If it were harder to buy a senator

In this week’s bonus episode of Gaslit Nation (available to donors) hosts Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior talked for 51 minutes about the disaster CNN Town Hall with the nasty guy. I mentioned this yesterday. The hosts called this a “snuff film” or a Klan rally. It’s a snuff film in that it was all about supremacists (the audience) watching another supremacist (the nasty guy) beat up someone (the female host Kaitlan Collins) they believe should be beneath them. CNN knew exactly what they were doing and very much intended the result they got. Collins isn’t an innocent lamb led to slaughter – she has a background in Fox News and knew her job in this disaster. Yes, CNN leadership did it for the money (though TV viewership was low). They also did it because they want the supremacy the nasty guy is peddling. This means CNN isn’t all that different from Fox News – well, there is a little difference in that CNN occasionally does real reporting. Chalupa and Kendzior also discussed how this whole mess could have been prevented if the leaders of the Capitol attack were brought to justice. They haven’t because Attorney General Merrick Garland was installed to run out the clock to make sure they aren’t. In some cases the statute of limitations (I have no idea for which crimes) has or is about to run out. Bringing them to justice should be important because it will be very easy to stage a second coup in January of 2025. Republicans know they can’t win on votes and they’re working to make sure they don’t need to win on votes. The hosts have been saying over several years that Biden and Congressional Democrats had two years to protect democracy. They didn’t. And now we see they can’t. Sigh. As much as I appreciate the warnings that Chalupa and Kendzior put out I had enough and stopped listening at 39 of the 51 minutes. In a tweet from three weeks ago Ben Franklin quoted Cheri Jacobus:

There is only one reason why Merrick Garland hasn’t indicted Trump, his insurrectionists in Congress, and his thug allies. And it’s not because he’s still dotting i’s and crossing t’s. The truth is too horrible to accept and his cheerleaders lulled you into complacency. #gullible

Franklin added:

In the weeks after the Jan 6, when nothing was done to punish the high level plotters, the nature of the Biden administration became clear. There was no sense of danger, no sense of urgency, ultimately no meaningful action. Everything since has been a variation on this theme. Merrick Garland is giving Trump all the space and legal protection he needs to continue the authoritarian takeover, just like everybody else, and he’s doing it because that’s what Biden wants him to do.

As much as I like what Biden has done, it is the things he hasn’t done, like this, that cause me to be suspicious of him. Back at the end of April I discussed a report from the end of March about the money companies make in administering the Republican rules that one must work to get food assistance benefits. That report was reported by Krissy Clark on the NPR program Marketplace. Yesterday, Clark was back with another segment on the rich getting richer through administering work requirements laid on the poor. Much of the segment repeated the points made earlier, though it started off with a new one: Those companies have been lobbying Republicans in other states and at the federal level (see the demands around the debt limit) to institute work requirements so their business will grow. This is a case where the rich have yet another an incentive to keep poor people poor. Adam Jentleson wrote a book about the racist history of the filibuster and why it needs to be eliminated. He is now Chief of Staff for Senator John Fetterman. He recently tweeted about hearings of one of the recently failed banks.

John Fetterman just asked the Silicon Valley Bank CEO if there should be work requirements for CEOs who crash banks and dear reader, I almost fell out of my chair.

He almost lost his seat because Fetterman added that line on the spot. It wasn’t a part of hearing prep. Ryan Burge is an American Baptist (not Southern Baptist) pastor and creates graphs about religion. White Evangelicals (those Southern Baptists) are seen as a big force behind conservatives and the Republican Party. But Burge has the graphs to show the group most active in politics, most likely to donate to and volunteer for campaigns is atheists. They are closely followed by Jews. Also towards the top are Agnostics, Buddhists, and mainline Protestants. Then there is a gap before we get to the next bunch, which includes White Evangelicals. Michael Harriot tweeted:

All 10 largest Protestant denominations in America are the result of schisms within their denominations Nine of the schisms were over racial issues

The 10th, the Lutheran Church, split over LGBTQ issues in 2009. The United Methodist Church is currently undergoing a split over LGBTQ issues. The predecessor denomination, the Methodist Church, did split over racism, though I think that was back in the 1840s. The two parts reunited in the 20th century (I don’t remember when) though the black churches and black pastors were treated separately until the United Methodist Church was formed in 1968. Harriot mentioned all that at the end of a thread. I had long known that many churches use “First” in their names. When my family lived in Ohio we attended “First –” churches (though I just found out the one we attended in Cleveland has closed). When we moved to Michigan we attended a “First--” church, though it renamed itself after the community. There have been several others I and my siblings attended in various cities. But why did so many churches in so many communities named themselves that way? And why does Detroit have Second Baptist and Second Grace United Methodist? Harriot explains it all. The “First” church is the white church, the “Second” church is the black church. Sometimes one is across the street from the other. Black people knew this and when moving into a city knew to look up “Second” church. And Harriot contends most white people don’t know that. I didn’t. Signe Wilkinson tweeted a cartoon showing a young man with several guns holding a sign that says “2nd Amendment.” A woman with a toddler says:

I so agree! To which well-regulated militia do you belong?

The Hoarse Whisperer tweeted a meme:

It would be harder to buy a gun if it were harder to buy a senator. The real ‘concealed carry’ is half the senate being in the NRA’s pocket.

A couple days ago Joan McCarter of Daily Kos wrote about debt ceiling hostage situation. I mention it not so much of the status of the negotiations (which would be pretty much out of date two days later), but on the discussion of the consequences of default. First, payment to people – federal employees would not receive a paycheck. Neither would our soldiers. No Social Security benefits. No payment for health care services for Medicare. No food assistance, no housing assistance. Those with savings or pensions funded by US Treasury bonds (which is many of us) would miss payments. With these people losing income they stop buying and have trouble with rent or mortgage. Here comes a recession. There is another aspect McCarter only touched on. The federal government has always paid its debts. Defaulting means Treasury notes will no longer be seen as a safe investment. Investors, domestic and more importantly foreign, will turn elsewhere. That will ripple through the world markets and turn an American recession into a global one. And too many Republicans are just fine with that.

Think you are a good person

Richard Dawkins is a scientist and an outspoken atheist. He’s been doing a lot of speaking lately for the Center for Inquiry. He spoke recently with Scott Simon of NPR about terrorism and religion.

Let’s get a couple ideas out of the way. (1) Most, perhaps close to all, people who are religious see terrorism as abhorrent and feel killing innocent people a violation of their religious principles. These people work hard to build community. (2) There are terrorists who are not religious.

Even so, those who engage in terrorism for religious reasons can be especially dangerous.

Religious faith really does motivate people to do terrible things. If you really, really believe that your god wants you to be a martyr and to blow people up, then you will do it. And you will think you're doing it for righteous reasons. You will think you are a good person.

Dawkins refutes the claim that only religious people selflessly take care of others. Yes, there currently is a great deal of infrastructure and money in place to make it easy for religious people to show their care. But atheists are beginning to build their own infrastructure and raise money. This includes groups such as Secular Rescue and his own Richard Dawkins Foundation.

A new top ten

Authors Le Bayer and John Figdor have used crowd input to create a Ten Commandments for the 21st Century. Their goal is to show that religion does not have a monopoly on ethics. Their results are "non-commandments" to avoid creating polarizing dogma. Their list:

1. Be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
3. The Scientific Method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
4. Every person has the right to control over their own body.
5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated.
8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
9. There is no one right way to live.
10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

The website has a fuller explanation of each of them.

The no wedding cake for gays bills

The Kansas religious freedom act, essentially the permission to discriminate against gays act, is officially dead. It wasn't just the warm-hearted sentiments of the state's GOP senators. Opponents of the bill made sure legislators knew what they were thinking. That group was made up of:

* Small business leaders. If an employee refuses to provide services to gay people does the business owner need to have extra employees around who will provide the service? Are the employee's beliefs strongly held? Will discriminatory employees be discriminated against by employers as just not worth the nuisance to have around? Let's not get into those games.

* Progressive churches. Led by the Episcopalians, they focused on the commandment to love one another.



While the Kansas discrimination bill was still in play, Jim Brock of The Rolla Daily News in Missouri wrote an opinion piece to say he didn't think it was very Christian. He bases his belief in Matthew 25:40-45 in which Jesus chastises some of his listeners for not coming to the aid of those in need. Brock concludes by saying:

The holy words of the Bible can be so inconvenient, especially when they don't come from Exodus or Leviticus.

Maine voted down a similar law. Arizona approved another. Dan Savage notes that the one in Arizona is so broadly written that it would permit Satanists to discriminate against Christians. The only ones who would not have permission to discriminate are atheists.

Yes, it is a concerted effort to bring these kinds of bills before any state legislature that offers a glimmer of interest. The effort is pushed by CitizenLink of Focus On the Family and the American Religious Freedom Program of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.



Jon Stewart needs only a couple minutes to skewer the no wedding cakes for gays bills.

Not wired for skeptical thinking

Michael Moynihan wrote a feature article for Newsweek about the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) and the annual convention it puts on called The Amazing Meeting or TAM. James Randi, now 84, got his start as an illusionist, but in the 1970s switched to skepticism, "the debunking of psychics, mediums, pseudoscientists, faith-healers, homeopaths, and anyone else who makes claims that defy the known laws of science."

Alas, in this age one can't simply debunk and be done with it. The Internet makes it easy to disseminate bunkery. And our species has a long and persistent history of believing in the paranormal -- "73% of Americans subscribe to at least one paranormal belief." Yeah, most people simply don't question preposterous claims, they "aren’t wired for skeptical thinking. They’re wired for faith."

The story of JREF isn't a smooth one. There are people who use the word "skeptic" for other things, such as "global-warming skeptic." They're claiming the word to mean the opposite of what JREF does, to debunk science rather than pseudoscience.

Then there is the issue of whether skeptics should attack only creationism or attack religion in general. Must a skeptic be atheist? Debate rages within the organization. They've already seen that not all atheists are skeptics.

Alas, there is one aspect that stands in the way of expanding the movement. Skeptics tend to be arrogant. That's not something that endears them to other people.

With the list of bunkmakers including homeopathy, or home remedies (otherwise known as quack medicine), I had better bring up a topic before my friend and debate partner does (though he'll be exceedingly polite about it). Does that nutrition center in Ann Arbor that I've started going to fit into quack medicine?

From our last lunchtime discussion he believes that is quite possible (though I'm thankful for his lack of arrogance). When the center loaded me up with supplements (charging a hefty penny) without addressing my dietary concerns, that thought of quackery crossed my mind. Am I about to plunk down a few hundred bucks (prepay for a dozen visits and get a discount!) and the only thing I'll have to show for it at the end is a hole in my pocket?

If I had heard about this place perhaps six months ago I would have dismissed it But since then a couple things have happened.

First, the diet program at the most respected health system in the area failed for me. I didn't lose weight (though I got to maintaining weight) on their regular diet. I only began to lose when I started eating their dehydrated meals. The dieticians and physiologist were stumped over how to treat me. I met the physiologist yesterday and again she asked me what I thought the next step should be. They plus my primary care physician didn't have experience with my leading problem and have told me they had to read up on the latest research. They weren't able to refer me to someone more knowledgeable. Traditional medicine failed. Of course, I made quite sure of that failure before going on.

Second, my sister-in-law in Texas, working with a corresponding center in her area, told about remarkable changes in her own health after big adjustments in diet and supplements. She even lost considerable weight. She told me all about it when I visited last May. Without her story I would not have asked for a referral to this place in Ann Arbor. Alternative medicine succeeded.

Is it quackery? Maybe. I can't tell yet. However, I decided it is worth the money to find out. I'm out of alternatives. I'm sure weeks or months from now I'll either be lamenting the loss of money or exclaiming over better health. Stay tuned.

About that atheists in foxholes thing…

Amanda Marcotte of AlterNet debunks 10 myths many religious people have about atheists.

1. There are no atheists in foxholes. This irritates atheists because it makes a virtue of preying on people's moments of pain. Religion doesn't always offer comfort, especially with a threat of Hell hanging over their heads.

2. Atheists are angry with God. No, they're angry at pushy believers.

3. Atheists are rude. Atheist ideas are more disturbing to believers than believer's ideas are to an atheist so the atheist gets a reputation for being rude.

4. Atheism is a white dude thing. Since many religions approve of the oppression of women there are lots of women who appreciate arguments against the legitimacy of their oppressors.

5. Atheism is just another faith. Most religious people disbelieve all faiths but their own. Atheism just completes the circle.

6. Atheists have no moral code. Religious people recognize when one of their own -- such as person saying God told him to do a nasty deed -- is acting immorally. That shows there is a root of morality outside of religion.

7. Atheist lives are bleak and lack meaning. Living under the threat of Hell is better? Atheists make the best of this life. They don't wait for the next one.

8. Atheists are hedonists and don't know true love. The people saying this are the ones who separated sex from love, have many crippling phobias about sexual fulfillment and love are exclusive, and have higher divorce rates.

9. With no afterlife atheists can't cope when they lose a loved one. This argument seems to be made by religious predators waiting for a grieving atheist.

10. Atheists are out to destroy Christmas. Actually, with a bit of tweaking Christmas can be a fine secular holiday. And atheists will celebrate it in a way that is fun for them.

No, I'm not proclaiming myself to be an atheist. I firmly believe my religion calls me to build community with everyone. Each of these 10 points shows a way religious people are doing all they can to break community with an atheist. We should learn from this how to love them instead.

Does religion help or hurt the world

Lisa Miller of Newsweek says the debate is getting stale. Atheists trumpet their "gotcha" arguments and accuse religion of being a pox on humanity. Christians respond on how much good their religion has done for the world. Both sides congratulate their own members on how well they defeat the other side without actually doing so. Been there. Done that. Have the t-shirt. Let's move on. To…

People like atheist Jennifer Hecht and her book Doubt; A History in which she says when exploring questions of faith one should look with the eyes of a poet, not a scientist.

And people like Greg Epstein and his book Good Without God arguing that people can have religion -- community, morality, transcendence -- without the supernatural. The larger debate can include ethics, progress, tolerance, science and other big issues and whether religion is currently fostering or hampering these goals.

To be fair, Dawkins, Hitchens, and the rest of the loudest atheists have had one positive effect. The 12% of Americans who are atheist now have a voice in the public debate and aren't viewed with as much suspicion.

At this point I can imagine a friend (not my debate partner) accusing me of being a closeted Unitarian/Universalist. I'll respond to that charge by sharing an image I found recently.

Protective layers around religion

Because Christianity condemns gays so loudly with so little evidence I have done a lot of thinking about what Christianity is really about. An example: the goal of faith in Jesus is salvation, if one believes the reward is eternity in heaven. Alas, Christians wield this idea as a weapon -- I'm saved and you can't be, or I don't care what I have to do I'm going to make sure you're saved. So I’m quite drawn to the idea that Christ will to save everyone, though some may not reach salvation until they meet him after death. So then, what is Christianity for? The answer that satisfies me is learning to live together in community here on earth. Alas, many Christians say this distorts Christianity.

A pause for a comment from Vice-Pope Eric in The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok (yes, that's the way they spell it):

People accuse us sometimes of not practising what we preach, but you must remember that if you're trying to propagate a creed of poverty, gentleness and tolerance, you need a very rich, powerful, authoritarian organisation to do it.

That distortion may explain why I am interested in an article about 10 Myths of Atheism by Greta Christina. We're battling some of the same foes. Some of the 10 myths that resonated with me:

* Without religion there is no basis of morality.
* Atheists are unhappy with no meaning to their lives.
* Atheists are whiny. Christians use this argument as a way to shut people up.
* Atheists are trendy. Perhaps the same way gays are trendy.
* Atheists treat science as their religion. Nope, but science relies on testing the world around them, which religion frequently refuses to do.
* Atheists think they're superior. They're disrespectful, intolerant, and mean.

This last one included a link to explore the idea in more detail. It seems atheists are accused of such crimes as being mean because they question religion and much of religion doesn't like to be questioned. This secondary article looks at the protective layers our culture puts around religion to keep us from questioning it too closely. Some of those layers are:

* Faith is a good thing and makes you a good person. You can't trust a person who has no faith.
* Letting go of doubts about your faith is virtuous, the more irrational the belief the more special it is to accept it.
* Religious leaders and religious objects deserve a special level of respect.
* Pointing out inconsistencies and immoralities in another person's religion is rude and intolerant, and in some cases worthy of exile, torture, and death.
* Being tolerant of religion requires you to not criticize it.

It doesn't get us very far to say, "The emperor has no clothes!" However, it can be useful to ask, "It looks like the emperor isn't wearing clothes. Can you provide evidence?" It seems religion is objecting to being tossed into the marketplace of ideas and having to defend itself there.

While I think atheism has some valid complaints and I think religion, especially Christianity, has veered a long way from its initial purpose, I won't give up being a follower of Christ. There are two main reasons. The first is that the evidence of the life of Jesus isn't as scant as atheists seem to claim. The bible is a historical document of equal quality and reliability of others from the era. The other reason was expressed quite well to me recently: Something clearly happened to those disciples. To put it another way, a position of cultural dominance (especially since it didn't start that way) and Christianity's way of using various threats (you want to go to heaven, don't you?) wouldn't have been enough to keep Christianity alive for 2000 years. However, personal investment would. There are at least some, if not a great many, in each generation who have a direct encounter with Jesus. These are the ones who feel his grace and feel nudged to do things they hadn't thought possible.

Responsible for the greatest crimes

Some religious believers like to claim that because Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were atheists it is those dratted atheists that are the cause of all the evil in the world, responsible for the greatest crimes of history. This is similar to the idea that it is impossible for atheists to have developed a system of morality.

This writer claims it wasn't atheism that drove them. The issue isn't whether they were critical of religion, but that they required dogmatism similar to many religions. They required the same suspension of reason. They were examples of dogma run amok.

Atheists and Moderates

Newsweek has an article about the state of beliefs in America. Atheists have made big gains in getting their ideas accepted in the town square. After Romney gave his speech on religion (which "lit up the Internet like a pinball machine") he grudgingly said that religious liberty includes the right not to believe. And the number of people willing to admit to being atheist to pollsters has risen from 2% to 6%. The reason for these gains is that some atheists are willing to be as loud and intransigent as the Christians. But some authors are starting to claim a different path, that of the moderate. They claim the problem isn't either belief or unbelief, but ruthless certainty. That certainty destroys humility and compassion. It is better to admit to doubt and listen to what your fellow man is actually saying.