Category Archives: Atheism

Reflections on Atheism (III)

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I went long in my last post so now we’ll address…

On Churches Allegedly Being State-Supported Institutions
Churches are classified by the IRS as “501(c)3 religious organizations” which puts them in the same class as charities and foundations, making all donations tax-deductible. They are this way as a result of LBJ trying to shut them up. How does this “shut them up”? Well, churches cannot preach against anything the government deems “legal” such as abortion, homosexuality, the war in Iraq, or tell their parishioners how to vote. Doing so can jeopardize their 501(c)3 standing. Recent examples include a church in southern California who either lost their standing or were threatened with it for preaching about the idiocy of the war in Iraq as well as the petitions that went around trying to get the LDS’s 501(c)3 status revoked after their efforts to get Prop 8 passed in California. (This wouldn’t happen because the LDS has a HUGE presence in Washington with the delegations from Utah, Idaho, and Nevada.) Another example would be Catholic churches denying the Eucharist to those who vote for pro-choice politicians — it’s a sneaky way to get around the 501(c)3 issue. (Not trying to pick on Catholics or Mormons here — I’m citing examples that I know of that have been in the media.)

There is also the issue of how one would tax a church because the government has no jurisdiction over them due to the separation of church and state. Clergy are self-employed — we pay our own FICA, taxes, and such instead of having payroll taxes. Unless we are eligible for food stamps or Medicaid or WIC, the government does not give us any money or assistance. Clergy salaries come from the churches they serve just as the salaries of employees for a charity or foundation come out of donations to that organization.

Having said all that, I fail to see how religion is state-supported fiscally because the state has no jurisdiction over churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples.

There is another aspect however. There’s the National Prayer Breakfast, the National Day of Prayer, Governor Rick Perry asking Texans to pray for rain… These are things that fall under what are referred to in church polity as “local options”, meaning that observances happen as local custom dictate.

The Republican presidents tend to hold gatherings for the National Day of Prayer whereas the Democrats don’t. (The wiki article even talks about the lawsuits associated with it.) I don’t think I have ever participated in it for the simple reason that it’s usually on a Thursday morning and I have other things to do. I’ve seen and heard of occurrences where faiths other than Christians participate and this would honestly be the best way to do it IMHO. However, how it is done really does depend on the culture of the place where the occurrence is taking place. If it’s a place like the Midwest or the South, it’s going to be all the Christian clergy there unless there’s a synagogue or mosque in town. I have never lived in a place where attendance has been required of all citizens and where it’s the only thing on the radio, so I really don’t know how it’s government-imposed religion. (I just saw this which shows a good atheist alternative to that day.)

The National Prayer Breakfast is actually pretty benign and has a social justice focus rather than a “praying for the infidels in the nation” one. [/tic] The focus is more on addressing the problems of the nation and the world and truthfully, it’s not one of those battles that atheists/non-theists should fight. You *want* our government to address social issues and this is a means to that end.

As far as Governor Rick Perry asking Texans and the rest of the country to pray for rain, it’s another place where local customs dictate the response. Is God going to magically produce rain because the people prayed? Not necessarily but it probably wouldn’t hurt and it gives people something that they can do. Is it the government forcing religion on the atheist communities in Texas? I wouldn’t say that the governor is forcing religion on them — they have the option to say “screw this!” and roll their eyes.

I know that one argument of some atheists reading this is that I have no right to address this because I’m in the majority. Actually, I’m not. Other than living in the rural Midwest and Ohio, I’ve never necessarily been the majority. Even when I lived in Newark, only 50% of the town actually identified with a particular church. Most people would probably be classified as culturally Christian or may identify with a faith group but not attend worship services.

I’m sure my argument is probably circular and not all that great but I’m writing this late at night to try and get myself tired enough to sleep. My contention is this: religion is not state-supported. The only way it could be truly stated that the state supports it is if we had a national church like the Church of England and one paid church taxes.

The next post will be on the contention that atheists have no morals (which I don’t believe) and why atheist politicians have a hard time being elected.

Reflections on Atheism (II)

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I should probably start by apologizing if this post seems disjointed. I’m writing it in spurts while taking care of a very ambulatory two year old who likes to climb on furniture and get himself “treed”.

One thing I’ve seen prevalently (is that a word?) on the atheist blogs I read is that Christians are subjugating the rights of atheists and that religion shouldn’t be tax-supported.

Huh?

I thought that we had freedom of religion in the U.S. and that people were free to believe as they chose. I also know that the U.S. doesn’t have a state religion and that clergy are considered self-employed so it begs the question of how religion is supposedly tax-supported. Reading further, I saw that those making that argument cite the fact that churches have 501(c)3 status which means that contributions to them are tax-deductible. In essence, they have the same status as charities and foundations do.

So…

On The Subject of the Subjugation of The Rights of Others
This is kind of a weird idea to me because I was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area in a non-theist family. We did sing religious music in my choirs in middle school but it was more in the tradition of sacred classical music than “let’s convert the kids” and we did both Christmas and Hannukah music in December. In high school, we had to read the Bible for my honors English classes but it was for the purpose of having background knowledge for discussing American literature (i.e. Genesis and the Steinbeck novel East of Eden). My high school *did* have a baccalaureate service but it was completely voluntary and held at a megachurch off-campus with a variety of clergy leading it. I went to a very secular university and was a minority on campus as a moderately-conservative practicing Christian. My Christian group wasn’t nasty about the fact that it existed and one of the things that was very much ingrained in us was that we needed to be tolerant of others. (My church even baked cookies for the LGBT center on campus after the Matthew Shepherd killing to show that we weren’t evil.)

I would completely dismiss this idea of Christians persecuting non-Christians if I hadn’t moved to Ohio after graduation and lived in small-town rural America (Minnesota and Montana) from 2004-2010. It showed me that my experiences in California aren’t how it is normally and it did cause me to think about the effect that my church and its programs had on the community. I don’t know that we really had an atheist/agnostic/non-theist presence anywhere that I lived during that time — religion is pretty ingrained in rural culture and it’s hard to evangelize to one’s church because doing so is effectively “sheep-stealing” from another place. The local radio station in our small town in Minnesota broadcast church services on Sunday because it’s what the populace wanted — it was a public service to shut-ins and those who missed church due to planting/harvesting/hunting.

The one place I could totally see Christianity being a complete irritation to more secularly-minded people was Ohio. When I lived in Columbus, it was a metropolitan area with enough diversity that I think people could practice their right not to believe in peace. The year and a half I spent in Newark was another story. I don’t know that the high school had its baccalaureate on campus but the choirs at the local high schools did a whole lot of sacred music. Singing Handel’s Messiah is one thing — it’s classical music and a piece that is recognized as much for its musical amazingness as much as it is for the subject matter. Singing solely Christmas music in December is another. I don’t know if there was a synagogue in the county, I’m sure there wasn’t a mosque, and I can’t think of other religions that were present unless one wants to count Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses as non-Christians (which I’m not). What made me really wonder about how “tolerant” people were was some of the comments made at one of the Bible studies we attended where someone (in their 60’s) talked about how his government teacher gave him the choice of memorizing the Lord’s Prayer or the preamble to the Constitution. That struck me as odd and given my background, a violation of the separation of church and state. If it had been a Christian school, that would have been one thing. This was a public high school, however, and I felt like it was wrong. (Being the vicar’s wife, I had to choose my battles and reacting to comments from this Bible study was not a battle I really wanted to fight.) The culture was very much in favor of a more evangelical flavor of Christianity and it was really strange to be in the majority for a change.

Those who have spoken out on this issue have been from rural areas like Jen McCreight (Indiana) or have lived in the south (Hemant Mehta). Having not lived in the South (though Ohio was close), I can’t speak to the amount that religion entangles itself with the culture and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find non-theists that feel persecuted there. One of the characters in a series of murder mysteries by author Margaret Maron talks about going to worship and Sunday School when she was campaigning as a judge in rural North Carolina. While these are, of course, works of fiction, I can see it actually being pretty accurate because if you’re going to run for office in a place like that, you have to go where the people go.

So what can non-theists do if they feel persecuted by Christians? One thing would be to somehow network with other non-theists so that you don’t feel like you’re completely alone. Leah at Unequally Yoked has posed the question on atheism and community and I’d love to know exactly how this works for people not in metropolitan areas. Another thing is to do as Hemant Mehta does and be the friendly atheist so that people can get to know you and maybe your connections with people can help create some dialogue. I’m not saying that this is the easiest thing to do and that it will work, but it’s worth a shot.

Above all, please know that the VAST majority of Christians out there are not interested in making your lives hard. Would we like it if you accepted Christ and became Christian? Yes, but that’s more because we love you as people and not because we’re gleefully happy that you may/may not be hellbound. (My official position is that your salvation is between you and God and I’m not the one who makes the decision.) We’d be more than happy to not trample on you but YOU HAVE TO SPEAK UP. (Doing it respectfully helps.) I’d be more than happy to help non-theists find ways to integrate their beliefs (or non-beliefs) into their communities.

So… could my atheist readers tell me how you’re being subjugated? I promise to listen and see what I can do to help.

I guess my commentary on tax exemption for churches will be another post…

Reflections on Atheism (I)

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Given how I have a habit of irritating atheists over my claim that it *IS* a religion or at the very least a system of beliefs, I should probably be keeping my mouth shut right now. Anyone who knows me is going to laugh at the thought of that happening.

So.

I have a couple atheist blogs that I read daily and I just finished I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith through an Atheist’s Eyes by Hemant Mehta. One of the blogs is by an atheist Yale student who is arguing faith issues with her boyfriend and the other two (Blag Hag and Friendly Atheist) are atheist activists. Friendly Atheist is the blog that grew out of Mehta’s book.) I occasionally comment along the lines of “that’s so not how we Christians are” and I generally keep my mouth shut on other entries because they’ve become “let’s rag on Christians” threads and I have no interest in those.

One thing that seems to be a common thread is how Christians subjugate the rights of atheists and how Christians believe that atheists have no morals. In the next few weeks, I’ll be addressing these two subjects in blog posts.

First, however, I should probably make it clear that I’m a convert to Christianity and that I spent the first part of my life as an atheist/agnostic. My family isn’t religious and my dad can actually be quite anti-religious, especially when it comes to fundamentalism of any kind. If nothing else, I *do* understand how obnoxious it is when people come up to you and try to “win your soul” or “convert” you. In my case, it made me afraid of finding a church after I converted because I was afraid people were going to yell at me about why my family wasn’t there. (The opposite was true — people were chill about it.) Having said that, I’m not going to mock any atheists/agnostics/humanist/freethinkers though I reserve the right to say that the way they are going about things is wrong.