This billboard went up in New Zealand, courtesy of the St Matthew-in-the-City church. They say they put it up to encourage dialogue with non-believers.
I’m not sure how that billboard is going to make me believe the Bible, or go to church, or get closer to a god, or anything like that… but I’m amused, nonetheless.
The Catholics? Not so much.
But the city’s Catholic diocese is not impressed, saying the implication that Mary and Joseph had just had sex was “disrespectful” and “offensive” to Christians.
Spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer told the New Zealand Herald it was particularly inappropriate given the inference was wrong.
“Our Christian tradition of 2000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph,” she said.
I don’t actually understand the controversy.
Joseph and Mary were married, so presumably they had sex, right? Even if it wasn’t their sex that conceived Jesus, is it wrong to think they could lie in bed together? Mary wasn’t a virgin for life, was she?
(On a side note, look at Joseph in the picture. How could Jesus not be his son? This would be an open/shut case on Maury.)
Now, stick a Viagra symbol on this billboard and I’ll understand the uproar…
Asked what had happened to the two remaining films, [Sam] Elliott, 65, who played a Texan aeronaut called Lee Scoresby in the film, said: “The Catholic Church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I’m concerned.
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He added: “The Catholic Church … lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off.”
Of course, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is taking full credit:
Mr Donohoe [sic] said he was “delighted that the boycott worked”.
“I knew if we could hurt the box office receipts here, it might put the brakes on the next movie,” he told the Evening Standard.
“We?” How many Catholic League members are there…? Besides Donohue, I mean.
None of this is really news. Pullman himself told me he was aware the second and third movies were probably not going to be made nearly a year-and-a-half ago.
Tomorrow is my first Cafe Inquiry discussion group! The topic is “Does Skepticism Require Atheism?” We’re meeting at the CFI-DC chapter at 7:00PM (Thursday). It’s right by a metro (map) so those of you in the DC area have every reason to attend!
It’s an interesting back-and-forth-and-forth, and I’ll try to give my take. It’s important to acknowledge that they got into the differing definitions of the words (atheism vs agnosticism, science vs skepticism), but I’ve discussed that particular question ad nauseum recently and need a break from it. I’ll use ’skepticism’ to mean the attitude that one should scale confidence in a belief to match the evidence, and ‘atheism’ to mean the lack of belief in a god. With these definitions, the two are clearly related.
The discussion had two main prongs – how skepticism and atheism interact in an individual and how the two interact in a movement.
The former seems like a more specific form of the common question: “are science and religion compatible”. If a person is skeptical, we expect them to embrace atheism because that’s where the evidence leads. But there are different degrees of skepticism, and people sometimes have topics that somehow elude their usual scrutiny. A person can be skeptical when it comes to evolution but not religion – see Ken Miller – or skeptical when it comes to religion but not vaccines – see Bill Maher. I’m sure most, if not all, of us have beliefs to which we don’t apply full skepticism (I’m sorry, your children are probably NOT the smartest in the whole world. No, I don’t care what grades they’re getting.)
It obviously hurts someone’s “skepticism street cred” to say they believe strongly in creationism, or a vaccine/autism link, or ghosts. There is no good evidence for these claims, so for someone to believe them strongly they’re being unskeptical. The same applies for claims about God – this was part of Michael’s original point. A pure skeptic applies scrutiny to all views including religion. But while I find these instances interesting, I don’t expect much disagreement on the actual facts. It boils down to whether or not – or to what extent – we are willing to call these people skeptics. [We should have a scale for how much your "skepticism street cred" (SSC) drops according to different beliefs!]
The latter question is more centered around the tactics of the skeptical movement. Since the principle of skepticism requires religion to be treated with scrutiny, how should the movement deal with the fact that scrutiny leads to atheism? This is the “So Deal With It” part of Michael’s talk title.
By now, we are painfully aware that atheism has negative stigmas. Being too strongly associated can alienate potential allies like Ken Miller or potential supporters like religious moderates. But if someone is turned away by our atheism, to what extent were they really an ally or supporter in the first place? I think the cause of skeptical, critical thinking is best served by refusing to skirt around the issue of religion. If people get the sense that religion is a ’sacred cow’, critical thinking hasn’t really advanced. What to do? Michael suggests:
Dealing with my message — that skeptics should be atheists, friendly to the atheist message, working on more issues relating to religious belief — means actually taking what I am saying and putting it to practice. It means hosting lectures and panel discussions, writing essays, and generally caring more about religion and surrounding issues — raising human consciousness about the critique of religion and existence of better approaches to life. So, now that semantics are out of the way, what are you going to do?
I think he’s right. And I can specifically speak to the good job CFI-DC is doing on this front. Come see for yourself tomorrow at 7 or discuss it here – or both.
The other night, Rachel Maddow did a segment about the Cecil Bothwell case — it’s worth watching just to hear him not take an oath to God when swearing in to office.
Maddow interviewed Katy Parker, the legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina.
The United States Constitution says that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”
The Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution says that when there is conflict between federal and state constitutions, the U.S. Constitution wins.
Still, there could theoretically be a lawsuit pending against Bothwell taking office.
It’s amazing that this is still a story and that more Christians and religious politicians in the state are not speaking out against this idiotic and archaic law.
… Given the explosion of capitalism and the influx of money into the former Soviet empire, there has been a huge rise in this market as neuveaux riche wish to show off how riche they are. Hence, Kabbalah Vodka with Christian Infants, the premium wheat vodka enfused with silver, gold, platinum ions that features a glass model of a baby inside. This plays off the old wives tale circulated in Europe that Jewish religious rites required the blood of Christian babies.
Each baby is handmade, and supposedly there are only a few of each type of baby made, so collectors are swarming all over Russia looking for these things. It begs the question: is the baby attached to the inside of the bottle? Or could you take it out somehow so you could keep the baby, but not keep the empty (or full) vodka bottle? Inquiring minds want to know about the glass Christian babies!
It’s probably fake, though. We all know there are no such things as “Christian Infants.”
“Kabbalah Vodka with the Children of Christian Parents” just doesn’t have the same appeal, though…
Yesterday, I got an interesting email from a producer of a radio show asking if I could come on to talk about Nativity scenes on government property.
Which radio show?
The one hosted by former congressman Mark Foley… The guy who sexted with underage pages. He has a radio show now.
It was strangely uneventful. I was on air for all of 30 seconds, I think. I said that religious or non-religious displays had no business being on government property, but if one was allowed, they all had to be allowed.
At no point could I work in the word “page.” Which means I failed at helping my friends take part in a drinking contest.
As far as I know, there’s no recording or transcript, but I’ll provide it if it becomes available.
Anyway, stories about Christian displays on public property are all over the place, with a variety of “solutions” dealing with them:
Secular students near Montville, New Jersey are requesting that a display featuring a Menorah, a Nativity scene, and reindeer either be taken down or made to include a display of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Township administrator Frank Bastone and his committee are not budging, even after consulting with legal counsel. (What lawyers are encouraging them to keep these displays up?!)
David Iacoviello, president of the Society of American Youth Secularists, or S.A.Y.S. at William Paterson University, requested the religious icons be removed at a township committee meeting last week.
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The township’s display was brought to the attention of the student secular groups after an anonymous Montville resident reached out to Rutgers’ Pastafarian group for support, said Jeffrey Cupo, Pastafarian founder at Rutgers New Brunswick. The resident said the township failed to respond to his requests to remove the religious icons from the display, said Cupo.
In response, Cupo alerted both S.A.Y.S. and the Secular Student Alliance at The College of New Jersey, and urged the other groups to ask township officials to take down the display.
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In Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, local officials allowed a Nativity scene to be placed near a local public fountain. After local atheists demanded that a sign be placed near the Nativity reading, “Celebrating Solstice — Honoring Atheist War Veterans,” the Borough Council decided to take down all religious/non-religious displays.
Now, local Christians are pissed off because they realized they’re not special:
“Borough didn’t even give us a chance. They decided on their own without even asking the borough residents what they wanted,” resident Robert Wall said.
“When National Atheist Day happens, or National Atheist Veterans Day happens, I think he should be able to put his sign up,” said petition organizer Lisa Blackstock.
The Borough actually made the legally correct decision and it’s not up for popular vote.
Also, does anyone else think Blackstock would lead the charge to take down an atheist sign on public property regardless of the holiday?
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The Arkansas Society of Freethinkers recently sued Secretary of State Charlie Daniels “after he refused to grant permission for the group to put up its display, dubbed the Box of Knowledge.” A judge ruled in their favor and a display from the atheists will be put up alongside the Nativity scene.
[ASF President Tod] Billings said that in filing the controversial lawsuit, the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers was not trying to exclude Christian displays or silence religious followers. Instead, the society was pushing for inclusion, he said. One face of the four-sided display honors the winter solstice.
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“As the old year passes and a new year is born, we reflect on that which has passed and hope for a better tomorrow,” the proposed display reads, as reported by the AP. “May the light of reason be a beacon to a brighter future for us all.”
Those nasty heathens…
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In Kokomo, Indiana, they’ve done away with all Christian/atheist displays altogether.
They have chosen to display a fisherman, the Loch Ness Monster, and a smiling whale… really the best parts of the Bible.
This video gives you a grand tour of the awesomeness:
Some people say that keeps the “Christ” out of “Christmas.”
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It also keeps the county out of court.
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This is all very easy to understand: No religious or non-religious system gets any special privilege from the government. It’s an all-or-nothing deal when it comes to holiday displays. Why is that so hard for some Christians to comprehend?
The meetings are small right now, but they’re growing:
[NYC Atheists president] Mr. [Ken] Bronstein said that the meetings were still relatively small, with about 15 members attending, but that there were around 50 people on an e-mail list. “We’re going to bust out pretty quickly in attendance,” Mr. Bronstein said. “We think there’s a major group of nonbelievers, atheists, in this community.”
What a great service to offer. Bigger churches do this all the time — they might have a few services over the weekend for the English speakers and then offer one additional service conducted in Spanish. The audience for those services are just as large as the others.
I would think Spanish speakers constitute a minority of atheists, but just like with all demographics in this area, the number is probably grossly underestimated.
I’m really excited that NYC Atheists are doing this and I hope their experience can eventually transfer to other big cities.
Julia Sweeneyexplains why the label “one-woman show” is a perfect way to describe Letting Go of God. Unlike her previous projects which had corporate backers and some creative input from other people, her show about atheism is hers all the way — right down to shipping the CDs and DVDs to Amazon warehouses.
I moved last year and got to know the folks at my post office. I did absolutely no advertising and no publicity for Letting Go of God over this last year. None. And I would sell somewhere between 100 and 200 DVDs a month through Amazon. I still like taking the boxes to the post office, I still like packing the boxes. I still like touching each DVD with my own hands before it goes off into the world.
It’s really a nice piece that makes you like Julia even more than before
On a side note, I was surprised to read this: Julia needed to purchase “insurance against people like Deepak suing me for defamation.” (In the show, she remarks that Chopra is “full of shit.”)
Then there was this last year, getting the movie ready to show on cable… There are all these things that have to be done, like getting closed captioning, and insurance against people like Deepak suing me for defamation (it’s so ridiculous, public figures are explicitly open to being parodied or made the butt of jokes — I mean I worked on SNL so I know this, it was discussed constantly — but still I had to get insurance just for a nuisance law suit!)
I did not know that type of insurance even existed… it just sounds like something that would backfire again the “defamation victim.” To sue over what someone said about you would bring even more attention to what they said… and since it happens to be true in this case, all the worse for Chopra, no?
David McCalla, the principal of (public) Albany High School in New York, wanted to purchase SMART Boards for all the classrooms in his building. (For those who don’t know what SMART Boards are, I use them in my math classrooms every day and *trust* me when I say they’re amazing. I’d be lost without them.)
Anyway, for McCalla, the total cost to put the equipment in each classroom was $275,000. Not a good-looking number when you already have budget issues.
With the school board grappling with budget problems, he took an unconventional route by approaching some Albany church leaders.
“Getting the widest range of people, the quickest way is through the church,” he said.
On a recent weekday, McCalla met with the ministers to demonstrate the boards, known as interactive whiteboards, and show what the city’s students were missing out on.
By the end of the week, they called a news conference and already had begun collecting donations from their church members and challenging local businesses to help them raise $60,000 by the end of January so the school could buy 30 new of the boards.
As far as I can tell, there are no strings attached to the financial contributions. It’s hard for me to criticize the principal for going to the religious groups in the community to ask for help when it’s tough to get that money from other sources. I also commend the churches for helping the children and teachers.
But I still feel a bit queasy about this relationship… do you?
Is the principal crossing the line by reaching out to the church community? If not, what would have to happen before that line was crossed?
Note: I have edited and paraphrased these two letters to protect the privacy of the writers, whose jobs might be jeopardized. I indicate where I have completely summarized with italics and parentheses. However, I have made every effort to preserve both the essence and the intentions of what was said.
Dear Richard,
I work for a large agency funded by the government of a southern state with taxpayer dollars. Recently, every employee in our organization received a long e-mail from our outgoing departmental supervisor that thanked the whole agency for its hard work throughout her tenure, and credited other officials whom she deemed very hardworking and invaluable.
However, the last three paragraphs of her e-mail concerned me:
(The supervisor thanked everyone for the privilege of serving with them, saying that it was an honor to have been a part of it. She talked about looking to her most important source for guidance as she faced difficult challenges daily at work, meaning God. She said that she reads a daily religious affirmation online, and that shortly after she had tendered her resignation, the daily message was very pertinent, and it had relieved the last doubts she had had about making that decision.
The message was about employment, and how one’s work can be an expression of one’s spiritual life and commitment to serving both God as well as other human beings. It went on to talk about working with integrity and reliability, and feeling gratitude for all the people with whom one works. It concluded with a statement about giving and receiving joy in the workplace, and about expressing devotion to God through service to others.)
Obviously writing her back and addressing her role as a state representative who is (indirectly?) endorsing a particular religion concerns me and my job, but I think it’s something more state bureaucrats should be made aware of in a civil way. This is not the first mention of the Judeo-Christian god by employees at my agency, but the remarks from this very high ranking official has caused me to write you. I have considered e-mailing her anonymously from an account outside of our state’s e-mail system, but this will not be seen by other employees nor do I think even a civil critique of her actions would give her any real incentive to write another e-mail out addressing what she has done and why it’s unethical on principle. I have no personal contact with this official, so I am unsure how I should address this. I cannot let this go unchecked, especially as a state employee myself and considering we have hundreds of other state employees who are of other faiths and of no faith, such as myself. How should I handle this?
An atheist bureaucrat
Dear atheist bureaucrat,
Like you, I think it’s very important to keep church and state separate, but I don’t think the wall has been breached here.
She’s resigning, leaving, on her way out, saying goodbye. On occasions like these, it’s a common custom to allow a person to let their hair down a bit and express themselves from the heart. She is speaking as a private person in this letter, not as a state employed supervisor. She is sharing how she personally found these spiritual affirmations helpful for guidance and inspiration. She’s not talking about where the agency should go in the future, she’s sharing how she got through it in the past. Also, considering the second thoughts that pester people who wrestle with decisions to resign, it is understandable that she would want to express her feelings of relief and certainty that she’d done the right thing.
Even though she sent this through the agency email to every employee, I do not see how anyone would mistake this as the state agency’s endorsement of a particular religion, or her proselytizing. She’s saying, “Hey it’s been a challenge and a pleasure, and I just wanted to share that my faith in God was very helpful to me. Bye.”
I read nothing there that either explicitly or implicitly said that employees should follow her religious views. I read nothing that stated or suggested that the agency has a mission, a duty or a role to endorse or promote her religion or any other religion. Farewell statements by already resigned bosses do not set or express policy. High ranking or not, on her last day she gets to be a person, and I must say, it was pretty positive stuff. Even Presidents get to go to church once in a while or say “God bless America” at the end of a speech without it becoming a Constitutional crisis.
Let it go. The ethical impropriety in this needs a microscope to be seen. She used the agency email system for a goodbye letter and she mentioned that God was helpful to just herself. Big deal.
Now, if the incoming supervisor were to send an email introducing himself or herself with heavy references to religion and passages of scripture, or sent daily spiritual/religious affirmations to all the employees, or started every staff meeting with a prayer, or talked about God this, and God that, during interviews, that kind of thing would be inappropriate and would be important to correct.
Save your energy and ammo for the bigger battles. I’m sure you’ll have some.
Richard
Dear Richard,
I work for a very large Federal department, and my agency functions as the accounting and finance division for the whole department. We have several thousand people in my building alone, and there are several other sites around the world. Most employees seem to be Christians.
My problem lies with our “meditation room” which is actually a Christian church within the building. I believe it is merely labeled a meditation room to avoid lawsuits. In this room there is a daily church service being held. It is even advertised in our news letter. I went to see this room for the first time the other day and was shocked to see it is filled with rows of pews, bibles, and a 5 foot wooden cross. How can this room not be declared unconstitutional? What course of action can I take to shut this place down. I do not want to bring a lawsuit because it would drastically hurt both my career and my wife’s career. Is there any organization which would take up the lawsuit without my name being in it?
Thanks,
Louis
Dear Louis,
I call things like this workplace indulgences. Some companies provide gymnasiums, lounges for socializing, libraries or quiet reading rooms, day care centers for small children, jogging trails around the grounds, even napping rooms with cots, all sorts of things that may keep the employees healthy and happy, and hopefully more productive.
Yes, the euphemistically named “meditation room” is clearly decked out as a chapel, although I suppose one could practice any religious or secular method of quiet meditation in there. If I want a quiet place to sit still and concentrate on my breathing, I don’t give a damn (if you’ll excuse the expression) that there’s a couple of intersecting two-by fours bolted to the wall. Gongs, bells, or chanting might disturb others, so such conflicting uses would need to be scheduled around each other and announced in that company newsletter.
But the question is, does this room cross the line between a benign indulgence of employees’ personal religious practice, and an unconstitutional establishment/endorsement of a specific religion?
You might contact the ACLU or Americans for Separation of Church and State for advice since they have experience with such situations, but I think they will ask you questions similar to some that come up in my mind:
Is it equitable? In order to avoid violating the non-establishment clause, the everybody-or-nobody rule seems to apply to religious indulgences on government property, including holiday displays. Is the meditation room open for anyone to use at any time, or is it locked when not being used for specifically Christian services? If anyone asks for a different room to be used for Muslim prayer, will that be provided? If nobody has requested that room or another room specifically for Buddhist or Jewish or Hindu or Pagan or whatnot religious activities, then that rule hasn’t been tested yet, and you don’t know if it’s equitable.
Does it interfere with the agency’s task? You’ve said that several thousand people work there, in what I assume is a very large building. Are there many rooms that are unused or under used, or is the work already hampered by overcrowding?
There have been some recent court decisions in cases filed just on the principle of keeping religious things out of government, and the trend has been for the courts to insist that the plaintiffs demonstrate that they have “standing.” That means that they have been significantly negatively effected. If there is no harm done, there is not much justification for legal action. The courts are not very interested in hearing such cases on principle alone. The general taxpaying public would have standing if the meditation room actually impedes the work they are paying your agency to do.
Who’s paying for the stuff in the room? Other than the square footage, of which your building may have a surplus or a shortage, was taxpayer money spent to furnish and equip the room, or was that donated by the employees who use the room?
Do you or other employees have “standing?” Does the existence of this room significantly effect you or others detrimentally? If the room merely annoys you, that probably wouldn’t be seen as a legitimate complaint. If someone is being harmed in some way, the people being effected would have to be willing to make formal complaints at first, and then if necessary, file lawsuits as named plaintiffs. You’ve indicated that you wouldn’t want to risk that.
Other questions would include finding and proving whether or not there is a culture of bias in hiring or promoting that favors people who use the room or who openly demonstrate their Christianity, or that Christianity improperly influences the work that your government agency does.
The answers to the above questions will lend insight to the harder essential question, is this room really an improper government agency endorsement of Christianity, or is it nothing more than a workplace indulgence given to those Christians who asked for it to use on their own time?
If the room doesn’t involve any of these problems, then I don’t really see what would make it so objectionable, either legally or personally.
Louis, there is one way that you might get answers to some of these questions without tipping your hand that you object to the meditation room. Ask whomever would be the right person if it would be possible to create an employee library and reading room. Propose a place for quiet reading and a communal collection of used books and magazines donated by employees. It doesn’t matter whether you intend to follow through with it. This would be an opportunity to ask questions.
Keep your intentions sounding simple and innocuous. This way you may gain insight about how properly or improperly the meditation room was indulged by the administration. Pretending innocence, ask about furnishing the room. You’ll need tables, chairs and a bookshelf. Ask, “for instance,” where did the meditation room get those nice pews and the Bibles? The answers to your questions and whatever else the administration says could be very enlightening. If they say sorry, you can’t have the reading room because the building’s too crowded, or some other problem that was not an obstacle for the meditation room, then that may be evidence of favoring a religious over a secular workplace indulgence.
And if you follow through, you might even get a nice reading room and library. You could add a few scientific, secular, humanist and atheist books and magazines into the communal collection, just to see what happens.
