Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1939

I Spoke at a Church Last Week and Didn’t Even Know It

Last Sunday, the Church at Canyon Creek in Austin, Texas used my Atheist Voice video about tough questions for Christians to introduce a sermon about how Christians needed to stand firm in their beliefs:

Pastor Monty Watson introduces the questions to his congregation

Pastor Monty Watson introduced the video (and me) in a fair and polite way, which is always appreciated, before asking his congregation why they believe what they believe — and telling that why it’s important to have an answer to that question.

The rest of the sermon, unfortunately, was full of the usual apologetics — like at the 24:36 mark: “I just can’t believe it came as a result of evolution and random chance”… and soon after, the idea that we didn’t evolve from monkeys.

If you watch it and any other moments stand out, please let us know the timestamp/summary in the comments.

All publicity is good publicity, right…?

Secular Invocation Delivered in Lake County, Florida: Prayer Could Make Some Residents “Feel Like Outsiders”

Earlier this week, Paul Tjaden delivered a secular invocation at a meeting of the Lake County Board of County Commissioners (in Florida). It begins at the 1:53 mark of the video below:

Members of the County Commission and staff, citizens and guests of Lake County, for today’s invocation, rather than bowing your heads, please take a moment to look around at others who are here this morning. Fifty years ago, had you done that, the people you’d be looking at would be folks pretty much like yourself, people who had grown up in Lake County and who shared the same faith and culture.

But, since then, our community has seen incredible growth. People have moved here from other states and from countries and cultures around the world. We have citizens who are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, and people who profess no religious belief at all.

Because of that, I believe that any prayer in this diverse setting could cause at least some of our citizens to feel like outsiders, that they had entered a place where their requests or problems might be considered with suspicion or indifference because their beliefs differed from the majority.

Because of this, and in respect to all our citizens, I come before you not to pray, but instead to invoke the spirit of goodwill between all of us. To be sure, we don’t agree about everything and sometimes we feel fiercely protective of what we do believe. But there’s one thing on which we can all agree: we share the goal of making our Lake County the best place it can be.

It is my hope that, at this meeting, we will work together to make positive changes in our county. It is my hope that respect is always extended to others. And it is my hope that logic and reason guide the decisions of all within and outside of this room.

Thank you.

One local resident took offense to his invocation:

Sitting in the County Commission chambers this week, Gail Boettger couldn’t believe it when the meeting began not with a Christian prayer but with a secular invocation.

…

Later, addressing commissioners on another matter, Boettger, of Howey-in-the-Hills, expressed her disappointment.

“Removal of the prayer? Wow,” she said. “Shame on you.”

…

“America was founded on Judaic-Christian principles and values. I will not apologize for that,” she said. “Our founding fathers of this great United States of America, they prayed.”

She doesn’t have to apologize, but she might want to read a book to cure her ignorance.

Tjaden is a member of the Central Florida Freethought Community, a group that’s organizing several more secular invocations all over the state. You can see their running list — along with a compilation of transcripts of secular invocations around the country — right here.

You Don’t Need God to Experience Spirituality

In today’s edition of the New York Times, columnist Frank Bruni raves about Sam Harris‘ new book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion because it offers a secular explanation of experiences people commonly attribute to a higher power:

Harris’s book, which will be published by Simon and Schuster in early September, caught my eye because it’s so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion.

…

I’m not casting a vote for godlessness at large or in my own spiritual life, which is muddled with unanswered and unanswerable questions. I’m advocating unfettered discussion, ample room for doubt and a respect for science commensurate with the fealty to any supposedly divine word. We hear the highest-ranking politicians mention God at every turn and with little or no fear of negative repercussion. When’s the last time you heard one of them wrestle publicly with agnosticism?

The idea that spirituality isn’t reserved only for the religious must be a dangerous one for many theists. At one point, religion held all the answers (albeit false ones). Then science began slowly chipping away at the solutions that could be discovered through evidence… and religion lost some of its luster. If it loses the idea of transcendence, too, what does it have left?

I’m glad to see Harris offering his perspective on secular spirituality. It’s not the first stab at it and it surely won’t be the last. And every one of them makes religion a little less necessary for some people.

Three Gods Brag About Their Sons and One is Clearly Outmatched

In the Portuguese-language video below, Odin, Zeus, and Yahweh get together to share some beers and brag about their kids… and it turns out the accomplishments of Yahweh’s Son are trumped by those of Thor and Hercules.

You may want to turn on English subtitles for this one. (Plenty of NSFW language either way!)

Yahweh (left) tries to explain his Son’s accomplishments to Zeus

Jesus… What a disappointment, right?

(Thanks to Ronaldo for the link)

FFRF Launches “Out of the Closet” Video Campaign

Following the success of their “Out of the Closet” campaign, where local atheists appear on billboards explaining why they don’t believe in a God, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is now trying to spread that message via YouTube:

Want to participate? Make your minute-long video, use the words “I am an out of the closet [atheist/Agnostic/whatever],” and let FFRF know about it. (If you’re under 18, you need parent permission.)

For what it’s worth, we’ve seen these kinds of campaigns before, like the Blasphemy Challenge and We Are Atheism, but I’m a firm believer that having more of these campaigns is not a bad thing at all. There’s no danger of market saturation. The more people who publicly declare their non-belief, the better.

There’s Even More Religion Than We Thought in Fort Gordon’s Army Substance Abuse Program

Yesterday, I posted about how military personnel at Fort Gordon in Georgia who were struggling with drugs or alcohol may be directed by their superiors to go into the “Army Substance Abuse Program” (ASAP):

The problem was that one of the recovery “tools” they were given was a copy of Pastor Rick Warren‘s book The Purpose Driven Life, all about how Christianity gives you purpose in life.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation‘s Mikey Weinstein has already written two letters to Major General LaWarren Patterson demanding the distribution be stopped.

Today, I received an email from a graduate of the ASAP program. Not only did he confirm the giveaway of Warren’s book, he told me that his “certificate of completion” included the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

It’s a poem that’s often used in Alcoholics Anonymous programs, and we’re all well aware by now that many of the Twelve Steps are religious in nature.

I’ve removed all identifying information in the picture below:

My contact also told me that program leaders gave him a copy of As Bill Sees It, written by the AA founder and full of references to God.

In case it isn’t clear, there’s absolutely no reason religion should be brought into a government program, especially one designed for those who are already struggling. They don’t need to replace one bad influence with another.

Fort Gordon officials need to take another look at how this program is run and revise it quickly before they’re hit with a lawsuit.

This Chart Shows How Every Major U.S. Religious Group Feels About Government Involvement in Moral & Economic Issues

How do your religious beliefs affect your views on the government? Should the government play a role in regulating morality? How about the economy, in terms of having a bigger, more involved government or a small, less involved one?

Tobin Grant at Religion News Services offers a conversation started with this very dense, highly informative chart tracking all of the major religions in the U.S. and where they typically stand on this issues based on their responses in the Pew Forum’s Religious Landscape survey. (The bigger the circle, the more members of that religious denomination.)

Not surprisingly, non-religious groups (yellow circles) don’t want the government making any moral judgments, though they vary when it comes to the size of government.

Think Progress’ Jack Jenkins notes that there’s a correlation (with some exceptions) between the placement of the circles and the relative incomes of the people in each group:

Historically black Protestant denominations, for instance, are shown as having a high percentage of congregants (roughly 47 percent) who make less than $30,000 a year. This income bracket disproportionally benefits from crucial social programs such as the Affordable Care Act and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (a.k.a., food stamps), so it makes sense that denominations such as National and unaffiliated Baptists show up as overwhelmingly in favor of a government that offers more services. Similarly, White Mainline Protestants such as the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal church, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) have some of the wealthiest congregants in the country (36 percent of White Mainliners make over $75,000 a year) who don’t usually come in contact with many social services. As such, it’s not entirely surprising that they skew towards the “smaller government, less services” section of Grant’s scale. Meanwhile, Catholics, whose numbers include a relatively even distribution of income brackets that closely matches the national average, are situated roughly in the center of the chart.

None of this, of course, automatically suggests that where you go to church influences how you feel about the government (or vice versa). But your income may indeed shape some of your views.

(Thanks to Matthew for the link)

Bryan Fischer: Jesus is the Force Holding the Universe Together

Last summer, Bryan Fischer explained how Jesus was the glue holding protons together in the nucleus of an atom. (Take that, Strong Nuclear Force!)

It was the sort of schtick taken direct out of a Chick Tract:

Anyway, it turns out Jesus doesn’t just work on a microscopic level. He holds together the entire universe, too!

And what’s keepin’ the universe together right now? It is Jesus Christ. He upholds the universe by the word of his power…

There is some magic force — scientists don’t even know what it is. It’s called the Strong Force because it keeps the nuclei together. They don’t know what it is! We know who it is. We know what it is, we know who it is. Jesus Christ is the Strong Force that upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Stop right there, Physics textbooks. Give Fischer a Nobel Prize and turn off the Large Hadron Collider. The answer you’ve been looking for is Jesus. He is the Theory of Everything.

(via Right Wing Watch)

Canadian Man Arrested on Obscure Witchcraft Charge; Media Skepticism Required

Quebec occultist Yacouba Fofana (a.k.a. Professor Alfoseny) did a pretty nifty magic trick for some clients: he made their money disappear. Any services he managed to conjure up in exchange were apparently invisible.

Before he himself could perform a vanishing act, though, he was charged under Canada’s Criminal Code, with both fraud and — wait for it — witchcraft.

People are shocked. In modern-day Canada, in the year 2014, you can actually be charged under an obscure provision of the Criminal Code with “pretending to practice witchcraft.” The law specifically targets

Every one who fraudulently

(a) pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration,

(b) undertakes, for a consideration, to tell fortunes, or

(c) pretends from his skill in or knowledge of an occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner anything that is supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found

The charge is the equivalent of a misdemeanor with a maximum fine of $500 or a six-month jail term.

That the law appears as part of a larger section on “Fraudulent Practices” has not been evident in headlines about the case, which trumpet “Fake medium faces sorcery charge… in Canada” and mislead readers to think that Canada actually has a provision to prosecute witches… just like in the Salem Witch Trials or Monty Python.

I play it off like a joke, but in some parts of the world (such as Papua New Guinea, India, and parts of Africa) prosecution of witches is not a far-off piece of history, and it’s not something that targets fraudsters scamming the emotionally vulnerable. Rather, it’s based on genuine beliefs that witchcraft exists and is an offense that society’s deity expects to see punished.

Headlines like the ones being posted about Fofana’s case take advantage of such injustices, which typically target vulnerable minority populations in the places where they occur, to muddy the waters in the name of clickbait.

Let’s be clear: Canadian law enforcement is not exploiting a ridiculous and outdated law to charge Fofana. Nor are they expressing a sincerely-held belief that sorcery is real and worthy of punishment. Rather, they are charging Fofana with fraud using a section of the Criminal Code that specifically addresses charlatans who knowingly and intentionally defraud people through their supernatural claims.

ReligiousTolerance.org notes that

The law seems to be unevenly applied. Most newspapers contain advertisements by psychics; 900 lines are promoted on television; psychic fairs are periodically held in most large cities. One source estimates that there are in excess of 10,000 practicing psychics in Canada. Prosecutions are rare.

And that’s why this story is really interesting. Have all these psychics demonstrated sufficient belief in their own abilities to avoid prosecution? What does “sufficient belief” look like, anyway? What about money-making schemes wrapped up in socially-sanctioned supernatural beliefs?

After all, one reader’s fraudulent practice is another’s sacred cow. Exactly who gets to decide what gets prosecuted and what gets ignored?

(via Doubtful News. Image via Shutterstock)

After Apopka High’s Football Game Last Night, Christians Prayed on the Field in the Most Meaningless Protest Ever

A couple of days ago, we learned that public high schools in Florida’s Orange and Seminole Counties had football coaches leading team prayers, not to mention team chaplains. It’s about as egregious a church/state violation as you’ll ever see at a high school.

This sort of coach-led prayer is illegal

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent letters to those districts warning them about the constitutional concerns and, to their credit, the districts took action, saying the coach-led prayers would stop and the chaplains were no longer permitted to pray with the teams. They could pray on their own time — and the students were always permitted to pray by themselves — but the adults could no longer coerce the students into praying (directly or indirectly).

That’s why last night’s football game at Apopka High School ended with the most meaningless protest you’ll ever see — because it’s very clear that the people who organized it have no idea what they’re fighting against.

After the game ended, hundreds of spectators, parents, students, and players gathering around the field to praise God:

(Image via Facebook)

You can see in the video here that player Gavin Johnson (#99) makes this comment (at the 1:40 mark):

We have been attacked by the biggest atheist [group] in the country, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and we are here to show that, win or lose, we will still praise God!

…

They say that our coaches can’t pray with us, so every week, we players will pray in front of everybody on the 50 yard line of whatever field we are praying on.

Here’s the problem with that. Protests are effective when you’re doing the things your opponents don’t want you to do. Like when you remain in your seat even though people want you to get up. Or like when you refuse to buy a product from a company because you disapprove of how they conduct their business.

I can’t speak for FFRF, but I’ll give it a shot, anyway: When it comes to last night’s “protest,” they just don’t care.

They don’t care if students pray before, during, and after every single game. They don’t care if parents join in. Not only do they not care, they will support those students’ right to pray.

As long as a coach isn’t in that huddle, and a chaplain isn’t leading the charge, and the school has nothing to do with the Facebook organizing, they don’t care. None of that is a problem. Now, if the coaches joined in, or the chaplain showed up, that would’ve been a protest. (And the district would’ve been in all sorts of legal trouble.)

So what was the point of gathering on the field?

I have no idea, but it suggests that every person on that field has absolutely no understanding of the law. They enjoy pretending to be victims even though they have nothing to do with the matter at hand.

(I seriously hope someone who maintains FFRF’s social media goes on that Facebook page and Likes every post on there. It would be hilarious to see the reaction.)

By the way, Apopka lost the game 28-23… so I guess Jesus loved the other team just a little bit more.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Brian for the link)