under God violated his parental rights to influence his young daughter's beliefs without the state placing its imprimatur on a particular opposing religious belief. Strossen writes "... he certainly did not seek to strip all religious references from public life, notwithstanding the widespread, overblown media accounts that mischaracterized his claims in these ways." "... the media tended to demonize him as an egocentric individualist who was taking advantage of his biological relationship with his daughter to advance his own ideological agenda." "... the media generally disparaged and trivialized Newdow's legal claims, implying that they had garnered the support of only a few judges on an allegedly--but actually not--extremist liberal court..." "In sum, the media coverage of Newdow's case wrongly impugned the virtues of both his legal claims and his motives in pursuing them."

Bishop starts by discussing "Frame Analysis". He says journalists utilized "several distinct frames to position Newdow as an erratic outsider who had the audacity to challenge one of this nation's most revered rituals in a time of national crisis." Next, under the title "Narrative Analysis", he promises to pay special attention "to what journalists invited their readers and viewers to think and to not to think about Newdow and his lawsuit." Lastly, "The Guard Dog Function" section accuses journalists of acting as "sentry for dominant institutions, patrolling the perimeter, searching for threats [in this case the threat is Newdow's lawsuit], and sounding the alarm when one is identified". This is the opposite of the better known "watchdog" role of monitoring "the conduct of public officials and large corporations, and expose corrupt behavior for the public's benefit" which journalists like to claim for themselves.

The next chapter discusses the history of the "Under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance. This is very damning as it reveals the central role that anti-atheist bigotry had in the arguments made by the leading "Under God" advocates. With Eisenhower listening from the front pew, the Reverend George Docherty of the New York Presbyterian Church in Washington DC called atheists "spiritual parasites" that live off of the "accumulated spiritual capital of Judaio (sic)-Christian civilization" and "deny the God who revealed the divine principles upon which the ethics of this country grow." An atheists "cannot deny the Christian revelation and logically live by the Christian ethic. And if he denies the Christian ethic, he falls short of the American ideal of life." The 1954 Washington Post treated Docherty's bigoted sermon "like the act of a true hero." The New York Times also favored the Pledge revision. The Hearst newspapers went further, engaging in a relentless nationwide campaign to promote the revision to the Pledge. It is clear from their pronouncements that the advocates of "Under God" considered the addition of that phrase to be necessary because it was a statement of the Christian, or Judeo-Christian, character of the country and, ironically, to emphasize the difference with the Soviet Union whose government established atheism as a component of its official governing ideology.

This chapter also details the blunt arguments made by Newdow against Ninth Circuit Judge Nowinski who he characterized as not being the first federal judge to "have wounded America's atheistic religious minority due to contorted legal doctrine, his reliance on the prejudices of others does not save him here". Newdow argues that a federal judge must evaluate wrongs committed against dissenters "from the point of view of both the Constitution and the minorities they are sworn to protect" but he says the judiciary has chosen to "assault logic, invent sophistry, twist prior case law and completely disregard a denial of fundamental religious liberties because, as Judge Nowinski noted, 'no one wants to take that step'." resulting in disarray in Establishment Clause rulings.

The third chapter explains the arguments of both sides in more detail, pointing out the school district Attorney's failure to "address Newdow's contention that the policy and the Pledge contribute to the treatment of atheist's as second-class citizens" funded by his taxes. Newdow quoted Congressman Louis Rabaut, the 1953 author of the congressional resolution to amend the Pledge, as saying "an atheistic American is a contradiction in terms." He argued that the change made in 1954 was purely religious in nature, based on the invalid idea that "belief in God is morally superior to atheism." Newdow again slammed Judge Nowinski for his "ridiculous" statement that the Pledge would not be "perceived by [theists] as an endorsement, and by [atheists] as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices." This is followed by a description of the Ninth Circuit's ruling that the Pledge policy violated all three of the tests used to evaluate Establishment Clause claims and the dissenting opinion. There is a refutation here of the media's false claim that the Ninth Circuit was reversed more often than any of the other 12 circuit courts.

The rest of Bishop's book leaves no room for doubt that Strossen's Foreword contains an accurate characterization of the overall media coverage. Reporters quickly developed a "preferred reading" of Newdow's case, "one that would not allow for full consideration of his reasons for filing suit in the first place." The misleading journalism blitz cast Newdow and those who supported him as reckless zealots trying to purge God from public life. They falsely depicted the issue as a choice between supporting or opposing the Pledge with no middle ground. "Journalists reduced his challenge and the Ninth Circuit's decision to an opportunity for jingoistic chest-thumping and pathological name-calling." "Missing was even a passing acknowledgement that freedom of religion does in fact mean freedom from religion." The media trivialized Newdow's complaint, endorsing the "ceremonial deism" defense that references to God had lost their religious flavor after decades of repetition and reassured readers that the Supreme Court would almost certainly keep "Under God" in the Pledge. The mother of Newdow's daughter, Sandra Banning, was widely depicted by journalists "as victimized mother looking out for her daughter's interests."

The full Ninth Circuit ruling upholding the 3 judge panel's decision is covered in chapter 7. The media tended to falsely depict this decision as having "backed off" from the earlier decision. The accusation that this decision was an imposition of minority atheism on the majority became prominent in media coverage. Only one newspaper, the Seattle Times, sided with Newdow and the court. The argument that parents should determine how and when their children are exposed to religious messages received almost no coverage.

On to the Supreme Court and the debate regarding Newdow's standing to bring his lawsuit, how establishment was defined historically, and the religious or non-religious and inclusive or non-inclusive nature of the Pledge with the "one nation Under God" phrase. Coverage in the print media became more balanced, painting a more complete, less neurotic picture of Newdow. Coverage on television still depicted Newdow as "a publicity-obsessed zealot, bent on eradicating religion from our lives." Journalists still depicted Banning as the "good mother" and failed to explore the considerable support she was receiving from various right wing sources while implying that Newdow was exploiting his daughter.

The book ends with a discussion "On Being a Dissenter in America". Bishop writes "If we can take anything from Newdow's story, it is this: we must, as a nation, reintroduce ourselves to the notion that anyone can mount a challenge to a policy or law that is perceived to be unjust or discriminatory." He characterizes as disingenuous the assertion that we would be better off discussing "real problems instead of focusing on battles that have no significant impact on Americans' daily lives." He asks "When did the right ... to be free ... from the endorsement of religious expression by public officials ... become a secondary issue?" "Even though ... the nation was not going to rush to support Newdow; we--and the news media--at least owed him the chance to take his best shot."

Mr. Bishop is correct, the news media largely failed America here.

Applying This Good Principle to All Is Not Extreme

Originally published on Internet Infidels Kiosk 10/23/2007 and reproduced here:

Recently Republican presidential candidate John McCain got some media attention with his assertion that "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation." Senator McCain has a peculiar idea of what establishes a nation as Christian. This isn't a peculiarity unique to John McCain; most if not all of the candidates of both parties, at a minimum, endorse some government establishment of monotheistic religious belief even though the Constitution specifies a godless presidential oath of office and then declares that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

A good example can be found in ABC News "This Week" back in Feb. 18, 2007, which featured George Stephanopoulos interviewing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. George Stephanopoulos promptly asked questions about Romney's faith, his Mormon faith, and separation of church and state. Romney replied to the separation of church and state question thusly:

Well, we have a separation of church and state in this country, and we should, and it's served us well. I don't believe, for instance, we should take "Under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't think we should take "IN GOD WE TRUST" off of our coins. There's a point at which we take something which is a good principle to an extreme. But I do recognize and support the idea that when you take the oath of office, you basically support something which Abraham Lincoln called America's political religion. And if I'm lucky enough to be elected president of this country and I take that oath of office, there will be no higher promise than to abide by the Constitution and the rule of law. That's Abraham Lincoln's political religion.[1]

George Stephanopoulos' question quoted John Kennedy. The Kennedy quote excerpt was directed against Catholic and Protestant clergy expressing their opinions about candidates for public office thus confusing the issues of private free expression, tax exemptions for nonpartisan nonprofits, and government establishment of religion. So it is not surprising that Romney avoided talking about Kennedy and switched the focus to Lincoln who is known to have used generic monotheistic language in some of his speeches and writings. Indeed, Lincoln was confronted by a rising tide of public religiosity that historically has sometimes accompanied war and hardship. The National Reform Association (NRA) campaigned to amend Christianity into the Constitution during Lincoln's presidency. A late 19th century book that tried to promote the NRA's platform reveals how Lincoln responded to lobbying by some religionists to add monotheism to "that oath of office" recitation.

Christ the King, by Reverend James Mitchell Foster, (published in 1894 by James H. Earle in Boston) makes the following observation about Lincoln’s inaugurations (p. 277):

Every President, after George Washington and before RB Hayes, took the presidential oath without an appeal to God, omitting the very essence of the oath. Rev. A. M. Milligan, D.D., wrote Abraham Lincoln before his inaugural in 1861, and also before his second inaugural in 1865, asking him, in deference to the consciences of the Christian people of the land, to take the presidential oath in the name of God. He replied both times that God's name was not in the Constitution, and he could not depart from the letter of that instrument.[2]

If Romney intends to follow Lincoln's lead here then that would be an improvement over more recent practice.

George Washington actually took both of his presidential oaths of office without appending "an appeal to God." Lincoln was following an unbroken tradition of godless presidential oath of office recitations. But alas, it wouldn't last. It isn't clear that Hayes or Garfield appended "an appeal to God" to their oaths of office either, but many newspapers reported that Chester Arthur appended "So help me God." In a departure from the letter of the Constitution, all presidents from the 1930s have appended "so help me God" to their oath of office recitations. Sometimes the Chief Justice of the United States has added that phrase to the presidential oath despite the lack of any legal authorization to do so.[3] Incredibly, the web site of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has a video which features a Senate Historian falsely claiming that all presidents starting with George Washington appended 'so help me God' to the presidential oath office recitations.[4] It wouldn't be surprising if many Americans incorrectly think all presidents have always appended that phrase because that is what they hear and read in the media and on the Internet.

The fact is that the Pledge of Allegiance didn't exist in 1789 or 1889. The Pledge of Allegiance didn't appear in U.S. law until 1945. Under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance nine years later in 1954. "IN GOD WE TRUST" first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin. It wasn't until 1938 that all United States coins bore that inscription and it didn't appear on paper money until 1957. In God We Trust became our national motto in 1956. The United States prospered without these phrases in any laws for many decades after 1789 and this country would continue to prosper no less in the future if we reverted back to the original laws that avoided these government establishments of monotheism.

When it comes to religious beliefs, extreme is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. People who consider themselves Christians may consider some of the beliefs of the LDS Church "extreme." For example, the LDS Church declares with complete certainty that "God has a body that looks like yours, though His body is immortal, perfected, and has a glory beyond description." Even more widely accepted and traditional Christian or Jewish beliefs are probably rather odd and somewhat extreme from the point of view of many Confucians, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., and vice versa. Atheists wouldn't be atheists if we thought atheism was extreme.[5]

If the Establishment Clause is good enough for some of us then it is good enough for all us. The presidential candidates and the American public would do well to keep this in mind when they contemplate the meaning and applicability of the establishment clause in the 21st century.


Citations:

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Politics/story?id=2885156&page=1

[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=7gc3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA277&lpg=PA277

[3] http://www.nonbeliever.org/commentary/inaugural_shmG.html

[4] http://inaugural.senate.gov/history/factsandfirsts/index.htm

[5] http://www.nonbeliever.org/commentary/Why_I_am_atheist.html

Philadelphia anti-discrimination covers atheists also.

Newspapers around country keep ignoring atheists when reporting government non-discrimination compliance. A recent example of this can be found in the newspaper articles reporting the City of Philadelphia decision to enforce their non-discrimination law by charging the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts full market price on their lease of a government building. The articles identified the target of the discrimination as gays. Many of the articles identified gays as the discrimination victims in the article headline. With the notable exception of the Philadelphia Inquirer, none of the articles reported that atheists are also refused membership in Boy Scouts.

This omission is a factual error no less than the inclusion of false claims would be. Government non-discrimination laws cover creed, not just sexual orientation, so government enforcement of such laws cannot be directed at upholding equal protection for gays without also protecting atheists when both groups are excluded from a membership organization.

The Philadelphia city resolution revoking of the $1 rent subsidy for Boy Scouts cited only "excluding participation on the basis of sexual orientation" and thus, ironically, was itself discriminatory in its failure to acknowledge that atheists are also excluded. Politics reflects public opinion and unfortunately, in this context, that means popular prejudice. Journalists, however, are supposed to look beyond public opinion and report the facts without bias which in this case includes the fact that BSA also discriminates against atheists.

Take action: Send an email to Paul Colford, Director of Media Relations and Jack Stokes, Manager of Media Relations of the Associated Press at info@ap.org. Tell them that the repeated failure to mention that atheists are denied membership in their Boy Scouts discrimination news coverage, most recently in their October 18 article Boy Scouts' Rent Hiked Over Gay Ban, is biased journalism. Tell them that they are failing to adhere to the commitment to "abhor bias" that appears in their Statement of News Principles and Values.

"God" Has No Explanatory Power

This is a revision (mostly the same) of my original article "God" Has no Explanatory Power published 07/31/2003 on the Secular Web.

Theists often base their belief in God on the claim that God is the "necessary" and "ultimate" explanation for everything. Explanatory power is the ability to understand a phenomenon in terms of what is known. This short essay is a response to Dr. George Natann Schlesinger's defense of the explanatory viability of theism in his article "The House and Builder" (Jewish Action, Winter 5760/1999).

Some theists consider God to be an inherently unexplainable mystery, beyond human understanding, an unknown. Such a mysterious God has no explanatory power because it can only provide "understanding" for phenomena in terms of the unknown (itself). Other theists make specific claims regarding the nature of God. As the definition for God becomes more explicit and detailed, the number of people whose definitions are self-contradictory increases. God becomes a progressively more subjective concept as God becomes more well-defined, without thereby ridding the concept of its inherent unexplainable mystery. There is no reliable independent mechanism for choosing among the competing claims of "knowing" God. Where religion purports to explain it actually resorts to armchair tautology. Valid explanations cannot be so subjective and arbitrary.

A catchall declaration is a pseudo-explanation which accounts for a hypothesis while simultaneously accounting for the denial of the same hypothesis. There is literally no limit to what God can be invoked to "explain", including the "truth" of all falsehoods. Of course, people do not invoke God to explain "truths" that they a priori know are false. But the fact remains that God can invariably be so invoked without internal logical inconsistency. God is an intrinsically vacuous, magical, catch-all declaration (not an explanation) that provides the superficial appearance of providing explanation by avoiding the necessary constraints of proper reason and logic. God explains nothing.

"The House and Builder" article notes that scientists of the recent past were baffled by the immense amount of energy radiated by the sun. The explanation for this phenomenon was found when thermonuclear fusion was discovered. Before that discovery not even religiously committed scientists invoked God's will as an adequate explanation of how the sun could generate such tremendous energy. Yet even today many scientists invoke God as an "explanation" for the "Big Bang" without being fully cognizant of their inconsistency. Upon closer inspection it should be clear that "God's will" is no more useful for explaining the Big Bang than for explaining the source of the sun's energy. An intrinsically catchall declaration does not lose its powerlessness by merely changing the nature of the object to be explained. This is true even if there were a fundamental difference between explaining phenomena within the universe, such as the energy generated by the sun, and explaining the birth of the universe.

Is there really a fundamental difference between phenomena within our universe and the birth of our universe itself? The assumption that "something" came supernaturally from "nothing" lost most of its punch ever since energy and matter were discovered to exist in both "positive" and "negative" forms such that they cancel when combined. It is incorrect to assume that there could not be any physical causes before the birth of our physical universe since there is no evidence that a pre-universe state of "nothingness" ever existed or could exist.

Because we experience our life in a short time frame and small space, we tend to be deceived into thinking that the universe is orderly, reliable and stable, and therefore designed. However, our universe is fundamentally chaotic, dynamic and non-stable when viewed from a cosmological time frame and size scale as would be expected for a non-designed phenomenon. Indeed, all modern fundamental physics is infused with randomness. When something is random, we cannot infer any cause behind it. Randomness is also crucial for natural explanations of our intelligence and our creativity. (See "Where Science and Religion Disagree" by Taner Edis.)

We cannot assume that our universe is "unique" and "improbable" since there is no reason to believe that our universe is not one of many. Nor will our universe likely remain a cozy place for humankind since the universe's expansion is accelerating. All this is consistent with the notion that our universe emerged through chaotic processes, indifferent to human welfare, that are no different than any other subsequent emergent processes within our universe.

God as Creator would have to be more complex than our universe itself because such a God supposedly knew everything required to design and create our universe, a knowledge that the designed universe itself would not have. So resorting to such a Creator God is tantamount to "explaining" a complex mystery by postulating a more-complex mystery. As an "explanation" it is thus self-defeating unless it confers some other advantage. The explanatory advantage theists claim for theism derives from arbitrarily claiming that God is "uncaused" while simultaneously insisting that the universe itself must be independently caused.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a fundamental difference between explaining phenomena within the universe and explaining the birth of the universe. Theists argue the need for an independent cause for creation by extrapolating from the dubious assumption that all phenomena within our natural universe are entirely deterministic. But this is inconsistent with the aforementioned assumption that the natural properties of phenomena within the universe do not apply to the universe's creation because these two sets of phenomena are distinct. We are thus left with no self-consistent theistic response to the counterclaim that it is simpler and thus more logical to conclude that either our universe itself was uncaused or that it is self-caused. Because it lies outside of the understanding provided by our daily experience, an uncaused or self-caused universe is counterintuitive, of course, as is much of modern cosmology and physics. But positing a God provides no explanatory relief or advantage here.

There is no pressing need for claiming to have explanations to the big mysteries of our universe and existence. Some mysteries may remain forever beyond our ken. Questions are not meaningful simply because we are capable of articulating them. Asking for ultimate purpose when there is no ultimate purpose does not bring us closer to truth. If honesty and truth is our goal, then it is better to properly identify what we do not know then to claim knowledge we do not have.

Atheism, properly understood, makes the fewest unsubstantiated, unnecessary, knowledge claims and is thus more sensible than theism or agnosticism.

An appeal to agnostics: Try atheism, it fits.

There is a correct answer to the ultimate question: Why is there this universe with this planet where we reside? It is a three word answer and those three words are not "God did it". Agnostics and atheists agree that the answer is "we don't know" while theists cling to the faux god did it "explanation".

Unfortunately, some agnostics don't understand that agnosticism has more in common with atheism than with theism. These agnostics are repelled by what they assume is atheism's certainty that there is no god. They challange the atheists to show how we can know there is no god, they complain that atheists are making the same mistake as religionists by asserting too much. However, atheists are not claiming such certainty, we are just not adopting beliefs which lack adequate justification. Maybe I can clarify why atheism and agnosticism are almost the same beliefs by analogy.

A pet is ill. The owner takes the pet to the local animal hospital and is told that the pet has fluid in the chest. The hospital staff asks: Did the pet drink anti-freeze? That is possible, the pet owner doesn't know. The pet dies. A pagan religionist has an "explanation" for the pet's premature death: An evil spirit cast a death spell on the pet. We skeptics know something is wrong with this "explanation", we honestly can't accept this "explanation", its too far-fetched. The problem here is that we have a declaration, not an explanation. These declarations are catch-alls, anyone can assert such a declaration for any dead pet because the declaration is rooted in fantasy, not in evidence. We don't know the cause of the pet's death but we can still rule out a death spell cast by an evil spirit while we cannot rule out the evidence supported explanation that the pet drank anti-freeze.

Most agnostics will concede there is no Ahura Mazda, Zeus, etc. but they lack the courage and insight to recognize that generic god belief is just as unjustified as all the other no evidence catch-all declarations that lack explanatory validity and logical coherence. The god did it declaration, like the evil spirit cast a death spell declaration, gets us nowhere. It just replaces one mystery with another mystery without moving us forward even a nanometer towards acquiring a genuine explanation. We don't know, but not knowing doesn't mean we have to accept as viable every declaration that someone mistakenly asserts is an explanation. To justify any belief we need evidence, we need explanatory validity. God did it, like the evil spirit's death spell, is a catch-all declaration lacking the attributes necessary to justify the belief.

My appeal to agnostics is this: You reject many other imaginary, no evidence, catch-all declarations as lacking explanatory validity. Employ the same skepticism consistently and across the board. Find the courage to take the small additional step of letting go of god altogether. You will be no more mistakenly certain as an atheist than you are as an agnostic who doesn't believe in Ahura Mazda or evil spirit death spells.

Seven high ranking military officers violated establishment clause

The DoD Inspector General recently issued a 47 page report that demonstrates the DoD IG's office remains committed to enforcing the establishment clause , even if only reluctantly so. The report, prompted by persistent requests by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) (http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org) for an investigation, found that the Pentagon's Chaplain office together with high ranking Christian military officers illegally gave a non-profit, non-Federal Christian religious organization known as "Christian Embassy" various selective benefits that other organizations would not have received. Christian Embassy utilized this privileged access to Pentagon facilities and high ranking officers to produce a fundraising video.

Former Pentagon chaplain Colonel Ralph G. Benson (the Pentagon Chaplain since June 2006 is Colonel William B. Broome) and seven high-ranking military officers, four of them generals, violated federal government ethics rules by participating in the 2005 filming while in uniform that showed their rank in the halls of the Pentagon. None of the officers had sought or received the required pre-approval to participate in a film in an official capacity or uniform. The officers’ remarks conferred approval of and support to “Christian Embassy”, and some officers’ remarks implied that they spoke for a group of senior military leaders.

The serial ethics rules violators include Major Generals Peter U. Sutton and Jack J. Catton Jr. (Air Force), and Brigadier Generals Vincent K. Brooks and Robert L. Caslen Jr. (Army). Chaplain Bensons falsely claimed that the video was to document the Pentagon’s own ministry rather than that of a non-Federal entity, when it was actually intended to attract new supporters for Christian Embassy. This lie enabled Christian Embassy unescorted access to Pentagon areas and personnel. Christian Embassy, which seeks to "help national and international leaders working in D.C., their spouses and staffs integrate their faith and their work", was founded by Bill Bright, and is affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ, a worldwide evangelical missionary organization also founded by Bill Bright.

Time magazine reported 'In the course of defending himself to the Inspector General's office, one of the generals asserted his belief that the Christian Embassy had become a "quasi-federal entity." This seems to support assertions by Weinstein that there is real confusion in high ranks of the military regarding armed service's secular status.' Mike Weinstein is the President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He was a White House counsel to President Reagan. An Honor Graduate from the USAF Academy, he served on active duty in the USAF as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) for ten years. Weinstein said of the Inspector General's report, "This is a victory, but a pyrrhic victory. The Pentagon's response has been at best tepid." He predicts that the Inspector General's recommendation for "appropriate corrective action" will be interpreted leniently.

Lets hope the Pentagon will act swiftly and firmly, penalizing the Chaplain and the officers to the full extent allowed by the law for these direct and brazen ethics violations. If, as Mr. Weinstein predicts, the violators just get at most token slaps on the wrist, then we can expect that similarly brazen establishment clause violations by the Pentagon will unfortunately continue due to the ongoing efforts of anti-establishment clause organizations like Christian Embassy.

Constitutional Principles Versus Conflicting Traditions

It took us 218 years (1789-2007) for an unambiguously non-Christian to be honored with the privilege of giving one of the daily invocations in the United States Senate. This hundreds of years overdue implementation of our original pluralistic ‘E Pluribus Unum' motto is incomplete since only one of our two major political parties appears to be willing to go even this far. Our government still favors Christian compatible monotheism not only in federal congressional invocations, but in state and local legislative invocations, in the text of laws, in the custodial rulings of divorce judges, in daily public school ritual, and more.

The establishment clause is intrinsically egalitarian, it restricts government from taking actions that exhibit bias between X, Y, or Z beliefs or between citizens with X, Y, or Z beliefs. When the difference between X, Y, and Z beliefs is whether or not multiple, one, or no gods exist, it is self-contradictory to assert that the non-establishment principle is for Y citizens but not for X and Z citizens or not for Z citizens. Non-establishment is for all citizens, but it is intended to assist minorities in defending themselves in a democracy against becoming politically emasculated by majority prejudice. The establishment clause is a form of equal protection of the laws for Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists; for polytheists and atheists.

Selecting which beliefs are represented in government sponsored invocations via a politically influenced process violates the non-establishment principle because it always has and always will produce the result that the principle itself opposes: Government favoritism for majoritarian beliefs over minority beliefs. Although well intentioned, judicially restricting the religious contents of the invocations to generic monotheism to make the invocations more inclusive is inadequate. Generic monotheism that today is about 90% inclusive may in the future become less than 50% inclusive. Even worse than its temporal variability, this judicially decreed incomplete inclusiveness still leaves some minorities, particularly atheists, disenfranchised from this first amendment protection. At some point we have to make a choice based on the recognition that our traditions have not always lived up to our constitutional principles. Which prevails, our non-egalitarian traditions or our self-avowed commitment to egalitarian principle? The answer to this question will be contested until our traditions and constitutional principles match.

The Media and Newdow's Pledge lawsuit

The new book "Taking on the Pledge of Allegiance: The Media and Michael Newdow's Constitutional Challenge" by Dr. Ronald Bishop, Associate Professor in the Department of Culture and Communications at Drexel Unversity, examines how the media marginalized Newdow and his establishment clause complaint after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance ritual in public schools was an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion 'by framing the decision as an aberration, a radical act by a hopelessly liberal federal circuit court. Bishop concludes that journalists relegated Newdow to a rhetorical "protest zone" - he was heard but from a safe distance.'

On a personal note, it was watching the mostly closed minded misleading journalism coverage of the MICHAEL NEWDOW, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ELK GROVE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT decision upholding government non-establishment that motivated me to start this blog as a "Commentary on legal status of, public attitudes towards, and misinformation about atheism, atheists, and secularism in the United States."

Is 'A Brief History of Belief' airing in your local area?

Many local public television stations have not yet committed to airing the first serious television exploration of the idea that god doesn't exist even though the program premiered May 4 and is available to public television stations everywhere through Executive Program Services. To find out if the show is being broadcast in your area, consult the 'A Brief History of Belief' broadcast calendar. If the show is not on the calendar, contact your local public television station and tell them you are disappointed that is not on the schedule.

Meanwhile, you can view 'A Brief History of Belief' video series on veoh.com for free. Veoh also has the six in-depth interviews that are not included with the television broadcast. Also, feel free to contact the Senate Historical Office to recommend they that they view the video series and reconsider the ahistorical claims in their 'so help me God' video discussed in the previous post.

Senate Historian Office promotes false propaganda

Since early this year the United States Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) web site has featured a "so help me God" video that begins with a voice, probably of Warren Earl Burger, former Chief Justice of the United States, saying "shmG" repeated by another voice, probably that of former President Ronald Reagen, followed by a Senate Historian falsely asserting that all presidents have followed George Washington's precedent of appending "so help me God" (shmG) to the constitutionally specified presidential oath of office. There are no known contemporaneous eyewitness accounts of George Washington appended shmG during either of his inaugurations (newspaper accounts of his second inauguration quoted the oath as recited without shmG). The first newspaper accounts of shmG being appended to the presidential oath of office appear during the inaugural ceremony of Chester Arthur in 1881, over 90 years later. Appending shmG to the presidential oath of office became a tradition in the 20th century not long after commercial radios made it practical for many Americans to listen to the ceremony in their homes. Audio of Herbert Hoover's swearing in ceremony proves that he did not append shmG. Here are details about the mid 1850's origin of the George Washington shmG myth.

The Senate Historian Office's "so help me God" video on the JCCIC web site is irresponsibly and indefensibly misrepresenting false presidential oath of office shmG recitation propaganda as historical fact. I have called and written the Senate Historian's office about this spurious quote. They have neither provided citations of contemporaneous eyewitness accounts to substantiate their incredible shmG claims nor taken any action to correct their video or the JCCIC web site text. That office and its employee titles are misnamed. As long as they promote these ahistorical shmG claims they are functioning as the Senate Mythology Office and its employees are serving as Senate Mythologists.

Take action: Call and write the Senate Historian's office and the Senate Rules Committee. Request that they immediately remove all unsubstantiated presidential oath of office shmG claims from the JCCIC and other Senate web pages. Inform them that they are entitled publish such claims only after they are substantiated with citations of contemporaneous eyewitness accounts. Contact information can be found on Atheist Action Central.

Gov't can legally subsidize theist only Jamboree

7th Circuit dismisses challenge to military support of Scout event

The judges repeatedly said that the Boy Scouts of America Jamboree is open to the general public and that it is important to military recruitment and preparedness. The relevance of this part of their argument to their decision, based on past precedent, that the plaintiffs technically don't have taxpayer standing, is unclear. However, in the event this lawsuit was able to proceed, those arguments could be considered relevant to deciding if there is a violation of the no establishment clause. Since it is possible that future plaintiffs who are parents of children that were refused membership in BSA will have standing to bring this lawsuit, and it is also possible that the current plaintiffs will win standing on appeal (if they appeal and it is accepted) or after a new Supreme Court decision clarifies various ambiguities regarding taxpayer standing (Hein v. the Freedom From Religion Foundation), this part of the judges' argument nevertheless warrants further scrutiny.

When characterizing the Jamboree as open to the general public the judges completely overlooked the obviously pertinent fact that one of the primary functions of the Jamboree is to provide opportunities for Scouts to engage in activities that help them earn merit badges. The merit badges are requisite for earning Eagle Scout rank which qualifies military recruits for an automatic initial pay grade increase (a similar pay grade increase is available for Girl Scouts). This government subsidized opportunity to qualify for an automatic increase in government salary is thus being denied to male agnostics and atheists.

I don't believe the judges would dare make this argument about the importance of the Jamboree to the military justifying the government subsidies if the Jamboree merit badge activities, some of which were co-sponsored by government agencies, were closed to Episcopalians and Anglicans. The judges would immediately recognize that such an argument would be both implicitly disparaging towards and unfair to Episcopalians and Anglicans, some of whom served in the military, currently serve in the military, or may one day in the future consider serving in the military. So I find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that this aspect of the judges' argument exhibits an oblivious and blatant anti-agnostic and anti-atheist bias which is irreconcilable with the basic legal principle of equal protection before the law.

Also, Judge Sykes ungenerous comment that the complaint against the government subsidies isn't serious because the judge who ruled the government subsidies are unconstitutional nevertheless permitted the Jamboree to proceed one month after his decision is a cheap shot. That is a superficial argument that substitutes style for substance. A sensible accommodation to the already ongoing preparations by that judge, as requested by the defendants, doesn't undermine the merit of the plaintiffs complaint. Judge Sykes is wrong to claim otherwise.

Reintroduction of PERA in 110th Congress

The leader of the American Legion recently applauded Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan) for reintroducing in the U.S. Senate S. 415, a measure that would prevent plaintiffs who win lawsuits against violations of the no establishment clause of the first amendment from receiving any monetary reimbursement or rewards. The American Legion National Commander Paul A. Morin vehemently objects to court decisions against government sponsorship of religiously biased displays and against government subsidies to the theist only Boy Scouts of America membership organization. He characterizes such court decisions as "legal attacks against veterans' memorials that display religious symbols" and "lawsuits against our traditions". As he probably knows, and thus is dishonestly not acknowledging, the focus of non-establishment jurisprudence is limited to the subset of public displays that are government sponsored. Morin isn't alone in deliberately over-generalizing the legal issue to falsely make it sound like there is a bigoted legal assault by judges against all public display and practice of majority Christian compatible monotheistic religious traditions. You wouldn't know it listening to most elected Republican officials or right wing commentators, but most public displays and practices with religious content are not subject to any legal challenge because they are not government sponsored or subsidized.

The Veterans' Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals and Other Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2007 (PERA) would amend U.S. statutes to discourage lawsuits against establishments of religion by ensuring that plaintiffs who win such lawsuits cannot receive damages or attorney fee reimbursement. The winning plaintiffs in all other lawsuits would still qualify for reimbursement of expenses and damage rewards, thus creating a legal double standard. A similar measure that would weaken non-establishment protections for atheists, agnostics, polytheists, and other religious minorities passed overwhelmingly in the House last year but the Senate version was not brought up for a vote prior to the adjournment of the 109th Congress.

Non-establishment of religion is unpopular, it is probably the most unpopular clause of the first amendment. Many people support the no establishment clause only in the sense that they don't want a particular named Christian denomination to be declared a government favored or endorsed denomination. Such support for non-establishment is made easy by the large number of Christian denominations all of which are minorities. But these same people seem to think government favoring and endorsing a Christian compatible majoritarian monotheism is somehow necessary to uphold their free exercise rights. The logical implication that the lack of government sponsorship and endorsement of atheist and polytheist beliefs is likewise a denial of free exercise for atheists and polytheists never seems to occur these people. In fact, neither the government favored majority nor the excluded minority are being provided or denied free exercise rights by the government actions targeted by this misnamed "Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act". What is being denied here by what Morin refers to as "our traditions" are the basic equal protection and non-discrimination before the law principles for atheists, agnostics, polytheists, and some other religious minorities. Unfortunately, as with racism and sexism, it looks like this is going to be a drawn out conflict against an ignorant and bigoted majority supported legal tradition.

Jefferson letter to Dr. Woods not found

Atheist and secularist web sites and posts by secularists on various discussion forums are attributing the following spurious quote to Thomas Jefferson:

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies" (Letter to Dr. Woods).

The source for this quote is chapter 2 of John E. Remsburg's book "Six Historic Americans: Paine, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, and Grant The Fathers And Saviors Of Our Republic, Freethinkers" published in 1906. No such letter is currently known to exist. If a Thomas Jefferson letter to Dr. Woods turns up in the future then, and only then, can we declare the quote to be genuine.

Some web sites attribute this same quote, with an extra sentence or two added, to a Thomas Jefferson letter to William Short. Jefferson wrote multiple letters to Mr. Short, but a search of the Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive, as well as various other online collections of transcribed Jefferson letters, finds no such quote. Neither the Dr. Woods nor the William Short citations provide a date. This is odd because Jefferson's letters usually begin with a date.

Unless someone identifies such a letter with that quote it must be deemed a probably bogus citation for a highly dubious quote. Please do not use this quote and please let people know that this alleged quote is unverified and should not be used.