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.

It’s really not surprising that after a letter filled with so many logical, legal, and historical errors that at the end Jen would be reduced to such blatant mischaracterizations of atheism as well. I doubt that she has the first idea as to what atheism is or entails. She’s “not going to claim that atheism isn’t a belief system” because she doesn’t know enough about atheism to write about it at all. Atheism isn’t a belief system, it’s a lack of a single belief (theism). Atheism isn’t a religion, although it is included in some religions. It wouldn’t have taken much time or effort to learn the truth of these matters, but apparently she didn’t consider it worth it.

Atheism in its purest sense requires that one does not believe in anything. That is actually a dogmatic belief, which means that one could argue that atheism is at least a religion. (Sorry… you can’t say you are both an atheist and have no religion because you believe SOMETHING.) Agnosticism lets you not have any belief in a higher power — you don’t affirm or deny it either way. You can argue all you want about atheists not having a religion, but… they do whether or not they want to admit it. It *IS* a belief system.

I always love to see people make such grandiose claims [that Newdow is abusing the legal system to infringe on my beliefs] because it demonstrates beyond a doubt that they haven’t given serious or fair thought to the subject. To see why, take a very close look at what Jen is claiming: if the phrase “under God” is removed from the official Pledge of Allegiance which the government asks people to recite, her “right” to her “beliefs” will be infringed upon.

Again, it’s Newdow’s desire that society be absent of religious influences that I have a problem with. Learn to read and comprehend please.

Now, what “beliefs” do you suppose she is talking about? What will be “infringed” upon? Will the government be endorsing atheism? No – although as noted above, any objection to that by a person who defends government endorsement of theism is a mark of hypocrisy. Will the government be endorsing Islam or Buddhism? No. Will the government be endorsing humanism or existentialism? No. Will the government be forcing people not to say “under God” when they recite the Pledge of Allegiance? No. Will the government be banning the belief that there is some connection between America and God? No.

Didn’t say that at all. Again, what we have here is a failure to comprehend what I wrote in my article. I’m not asking the government to endorse Christianity and make it the state religion. I’m asking that I be allowed to practice my faith and not have it limited by another person’s antagonism toward my belief system.

Quite simply, a failure to endorse theism (and a particular sort of theism, at that) in the Pledge of Allegiance cannot reasonably be described as an “infringement” on the “beliefs” of anyone at all – everyone remains just as free as ever to believe whatever they want. There isn’t even an infringement upon anyone’s actions.

Not quite. Austin is assuming that I want the government to endorse a belief in the Christian god. That isn’t what I’m asking at all.

So why do people like Jen make arguments like this? Sadly, there seems to be a perception that when particular Christian privileges are lost, then that represents a loss of rights as well. It’s not unlike a white person complaining about blacks being allowed to sit in the front of the bus, saying that the refusal of the government to give whites special recognition above blacks somehow means that whites’ rights are being infringed upon. Well, I have to say that such a position is incredibly arrogant, short-sighted, and ignorant.

This is just getting ridiculous. Newdow’s daughter being “forced to say the POA or be ridiculed” (which is pretty dumb considering his daughter does it *BY CHOICE* and is a Christian like her mother) is not equal to the civil rights issues faced during the 1960’s. SCOTUS has already upheld a person’s right *NOT* to say it. Why is he making such a big deal out of it if he’s not required to do it?

Christians don’t lose any rights when their beliefs aren’t treated as being special and better than the beliefs of others. They may not like losing their privileges and preferred status, but the fact of the matter is they never deserved those things to begin with. They only had them because in the past they have been able to wield their political power in a manner that ignored the rights of minorities – but that power has been eroding and the end result is ultimately more liberty and more opportunity for all.

Of course this *must* end with the assumption that all I want is for Christians to have a preferred status and special privileges not given to other faiths. Not the case at all. I want to be allowed to express my religion and Michael Newdow’s lawsuit would strip me of that right. I also fail to see how my Christian beliefs deny liberty to others. I don’t enslave people on a regular basis and I respect that people believe differently than I do. It’s Newdow that has the problem.

I also found it amusing that he referred to me as a conservative Christian because I’m usually seen as too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives. I’m at the conservative end of my denomination but most people see me as a flaming liberal for some strange reason. Thank you Austin. That made me smile.

And as I said in my article:

…you have failed to see that our government’s non-endorsement of a religion is the only reason you can practice yours. If we had a state church as some would like, you would likely not be allowed to profess your atheist beliefs and would likely be required to say the Pledge of Allegiance with the added words. If you want to keep your right to your beliefs, please refrain from abusing the legal system to infringe on my right to my beliefs.

C/S