Jeff Schweitzer's Blog, page 3

Captain Pope on the Titanic

The Pope now recognizes the obvious: our climate is changing as a consequence of human activity. But still, not everyone agrees. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the following: “We should be good stewards of the earth God gave us” because climate change science “isn’t settled.” So Inhofe invokes god, for which there is faith but no evidence, while remaining unconvinced of climate change, the evidence for which is overwhelming. Inhofe passionately believes with no hesitation in something that cannot be proven but denies the tangible reality in front of his face.

We are now suffering the consequences of the new political phenomenon in which ignorance is celebrated and worn as a badge of honor. The science committees are chaired in both the House (Lamar Smith) and Senate (Inhofe) by anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-reason religious zealots. This is like putting Richard Dawkins in charge of theology at the Vatican. The results are predictable; we rearrange deck chairs (burn fossil fuels unabated and argue about where to drill) on the Titanic (earth), ignoring our existential problem while arguing about all that is inconsequential as we plow into the iceberg (climate change). (In case the analogy was not obvious enough).

And not to disappoint, we can predict that we will hear insufferable, ironic, self-contradictory but self-righteous pabulum from prominent politicians in response to the Pope’s new-found environmental concerns. To wit, presidential candidate Jeb Bush uttered this most amazing phrase: “I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.” Not sure whether to laugh, cry or pull my few remaining hairs out with that one. Really? Really? Abortion? Stem cell research? Same-sex marriage? Public prayer? Teaching creationism is schools? Did Bush actually just say we should keep religion out of politics? That is like Charles Manson telling us we really should keep violence out of our lives. How quickly Bush forgets that he and his fellow Republicans mobilized evangelical Christians in 2000 to take over the GOP, jamming religion down our political throats like never before. No wait, I get it: it is OK to bring religion into the politics of all those wedge issues; but arbitrarily and with no rationale, we can’t bring religion into the issue of climate change. Because Bush says so. Yep, my head is going to explode.

But back to the Pope. The Pope, by the way, is not bringing religion to the debate; he is simply acknowledging that the science is overwhelming and compelling, and given that, there is a moral obligation to act. He is not claiming god told him humans were altering the climate. That would be bringing religion into the debate. But he does not get a free pass now just because he is finally admitting the obvious. He does so reluctantly, with hesitation. His encyclical calls on us to change our ways to “combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.” He hedges his bets talking about volcanoes, and goes only so far as to say that “most global warming” is induced by human activity. All this is a bit equivocal and weak. Still, not a bad sentiment in the end. However, it is difficult to hear the Pope and not immediately conjure up a jumble of clichés and questions: better later than never; too little too late; better than nothing; Captain Obvious; and where was the Catholic Church twenty years ago when we could have done something about the problem?

We have come to a bad point in human history when people only believe the conclusions of solid science when a religious leader gives them the nod.

While the Pope’s comments on climate change are welcome, if obvious and too late to the party, let us not get carried away thinking the Pope is a born-again environmentalist. For millennia, peoples of nearly all cultures have been taught that humans are special in the eyes of their god or gods, and that the world is made for their benefit and use. That is, at least Western religions promote the idea that environmentalism is for wimps and long-haired liberals because god put everything here for humans to exploit. This is made clear in Genesis 1:1.

“God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of god he created him; male and female he created them.”

This early biblical passage is representative of many that give humans the special status of being made in god’s image, unlike any other creature on earth, and clearly implies human dominance over all other living things. Humans are told to “subdue” the earth and “rule over” the air, land and sea. These religious teachings not only condone but actively encourage humans to view the environment as separate from them, put here for their pleasure. Such biblical bias about our place in earth’s history is one reason why the religious right resists the idea of anthropogenic climate change; we could not alter something god put here for our benefit.

The explicit religious mandate to exploit natural resources remains clear and unambiguous, in spite of the Pope’s new encyclical and past heroic efforts to harmonize religion and environmental sciences. Numerous academic and international organizations have made the futile attempt, including The Forum on Religion and Ecology, the largest international multi-religious project of its kind, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, founded in 1936 by the Vatican to promote scientific progress compatible with the Church’s teachings.

The argument used by those seeking reconciliation between religion and environmental protection point to the integrity of all creation, or reverence for all things created by god, insisting that religion and concern for the environment are not only compatible, but have been so all along. Those are welcomed sentiments. In fact, as is frequently the case, the Bible contains contradictory passages about the natural world, reasonably allowing for such an interpretation. Old passages can also simply be reinterpreted to fit the facts or to be compatible with newly adopted ideas. Pope John Paul XXIII said in 1961:

Genesis relates how God gave two commandments to our first parents: to transmit human life–’Increase and multiply’–and to bring nature into their service–’Fill the Earth, and subdue it.’ These two commandments are complementary. Nothing is said in the second of these commandments about destroying nature. On the contrary, it must be brought into the services of human life.

But the harsh facts of human history belie this benign revisionist interpretation of the meaning of “subdue”. The preponderance of unambiguous passages in the Bible giving mankind dominion over nature’s bounty argues against any idea that religion is environmentalism in disguise. As Renaissance scholar Lynn White famously wrote in 1967, “We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man.” His words remain true 40 years later, when religious conservatives in the United States view resource extraction as an inalienable right and the burning of fossil fuels a paean to god.

Sure, the Pope is right about climate change; and hopefully this will be the start of a millennium in which the Catholic Church repudiates its previous history of teaching that god put the earth here for us to exploit. But not likely. Better than nothing, but too little, too late.

Catching Dick: Not Why We Care About Weight

Amy Schumer said in her humorous acceptance speech at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards: “I’m like 160 pounds right now, and I can catch a dick whenever I want, and that’s the truth.”

The line, like many in her speech, is obviously very funny. But the humor is directed at a misperception that is not so funny. With our society’s superficial focus on youth and appearance, we have emphasized all the wrong reasons for maintaining a healthy body weight, which has nothing to do with “catching dick.” We are sold the idea that remaining slim is primarily important as a means of attracting the opposite sex, rather than as a path to good health and longevity. That inherent and unquestioned assumption about our motivations for weight loss is why Schumer’s line is in fact so humorous. But being overweight, even by a little, is no laughing matter.

I have written much in the past that fat is not fit; any claim in that direction is just wishful and dangerous thinking. But such thinking remains common. Here is a typical claim we see in the media, in this case the June 4, 2015, Daily Mail: “…even if you are fat, the key to prolonging your life seems to be how fit you are.” Wrong.

This misleading media play goes on even though the theory that a person can be overweight but healthy has been disproven repeatedly. Some confusion arises because in 1998, the National Institute of Health claimed a person could be overweight and be considered healthy; but the report has been fully repudiated by more recent studies.

Last year, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told former White House physician Connie Mariano to “shut up” about his weight when she expressed concern that he might die in office if he were elected president. Christie openly acknowledges that he struggles with his weight, but claimed that he is “remarkably healthy.” Well, no. The Governor said that unless Mariano gave him a physical exam or learned his family history, she could make no judgment about his health. He is wrong, because any casual observer can see that Christie is obese, as he would himself admit – and the reality is that obesity is known to lead to an increased risk for premature death. Here is an easy bottom line worth remembering: one in five deaths is linked to excess weight. Most Americans die sooner than necessary by stroke, heart attack or cancer — and obesity increases the risk for all of these. Christie should remember that the Titanic was a healthy ship just before hitting the iceberg.

We know absolutely that obesity creates an increased risk of diabetes. In 1990 about 11 million Americans had type 2 adult onset diabetes, a disease of insulin resistance that commonly coexists with obesity; just nine years later the number was 16 million, or about 6% of all Americans. Then from 1999 to 2003 we saw a 41% increase in diagnosed diabetes. Since then obesity has ballooned to an astounding 64% of all Americans and the number of diabetics continues to explode. The insulin resistance syndrome associated with obesity has other dire consequences, including hypertension and the increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

If you are not yet convinced of the fallacy that fat can be fit, consider the following realities:

• About 300,000 deaths per year are attributed to obesity; in spite of the deep flaws in BMI, we know that individuals with a body mass index (BMI) over 30 have a 50% to 100% increased risk of premature death from all causes compared to lean people with lower BMIs.

• High blood pressure is twice as common in obese adults compared to those with a healthy weight; obesity is associated with elevated blood fat (triglycerides) and decreased good cholesterol (HDL).

• A weight gain of only 11 to 18 pounds increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes; over 80% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese at the time of diagnosis.

• Obesity is associated with an increased risk of cancer of the uterus, colon, gall bladder, prostate, kidney, and postmenopausal breast cancer.

• Sleep apnea is more common in obese people. And some recent studies have indicated that a lack of sleep might impact hormone levels to a degree that could, indeed, cause weight gain.

• Obesity during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of birth defects, including spina bifida.

• Every increase in weight of two pounds increases the risk of arthritis by 9% to 13%. This fact should eliminate any questions about the limits and deficiencies in using BMI as a health indicator; it does not matter much. Yes, BMI misses more than half of people with excess body fat. Inversely, because BMI is deeply flawed, some people are incorrectly labelled as overweight. But that limitation is no excuse when we know that even a small increase in weight has negative health consequences.

Another problem with “fat but fit” is simple mechanics. The human body evolved from a period of deprivation where food was scarce and difficult to obtain. Our ancestors were almost certainly lean. In any case, we are not engineered to bear excess weight on our joints. Obesity leads to arthritis – and often to joint replacement not only because of the mechanical stress it can cause but because fat produces chemicals that attack cartilage. Think of it this way: If you stuff 20 people into a VW Bug, the suspension will wear out faster and the engine will have to work harder, ultimately reducing its useful life.

One final consideration on the idea of being fat but fit: obesity affects quality of life through limited mobility, decreased physical endurance, and social, academic and job discrimination. Right or wrong, that is the current reality.

Amy Schumer looks good and can catch dick at her current weight; but she would live a longer healthier live if she shed a few pounds. That is the lesson we should all take home.

Inflammatory Claims About Inflammation

We all appreciate the elegance of simple solutions to complex problems. But we know too that simplicity can often masquerade as truth, hiding a more nuanced reality. Such is the case with inflammation, where pseudoscience, exaggerated claims, false promises, and dangerous oversimplification have dominated for too long. Here is a typical missive:

“Inflammation controls our lives. Have you or a loved one dealt with pain, obesity, ADD/ADHD, peripheral neuropathy, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, migraines, thyroid issues, dental issues, or cancer? If you answered yes to any of these disorders you are dealing with inflammation.”

Well, no, inflammation does not control our lives. Like many others, this author claims inflammation is responsible for a huge range of maladies, ranging from Alzheimer’s to lupus to stroke to fibromyalgia; I counted 30 on this site. As a biologist, and author of a book on diet and nutrition, I find this to be nothing but cringe-worthy. Yes, inflammation is terribly important, and as we will see, associated with disease. But the oversimplification and weak link to biology that we find on sites like these are misdirection from understanding what is actually happening in our bodies. Such misunderstanding leads to odd nutritional or medical recommendations that are useless at best or dangerous at worst.

Dr. Wajahat Mehal has written an excellent lay-person-friendly overview of the latest in inflammation research can be found in the most recent issue of Scientific American. I urge anybody making any claims about inflammation, or contemplating dietary or behavioral changes based on concern about it, to read this article.

Here is the crux of the problem. Yes, indeed, as Dr. Mehal notes, “inflammasomes are at the heart of a wide range of diseases and disorders.” But before we go nuts here, let’s take a deep breath. Often lost in conversation is the distinction between inflammation causing disease and the role of inflammation as a mechanism of disease progression arising from different pathologies. Be clear that “at the heart of” does not mean “causes.” This distinction is critical. Cancer offers a good analogy. At some point, all cancers result when cells start dividing uncontrollably; but there are many causes of cancer leading to that cell condition. If we wish to avoid lung cancer, the answer is to stop smoking; this is a better strategy than looking for ways to interfere with the cellular mechanisms of malignancy, after we have set them on a path to malignancy with our unhealthy behavior.

The same applies to inflammation; yes, many disparate diseases have inflammation somewhere in their pathways, just as almost all cancers share similar mechanism of cell physiology in taking the last step to malignancy. But that last step to uncontrolled growth is not the cause of cancer – what causes cancer is what leads eventually to that last step. Likewise, inflammation is not the cause of disease; it is a shared mechanism of disease progression following various assaults on our bodies, just as different cancers sharing comparable physiological processes are the consequence of being exposed to various carcinogens. Exposure to asbestos fibers can cause mesothelioma; high levels of radiation can cause leukemia. Once we are exposed, both insults (if resulting in these very different cancers) ultimately lead to malignancy through similar cellular mechanisms. The same idea applies directly to inflammation. We know for example that serious overeating in one sitting can trigger inflammation: what we need to focus on is eating less, not inflammation. Fixating on inflammation misses the point, unless you are a researcher studying disease. Inflammation is a legitimate and important target for research as we learn more about disease progression and means of combatting pathologies once initiated. For the rest of us, we need to avoid behaviors that promote ill health in general (which as a consequence will reduce inflammation and many other cellular mechanisms that ultimately lead to disease). Our goal is not to reduce inflammation to prevent disease any more than our goal is to stop phosphorylation in cells on the verge of malignancy as a means of preventing cancer; instead, we need to adopt habits do not result in disease in the first place. And this is where misinformation has run wild. We do ourselves a disservice by trying to attack the process of how a disease progresses rather than preventing the disease to begin with.

Food Claims

What drives me to distraction are false and unsubstantiated claims linking foods to inflammation. Have no doubt; eating can trigger an inflammatory response. That much is true. But not much of what else you read is. Here is what we know. We already mentioned that eating too much at one time can lead to acute inflammation, which will dissipate as the body metabolizes the meal. Habitually eating an excess of calories forcing the body to store the extra energy as fat can trigger chronic inflammation. Evidence is growing that eating high concentrations of saturated fats can lead to an inflammatory response. We also know that the resulting inflammation from these assaults impacts a number of organs, and particularly the liver. We also know that overeating, obesity, high fat diets and other unhealthy eating habits can lead to diabetes, cancer, stroke, heart attack and host of other nasty problems, all of which involve inflammation in the progression of those diseases. But inflammation is not the problem; it is a step in the development of diseases that we generally set on course with unhealthy habits.

We also know that two things can reduce inflammation: fasting and exercise. These result in an increase in blood levels of beta-hydroxybutyrate and lactic acid; these chemicals through a complex series of biochemical reactions turn off genes involved in triggering the production of inflammasomes. Any other claims of foods that reduce inflammation are hype, and unproven.

That is what we know. And yet, we are bombarded with false or exaggerated claims in popular literature, websites and the blogosphere. Google any of these claims for citations:

“Ginger and turmeric have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties.” I love ginger and turmeric, but there is scant epidemiology to support the claim. It is just wishful thinking and the kind of bogus claim that distracts us from reality.

“Excess sugar intake will contribute to inflammation. It’s not just the obvious sugar but also the hidden sugars.” There is no such thing as hidden sugars; and sugar itself has nothing to do with inflammation, other than adding calories, which in excess we know can cause inflammation.

“Phytochemicals – natural chemicals found in plant foods… are also believed to help reduce inflammation.” There is no evidence for this statement. Of course, eating plant rather than animal products would reduce saturated fat intake, which in excess can cause inflammation.

“Inflammation has also been linked to unbalanced levels of certain hormones, such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. That’s why chronic inflammation often inflicts menopausal women, causing conditions like osteoporosis, weight gain, and adult acne.” This claim is not substantiated by any serious clinical research.

“Foods that combat inflammation include tomatoes, green leafy vegetables and nuts like almonds and walnuts.” Well, no, that is not true at all. These foods simply do not promote inflammation, which is not the same as combatting it. Avoiding rotten food is not the same thing as treating food poisoning.

“Monica has done exhaustive research on the nutritional components of 1,600 common foods, and rated them according to scientifically validated factors related to inflammation.” Well, scientists would be surprised by this since there are no “scientifically validated factors related to inflammation.” Just foods with or without saturated fats, which we know in excess can lead to inflammation. This does not require “exhaustive research.”

Disease Claims

These two examples are what are typically found on the web now; there are multiple dozens of similar claims screaming across the internet:

“Chronic inflammation is the root cause of many serious diseases.” No it is not; it is an important step, but one of many, in the progression of diseases generally caused by bad habits.

“Inflammation is the cause of nearly all disease.” Wrong at every level; there are many diseases not associated with inflammation, and it is not typically the cause of disease. Rather inflammation is a pathway to pathology shared across many diseases (remember the cancer analogy).

Confusion of Ideas

The misinformation surrounding inflammation is not a simple case of confusing correlation with causation. True enough, inflammation is correlated with many diseases, and this correlation is mistakenly thought to prove causation. But the problem is deeper than that.

We have confused the cellular processes of disease development with the initial assaults that lead to these cellular processes. It is as if threw a ball at a friend’s head knowing that this will cause damage that we really do not want to cause; but we throw the ball anyway, and our solution then is to try to shoot down the ball in mid-flight before impact. Our priorities are misplaced.

I strongly support research into inflammation and its broad association with the progression of many diseases. This important and growing field of study will help us understand the many cellular mechanisms that lead to pathology. Surely, too, such research will identify targets for treatment, just as cancer research has helped identify cellular targets for attacking that disease. The rest of us should stop focusing on inflammation; it is a distraction. Unless you are in the lab, inflammation is not something you should be concerned about any more than you care about the role of kinases in the development of cancer. We need to get our priorities straight. Forget inflammation and pay attention to what matters: eat healthy, eat little and exercise if you want to reduce the chance of suffering from the many diseases associated with bad diet.

A Troubling Response to Brutality

The news on both left and right has been awash with stories of police troubles, each of course with a different angle. On the left we have exposés of police abuse, brutality, corruption and the deaths of suspects in custody or being arrested; on the right, the focus is on street riots, lawlessness and violence against the police. We have seen stories from Ferguson, Albuquerque, New Orleans, South Florida, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle. The number of cases seems to grow daily; perhaps we are simply witnessing greater exposure due to heightened awareness and the ubiquity of cell phone cameras; or perhaps the problem is escalating; or some combination of those two. In any case, we have a problem that demands attention.

We need police; society would quickly descend into dystopian chaos and anarchy in their absence. Most police are honorable, and the majority of officers go to work each day with the idea of protecting the public with integrity. Police have one of the toughest jobs on earth, waking up every day to the threat of violence and danger. But that fact is no excuse to ignore or protect those bad apples who abuse their power and bring shame to law enforcement.

Nobody should be shocked that we find abuse and corruption in police departments; that is a natural part of the human condition. We must always be vigilant against this, and constantly need to minimize and weed it out, but should always expect our darker side to reveal itself in every institution. None of us should be surprised that racism is a problem in law enforcement; racists exist in nearly all human enterprise. Even while offering condemnation, no one could claim astonishment that unhappy residents resort to violence and inexcusable attacks on fellow citizens in the face of abuse that seems to go unpunished.

No, nothing about these stories is particularly unexpected, even in their inherent tragedy and sad commentary on our society. But the extraordinary nature of law enforcement’s insular institutional blindness and the triumph of tribalism among police demand more attention. We see little emphasis on what might be the most important aspect of the right-left divide over the nature of police power.

Left and right bring with them bias that is deeply flawed. On the left, protestors tend to paint all police as corrupt and abusive, failing to isolate the bad from the good. On the right, conservatives defend the police no matter the transgression, failing to excise the bad from the good, while accusing the left of hating the police because they wish to cull the bad. Even in the face of extraordinary polarization in our society, this divide is a bit bizarre because in the end both left and right could agree, even for different reasons, that bad police should be removed from the force.

Alas, extremism has triumphed once again, and we hear tone-deaf statements from Gene Ryan of the Fraternal Order of Police concerning the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Remember, to put the following comments in context, Gray died in custody from a severe spinal cord injury; he was healthy when arrested. Video cameras caught Gray, who was not committing a crime, being handcuffed and dragged and thrown into a van by police, while screaming in pain. This is not an isolated incident: Baltimore has settled more than 100 cases of misconduct against the police department; even if a substantial portion were bogus or trumped-up, there is a trend that cannot be ignored.

With that in mind, consider that Ryan asserted that there’s “no indication of any criminal activity whatsoever.” That claim does not pass the smell test. So, nothing suspicious or worthy of investigation when a handcuffed suspect dies from a violent spinal injury in the hands of the police. Ryan went on to complain that the protestors wanted cops “imprisoned immediately” without due process – not recognizing the terrible irony in that Freddie Gray, without committing a crime, was going to be “imprisoned immediately” as is routine after an arrest. The due process so adamantly (and correctly) insisted on by Ryan was not provided to Freddie Gray, cut short by an untimely death. Ryan went on to say that arresting the officers suspected in causing Gray’s death “set a bad precedent” and a rush to judgement. Arresting suspects of murder is a bad precedent? Is not every arrest by nature a rush to judgment since the arrestee remains innocent until proven otherwise? Is arresting suspects only a bad precedent when they are police officers? And if so, under what circumstances would it ever be acceptable to arrest a police officer accused of a crime? In a conservative world keen on law and order, it is a bit outrageous to claim that arresting crime suspects is a bad precedent, whoever they may be.

There was also the implication from law enforcement leaders that the arrest of the officers in Baltimore was politically motivated. Well, yes, that is almost certainly the case. But a decision not to arrest those officers would also be politically motivated as well, culling favor with conservatives; lamenting politics impacting an issue so charged with emotion and headlining the nightly news is hardly interesting. Let’s concede that political considerations overlay the entire issue. That does not make the arrests any less righteous.

Chuck Canterbury, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police said the following: “Nobody hates bad cops more than other cops, and the FOP doesn’t have any sympathy for a cop who crosses the line. That being said, every US citizen including cops, teachers or heck even politicians- have a right to the presumption of innocence and to due process.”

Initially, this seems entirely reasonable. But if the FOP hates bad cops, why do we see such a paucity of examples of the FOP or police departments publicly condemning a bad cop? What exactly would trigger this response against a bad cop? How about the death of a restrained suspect who suffered a severe spinal injury? Shooting an unarmed man, on the ground on his knees? Shooting an unarmed suspect in the back while running away? If not that, what would be sufficient for the FOP to acknowledge that a cop was actually bad, not just concede in theory that a bad cop should go? What happened to the presumption of innocence and due process for the folks who died at the hands of rogue police officers?

And this brings us to the most surprising aspect of the entire story: I agree completely with Canterbury that nobody should hate bad cops more than good cops – but in spite of the rhetoric they do not. They inevitably rally, personally and institutionally, to the defense of any cop no matter the transgression or how heinous the alleged crime. And that is a huge mystery, even given the natural urges of tribal loyalty. Good cops should absolutely despise a bad one; good cops should acknowledge that in any human enterprise there will be bad eggs, and that such rot should be vigorously cleansed. Recognizing the problem and acting on it does not reflect badly on law enforcement; indeed, a bit of transparency would go a long way towards creating good will among the public. The existence of brutality and corruption by themselves do not condemn a police force; these failures are found everywhere. Instead, it is the urge to protect the bad apples, to cover up, ignore or diminish the brutality and corruption that leads to distrust, animosity and anger.

Unfortunately, police have a tendency to adopt a siege mentality, circling the wagons on every occasion of potential wrongdoing. Then they wonder why the public has a growing distrust of police departments, even as they defend the indefensible. Police must stop defending criminals in their midst if they hope to regain the public support they should so clearly have. The public rightfully reacts with alarm when those entrusted to protect instead harm. What recourse is there other than peaceful protest? The reaction would be quite different, and the urge to violence much diminished, if police accused of crimes were arrested like any other suspect — and given due process, just like the rest of us should be.

Hypocrisy in the ranks also contributes to diminished public trust. By definition, police work depends on the idea that good people respect legitimate authority. That notion is why most interactions between police and civilians work well. We respect the authority of the state and our government institutions represented by the badge and uniform. Yet we saw not long ago an example in which police blatantly flaunted their disregard for authority even while asking us to accept theirs.

At the memorial services for fallen officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in New York, hundreds of police officers turned their backs on their ultimate boss, Mayor Bill de Blasio. This, in spite of a specific request from the Police Commissioner William Bratton to restrain from such protest at the funeral. So those who turned their backs defied their immediate supervisor and his superior, showing an astonishing disrespect for authority. And the impetus for the protest is itself revealing about the insular siege mentality mentioned earlier. The protesting police were incensed that earlier Mayor de Blasio did not, in their opinion, condemn with sufficient rigor public protests over encounters between police and unarmed civilians. One such encounter led to the death of Eric Garner. Again, the irony of the police insurgence against their own bosses while lamenting lack of public respect for police authority in the face of a suspicious death was apparently lost on much of the rank and file.

If police wish to gain the trust of those they are sworn to protect, there is a simple initial step. To the police I say, respect the lives of private citizens as much as you hold dear the lives of your comrades. Freddie Gray was not convicted of a crime; he was an innocent civilian who, by dying in custody, was deprived of the due process so passionately called for by the police for those officers charged with killing him. Just as you came out in large numbers in solidarity for police officers killed in the line of duty, at least try to understand that the death of a civilian evokes in us a similar response. Take the emotion and angst that is felt from the loss of Officers Ramos and Liu, and understand that we civilians feel not only the loss of those fine officers as you do, but also equally for the loss of Gray, Phillip White, Kelly Thomas, Jorge Azucena, Jesus Huerta, Herman Jaramillo, and every one of the multiple dozens who have died in custody or while being arrested. By definition, no matter if these people meet or not our criteria for good or bad, they are innocent because none had yet been proven guilty in our courts; and like the police officers arresting them, deserve due process. And if good cops really hate bad cops, then you should stand tall with us in asking that the police officers responsible for the death of civilians in custody be held responsible for their crimes; just as you wish those who harm police to be held responsible. You should see no difference between the two.

Developing an “us versus them” mentality is understandable given the daily depravity that police witness. There is an endless supply of nasty, mean, dangerous, horrible, violent, degenerate human beings out there, and interacting with the worst of us every day cannot help but lead to deep bonds with fellow officers, creating a profound and lasting camaraderie not shared by or understood by civilians. We do not deal with the dregs of our society because police do on our behalf. But this offers no justification for police taking the law into their own hands; it is their special burden to administer justice in the face of witnessing daily injustice. That is their job; and those who violate that responsibility must be held responsible.

Arresting police officers accused of a crime is not a “bad precedent” at all; it is the right course of action, and an essential step in establishing public trust in law enforcement. We could avoid almost all of our problems if the police would apply the same standards of response to violence against police to police violence against suspects in custody. Fairness, equal treatment under the law and mutual respect are not radical concepts; and not too much to ask from those who protect us.

Confederate History Month: An Embarrassing Abomination

Many of us think of April as the heart of spring, when life renews with a comforting exuberance and riot of color. Some think of Earth Day, a celebration to protect the little blue dot we call home. But others have a different more sinister celebration in mind.

Seven state governments have designated April as Confederate History Month. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia all participate in this misguided paean to a troubling past. No, this is not the continuation of some long-standing tradition, but amazingly a creature of modern politics starting in1994.

After some waning enthusiasm, in 2010 then-Governor Robert McDonnell of Virginia resurrected April as the month to commemorate Confederate history. In doing so, he never mentioned slavery. When questioned about this curious oversight, McDonnell lamely explained that “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.” Really? If slavery was not among the most “significant” issues for Virginia, exactly what other state right was being violated by federal law leading to the Civil War? Does McDonnell even know the history of the war? Under pressure, he later apologized for the omission. Sadly, McDonnell was the not the first governor of his state to explicitly omit slavery from lofty declarations. Former Republican Virginia Governor Republican George Allen also failed to recognize slavery when making a similar proclamation. Seems to be a disease of Republican governors, a historic irony given the role of the young Republican Party in the war. But I get ahead of myself. Let’s start, logically enough, at the beginning.

Fort Sumter and a Terrible Cause

With a volley of artillery fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the South started a war that nearly destroyed the United States in pursuit of a terrible cause. In that conflict more than 630,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in four years of hellish war. To place this in perspective consider that the entire population of the United States at war’s end was 35 million, putting war casualties at nearly two percent of the total populace. Equivalent rates of casualties today would result in five million dead or wounded, dwarfing our losses in World War II, or any other war.

Two percent of our population suffered death or maiming over the issue of state sovereignty and the interpretation of the Tenth Amendment (ratified in 1791). The text is simple enough:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

But we also have the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, which states,

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

That “terrible cause” of the South is usually thought of as the defense of slavery. This is what we are all taught in school; and the idea is strongly entrenched today. In the April 10, 2011, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. defined the Civil War as a conflict over property rights, the property being of course four million slaves living in the South at the time. He concludes that the “Civil War was about slavery, nothing more.”

He is wrong; we just have to look at the tension between these two sections of our Constitution. To place this in contact, I urge all to read Shelby Foote’s award-winning treatise on the Civil War. Yes, stating the terribly obvious, slavery was of course the central point of contention, but as an example of state sovereignty versus federal authority. The war was fought over state’s rights and the limits of federal power in a union of states. The perceived threat to state autonomy became an existential one through the specific dispute over slavery. The issue was not slavery per se, but who decided whether slavery was acceptable, local institutions or a distant central government power. That distinction is not one of semantics: this question of local or federal control to permit or prohibit slavery as the country expanded west became increasingly acute in new states, eventually leading to that fateful artillery volley at Fort Sumter.

Specifically, eleven southern states seceded from the Union in protest against federal legislation that limited the expansion of slavery claiming that such legislation violated the tenth amendment, which they argued trumped the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the Constitution. The war was indeed about protecting the institution of slavery, but only as a specific case of a state’s right to declare a federal law null and void. Southern states sought to secede because they believed that the federal government had no authority to tell them how to run their affairs. The most obvious and precipitating example was the North’s views on slavery. So yes, the South clearly fought to defend slavery as a means of protecting their sordid economic system and way of life, but they did so with slavery serving as the most glaring example of federal usurpation of state powers of self-determination. The war would be fought to prevent those states from seceding, not to destroy the institution of slavery. The war would be fought over different interpretations of our founding document.

The inherent repelling forces between Article VI and the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution have kept lawyers busy and wealthy from the day the words were penned, and the argument goes on today. But the South went a significant step further than arguing a case. In seceding from the Union those states declared the U.S. Constitution dead. The president of the United States, sworn to uphold the Constitution, had no choice but to take whatever measures were necessary to fulfill his commitment. Cleary if any state could withdraw from the Union whenever that state disagreed with others, the Union over which Lincoln presided would not last long. So war came.

But freedom for slaves did not. President Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until January 1, 1863, more than one and a half years after the war started. His goal was initially to preserve the Union, and he only issued that proclamation when he felt doing so would promote that objective. One could argue that if the primary cause of the war was slavery then Lincoln’s first act would have been to free them. Historians have written many volumes on Lincoln’s timing and motivation, but one thing is clear: slavery was not his first priority.

To support the idea that the war was only about slavery, Mr. Pitts cites newspaper quotes from 1860 that note the grave threat to the economic value of slaves if the North prevailed politically; and Mr. Pitt provides quotes from a few articles of separation from states that specifically reference slavery as a cause for seceding. But that just proves what we already know: the South wanted to defend slavery and their cotton economy. We understandably focus on this specific while ignoring the broader issue in contest. But a subset of a set is not the set. An example of an issue is not the issue. Slavery was a specific issue of a perceived violation of a state’s rights, over which the country went to war. Claiming the Civil War was about slavery alone is like saying that the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt was about unseating Mubarak and nothing else. That conclusion misses the more important point that the real issue was self-determination and the right to a representative government. Mubarak was not the issue, only a specific example of the larger problem of a non-representative government. Ousting Mubarak was a subset of a larger set.

Succession is Destruction

Let’s be clear that the South’s quest to secede could only lead to the destruction of the the United States, not only through war but just in the act of secession alone. Once the principle of seceding is established the glue holding the Union together would soon dissolve. The legitimacy of secession could lead to nothing but balkanization, a group of independent states much like we see in Europe. The United States of American could not exist. Some southern loyalists try to skirt this historic reality by claiming they did not seek to harm the United States, only secede from it. But that is patently absurd because with the ability to secede comes disunion as an inevitable consequence. Proof of that is in the fact that during the war the Confederacy began to dissolve through the secession of Southern states from the Confederacy. South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union, also threatened later to secede from the Confederacy, as did Georgia later in the war.

Southerners today seem incapable of understanding that the South started and then lost a war that nearly destroyed the United States. The South lost decisively. The rebel cause was unjust, immoral and treasonous. The economic justification was unseemly; the actions were treasonous. There is no part of the Confederate cause of which to be proud. There is no moral high ground here.

The war mercifully ended before the Confederacy collapsed under its own weight of moral decay and disintegration through secession. On April 3, 1865, Richmond, Virginia, fell to Union soldiers as Confederate troops retreated to the West, exhausted, weak, and low on supplies. On April 5, Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant started an exchange of notes that would lead to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

We should pause here a moment to take one issue off the table as we note the war’s end. Certainly one can rightly honor the bravery of fallen soldiers no matter whether they wore blue or grey. We can appreciate the rare military genius of Robert E. Lee, and the loyalty and dedication of Stonewall Jackson, George Pickett and Nathan Forrest. These generals and the men they led fought valiantly, with integrity, with honor, for a cause in which they believed passionately even if we despise that cause and know it to be heinous. Honoring a man’s bravery or military insight is not equivalent to honoring the cause for which he fought. And have no doubt that the cause championed by the South should cover every American with shame.

But damn if the South does not hold on to the war as if they never actually lost and as if their cause was just. Southerners seem unable to admit there is nothing to celebrate. So the celebrations stubbornly march on.

Confederate Flags and the Paradox of Patriotism

Which brings us to the Confederate flags issue. What exactly about the war’s history would lead one to fly a Confederate flag over a state capitol building, or paste one on a F150 bumper or wear one on a T-shirt? Does a confederate flag indicate pride about the effort to protect slavery? Or attempting to secede from the Union? For starting a war in which two percent of the population died? For losing the war? These are odd banners to carry around for more than 150 years. Perhaps the pride comes from the fact that the South stood up to a greater power, at least checking or slowing the pace of an expanding federalism. But even that does not pass the smell test; by starting but then losing the war the South created the exact opposite effect, solidifying federal power like never before.

Few things could be more absurd than simultaneously flying Old Glory and a flag of the Confederacy over a state capitol, a practice only recently and most reluctantly abandoned. Forget not that when a state seceded from the Union one of the first acts was to destroy the Union flag, that is, the flag of the United States, atop the state capitol building. In fact, the moniker Old Glory comes from 1831 when Captain William Driver, a shipmaster in Salem, Massachusetts, unfurled on his ship a brand new banner with 24 stars prior to embarking on a voyage that would eventually lead to the rescue of the mutineers of the Bounty. He was so taken by the magnificent flag waving to the ocean breeze that he yelled “Old Glory.” He took the flag with him when he retired to Nashville. When Tennessee seceded from the Union, Rebels were determined to find and destroy this flag. So let us not romanticize what secession meant; it was anti-American by every definition; Rebels were set on destroying the symbol that represented the union they sought to dissolve. That is the very same Stars and Stripes that they now so proudly wave as patriots. The inconsistency and hypocrisy are horribly ignorant of our history.

Any version of the confederate flag flying anywhere is an affront to all Americans, at least those who live in the 21st century. Southerners claim a deep allegiance to the good old United States of America but ironically celebrate their ancestors’ efforts to dissolve the very union of states whose flag they now so proudly fly. They honor a campaign to dissolve our country but claim the mantle of patriot, wrapping themselves in the very Stars and Stripes the South sought to leave behind. That makes no sense. The contradiction is always swept under the rug, but that must stop. Now is a good time to close this chapter of hypocrisy and inconsistency. A southern loyalist cannot be a patriot; the two ideals are mutually incompatible. You cannot simultaneously love the United States and love the idea of dissolving the bond between states that constitute the country. To claim both is insane, the equivalent of declaring that you love all Chinese food but hate chow mein. The claims are each exclusive of the other and therefore by definition both cannot be true. You can’t be proud to be among those who wanted to secede from America while claiming to be proud to be American. That is crazy.

How “Legal to Discriminate” Became “Freedom and Liberty”

Enough press attention has been given to the “religious freedom” laws in Indiana and Arkansas that there was initially little incentive to write more. That is, until conservatives reacted to opposition to the laws with an excess that is astonishing even for Fox News. The wing-nuts have come loose, to the extent that the entire coordinated media effort to attack liberals has taken on the distinct odor of desperation. But even that is not the real story. Before we reveal the plot, however, let’s put this issue in context.

As expected, and right on cue, Bill O’Reilly entered stage right to pound his chest against the war on Christians, an extension of his false war on Christmas. Here is O’Reilly’s thought when contemplating that not everybody would support the Indiana law: “In the U.S. and in Western Europe you have a civil war between the secular progressives and traditional religious people. In both cases, Christians are targets.”

What reverberates in our skulls is the obvious disconnect between reality and this tired conservative storyline. A bully calling his victim a bully is hard to digest. According to a 2008 survey from Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, more than 78 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Others more recently put that figure at 83 percent. Only 4 percent are self-proclaimed non-believers (broken into the survey categories of atheists at 1.6% and agnostics at 2.4 percent). Only about 3 percent of the population is in the LGBT community.

O’Reilly has plenty of fellow passengers on this derailing train of delusion. Tucker Carlson radio guest Tammy Bruce said liberals have turned into bullies and that conservatives have the obligation to “stop that kind of behavior.” Tammy went on to note that critics of the Indiana law were “a fascist wolf pack.” Tom Cotton (R-AK) said gays should be thankful they are not being hanged, as they are in the Iran. Mark Levin, a conservative radio host, draws a broader sweep of conclusions about any opposition to the Indian law: “The people who oppose these laws hate liberty; they hate the Constitution,” he said on his show earlier this week. “I’ll go even further: they hate America.” Mike Huckabee believes that opposition to the laws means that liberals won’t stop “until there are no more churches, until there are no more people who are spreading the Gospel [...] and I’m talking now about the unabridged, unapologetic Gospel that is really God’s truth.”

So in spite of vast, huge, massive, overwhelming, deeply embedded supermajorities, the conservative Christians that dominate our airwaves continue to speak in the dialect of victimhood. For the rest of us, the idea of Christians as modern victims while enjoying a dominating, crushing majority is difficult to swallow. A Christian complaining that Christianity is under attack when we are all submerged in that religion’s ubiquitous presence is like a fish in the Pacific Ocean complaining that there is not enough water to swim in. From the perspective of a tiny single-digit minority, any claim by a group representing 80 percent of the population that the views of a few are a threat to the many is simply surreal. Nobody would take seriously a big brute of a bully who beat the daylights out of an innocent bystander, and then claimed he was victimized because he scraped his knuckles on his victim’s forehead. Yet that is what we are witnessing in Fox News lamenting and complaining about their sore knuckles.

Still, as radical as these views are, none is surprising. Even as we recoil in horror, we have come to expect nothing less from Fox News or from the excesses of blind religious zeal wrapped in the flag of a false patriotism. This is all just colorful background for the real story.

What is shocking about Indiana (or Arkansas) law is not that religious zealots will trample our constitution in the name of their god; no, the real story is the complete acquiescence of the mainstream press to the Orwellian twisting of our language to suit the conservative agenda. I have not come across a single instance in which a major newspaper or TV reporter has challenged the term “religious freedom” and called the statute for what it is: the “Legal to Discriminate” law or “Christians Only” law or “Jews Need Not Enter” law or the “We Hate Gays” law. Do you think the law would have as much support if we used the proper moniker? Language matters. As George Carlin noted, in one of his many famous rifts on the oddities of word usage, you can say “prick your finger” in polite company but not “finger your prick.” How we characterize something impacts how we react; and yet here we are all blindly talking about “religious freedom” or equally egregious “religious liberty” when what we actually face is the loss of one of our most basic rights. The contrast between the words and the reality could not be starker, and with few exceptions (like George Takai) I hear little from mainstream media challenging the description. We have come to a sad state when “religious liberty” means the precise opposite, such that such “liberty” denies me the right to practice my religion without fear of discrimination or denial of services readily available to my neighbor. Let’s be clear: while gays were the initial target of these pro-discrimination laws, nothing would stop a shop-owner from denying service to anybody offensive to his or her religious ideal.

Words matter; words impact our perception. We talk of “freedom” and “liberty” and how Christians are bullied and victims. We should instead be calling these laws exactly what they are: an attempt by a supermajority to crush anybody and anything that does not comply with their narrow set of intolerant beliefs. The right to discriminate is an ugly pig, no matter how much lipstick we apply. Let’s get it right when we talk about it. But we’d better hurry, otherwise there will “be no more churches.”

We Are All Atheists

So a Rabbi and an Atheist walk into a bar. What is funny about this joke entree is that the encounter made real news, in the form of a nice talk about good and evil, with the implication that an atheist cannot tell the difference. In another bulletin, a vast majority of Americans admit they do not want atheists to marry their children. Atheist in-laws are a taboo.

Trouble in Paradise

Eschewing relatives who reject the idea of god is just a small glimpse of the bias against atheists. In North Carolina, elected officials are constitutionally disqualified from office if they “deny the being of Almighty God.” But let us not pick on the ignorant bias of the Tar Heel state, for they are not alone in primitive thinking appropriate to the 1600s. Yes, in modern America, we live in an era where public office holders in many states must pass a religious test. Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas all deny atheists the right to hold public office. Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled way back in 1961 that the U.S. Constitution trumps such outrageous religious discrimination through the supremacy of federal law. Atheists then are denied a right that any other American would take for granted without a second thought.

Outside the borders of the United States, 13 countries enforce laws that revoke citizenship for the crime of atheism; and since it is a crime, atheists cannot get married in these countries. If that were not enough, atheists can be put to death in these 13 Islamic states. An atheist blogger was hacked to death in Bangladesh.

The cold hard fact is that atheists face global persecution, yet attacks are rarely reported in mainstream news. In contrast, any attack on a Christian gets plenty of attention. One piece in the New York Times pleaded, “Who Will Stand Up for the Christians?” Here is a headline you’ll never see: “Who will stand up for the Atheists?” The Catholic press emphasized that ISIS is killing Christians, which is true, but ignored that fact that ISIS is killing anybody they deem unworthy of their radical Islamic beliefs, including other Muslims and Jews. Is the killing of a Christian worse than the murder of an atheist or Muslim? Apparently.

Everybody is An Atheist

The deep and terrible irony of this global persecution of atheists is that all of us are in fact atheists, even the most devout, undoubting, dedicated priest, rabbi or mullah.

The word atheist derives from Greek, originally from the adjective atheos, meaning “without god.” The term was later invoked by Greek writers to mean “denying the gods.” All of us are without or deny the existence of at least some gods, and therefore all of us are atheists. This is undeniable: all monotheistic believers reject all gods, except one. They reject all the Greek elder gods Cronus, Gaea, Uranus, Rhea, Oceanus, Tethys, Hyperion, Mnemosyne, Themis, Iapetus, Coeus, Crius, Phoebe, Thea, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, Metis, and Dione.

Muslims, Jews and Christians all deny the existence of the Greek Olympic gods Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis, and Hephaestus. All major religions today dismiss as nothing but myth the Roman gods Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, Apollo, Diana, Mars, Venus, Cupid, Mercury, Minerva, Ceres, Proserpine, Vulcan, Bacchus, Saturn, Vesta, Janus, Uranus and Maia.

Yet this roster of gods was real to multiple thousands of people for thousands of years, every bit as real as the one god worshipped by Christians, Muslims and Jews today. These Greek and Roman gods were the subject of daily pleas, prayers and sacrifice, and the guiding force for much daily ritual. These mighty powers stood for millennia, ruling over their followers for a period of time that greatly exceeds all of Christianity. These gods are now demoted to nothing more glorious than a good story. What would convey upon these gods more or less legitimacy than the god of John, Matthew, Mark and Luke? Nothing.

If asked, Christians, Jews and Muslims today would use numerous and diverse reasons to deny the existence of Greek and Roman gods, who were so important to so many people for so long. Religious folks today are quite convinced that Greek and Roman gods are nothing but myth. I simply extend that reasoning to include the one remaining god. Everybody is an atheist; I merely exclude the existence of one more god than those who consider themselves religious. You deny the existence of Zeus and Jupiter; I deny the existence of Zeus, Jupiter and your one god. Whatever logic and reasoning, or faith, you apply to deny that Zeus and Jupiter are real, I agree, and apply that to your god as well.

This argument, this line of reasoning, is not some semantic sleight-of-hand. Any good Christian or Jew would dismiss outright, as absurd, the possibility that Zeus exists as a real god. He or she would do so with gusto, with no inner doubts, with no hesitation, with unyielding certainty. For identical reasons, using the same logic, and with the same unyielding certainty, we dismiss out of hand the absurd possibility that the god of the Old and New Testament could exist as a real god. We all agree in principle; we’re just haggling about a number, with my calculation resulting in one fewer god in the equation.

A Move to Rationalism

Now that we have established that all of us are atheists, the time has come to prove that there are no atheists. Or more precisely, the word atheist should be permanently retired as a description of what we all are. Just as society was able to move past Jim Crow, we need to leave behind the biased idea of atheism. The word embeds a false assumption that god exits; and that there are then people who are “without” that god. Defining anybody or any movement as the negative of another is a bad start. I refuse to be defined as an absence of what somebody else supposedly has; I simply cannot be without something that does not exist. I am not lacking what someone is fortunate enough to possess. The idea is ridiculous. Calling me an atheist is like defining me as a man without a dragon tail, and then denying me my rights because I do not have a dragon tail. I cannot be absent something that is nothing but another’s myth.

I am a rationalist, and if others wish to believe in an invisible man in the sky with magical powers, we can label them arationalists. There are not believers and non-believers or theists and atheists; that inverts reality. Instead, henceforth, think in terms of rationalism and arationalism, a world in which the standard is an objective reality, not a 2000 year old myth.

African-Americans were once called “Colored” when civil rights were a distant dream. That word is offensive because of the implication that all others must be compared to the pure “standard” of White. If black skin was considered the standard, all Caucasians would be properly called “a-pigmented” or “uncolored.” That only sounds strange because we are so used to the bias. But if we accepted the standard as black, we would indeed be uncolored relative to that standard, so the moniker would make perfect sense. Likewise, the word atheist implies a standard of religiosity in which belief in god is somehow the measure by which all others must be judged. But be clear: religion is no more legitimate as a standard than is white skin.

I stand on a soap box about this because of the power of words to impact our perception. Atheism is a pejorative term in the eyes of believers because it is the negative of them (without something that others have), and with that inherent negativity comes implied permission to discriminate blatantly and openly. Proof is seen in such blatant discrimination, like prohibition in holding public office. Or being killed for harboring rational thought. We can trash or harm that which we do not respect. During the Second World War we called our enemies Japs and Krauts among other degrading epithets in order to diminish them as humans, making them easier to hate, fight and kill. Our cause was just enough without the name calling. Many believers use “atheists” in a similarly derogative vein. The solution is to abandon completely the use of the term atheist, just as polite society no longer uses the “N” word to describe African-Americans, “Rag Heads” for Arabs or “Wet Backs” for those south of the border. Offensive? Yes, just as is the use of the word atheist. Rationalism and arationalism; that is the appropriate distinction.

Founding Fathers: We Are Not a Christian Nation

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

John Adams

As we witness yet again the brutal and bloody consequences of religious intolerance in the form of ISIS, we have the majority of Republicans pining for a Christian America. Proponents of converting the United States into a theocracy do not see the terrible parallel between religious excess in the Middle East and here at home; but they would not because blindness to reason is the inevitable consequence of religious zealotry.

Conservatives who so proudly tout their fealty to the Constitution want to trash our founding document by violating the First Amendment in hopes of establishing Christianity as the nation’s religion. This is precisely what the Constitution prohibits:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Back to the Beginning

How terribly ironic that the louder Christians protest against the excesses of Islam the more they agitate for Christian excess. We really need to stop this ridiculous argument about being a Christian nation. If there should be any doubt, let us listen to the founding fathers themselves. This from Thomas Jefferson in an April 11, 1823, letter to John Adams:

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” He went on to say in his concluding paragraphs, “But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding…”

These are not the words form a man who wishes to establish a Christian theocracy. Jefferson promoted tolerance above all, and said earlier that his statute for religious freedom in Virginia was “meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.” He specifically wished to avoid the dominance of a single religion.

Let us be perfectly clear. We are not now, nor have we ever been, a Christian nation. Our Founding Fathers explicitly and clearly excluded any reference to god or the almighty, or any euphemism for a higher power, in the Constitution. Not one time is the word “god” mentioned in our founding document. Not one time.

The facts of our history are easy enough to verify. Anybody who ignorantly insists that our nation is founded on Christian ideals need only look at the four most important documents from our early history to disprove that ridiculous religious bias: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution all unambiguously prove our secular origins.

Declaration of Independence (1776)

The most important assertion in this document is that “…to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Note that the power of government is derived not from god but from the people. No appeal is made in this document to god for authority of any kind. In no case are any powers given to religion in the affairs of man.

Remember, too, that this document was not written to form or found a government, but was stating intent meant to appeal to an audience with European sensibilities. Only four times is there any reference at all to higher powers, specifically: laws of nature and of nature’s god, supreme judge of the world, their creator, and divine providence. In all four cases the references to a higher power appeal to the idea of inherent human dignity, never implying a role for god in government.

Articles of Confederation (1777)

Throughout the entire document, in all 13 articles, the only reference to anything remotely relating to god is the phrase used one time, the “great governor of the world” and then only in the context of general introduction, like “ladies and gentlemen, members of the court…” Unlike the Declaration, this document did indeed seek to create a type of government in the form of a confederation of independent states. The authors gave no power or authority to religion. And this document is our first glimpse into the separation of church and state: because just as the Articles give no authority to religion in civil matters, so too does the document deny any authority of government in matters of faith.

U.S. Constitution (1787)

This one is easy, because the Constitution of the United States of America makes zero reference to god or Christianity.

The only reference to religion is a negative one in Article VI, which states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” And of course we have the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an established of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Federalist Papers (1787-88)

As Thomas Jefferson was the genius behind the Declaration, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (publishing under the pseudonym of Publius) were the brains providing the intellectual foundation of our Constitution. And what brilliance they brought to the task. I remember the first time I picked up the Federalist Papers I intended to scan the book briefly, and then move on to more interesting pursuits. But I could not put it down; the book reads like an intriguing mystery novel with an intricate plot and complex characters acting on every human emotion. There is no better way to get into the minds of our Founding Fathers and to understand their original intent than by reading this collection of amazing essays.

As with the Constitution, at no time is god ever mentioned in the Federalist Papers. At no time is Christianity every mentioned. Religion is only discussed in the context of keeping matters of faith separate from concerns of governance, and of keeping religion free from government interference.

The Founding Fathers could not be clearer on this point: god has no role in government; Christianity has no role in government. They make this point explicitly, repeatedly, in multiple founding documents. We are not a Christian nation.

In God We Trust

Our national obsession with god in politics is actually a recent phenomenon, and would seem completely alien to any of our founders. “In God We Trust” was first placed on United States coins in 1861 during the Civil War (more about that in a bit). Teddy Roosevelt tried to remove the words from our money in 1907 but was shouted down. Only in 1956 was that phrase adopted as the national motto by the 84th Congress. The clause “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance was inserted only in 1954 when President Eisenhower signed legislation to recognize “the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty.” But conservatives, ignorant of our history, or willfully ignoring it, wish us to believe that the pledge always referenced god. Here is Sarah Palin’s take, defending the “under god” clause: “If the pledge was good enough for the founding fathers, its [sic] good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.” One wonders if she thinks the founders were alive in 1954. I guess in Noah could live to be nearly 800 years old…

That we are a secular nation was obvious to past generations. So much so that several groups formed in the mid-1800s to rectify what they considered a mistake of our forefathers in founding our country on principles of reason rather than faith. Perhaps the most prominent was the National Reform Association, established in 1863 for the purpose of amending the preamble to the Constitution to acknowledge God and Jesus Christ as the sources of all government power. Because the original document does not.

The National Reform Association believed that the civil war was evidence that God was punishing the country for their failure to put God into the Constitution. Nothing to do with slavery of course. Also, note that this apparent knowledge of god’s mind is reminiscent of Pat Robertson’s claims about god’s wrath in Haiti, Florida and anywhere else he believes the devil has taken hold. Anyway, in their 1864 convention the Association agreed on a preamble that would replace “We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” with “Recognizing Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, and acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ as the governor among the nations, his revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government…”

They presented their suggestion to President Lincoln, who avoided it like a dirty diaper. The Congress also dodged the idea, but threw the group a bone by agreeing to put “In God We Trust” on our currency in an act of pure political pandering . So “In God We Trust” was first placed on United States coins in 1861 during the Civil War. From the Treasury, we also find out that:

“The use of ‘in God We Trust” has not been uninterrupted. The motto disappeared from the five-cent coin in 1883, and did not reappear until production of the Jefferson nickel began in 1938. Since 1938, all United States coins bear the inscription. Later, the motto was found missing from the new design of the double-eagle gold coin and the eagle gold coin shortly after they appeared in 1907. In response to a general demand, Congress ordered it restored, and the Act of May 18, 1908, made it mandatory on all coins upon which it had previously appeared. IN GOD WE TRUST was not mandatory on the one-cent coin and five-cent coin. It could be placed on them by the Secretary or the Mint Director with the Secretary’s approval. The motto has been in continuous use on the one-cent coin since 1909, and on the ten-cent coin since 1916. It also has appeared on all gold coins and silver dollar coins, half-dollar coins, and quarter-dollar coins struck since July 1, 1908.”

For much of our existence, the United States never included god in its motto, on its currency, or in any document creating the republic. We were born a secular nation and must remain one to sustain our future, unless we want to go the way of ISIS.

Our Founding Fathers understood well the extraordinary danger of mixing religion and politics; we forget that lesson at our great peril. If we forget, just glance over to the Middle East. I tremble in fear for my country when the majority of conservatives believe we are a Christian nation; that frightening majority has forgotten our history, ignored our founding principles and abandoned our most cherished ideal of separating church and state. In mixing religion and politics the religious right subverts both. And the world suffers.

The Conditional Sanctity of the Office of the President

Hypocrisy is nothing new to either side of the aisle. Short memories and expediency allow for feigned outrage against the latest policy that was, just a short time ago, righteously and patriotically advanced as vital to America’s future, depending on who is in and out of power. Such blind partisanship is par for the course for Democrats and Republicans. To catch our attention, then, we must indeed pass a high threshold of double standard to rise above the cesspool stench of national politics.

Somehow the GOP has risen to the challenge. Exhibit A is House Speaker Boehner’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak to Congress as an end-run around the White House policy on Iran sanctions; but we’ll get to that a bit later.

When a Republican sits in the Oval Office, nothing gets the blue blood of patriotism pumping faster than an affront to the president. With chests puffed up and flags waving, patriots tell us that the dignity of the office demands respect. During the Bush years of endless war, we cannot forget that any criticism of White House policy was a win for the terrorists. Is your memory of the “treason card” a little vague? Let me refresh as a means of putting Boehner’s disrespect in perspective.

Commander-in-Chief

The ubiquitous Bill O’Reilly said in 2004, and then often later, “You don’t criticize the Commander-in-Chief in the middle of a firefight. That could be construed as putting U.S. forces in jeopardy and undermining morale.”

That admonition seems to have vanished the moment Obama took office. Of our on-going war on terror, O’Reilly said, “Ever since he was elected in 2008, President Obama’s rhetoric has been soft on the Muslim threat.” Being in the middle of a firefight no longer seems to matter, because Bill also said, “It is al Qaeda versus us. We the American people, we don’t need to involve ourselves with Iraqi politics to defend ourselves against terrorists on the march.” That war against terrorism on the march is no barrier to Bill, who claimed, “Obama is under siege. His poll numbers are declining rapidly. Almost everywhere you look there is chaos.” Sounds much like criticizing the Commander-in-Chief in the middle of a firefight, something Bill said we should never do – when a Republican is president.

Not only did Bill criticize the president in a way he said we never should, he lied in the process about Obama’s poll numbers. Here is the verifiable truth: from January 1, 2014 to October 30, 2014, Obama’s approval rating fell from 42.6 percent to 42 percent. The year’s peak was 44 percent, and the low of the year was 41 percent. A drop of about one-half of one percent does not constitute numbers that are “plummeting” or “sinking” or even “dropping.” But Bill said they were “declining rapidly,” a lie that undermines all else that he said because he based his claims about chaos on that false claim of rapidly falling polls.

Tom Delay, former Speaker of the House, warned that Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be “successful in undermining the Commander-in-Chief” with the consequence that Democrats would be “emboldening the terrorists to kill more Americans in Iraq.” All because Pelosi and her fellow Democrats had the audacity to question the president’s policy in Iraq as it was clearly falling apart.

Yet Tom “Gerrymander” Delay does not hesitate to undermine the Commander-in-Chief if he happens to be Obama. “But this president is violating his oath of office. He’s abusing his power. The president of the United States, I don’t know where he gets the notion that he can legislate, change legislation, decide what law he’ll enforce and not enforce, this is all violating the Constitution of the United States and probably many statutes.” Tough criticism of the Commander-in-Chief for someone who worried that any such criticism would lead to more American deaths. We are, after all, still fighting the war on terror.

When Senator Dick Durbin was rude enough to question the policy of torturing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Karl Rove responded with the missive that, “Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”

But Karl what about conservative motives? Karl on Obama’s foreign policy speech at West Point in May 2014: “The president’s speech today is going to further disappoint our allies. They’re shaking their heads all over the world. And it’s going to further embolden our adversaries. Putin is sitting in the Kremlin laughing.” Somehow that does not put our troops in danger.

John Ashcroft was outraged when Democrats voiced some concerns about the Patriot Act. He lectured Democrats that, “Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies, and pause to America’s friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.”

But Ashcroft miraculously recovered from patriotic fever in time to criticize Obama, an attack that somehow does not diminish our resolve as it did when we criticized Bush. Ashcroft, for example, takes issue with Obama’s effort to close Guantanamo Bay, saying that, “The idea somehow there is something evil about Guantanamo- I think it is a bankrupt idea.” Calling Obama’s policy bankrupt is no problem, giving no comfort to our enemies.

Office of the President

Hypocritical attacks on Obama are not confined to criticisms of him as Commander-in-Chief. We should not forget that a low-level Representative cried out “You lie!” during Obama’s 2009 State of the Union address when we discussed health care reform. Fortunately, leaders of both parties condemned the outburst. But consider the culture and history of personal attacks on Obama that made such outrageous public disrespect possible. Those attacks have been as relentless as they have been vicious.

Sarah Palin routinely questioned and still questions Obama’s patriotism. A typical missive about Obama: “This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.” But she does not stop there. She said on Fox News, “When I hear Barak Obama speak at this point…it is nauseating to me.” Can you get more discourteous of a president? Imagine the outcry if a prominent Democrat said those words of a Republican president. Would we not hear that such comments are shameful, unpatriotic, America-hating, and disrespectful to the office of the president? Yet we hear nothing from conservatives.

Michele Bachmann lamented Obama’s embrace of an “agenda of Islamic jihad.” Imagine the outrage if that was said of a Republican president. Of course we have the inevitable comparison to Hitler, the most recent from Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX). Again, imagine the outrage if reversed. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I need not cite references for all the accusations that Obama is a secret Muslim, or a non-citizen, or a radical Christian who hates America. The overall theme is that Obama is a traitor who deliberately wants to put our troops in harm’s way. Compare this to the viscous GOP attack on any dissent when Bush was Commander-in-Chief.

How about these sentiments, collated by Geoffrey Stone in an article tracking the extreme nature of vile attacks on the president:

• Dump This Turd (with Obama’s image)

• Somewhere in Kenya A Village is Missing Its Idiot

• Pure Evil (with image of Obama)

• I’m Not Racist: I Hate his White Half Too (with image of Obama)

Here are some others I have seen (I do live in Texas) or that have been brought to my attention:

• Obama is a lying, racist, American-hating socialist

• Obama, Kenya believe him

• B.O. Stinks

• Dinglebarry (with image of Obama)

• Obama: One Big Ass Mistake America

• Obama Bin Lyin’

• 2012: Don’t Re-Nig

• Two Things Coal and Barak Obama Have in Common: 1) There both Black (sic); and 2) Americans should BURN BOTH (It should be apparent that grammar is not a strong suit of the stupid)

• Vote the right guy, the white guy

• Chairman Oba-Mao

• It’s True, I Do Hate America (with image of Obama)

• Barak Obama the Antichrist

• Obama makes me throw up in my mouth

• Obama Hates America

Clearly, conservatives no longer believe in the dignity of the Oval Office; that is, until a Republican next sits there. I challenge anybody to come up with attacks of similar nature against any other president. Yes, the left hated and still hates Bush, but I defy you to find equivalent levels of vile hatred thrown at a president. Bush was called stupid and inept (well…), but Obama’s critics go way beyond this with a drumbeat of ugly attacks wholly unrelated to his actions as president, some of which are undeniably motivated by race. The only president who comes close to this level of vitriol is Abraham Lincoln, but the etiquette of the times prevented the use of words like “turd” to describe the President of the United States.

Sure, name calling by itself is harmless, and all of the above is happily protected by the American commitment to free speech. The point is not that such speech causes any damage; but to reveal a culture in which the office of the president deserves no respect; precisely the opposite of what conservatives claim when a Republican is in the White House. What this speech reveals is the deep, corrosive hypocrisy of the GOP and the conservative movement.

Separation of Powers

Which brings us to Speaker John Boehner.

Our Constitution creates checks and balances in the separation of three equal branches of government, the Executive, Legislative and Judicial. That happy balance includes the quaint notion that only the Executive Branch conducts diplomacy with other nations. As head of both the armed forces and foreign policy bureaucracy, Article II vests responsibility for foreign affairs in the president. Our Constitution says that the president is the sole organ of communication with foreign countries. Only the President has the power to negotiate and sign treaties, which also must be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate.

But Republicans have become so blatantly disrespectful of this president that even those boundaries are no longer binding. In a clear breach of protocol, Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress on the issue of Iran without consulting the White House. Sadly, Boehner’s move is naïve by playing into the hands of Iranian extremists who are looking for any excuse to reject any agreement on nuclear disarmament. While the president is in the midst of sensitive, technically complicated negotiations, Boehner’s actions could easily rupture the fragile alliance with Russia, China, and Europe’s major powers as they seek to contain Iran. Netanyahu mistakenly believes that undermining the president is his path to security for Israel.

Regardless of the issue at hand, we have to marvel at what Boehner did. No matter his personal feelings about Obama, he could only undermine his own president in foreign policy if he simply had no respect for the office of the president. Compare this to the GOP position during the Bush Administration when any criticism or effort to oppose Bush was tantamount to treason – to today, where the Speaker of the House of Representatives acts to weaken the presidency with blatant acts of subversion. The GOP has moved from the position that any attack on the president is anti-American to approving heartily of attacks on the president when that Commander-in-Chief is Obama to taking official actions that are counter to our own Constitution and show a clear disrespect for the office. This journey from one extreme to the other on the question of respect for the presidency is really unprecedented. That juxtaposition of contradictory positions is what makes this level of hypocrisy historic. You could not make this up.

Pareidolia in Politics: The Face of Faith’s Corrupting Influence

We gaze at the night sky and see the comforting order of constellations in the random distribution of stars. We look up and discern shapes of animals in the wispy condensation of clouds. We breathlessly share on social media images of Jesus on burnt toast or the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich or Elvis as a potato chip. Welcome to pareidolia, the human brain’s amazing ability to perceive patterns, particularly the image of a human face, in what are in fact purely random phenomena

In the Beginning…

We humans cannot turn off our instinct to see familiar shapes in the world around us; pareidolia means that our brains demand that there be order even when none exists. And just as we abhor the absence of visual order, we too are unable to accept the unsettling idea of “I don’t know” when confronted with the disorder of the unfamiliar. So we make up comforting answers to all that perplexes us, just as we create reassuring images from clouds and toast. By making up answers to dull the sting of ignorance, we fool ourselves into thinking we explain the world, that we see design and significance in the absence of both.

In the abyss of great uncertainty, our ancestors developed elaborate creation myths and gods of the sun rain and oceans to explain the mysteries and happenings of daily life. War gods helped in victory, or not. Fertility gods helped, or not. Religion was our first attempt to predict and manipulate the future; also our first stab at physics and astronomy. Ironically, as we gained knowledge about the physical world, the need for multiple gods diminished. As the gods of the gaps grew smaller, we rejected multiple deities to insist rather randomly there is only one. But as did our primitive forebears with multiple deities, we still believe we can communicate with our one god and influence his behavior, because by doing so we gain some control, impose some order, on the chaotic mysteries of the world. So we still have one more god to go, one more to assign to the pantheon of the fallen. The early quest for knowledge led to religion; ever-greater success has obviated the need. Our very effort to understand nature ultimately undermined the means by which we sought to reveal nature’s mysteries. We are just slow to acknowledge that god is superfluous.

Filling the Void

Only one to go, but we are not there yet. Aching with this need to fill the void of the unknown, people east and west all share a compelling quintet of yearning on which religion is founded: fear of death; the desire to explain away nature’s mystery; hopes for controlling one’s destiny; a longing for social cohesion; and the corrupting allure of power. Note that nowhere in that equation of religion’s foundation is a demand for reason, fact, or evidence to support one’s belief. Instead, the religions we create demand that we simply believe through faith, as a means of self-justification. Pareidolia predisposes us toward such folly. A great leap it is not from seeing an image in a cloud to believing that the image is real. We gladly believe, we desperately want to believe, in the god we created, in the images and answers we made up. We do so in the absence of any objective supporting evidence because faith tautologically rejects the idea that such evidence is necessary.

Religion is like our appendix, a vestigial remnant from a primitive past. Perhaps in a few millennia the god of Abraham will invoke the same curious amusement as rain and sun gods do today. Or perhaps our god will simply be shelved along with Zeus and Jupiter. Some day. But until then, we suffer the consequences of a population that believes in the absence of evidence; and more curiously, rejects an objective reality that conflicts with beliefs easily proven false. And here we come to how all this ties to the politics of today.

In our rush to still the pang of ignorance, we confound faith and fact. Pareidolia rears its ugly head as we see things that are not there and are blinded to things that are. Because faith demands no proof, people cling stubbornly to a belief in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. We see patterns because we want to; we reject what we dislike because faith allows that. Faith trumps fact. Reality is optional. So we have a group opposed to irradiated food that ignores the existence of more than 50 known strains of E. coli that can cause bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, and death. People are duped by claims of harmful emissions from cell phones or cell towers. Life-saving diagnostic x-rays are eschewed from fear of radiation, and vulnerable people are persuaded to rely on crystals and astrology for guidance. The public is unable to filter exaggerated claims by environmental groups (Alar in apples) from legitimate concerns like global climate change. This ignorance has deadly consequences; ask the parents of every child who died from a preventable disease from unfounded fears of vaccines, or subsistence farmers looking at starvation in the face of crops withering in a changing climate. In Africa, eight healthcare workers combating the Ebola epidemic were killed by an angry mob who believed the doctors and nurses were infecting people with the virus. The population most in need of help murdered the only people who could provide assistance. As do those African villagers, climate deniers reject widely accepted scientific fact and accumulated knowledge. Without any anchor in the sciences, reality is an option to be rejected whenever the real world gives us inconvenient truths. As in Africa, this deadly ignorance is borne of unfounded fear and denials based in the irrational rejection of basic established fact.

Fiction, Faith and Fact

When fiction becomes confused with fact, we sever our critical tether to reality. The conclusions from years of careful research, scrutinized by competing scientists and published in peer reviewed journals carry no more weight with the public than the random thoughts of a bloated pundit. Talking heads with no training now have the same authority as highly qualified experts. So global warming is dismissed as a liberal hoax in spite of a preponderance of scientific evidence. Climate and weather are mistakenly thought to be the same so that with every winter storm comes the pathetic and childish denial that the world could not be getting hotter. When presented with evidence, skeptics selectively demand more “proof” without understanding what that concept means in scientific inquiry. Yet, with considerable irony again, when we are not discussing climate change, many hold beliefs securely for which there is no proof at all, the flipside consequence of misunderstanding the scientific method. The anti-vaccine movement demands no proof of the link to autism, which has been thoroughly discredited. They simply believe.

This elevation of faith to fact, and confusing belief with evidence, has real consequences. Nowhere can that be seen more clearly than in conservative opposition to President Obama over the past seven years. By untethering ties to reality, by claiming faith is sufficient proof of any belief, the GOP can with a straight face blame Obama for everything bad, no matter how far removed from Obama in reality; and given him credit for nothing good, independent of how directly his actions led to that good. No leap of logic or time or reason is too great for them to link Obama with something unpleasant; and no cause and effect no matter how obvious or self-evident is too strong for them to dismiss, reject or ignore. Facts do not matter.

The idea that the GOP has substituted faith for fact is easily enough proven. Take any area of improvement: lower unemployment, rising stock market, declining gas prices, an expanding economy, health care; and then ask any conservative friend if Obama can be credited for any of that. When the inevitable answer is no, ask the following question: is there any circumstance, any result, any area of improvement that can be attributed to Obama? Elevated gas prices were his fault, but prices lowered in spite of him. He was blamed for the declining stock market he inherited, but given no credit for a market that more than doubled during his tenure. His economic policies were blamed for high unemployment but those same polices have nothing to do with rates falling below six percent. What could Obama have done, what outcome could we have seen, for which a conservative would be willing to credit him? The untenable but predictable answer is none, at least in the faith-based world of conservatives.

We can only come to this deep divide, this unbridgeable political chasm, because political opponents simply cannot admit that the other side has had any success. And that position is possible in the face of undeniable success only because facts are rejected as nothing but inconveniences, easily dismissed as irrelevant to the greater ideal of faith. This slide away from an objective reality is the primary cause of extreme polarization because faith allows for the creation of an alternative universe in which an opponent is easily demonized by dismissing ameliorating facts. A big leap it is not from believing in god and the devil, to believing in anything at all, including that the president is a radical Christian, but also a Muslim, and a foreign citizen socialist who will take your guns away. Facts don’t matter; we create a fictional order in the face of randomness and then call that real; and the chasm becomes ever wider. Faith and ignorance are not benign, and become downright dangerous when confused with rationality. Pareidolia is great for a kid lying in the grass looking up skyward; not so great as a foundation for a political movement.