I was doing a Google search on my name today and came up with this article on my “arrogance and ignorance on behalf of God” because of this sermonette I posted on blogs4God. I didn’t realize that atheists read sermons on Christian blogging sites. 🙂

I don’t know whether to be proud that I hit a nerve or amused that I’m sort of famous. Austin Cline (the person who is listed on the site as the webmaster) didn’t make any strong arguments — mostly ad hominum attacks and it sounded more like a form letter than anything else.

To be fair, I’ll respond to his whole rant instead of selecting parts out of context as he did with my article. (One thing that irritates me: everything has a context and unless you put words in it, they are meaningless.) The only editing I’ve done has been to remove my last name.

What fuels the efforts of conservative and evangelical Christians to defend the inclusion of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Arrogance and ignorance seem to me to be two of the primary driving forces: arrogance in that they think their beliefs deserves a privileged status and ignorance about history, law, and religion.

Uh huh. So Newdow’s attempt to denude the POA of religious words isn’t arrogance and ignorance or demanding a privileged status for his beliefs? Riiiiight…

Jen seems to be one of those many Christians who are under the perception that so long as people can opt out of some activity, then it is constitutional for the government to encourage and endorse it. By that reasoning, government-written and government-endorsed prayers to Allah in public schools would be constitutional so long as students are allowed to refrain from joining in. Of course, when stated in such stark terms, the lunacy of that a position is manifest. The government has no authority to endorse or support the acknowledgment of any gods, much less prayers to them. The fact that students or other citizens can opt out of participating in such endorsement or support doesn’t suddenly make it all OK.

That wasn’t my point at all. I am not in favor of state-sponsored and mandated prayer in school. This also assumes that the POA is a prayer, which it is not. Bad reasoning on the part of Cline because I did not say or imply that at all.

For someone who claims to have known at an early age what Supreme Court ruling gave students the right not to join in saying the Pledge of Allegiance, Jen has a really poor knowledge of Supreme Court history with regards to religious liberty decisions. Prayers were never outlawed. Students, acting as individuals, can pray all they want. What was outlawed were state-written, state-sponsored, state-endorsed, and state-encouraged prayers. The reason wasn’t that they might “offend” someone. The reason was that the government has no authority to write, sponsor, endorse, or encourage prayers and that doing so sends the message that certain people are more privileged members of the community while others are outsiders – all because of their religious beliefs.

Again, he assumes that the POA is a prayer, which it is *NOT*. It is an oath of loyalty being expressed to the flag of the United States of America. If it was a prayer, God would not be the party it was directed toward — it would be the flag. According to his reasoning, we should ban the POA because it’s worshipping a flag. The words “under God” were added to distinguish us from the “godless Communists” by President Eisenhower and reflect the fact that our culture *is*steeped in at least the belief in a higher power which may or may not be the Christian god.

Conservatives like to play on people’s ignorance of the Supreme Court by pretending that a prohibition on a government action is the same as a prohibition on individuals’ actions – that restricting state-written prayers is the same as restricting individuals’ prayers. The question we are faced with here: is Jen one of those who has been misled and doesn’t know any better or is she one of those who does know better and is trying to mislead others? I’d love to see examples of where “other faiths” are given rights and freedoms denied to Christians.

Let’s see… the fact that no mangers can be posted in schools though menorahs can as well as any other religious objects. If we’re going to do multiculturalism in terms of religion, ALL need to be represented. This means that I should have the right to read my Bible during lunchtime, which is something that kids have gotten in trouble for doing. If someone was reading the Rig Vedas during study hall, I doubt anyone would make a big deal out of it.

A lot of people, not just Jen, have decried the 9th Circuit Court decision – but I doubt that they have read it. If they had, they would find a very careful, very cautious decision that relies heavily on Supreme Court precedent. The 9th Circuit Court judges went to a lot of effort not to stick their necks out and they based every one of their points on something already decided by the Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is a joke. Over half of their decisions are overturned in higher courts. Relying on a Supreme Court precedent? You’ve got to be kidding me. The judges on the court exist as entertainment for the legal system on the West Coast. Pat Robertson would have done better to focus his mafia-prayer methods on them than on the Supreme Court.

Jen appears to be one of those defenders of the Pledge of Allegiance who thinks that daily recitation of the affirmation “this nation is under God” is somehow equivalent to the neutral observation that “in the past, many political leaders have believed in God.” How ridiculous is that? Michael Newdow isn’t fighting to remove neutral references to religion in historical or cultural lessons, he is fighting to remove a state-written and state-endorsed approval of a particular theistic belief.

I actually didn’t say that at all. I said in my article that our Founding Fathers were deists. That was progressive for the time period. The phrase “under God” is not a tacit endorsement of anything other than the possibility of a higher power. I have never seen anyone be penalized for not uttering those two words and the Supreme Court has even upheld a person’s right *NOT* to say it. Pushing for the words to be removed is doing what Newdow is trying to fight against: infringing upon the beliefs of others.

There’s a world of difference between the two – one which even conservative Christians like Jen would recognize if it didn’t involve their own beliefs. Imagine the contrast between pledging belief in Allah and a history lesson which described in influence of Islam on the Middle East. Is the former unconstitutional? Absolutely. Is the latter unconstitutional? Absolutely not. Would opposition to the former logically entail opposition to the latter? Not at all. But of course, conservative and evangelical Christians don’t believe in the Islamic conception of God, so they are able to see (or at least acknowledge) the distinction here. When it comes to their own beliefs, however, such good sense seems to evaporate.

This involves the assumption that I know nothing about Islam (which totally explains why I want to do a dual M.Div/Master of Islamic Studies degree). It also involves the fallacy that all Christians are ignorant as to the fact that “Allah” is the Arabic word for God. (Ever pray with Arabic Christians? They pray to “Allah” — it’s the word for God.) Islam is a supercessionist religion — they believe that they worship the same god as the Jews and Christians but that they worship God correctly. I have never said that it was a separate deity.

Oh, the irony – by acknowledging that making room for his beliefs would “limit the belief systems of others,” Jen doesn’t seem to recognize the corollary: when the government endorses her beliefs, it essentially “limits the beliefs of others.” That, of course, is exactly why the inclusion of the phrase “under God” is being challenged. I’m sure that she wouldn’t approve of it being changed to “under no God,” but that of course just underscores the hypocrisy of the Pledge’s defenders.

What Newdow wants is a total absence of religion in the government and in society. My argument is that his desire is contrary to the guarantee of freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights. The extreme degree to which he is taking this would limit the practice of religion for everyone else. Freedom OF religion does not equal freedom FROM religion.

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