The first part of this blog was published on the 16^th, a couple of days ago. Here is the second part of This is a Christian Nation: What That Statement Really Means by Gregory W. Chmara.

 In part I, Gregg listed four statements:

1. “The United States was founded on Christian values and all are troubles are because we have drifted away from those.”
2.  “Christian values are founded on the rock solid principles of the Ten Commandments and they should be on display in public buildings and courts to remind us.”
3.  “All Christians believe the same things – those taught by Jesus Christ.”
4.  “I am a Christian and that settles the argument.” (Whatever the argument is.)

ON TO THE SECOND STATEMENT:

“Christian values are founded on the rock solid principles of the Ten Commandments and those commandments should be on display in public buildings and courts to remind us.”

Unified Christian values founded upon the Ten Commandments are as much myth today as is the idea that there were only Ten Commandments in the first place.  Any casual reader of the bible finds that the laws given number more than 600 (613) and sectarian bible scholars will give you a range of the exact number depending upon their sect.

Choosing ten statements to represent the whole of the Mosaic Law including compromises on which ten statements which translation and in which order the statements were presented is a topic most sects refuse to discuss or to allow much open and accurate study. Many still dip back into the 600 plus unlisted laws to cherry- pick supporting arguments for their church’s interpretations of the commandments. They use these for application today; more than 3 millennia since the total number of 613 were first recorded by their desert tribe authors.

One of my favorite considerations is the conflicting interpretations of “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”  In times of war this is often interpreted or changed to say “Thou Shalt Not Murder” taking the sin away from killing an unknown enemy of the opposition (unholy) army or an internal alleged traitor.  Then, of course, I must consider the vegan Christians who extend the commandment to the slaughter of food animals.

Also note that in the supporting laws for these ten digest-like commandments the penalty for many things was originally death by stoning, without the constraint of due process.  Among those 613 Mosaic Laws which abrogate the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” and commend stoning someone to death are:  adultery (which Christ said a man commits in his mind by looking lustfully at a women), murder (nothing constraining Holy Wars), sassing your parents, blaspheming against the official god, mixing fabrics you wear, or working on the Sabbath.  These were all cause to suspend the law against killing — and kill the offender.

Let us take a look at combining two of our original statements as far as the U.S.A. goes.  I have read the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution as amended, and the Declaration of Independence.  I find the Ten Commandments listed nowhere in them.  Could the founding fathers been assuming that everyone believed the same thing, especially the Ten Commandments?  Or did they have other notions about the difference between civil secular law and ecclesiastic commandments?

Maybe the closest we come to the Ten Commandments in the founding American documents (particularly using the magic number 10) are the first ten amendments to the U. S. Constitution. These are very different than the any inclusion of the Christian Ten Commandments.  In fact they contain a simple, thoughtful expansion of the Constitution’s original prohibition on any religious test (including belief in the Ten Commandments) being required for holding office,  expanded by the establishments clause, the first amendment, saying :

“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.”

Compare this with the first Christian Commandment “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me.”  Sure sounds like a religious test to me.

Could it be that the founders in their wisdom could also see that some churches believed in a Nicene God of three parts of one mystic indivisible individual, while others tended to give Christ a little more emphasis than in the triumvirate approach, and yet others depended upon a holy ghost or spirit rather than direct communication with God? Could they see the time government could waste over these arguments rather than how to govern a nation of individuals with a desire to thrive? Did they ascertain that any one religion’s rule over another by law would be antithetical to the hard won liberty they fought for? Could they see the rise of any one sect would allow a dictatorship of thought with its constriction of personal liberty?

One only need look at the religio-doctrinal arguments in Congress today over abortion, gay rights, education, death with dignity, and funding of churches for social services to discover where the fault of rigidity applies.   You only need look back to women’s fight to gain the right to vote and to own property in the early 1900s.  Look further back at slavery if you wish to find religion’s corrosive power against rational humane consideration. Somehow, it takes reason a long time to overcome belief.

Here’s an example from Noam Chomsky’s essay found in NationofChange.org on July 23, 2012 entitled “Destroying Commons:

“The founders of course did not intend the term “person” to apply to all persons. Native Americans were not persons.  Their rights were virtually nil.  Women were scarcely persons.  Wives were understood to be “covered” under the civil identity of their husbands in much the same way as children were subject to their parents.  Blackstone’s principles held that “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything.” Women are thus the property of their fathers or husbands.  These principles remain up to very recent years.  Until a Supreme Court decision of 1975, women did not even have a legal right to serve on juries.  They were not peers.  Just two weeks ago, Republican opposition blocked the Fairness Paycheck Act guaranteeing women equal pay for equal work.  And it goes far beyond.”

Too many religions and their texts do not recognize women as whole people. If this is Christian Doctrine, I want nothing to do with it.  After all — in the Ten Commandments the “do not covet” section lists wives and donkeys as property all with the same value for coveting.

Turning to the idea of whether the Ten Commandments are up to date, or the archaic product distilling the thoughts of ancient desert tribes into 16th century language with laws that remain unchanging in the light of all modern knowledge and progress, we need only look, again, to our nation’s constitution.

One of the farsighted inclusions in the main body of the U. S. Constitution’s text is a way to change it through amendment. The Ten Commandments and its supporting bible provide no such thing. There have been 27 Amendments to the constitution since our nation’s founding.  Remember the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st to restore the use of alcohol after prohibition was pushed through by religious zealots. So we can count on 26 forward looking amendments.

Some wag might point out that the original Second Amendment and the Fifth commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” are directly in conflict, particularly in these modern times and in light of the Aurora Colorado shootings.   There were no guns around when the commandments were written.

Let me declare right here, I am a gun toting liberal who both supports the Second Amendment, and detests the paranoid propaganda promulgated by the National Rifle Association. I also believe that the idea of not killing people is a good one — as long as other people hold that same principled belief and act upon it.  Those prompted to otherwise abrogate my right to live freely, whether they are an individual, a sect, political philosophy, or psychopath need to be thoughtfully defended against.

I firmly hold that the doctrines that offer rewards on earth or in heaven for killing “the other,” unless the other agrees with a specific sect or belief, or becomes subject to the belief or group,  is antithetical American ideals.  (I also include the base idea of sending the other to hell for not accepting Christ — as defined by any sect or belief as something to defend against, but not by force of arms.) But that is a conversation for another day.

Once again, Jim Wilson concedes the existence of God, paradise , and hell in order to argue: “Do you think the things being taught by Christians are fair and just?”

Imagine you are the average American Christian, or even an above average American Christian! You believe that because of your beliefs you will be eternally rewarded, while, a typical American Atheist will be punished for ever in a place far worse than any dictatorship on earth ever created. I have to ask: why?

How is it, the two of us despite our numerous similarities are deserving of such different fates. We wear similar clothing, probably made y the same manufacturers, in the same foreign factories. We most likely shop at some of the same grocery stores and eat at the same restaurants. We may listen to the same radio stations and even have some of the same favorite musicians and sports teams. We send our kids to the same schools, shoot hoops in the same local parks and golf at the same golf courses. We could very well work for the same company or have similar jobs with different companies both controlled by the same interlocking boards of directors. We both likely give to some of the same charities for the same reasons and probably do not have overly differing visions of the world we want to live in. Both of us do all we can to avoid harming others and when we do we feel remorse and try to correct whatever it is we have done. Neither of us would go about killing, looting, raping, or plundering even if we could get away with it.

We really are very much alike. Perhaps we listen to different music or vote for different politicians or one of us enjoys alcohol and the other rejects it. These same differences are found among Christians and among Atheists. In many areas, there is just as much diversity within these groups as there is between them. So I ask, what is it about my group that is so horrible that makes it deserving of eternal torture?

Christians will answer by telling me that God has every right and would be exercising perfect justice by sending me to an eternity in hell for my beliefs. This is apparently because beliefs lead to actions. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that beliefs inform actions. That is why I write for this blog but I would argue that my Humanist beliefs have made be a better person less deserving of torture. After all, my lack of belief in a cosmic justice fills me with the desire to ensure justice is done here on Earth. My lack of belief in a heaven or hell ensures that my random acts of kindness are done without expectations of reward or punishment. They say that your moral character is most clearly demonstrated by what you do when no one is looking and for me no one is ever looking. Yet, I still do all I can to be kind and helpful to others, even without the expectation that a celestial being is sitting there judging me from above.

I agree with Physicist, Steven Weinberg, who said “With or without it (religion) you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” I would change his sentiment in two ways.  First, I acknowledge that there are people who have been motivated to do wonderful things by their religion. There have been countless Christians, Jews, Muslim, Buddhists, and other people of faith whose beliefs have inspired them to show amazing acts of heroism, kindness, and humanity. At other times tough, some of these same beliefs have motivated people into engaging in horrendous acts of cruelty. Take the Spanish Inquisition or the September 11^th hijackings as just a couple examples.

I’d also change Weinberg’s quote to saying it takes religion, or something like religion, to make good people do atrocious things. After all, Maoism and Stalinism were technically atheistic movements but they had all the dogmatism of religions and to a great extent simply replaced the notion of a heavenly dictator with an earthly one. Dictatorships tend to engage in leader worship and place their leader a god-like status. This is not more compatible with the Secular Humanism I advocate, than Christianity.

I am not a murder, plunderer or dictator, nor do I have any desire to be. I live like an ordinary American, except for my lack of belief in any god. I cannot for the life of me imagine why so many people think that makes me deserving of eternal torment while other ordinary Americans apparently will be sent to a paradise. It seems rather petty of the Christian God to judge us solely on that one belief.

Jim Wilson believes his Christian friends are way better than the Christian God:

I don’t believe in the Christian God. But if He did exist, He would certainly be a crazed, murderous tyrannical monster. Despite this, I am still cool with most Christians I know. Christians usually have far more character than their god. They are more moral, more sensible, less jealous, and less insane than their god. I wish they would realize this and stop making excuses for this celestial monstrosity. To elaborate on how much better Christians are than their God, let’s pretend you are a typical Christian. Here is a list of 43 reasons why you are a vastly superior moral and rational being than your god:

1. You almost certainly would never sentence me to torture for not loving you.

2. I doubt you would ask me ever ritualistically kill and burn animals for you.

3. You would never require a brutal human sacrifice in order to forgive people.

4. You would never conceive a child for the purpose of using him as a human sacrifice.

5. You would never condone slavery.

6. You would never permit slaves owners to beat their slaves just short of their lives.

7. You would never make an exemption to this rule, in cases where the slave dies a day or two after the beating. See Exodus 21:20-21.

8. You would never develop a set of rules for men to sell their daughters into slavery. (Exodus 21:7-11)

9. You would not give instructions like: Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves. (Deuteronomy 20:14)

10. You would not make rules like: If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father.  Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). Seriously what kind of sick freak would make a rape victim marry her attacker?

11. You would not advocate killing unborn children, as in Numbers 31:17: Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

12. You would not advocate murdering people for their sexuality. (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

13. You would not advocate killing people for fortune telling (Leviticus 20:27), hitting their parents (Exodus 21:15), or cursing their parents (Leviticus 20:9).

14. You would not advocate killing women if they are not virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

15. Even if you are pro-capital punishment, you would probably not advocate stoning people to death as your execution method of choice.

16. You would never command wide spread mass civilian murder as is described in the book of Joshua (6:20).

17. You would not send bears to attack children for making fun of a bald man (2 Kings 2:23-24).

18. You would not advocate killing people for working on the wrong day of the week (Exodus 31:12-15)

19. You would not kill a fig tree for not bearing fruit when it is not even in season. (Mark11:12-14)

20. You would not have such a fragile ego, that you need to be constantly praised, by sycophants, and told how great you are.

21. You would not punish me in a hell for questioning why you send people to hell.

22. You would not be let people conduct witch hunts, torture people, or burn others at the stake for hundreds of years in your name, if you could prevent it.

23. You would not allow an evil super natural well evil being to screw up the lives of others, if you could prevent it.

24. You would not kill a man’s servants, family members and animals, and inflict him with disease to prove his loyalty to you. (This is exactly what happens in the book of Job).

25. You would not value faith over reason.

26. You would not obscure yourself and punish people for doubting your existence.

27. You would not set up a system where all who do not wish to worship you would get tortured.

28. You would not impose eternal punishments for temporal crimes.

29. You would not impose thought crime laws on the population.

30. You would not recommend that people who work on Sunday should be killed.

31. You would not reveal your existence in a book written in someone else handwriting.

32. You would not approve of morons like Ted Haggard, Mike Huckabee, Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Pope Benedict or Osama Bin Laden, speaking on your behalf.

32. You would not ask a man to kill his son to demonstrate his loyalty to you.

33. You not make people promise to cut off parts of their penises or their decedent’s penises.

34. You would not ask me to drink your blood or eat your body.

35. You would not build a world for people, and yet cover most of it with salt water.

36. You wouldn’t punish everyone who ever existed, for 2 people disobeying you.

38. You would not kill all but 6 of the world’s people in a global flood.

39. You would not place a curse on a people, because one of their ancestors walked in on his dad naked.

40. You would not use a book written 2000 years ago with as your primary means of communicating with people today.

41. You would not demand we believe silly things like the story of Noah’s ark or that the world was created less than 10,000 years ago.

42. You would not make your teachings indistinguishable from that of brutal, bronze age tribesmen.

43. You would not answer the prayers of wealthy Americans while, ignoring those sickened and impoverished in the third world.

This list could be much longer, but we can leave it here. There is plenty more irrationality and immorality in what the Bible teaches, and in what Christians believe about God. This also goes for practicing Jews and Muslims and other believers in the God of Abraham.  If only they would realize this and stop being believers I think the world would be a better place.

Jim Wilson, for this argument, assumes there is a Christian God and a hell. He then examines the character of those Christians that seem to take pleasure in telling their friends that they’re going to tortured forever:

I have had Christians tell me things like, “Your time will come! You will have to face God’s judgment! It’ll be fun seeing you try to weasel out of your judgment but it will not help you. For all things you said, you will suffer forever. Remember my words! I will take pleasure in God’s judgment, and the pain he will rain upon you!”

Isn’t it interesting how this supposed religion of peace and love turns seemingly nice people into the nastiest kinds of sadists? Seriously, what kind of sick freaks find so much pleasure in the torture of others? I have had Christians tell me that they wish they could see pathetic little me facing God’s wrath so they can laugh. There are no people nastier than ones who think their nastiness has heavenly approval.

Most of us know at least some Atheists, Agnostics, Hindus, Jews, Pagans or others who know of Christianity, but reject it. We consider these people to be among our friends, family, and neighbors. While the people we know may not be perfect, overall they are usually kind, decent people who are not out to hurt anyone. Yet, the Christian is forced to believe that all of these people are so horrible that they not only can but should be tortured forever. They seem to delight in this judgment.

If you are a Christian in this country, it is likely that you have at least some friends or loved ones who do not share your beliefs even if they have never told you so. You may have known and cared for these people for much of your life. You may know them to be kind, loving people who have gone most of their lives never wanting to hurt anyone. They feel remorse if they ever do. As a Christian, are you are expected to take joy in God’s decision to sentence them to eternal torture?

The very idea that anyone could be happy in a heaven while their friends and loved ones are tortured forever is utterly mind-blowing. If I thought that any of my loved ones were being tortured, I could not possibly be happy. Some traditions apparently have the people in heaven looking down upon people they know in hell as they are tortured. They apparently take pleasure in seeing this. This shows how truly sick Christianity really is.

Christianity has long had traditions about the horrible things that will be done to people in hell. They believe demons and hell beasts engage in all sorts of endless bodily torture of people. For example adulterers, I am told, will apparently have their genitals ripped off by monstrous creatures wielding giant pokers. Adulterers of course are defined as anyone who has ever looked at a woman lustfully which is nearly all heterosexual men who ever lived and many women.

Hell is a very real place for many believers. They seriously think that after I die I will go to this place which is far worse than anything the nastiest dictatorships ever created and be tortured there forever. For many, it is tied up in their sense of justice. After all, we like the notion of mass murderers and rapists being tortured forever for what they have done. This makes the universe seem more just to us. Unfortunately, the Christian God happily forgives murder, rape, theft, child abuse, and all the crimes that most of us think deserve punishment. Disbelief is the one sin that is sure to land someone in hell.

I love kindness for its own sake. It’s best to be helpful to others with no expectation of award of any kind and yet I am told by Christians that I should be tortured forever because of my willingness to question their God’s existence and authority. Willingness to question things is something that should be celebrated rather than punished.

Of course, you could say God is not sending me to hell, I am, but this strikes me as arguing that I made the mugger shoot me by not giving him my wallet. This God, we are told, made hell and set up the criteria by which one is sent there. The fact that people question his supposed criteria is a good thing. It is certainly not something they should be endless tortured for. I will go on the record of saying any God who would send me to hell does not deserve anyone’s worship.

Ashley Thomas sends this picture and comments:

I agree with Admiral Ackbar!  Religion is a trap.  It traps our minds.

Here are my favorite reasons religion is a trap!

1.  It traps us into viewing the world dogmatically and makes us afraid to question its assertion.

2.  It traps us into viewing the world and morality in simplistic black and white terms.

3.  It terrifies us with threats of eternal torment.

4.  It makes us unable to look at the world on its own terms.

5.  It traps us into thinking the commands of God, or priest are moral, when they are often destructive.

6.  It has a long history of being easy to enter, but is often difficult to leave.

7.  It instills an “us verses them” mentality.

8.  It imposes countless pointless prohibitions on people: Eating pork, working on Sunday, or enjoying the wrong types of love.

9.  It binds us to outmoded bronze age superstitions, and rituals.

10.  It traps us into thinking we are nothing with out it.

11.  It gives people in the trap a false sense of superiority over those outside it.

Jim Wilson sets the record straight on an Internet scare. This would be an excellent opportunity to introduce Snopes.com or an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) site:

In the late eighties and early nineties an ongoing public scare reached its peak. Teachers all over the country were receiving reports of children being given LSD laced stickers or rub-on tattoos by over-zealous drug dealers. Apparently, reports of this go as far back as the late seventies, and they still occasionally turn up usually towards the beginning of the school year.

School administrators would get fliers warning of these LSD laced, rub-on tattoos. The most common design associated with the alleged tattoos was “a blue star.” For this reason, the whole phenomenon is known as “blue star acid”. In some contexts, the stars were described as a blue stars similar to those associated with the Dallas Cowboys. Early versions of the story dating from the late seventies alleged that the tattoos or stickers featured Mickey Mouse or other Disney characters. Later the blue stars were added as were other cartoon characters and butterflies. On fliers printed after 1990 Bart Simpson is alleged to be a common feature on the tattoos.

To be clear, there is no confirmed evidence that anything described in the fliers has every actually happened. These reports were either the result of a deliberate hoax or a fast spreading urban legend. The most common variant of the fliers appeared around 1992 and featured the signature of a J. O’Donell who is said to be affiliated with Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. The hospital has no record of ever having an employee by that name.

It is likely that the story has its roots in one or more police reports describing acid blotters which featured cartoon characters such as the pink elephants from Disney’s Dumbo. Blotters though are not rub-on tattoos or stickers. They are used for taking LSD orally and though they sometimes feature cartoon images they are clearly not meant to appeal to children. David Gross who wrote Blue Star Acid FAQ suspects that a well-intentioned but ill-informed church group misunderstood police reports about the blotters and sent out the first wave of fliers. Since then copies of copies of copies of the different fliers have been distributed across the US. Additionally, Brazil, Mexico, and Portugal are known to have their own version of the blue star legend.

Though there has never been a confirmed case of anything the fliers allege suburban parents and teachers ate the story right up. This was after all during a time of extreme drug paranoia. Reagan was re-launching the War on Drugs and the DARE program was telling kids across the country to “just say no.” Children growing up around this time were taught to be aware of maniacal drug dealers willing to stop at nothing to get play-ground aged kids hooked. Their alleged methods apparently included giving kids free samples or using LSD laced rub-on tattoos. This led to a concentrated effort to teach a generation of kids how to avoid getting expensive drugs for free (a situation, they are not likely to be in).

In real life, drug dealers are out to make money and avoid getting arrested. They are highly unlikely to accept the huge risks and limited potential payoffs of giving playground aged suburban children free drugs. Being caught giving an elementary school child an acid trip would quickly land one in jail and scare off other would-be clients. This is simply not the type of attention drug dealers are looking to attract. Despite the image that the Reagan administration was promoting drug dealers tend to be ordinary humans motivated by their own self-interest, rather than evil monsters looking to poison America’s youth. Realistically, people growing up will get offered free drugs not by anonymous drug dealers but by their friends and it really is not that big of a deal.

Unfortunately, for all too long, parents seemed far more interested in promoting wild stories about drugs than given their children an honest take on the issue. That has led to failed efforts to scare children straight like the DARE program which has been shown to be counterproductive. Bottom line: Americans should be more honest with their children. They should do more fact checking before spreading stories like this one.

This post is from Jim Wilson who continues to provide an interesting viewpoint on current events:

I enjoy watching the Olympics. It’s great to see amazing athletes and amazing feats of athleticism from around the world. I enjoyed seeing Michael Phelps demonstrate that marijuana is gateway drug to Olympic gold. I always notice in the Olympics and sporting events in general the tendency for athletes to give the god of their choice credit for their accomplishments.

It’s a cliché. They may be completely sincere but in some cases it is giving the fans what they want to hear. This year, gold medal gymnast Gabby Douglas provided an excellent example when she said:

“It is everything I thought it would be; being the Olympic champion, it definitely is an amazing feeling. And I give all the glory to God. It’s kind of a win-win situation. The glory goes up to Him and the blessings fall down on me.”

I have no reason to doubt her sincerity. Her belief in God is probably very real and she probably does feel that God somehow helped her along the way. Her accomplishments are incredible and she should be very proud of herself. She is, after all, according to Wikipedia, “the first African-American and first woman of color in Olympic history to become the individual all-around champion and the first American gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympics. She was also a member of the gold-winning U.S. team at the 2011 World Championships.”  That is truly amazing especially when we consider that while working towards this goal her father was risking his life in Iraq and Afghanistan as a staff Sergeant in the U.S. Air force.

Gabby Douglas’ athletic abilities were undoubtedly made possible by endless hours of hard work and single sighted determination. Many athletes have spent their time doing little besides training and competing, without ever coming close to Douglas’ level of achievement. Becoming an Olympic quality gymnast is a full-out life style that requires hard work and sacrifice not only from the athlete but from family members, coaches, and team mates. Her thanks to God is a bit misplaced.

After all, it was not God who spent those countless hours training when there were certainly more fun things to do. It wasn’t God who made personal sacrifices so she could access the best training facilities and coaching staff. Furthermore, if her God had intervened in the Olympic games in her favor, that would strike me as cheating.

We see this in football too. A player will thank God for helping him get a touch down or win a game as if God was completely indifferent to the concerns of the defenders or the loosing team. Are we really to believe God cared about your athletic success more than that of the other players? Are we to believe God wanted you to get the Gold so badly that he didn’t mind letting everyone else have silver or bronze or no medals at all?

The whole attitude implied here is really quite selfish. It is highly self-centered to believe that you not only have favor with the creator of the universe but that he shows it to the detriment of all who compete with you. While God is supposedly helping one person win an athletic event or an Academy award there are children dying of malnutrition, violent wars going on, an AIDS epidemic, and mass poverty. I guess that touchdown was just more important to God than solving these problems.  The whole thing just makes God sound incredibly childish and petty.

That is one of the biggest problems with religion; it makes people unwilling to take credit or responsibility for their actions placing everything in the hands of their God. Gabby Douglas as well as her coaches, her supporting friends, team-mates, and family members, deserve all the credit for making her victory possible. It’s a shame some god gets the credit when he/she was probably was never really there in the first place.

Jim Wilson marvels at the Book of Job and questions the morality of the tale:

“Don’t tell me Lucifer and God don’t carpool”

-Aesop Rock Battery

Everyone is talking about jobs: job creators, job cremators, joblessness, Steve Jobs and even certain sexual acts featuring the word job. Perhaps then this would be a good time to look back at the original Job, the biblical Job. The Story of Job appears in the Old Testament’s appropriately titled Book of Job, though reading it is not as much of job as many other old testament books (Leviticus anyone?).

Believers point to Job as a story of how God rewards faithfulness, while I see it as a fantastic illustration of what a nasty piece work the Christian God is. This is ironic, since the English word Job is apparently rooted, not in this biblical story, but in the expression: “jobbe of worke” meaning piece of work (as opposed to continuous work). Or at least that is what the Internet says.

Beyond the word play there is a story. In this story, Job is described as a “perfect and upright” follower of God. He is the “greatest man in east,” and apparently has great wealth, including “seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household.” Needless to say, God thinks this Job character is just the bee’s knees

God gathers his council, who are apparently referred to as “the sons of God”… Wait God has sons other than Jesus? Apparently, and among them comes Satan. God asks Satan where he has been. The notion of God as all-knowing either has yet to enter the tradition or is only selectively applied by Old Testament writers.

Keep in mind, The Book of Job marks an early appearance of Satan as a character in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Satan comes from a noun form of a Hebrew verb meaning to obstruct or oppose. In Job, he appears as ha Satan or the satan, which means the accuser,” or “the adversary”. In other words, he appears in the book of as more of a devil’s advocate than an actually devil. He won’t develop into the ultimate enemy of humanity, until later.

As it is written, God starts talking to his “sons” about what a great and loyal servant this Job character is. Satan points out that it’s easy for Job to be so loyal after-all look at how well God has rewarded him. Satan suggests that if Job lost everything he would “curse thee to thy face.” God answers Satan’s challenge by putting Job’s fate into Satan’s hands and the bet is on!

Job 1:12 “And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.”

So the games begin: God allows Satan to kill Job’s slaves and animals killed with swords and through burning to death. Way to keep it classy God!  But wait, Job’s children are next: Satan takes them in a windstorm! Through all this Job remains loyal, continues to worship God and never blames God for these happenings (though God did in fact, approve all of them).

In the second book it’s round two and this time God gives Satan the go ahead on violating Job’s flesh bone but requires Satan stop short of killing him. So according to Job 2:7, Satan “smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown”. In the next verse, Job takes “a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.” In the next chapter, Job curses the day he was born, but at no point does he lose his loyalty toward God, or assign blame to God. God, rewarding Job’s loyalty cures Job’s boils and gives him more animals and children than he had to begin with.

In other words, God gave the go-ahead for the murder of a man’s children and slaves, and killed his animals, then allowed him to be inflicted with boils, all for a stupid bet. This is utterly repulsive. Any human that did any of the things that God and is buddy Satan does to Job would be recognized as a monster. So what if Job got a new family and animals? How could that possibly justify killing his first family? The story reflects what a nasty tribal war God the Jews of this time worshiped. I’m glad to say we have moved well beyond the morality of the Bible.

Jim Wilson’s views on the boycott of Chick-fil-A:

A friend of mine recently asked: Do you think Chick-fil-A throws all the left wings in the trash? Or maybe they sell only right wing meat?

I avoid fast food when I can.  It’s unhealthy; it cost money I’d rather spend elsewhere; and the industry has a nasty habit of cynical marketing targeting children.  I am unlikely eat at Chick-fil-A. So, they are not losing my business by promoting bigotry and government intrusion into people’s personal lives. If I was a customer, I would boycott them.

I predict that ultimately Chick-fil-A’s decision to become politically active will hurt them. People do not want their fast-food choices to have political ramifications.  The last thing we want to think about is the culture war, when we order a sandwich.  Politicized businesses are annoying, and scare off at least half of their would-be customers, especially when the activism has nothing to do with the product being sold.  Time will declare Chick-fil-A to be on the losing side of the culture war.  After all the general trend is that Americans are becoming more sexually open and more embracing of personal freedom than ever. Religious conservatives hate this.  The traditionalist old guard is not getting any younger, and won’t be around forever and ironically, eating at Chick-fil-A won’t help with them live longer.

Despite the long-term prospects, promoting bigotry has worked to the company’s advantage today. Mike Huckabee an advocate of Bronze Age idiocy has declared August 1st, National Chick-fil-A appreciation day. Sarah and Todd Palin and many other politicians from the socially interventionist wing of the Republican Party have made a point to show support for the restaurant and got nice photo-opts in the process. This has attracted long lines of ignoramuses willing and ready to hand over their money to the company that donates to hatred and bigotry.

There is irony in this.  In most contexts, self-proclaimed conservatives are fans of shrinking or limiting government.  Why do they support government being in the business of regulating marriage? Why should conservatives be so anxious to support an organization that wants to make government’s burdensome role of regulating marriage permanent?  Government promotion of marriage and “traditional values” is a form of social engineering. Shouldn’t conservatives who are friends of personal freedom and limited government oppose this?  As far as I am concerned, what consenting adults do in their own home is none of government’s business no matter how much Chic-fil-A lobbies for it.  Hat’s off to the Libertarian Republicans, who refuse to support Chick-fil-A and the New Hampshire franchise owner who still participates in gay pride events.

Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy says his company’s political stance is motivated by his concern that we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, “We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”  He makes God, sound like a petty vindictive twelve year old who wishes harm upon those who question him. His company has contributed lobbying efforts for government to have a bigger role in promoting his values.  Government is here to protect our freedoms not enforce the religious prohibitions of an apocalyptic business-man. The fact that government prevents two men from marrying means it is doing a terrible job at protecting our freedoms. How can you say this is the land of the free when two men or women, or three or four people cannot all be married?  At least marriage to multiple people was allowed in the Bible and it just wasn’t always voluntary. On a related note, one of the organizations Chick-fil-A supported also, spent thousands of dollars trying to prevent congress from denouncing Uganda’s horrendous “Kill the Gays Bill”, which is what it sounds like!

I support the bigots, reactionaries, religious dogmatists and general low-lifes that run Chick-fil-A the freedom to hold their beliefs and express them but I won’t support them with my very hard earned money. I support the ACLU’s fight against the city governments of Chicago and Boston as they attempt to block the opening of Chick-fil-A locations in their cities. I do not think bigotry should be rewarded with business but I also think using the government to penalize free expression is wrong. Free speech is one of the few things I come close to holding sacred. I stand equally for your right to say stupid and ignorant things and my right to tell you how stupid and ignorant they are. It’s the free market of ideas. Banning a company only legitimizes its cause and allows the opportunistic, self-righteous, Christo-fascist at Chick-fil-A to play the victim card. It’s annoying enough when reactionaries whine about how persecuted they are. Let’s not give them a legitimate reason to do so. This goes for other despicable species of walking excrement like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.  I support the ACLU for protecting their rights to free expression despite my complete and utter loathing for every disgusting thing they stand for. Allowing them to discredit themselves on the market place of ideas has done more has made much more of a positive impact than any government repression could.

Some people claim that they are supporting Chick-fil-A as a way of standing up for their right to free speech. That’s all well and good. I wonder if they would also support an openly racist establishment for exercising its free speech. Frankly, if you want to support free speech heroes, why not buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine? These have done more to promote the rights to free expression than any bigoted restaurant chain could ever dream. Others are there because they share the organization’s bigoted worldview, and think it would be great if the government did too. I am staying away. I can’t stand long lines and crowded restaurants especially when the lines and crowds are filled with the type of loud-mouth, self-righteous, ultra-religious, ignorant bigots that something like an “Appreciate Chick-fil-A Day” would attract. Hopefully the chicken gives them heartburn!

Jim Wilson discovered some children’s books that are a little disturbing.

There are delightful children books such as:

• Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed!,
• Help! Mom! Hollywood is in My Hamper,
• Help! Mom! The Ninth Circuit Nabbed the Nativity!

On the other-side, there are such titles as:

• Why Mommy is a Democrat,
• NO, George, NO! The Re-Parenting of George W. Bush, or
• Momma Voted for Obama!!

There are more subtle books for your child’s indoctrination such as Teach a Donkey to Fish where a young elephant named Goppy teaches his donkey friend Libby the joys of working for herself. As one Amazon reviewer asked, “Whatever happened to the little engine that could?”

Something about all the titles listed above just rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps it is the crude way they over simplify the issues, or caricature people who disagree with them. Perhaps it is because they all target children who are too young for nuanced political discussion, and are still very impressionable. Then again, maybe it’s the fact that partisan politics is such a drag, and young children should not be forced to sit through it. There must be countless other books that offer positive lessons and are not built upon partisan hackery.

Seriously, what child would wants a book talking about how great president Obama is or what evil monsters Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy are? These are far more entertaining to the parents than the children. Honestly, talking to young children should be opportunity to get one’s mind off of mud-slinging political drudgery.

The more useful question is: how to talk about politics with one’s children? I am a fan of a free market of ideas. Parents should let their kids know what they think and why when children show interest in political questions, but kids should have room to develop their own thoughts and become their own people. I don’t have kids of my own but if I did it would be much more important to me to show them how to think than teach them what to think.

Views I disagree with would still be presented fairly. I don’t call the people who support the welfare state lazy envious bums who to steal other people’s money or people oppose it as heartless, greed-driven reactionaries. Though people fitting these stereotypes exist, they are a minority. I would do my best to explain my position, while at the same time explain where gray area and ambiguity leads to controversy. Many parents want to turn their kids into good Democrats or Republicans and fall into the trap of indoctrination. I for one, have little use for either of our major parties and think party loyalists are often the least interesting or well informed people out there. I’d want to show my kids a wide range of schools of thought and thinkers that would not be easily classified in the conservative vs. liberal spectrum.

I have the same attitude, towards religion too. I’m an Atheist and I would hope any kids I have share my Skepticism but whatever attitude they take it is more important to me that are able explain why they hold their position than hold any specific position. I find making a subject taboo often mystifies it and makes it more interesting anyway.

I did stumble onto a few politically oriented children’s books that I could possibly get behind: Two Kings which concerns GLBT issues and the rather self explanatory It’s Just a Plant: A Children’s Story of Marijuana. Conservatives might label these liberal books but some of the biggest advocates of gay rights and legalizing marijuana I know are ardent free-marketers.

With this in mind, I’ll ask our readers with more parenting experience: When and what have you taught your kids about politics? How important is it that they share your beliefs, and would you use any books described in this blog post? In the mean time, the only liberals or conservatives anywhere near my bed will be the ones I invited over.