Tax Credit Thought Experiment

Religious groups currently get support from the government in the form of various tax exemptions. What if a secret committee of the Heritage ministry had to vet religions to make sure that they weren't offensive to people who may have been appointed merely out of patronage. What do you think of that, Chuck McVety?

Religion and Politics II

Here's another good quote, this one from Matthew Yglesias on religion in the public square:
"For whatever you may say about Europe's relative lack of religiosity, it's not a lack of entanglement of religion in public life that led to it."

Religion and Politics

I like this quote from Atrios:

"I suppose what's driven me nuts all of these years is the fact that my opposition to the religion creep in political rhetoric has probably been much more motivated by my concern that bringing the God Wars into the public square would be bad for religion than concerns about it being somehow bad for politics or policy. I don't much care if people are religious or not, but without religious freedom, which really encompasses much more than who you pray to, you don't have freedom in any meaningful sense at all."

I'm not sure I'd agree entirely with this formulation, but I've long had similar concerns about how damaging the politicizing of religion can be to religion.

The Angry Confusion of Jonah Goldberg

Matthew Yglesias has come upon Jonah Goldberg's latest tirade that he describes thusly:

"I read this Jonah Goldberg post that seemed to be complaining that liberals don't cite enough sacred texts that can then be debunked (and therefore gain an unfair advantage by keeping our true theological roots shrouded in mystery) with some puzzlement, so I was glad to see him eventually clarify that he thinks a handful of inane pranks can rectify the situation."

I admit that I got a bit of a chuckle out of this, but nothing really replicates the disingenuous pleading of the original post:

"The beauty of religious conservatives is that their dogma is open to scrutiny and investigation. Conservatives generally have a written canon that includes everything from the Bible to scores of political books. Liberalism's canon is largely unwritten, it's dogma made-up as they go along."

Wow. Right after this bit, Goldberg states that he's overgeneralizing but it would seem rather that he's lying outright. Many of the principle liberal texts (Locke, Rousseau, et cetera) predate many principle conservative texts (Burke, et cetera). Burke, you will recall, was reacting to the lurching attempts to install liberalism during the French Revolution... Oh wait, hahaha, I'm assuming that the average conservative voter has read Burke.

Yes conservatives, I'm calling you out, who's read Burke? Who's read Oakeshott? Leaving aside the ridiculous, vaguely offensive claim that Goldberg makes that religion is the sole domain of political conservatives, a reading of popular political aims might make one conclude that the Christian bible is broken down into these chapters:

1. Keeping it out of the bum,
2. No abortions,
3. Taking the brain-dead off of life support (don't do it),
4. Did we mention keeping it out of the bum?
5. Tax cuts have to be in here somewhere... Anyone? Bueller?

The idea that all conservatives are earnestly attempting to adhere to biblical principles puts the horse before the cart in my mind. I think that many conservative politicians attempt sell policies that they've arrived at through a variety of means with a post-hoc religious justification. Moreover the problem with platforms based solely on religious texts is that they attempt to put policies beyond questioning. The other problem is that Jonah Goldberg really shouldn't be allowed to write, but you knew that already.

John Tory's "Stanfield" Moment

That's what I call what he did today with his teach-what-you-want approach to science in the newly taxpayer-funded religious schools of this province. Many religious schools may want to dispute evolution but now that taxpayer money is involved, it's a different story. Moreover what if Scientology sets up a school teaching children that Lord Xenu dumped a bunch of alien souls in volcanoes and that's where we came from? I'm sure there are other examples and indeed ones that just about anyone would not want to be supported by their tax dollars. John Tory this is your Robert Stanfield fumble. Not as spectacular as telling people not to vote for Chretien because he's ugly, but pretty bad nonetheless.

What is truth?

Bill O'Reilly gets all subjective with Richard Dawkins. There are credible ways to defend religion, this is not one of them:

Sheesh.

Exploitation

This sort of stupidity is bothersome on so many levels. It's mind-boggling to suggest that God isn't "allowed" in schools in the US. Incidentally, since when did Taber, AB become part of the US? Most US schools recite the pledge of allegiance (at least the ones in upstate New York) every morning - complete with the "under God" bit. Even if they didn't I'm not sure how this means that God isn't "allowed" in school. Surely believers of a variety of faiths do not drop their beliefs at the door.

There is a very wide gulf between proselytizing for religion or even granting it some kind of state recognition and not allowing it. As a believer I'm offended by suggestions that God is so weak or indifferent that Madalyn Murray O'Hair or even the US Supreme Court is enough to frighten God away.

The people who put out this garbage believe in a very weak and foolish god.

Is Atheism a Religion? Convenient Truths from Christianists

One of the most helpful things that Andrew Sullivan has done for political debate was to coin (or at least popularize) the term "Christianist" to differentiate religious belief from a specific political agenda that (in its current form) wants to fuse authoritarian state power with the certainty of evangelical protestant belief.

Anyway, today Sullivan finds another great Christianist quote:

"I don't believe there's such a thing as the separation of church and state. In fact, the First Amendment to the Constitution actually calls on the United States Congress to make sure, to ensure that people are allowed to practice their religion."

Or so says Leo Berman, sponsor of a bill in Texas to create a mandatory bible-study elective in all Texas schools. In this case, it appears that Berman does not consider atheism to be religion, it is the absence of religion in his eyes. At the same time though, one of the more common statements that those pursuing Christianist goals will make is that atheism is just another religion.

It seems in fact that the rhetorical divide is entirely obvious, when attempting to fuse religion with state power, Christianists determine that atheism is not a religion (therefore denying that atheists' rights are infringed by such attempts). When attempting to limit the presence of ideas that they consider proxies for atheism in the public square (most often this means evolution), Christianists resort to declaring atheism "just another religion."

For the record, a query of atheist websites reveals that most atheists do not consider what they believe to be religion (I guess my little business idea of selling Richard Dawkins icons is a bust now). I thought about this and remembered that many protestant Christians are also fond of making the claim that they have a relationship with Jesus, not a religion. I suspect that neither group though would want these assertions to undercut their legally defined religious freedoms.