I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian. The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about a philosopher being like a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat—which wasn't there. "That may be," said the philosopher; "but a theologian would have found it."

—Julian Huxley

via Lost and Found

This is old news but I've never written about it.

A few months ago Pete Stark "came out of the closet" as an nontheist. He is a Democratic Representative from California's 13th.

From Wikipedia:

Stark is the first openly nontheistic member of Congress, as announced by the Secular Coalition for America.[1] Stark, who has represented San Francisco's East Bay since 1973, acknowledged his nontheism in response to an SCA questionnaire sent to public officials in January 2007. In a statement, Stark said he is a "Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social service."

From Bill Scher, blogger for the Campaign for America's Future. An interesting post looking at the religion in politics issue from a different perspective.

A good quote:

Lots of ink has been spilled about how Democrats and liberals suffer from a "religion problem" -- a perceived hostility towards Christianity and religion in general. But Pew Research Center exit poll data from the 2006 midterm elections shows the opposite.

Democrats crushed Republicans among secular voters, broadly defined as those who attend church seldom (favoring Democrats 60% to 38%) or never (67% to 30%). Republicans retained strong support among those who attend church more than weekly. But among those who only go weekly -- the larger portion of the religious vote -- the Republican lead shrunk from 15 points to 7.

Read the whole thing here

Today is Darwin Day a celebration of the life and works of Charles Darwin.

Want to know how you can celebrate?

Well here are a couple ideas:

• Take the day off! (thats what I've done)
• Join or renew you membership to a secular, atheist or pro-science group. Some good ones include: Center for Inquiry, American Atheists, Campaign to Defend the Constitution, or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
• Go to a Darwin Day event
• Buy a Darwin Fish for your car
• Watch Richard Dawkins on CNN give Paula Zahn the smack down!
• Read one of the great works of Charles Darwin
• Spread the good cheer with this "Darwin Day Card"
  <center><br /><h3>Happy Darwin Day!</h3><br /><img src="http://www.irnbru001.com/darwinfish.jpg"><br />From <a href="http://www.irnbru01.com/">IrnBru001.com</a></center>
• Or if you're in DC like me join me with a visit to the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

Enjoy the day, having evolved so far we deserve it!

Richard Dawkins is appearing on CNN in response to the outrage cause by the clip I referred to below.

He will be appearing on the Paula Zahn show Monday the 12th (which is Darwin Day btw) hopefully to give voice to our outrage. I believe he will be on the 8EST show.

Here is part of the horrendous segment, for those who are too lazy to click the other day's link : ).

Ever wonder why I feel secularism is an important topic?

Watch this video and you may understand

It goes from bad, seeing the plight of two couple, to worse, a network giving intolerance a soap box.

Watch this and try for a moment to wear my shoes.

Dwindling In Unbelief

Found this from a great Jesus' General post. Dwindling In Unbelief is from Steve Well, the Editor of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible/Quran/Book of Mormon, which is the best annotated version of the Bible (and Quran and Book of Mormon) I've ever found. I really have been waiting quite a while for a print version.

Dwindling in Unbelief's newest post is this great video featuring Richard Dawkins.

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) was sworn in on January 04. The right wing fundamentalists were up in arms when they heard what was going to happen. Rep. Ellison, the first Muslim elected to congress, wanted to use the Quran, and not the Bible, for his unofficial swearing in ceremony.

As I blogged early, my thoughts on this idea were mixed. As I stated the right wingnuts response was horrible, screaming of intolerance and fundamentalism.

My reservation were rooted in my deep belief in a secular society, regardless of the faith. But Rep. Ellison, handled the whole "controversy" with grace and class.

At this unofficial swearing in Rep. Ellison used a copy of the Quran once owned by the, great champion of Separation of Church and State, Thomas Jefferson.

The Wall of Separation provided a great quote from Rep. Ellison from the event.

“The very foundation of our nation, the authors of our Constitution impressed, is religious freedom, and the use of Jefferson’s Quran shows that the founders not only knew of the Quran but also used it,” Ellison said during his swearing-in ceremony.

While I still hope that some day, even in purely ceremonial, yet political events, we no longer feel the need to insert our personal religious believes. As the paradigm of American politics and society now stands, there would have hardly been a better out come.

The right wing fundamentalists are up in arms over the fact that Minnesota congressman-elect will, in his unofficial ceremony, swear in on the Quran and not the Bible.

Now it's clear that the wing-nut outrage over this is nothing more then bigotry, and ethno-religious centrism. It isn't however clear what the appropriate response should be.

This is a tough issue for a committed secularist. How do I resolve the conflict between wanting a tolerant multi-cultural society, with my dislike of mixing religion and politics?

I am, on the one hand, disgusted and un-shocked, by the reaction of those on the extreme right. This is not a Christian country, and shouldn't be, but many don't realize the desire, by some, to make it one.

On the other hand it bothers me that any public official, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or otherwise, would take an oath of public office, regardless how ceremonial, on a religious text. There is, as enshrined in our constitution, no religious test for public office, let's not add one.

It is fine that Congressman-elect Keith Ellison is Muslim. There is no reason why a Muslim would be any less (or more) qualified to served as an elected official. As a democrat, and a Minnesotan, I'm thrilled he is in office. I would however prefer religion stay in the heart, and home....not in politics.

If this is truly to become a multicultural society, as I hope it will, we should be separating religion from politics entirely.

“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Paszkiewicz was recorded as saying. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered you pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”

Yuck. Yet its the student, who has exposed this anti-American fundaments, who is getting the threats.

In this tale of the teacher who preached in class and the pupil he offended, students and the larger community have mostly lined up with Mr. Paszkiewicz, not with Matthew, who has received a death threat handled by the police, as well as critical comments from classmates.

Greice Coelho, who took Mr. Paszkiewicz’s class and is a member of his youth group, said in a letter to The Observer, the local weekly newspaper, that Matthew was “ignoring the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gives every citizen the freedom of religion.” Some anonymous posters on the town’s electronic bulletin board, Kearnyontheweb.com, called for Matthew’s suspension.

The First Amendment does not give special right to Christians. The teacher, in the public school system, is acting as a employee of the state. He is using his position of authority to establish a religion in a public place.

The First Amendment, in fact the American ideal, it to prevent the tyranny of the majority, especially in religious contexts. To forget this is un-American.

Ny Times via The Wall of Separation

Guess who the quote is referring to, The US Military or Al Qaeda?

Unfortunately it's drawing a comparison between the two. From Yahoo, via TomPaine.com

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has suggested there is a core of Christian extremists in the U.S. Military and the Pentagon.

These empowered Fundamentalists (IMO they get this label for trying to undermine the separation of church and state) are "using their rank and influence to coerce soldiers and airmen into adopting evangelical Christianity"

Maybe the "there are no atheists in foxholes" saying is actually true. True because our service men and women are being forced to become Christians.

This stuff amuses me. I've never understood this extreme paranoia the right-wing has. This notion that they are a persecuted minority and that the big scary secular progressives are out to destroy America.

Though it doesn't seem as bad as it was last year, the talking heads are still talking about it.

From MediaMatters:

On the November 29 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly continued to hype the so-called "war" on Christmas by claiming that retailers Best Buy and Crate & Barrel are "still ordering their people not to say, 'Merry Christmas,' " and that the stores "will fire" employees who do. O'Reilly also asserted that "ordering" employees "not to say 'Merry Christmas' " is "the worst kind of fascism you could possibly have." In fact, representatives of both stores have denied having policies that forbid employees to say "Merry Christmas" to customers.

Inclusiveness is fascism?

If Billo had done any research, say called the stores for a clarification, he would have found the facts. But he of course doesn't want the facts he wants to feel persecuted. Wants to legitimize the paranoia of this listeners.

I can understand why he does it. It sells. There real question is "Why are the fundamentalists so paranoid that they buy it?"

It's bad enough that the Xmas sale season seems to start around Labor Day. Now the being anti Christian-bigotry is anti-Christian bigotry crowd is starting the culture war early. It not even Thanksgiving and the right wing noise machine is screaming about people destroying Xmas.

onegoodmove, on the Daily Show, on the O'Riley Factor

Richard Dawkins was on the Colbert Report last night promoting his new book The God Delusion. He did well. Got booed by the audience, which just reaffirms how intolerant America is of Atheists. An Atheist gets booed even on a show like Colbert. The book should be interesting, Dawkins' work usually is. I like how the book had a reflective cover. I wonder that was done to "show the god delusion". God created in the likeness of man. Anyways buy the book and watch the video on onegoodmove.

UPDATE: Here it is on YouTube

I've often said I will never support the Salvation Army. This usually gets me looks of disgust from anyone within earshot, even from those who are also non-religious. The reaction is usually something along the lines of, "The Salvation Army has nothing to do with religion, it’s just a name! It's there to help the poor!"

My response is that I will support charities that help the poor but don't force religion on them. Or sometimes I'll say, "What does god have to do with helping the poor? Can't we help the poor without needed to bring religion into it?"

I've always felt a little bad about my stance that I won't help charities that have a religious foundation. I've wondered if what everyone tells me is true, that they are just religious people doing good deeds. Well in that case of the Salvation Army, I know that my stance was justified.

Enter the AlterNet article:

As part of President Bush's "faith-based initiative," US taxpayers gave the Salvation Army's children services division $47 million this year -- 95% of its total budget. Several Salvation Army employees refused to take the Salvation Army's pledge "proclaiming Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord," reveal which church they belong to or identify gay co-workers -- and were summarily fired.

Read the rest of it here.

Not only does this point out the truth that Bush's "faith-based initiative" is exactly what it first seemed, a blatant violation of church-state separation by having tax payer funded religious discrimination, but also that my fear of religious charities was justified, especially regarding the Salvation Army.

The author of this article makes a good point. Over 95% of Salvation Army's children services division monies come from tax payers’ dollars. How then is it nothing more then a government organization under the guise of being an independent charity?