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Articles by Wayne (continued)
George W. Bush's Faith-Based Initiative: a very regressive idea
I hereby credit both AANEWS and American Atheists for the following article of Commentary, by Jeff Lewis: History And The Faith-Based Initiative. That article was copied from the newsletter A M E R I C A N A T H E I S T S #898 ~~ 3/21/01, with what I consider to be its permission to use that article as herein.
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AANEWS is a free service from American Atheists, a nationwide movement founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair which defends the civil rights of nonbelievers, and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.
The copied material is in maroon, as highlighted by me in red. My comments follow the article, in black.
Jeff Lewis Commentary . . .
History And The Faith-Based Initiative
George W. Bush's White House Office of Faith-based and Community Services qualifies as the most regressive idea in our 200-plus year history. The architects of our government were acutely aware of the special problem posed by religion and took pains to keep it out of our Constitution; they made the specific point that government should have nothing to do with religion.
James Madison was intimately involved in the final wording of the First Amendment as a former member of the joint Senate-House conference committee which drafted the religion clauses. As President, Madison wrote, "...Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty." [Writings of James Madison, 8:132-133.] (1) This was part of his veto, February 21, 1811, of "An Act incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria, in the District of Columbia and looks very much like what Bush's new faith-based office wants to do. It's clear that Madison would have vigorously opposed such an office.
The above opinion was written by a man who was there. There is no second-guessing his knowledge regarding the intent of the First Amendment. One-hundred-ninety years later we have a President who either has no clue about the intent of the First Amendment and the historical abuses of power wrought by religious entanglement with governments, or is engaged in a willful attempt to turn the clock back 200 years and have us fight the 'religion in government' battle all over again.
On February 7, 2001, I wrote of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, "What the new office actually does is establish national religions, since there will have to be a process to determine which religions are acceptable. At that point, government begins to dictate what is religion and what is not." (2)
One month later, we have televangelist Jerry Falwell, one of several religious right leaders backing Bush, suggesting that requests for federal money for many 'unpopular' religious organizations will result in 'pork barrel' distributions. He also is against funding for Islamic groups, saying they preach hate; and he's against funds for the Church of Scientology, the Jehovah Witnesses and other religions with "radical and unpopular views" (3) Thomas Jefferson said, I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another. (4) This is exactly what Bush's office is beginning to do -- "bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."
It is true that John DiIulio, director of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, chastised Falwell for his exclusionary remarks but there is no doubt that the bulk of public money will go to those sects favored by the politicians in power. Thinking people would have our government avoid this quagmire altogether, as did the authors of the Constitution. If only we had thinking people in the White House. Senator Jesse Helms' suggestion of replacing foreign aid with funding for faith-based organizations providing foreign services is similarly either ignorant or blatantly designed to define the United States as a Christian nation, which it definitely is not nor was intended to be. Here is a recent example of how this suggestion would work:
"Samaritan's Purse, a Christian relief organization operated by Franklin Graham has received more than $200,000 in subsidies from the U.S., Agency for International Development, and engages in religious proselytizing directed at earthquake victims and other needy residents of El Salvador, according to a report in today's New York Times. Graham is the son of prominent evangelist Billy Graham; and both men are close friends of President George W. Bush."
"According to the Times, needy victims of recent earthquakes in El Salvador were given religious tracts and asked to accept Jesus Christ as their savior."
"One villager told the paper, "They said a lot, but the principle thing was God and that earthly things do not matter." (5)
It is chilling to imagine U.S. foreign aid in the hands of proselytizing sects spreading their particular 'gospel' along with food, shelter and medical supplies to needy people around the world. I cannot fathom a more tacky image of the United States of America. I only hope that critics can muster enough strength to counter the faith-based reason-stultification suffered by Bush and Helms.
(1) (2) () (3) American Atheist on-line newsletter, AANEWS for Thursday, March 8, 2001 (4) (5) American Atheist on-line newsletter, AANEWS for Monday, March 5, 2001
Jeff Lewis
Parallel Politics and Comment
My comments:
I agree fully with the commentary, and add some additional thoughts, some of which are addressed elsewhere on this site in more detail.
1. Church-state separation:
The drafters of the Constitution were very specific in wanting to (1) clearly separate church and state; (2) avoid having the state endorse or fund any religion or religious practice; (3) avoid having the state favor one religion over another, or of religion over non-religion. (The latter point is almost always overlooked by not only the Religious Right, but by most people.)
2. Avoidance of Judeo-Christian religious morality codes:
In particular, the drafters did not want to have the ethical standards in the Constitution or the laws of the land to be based on the morality of Christianity or of any other religious sect. If they had done so, we too could still have, as some states do to this day, penalties of stoning to death for such "crimes" as blasphemy and adultery (see the Ten Commandments*) or having people's hands and feet chopped off for theft, as now prevails in several theocratic states.
* That is one reason why the Federal courts have denied the requests by some Christian groups to have the Ten Commandments posted in US courtrooms. Those Commandments and the penalties that go with them are not only religious statements, and therefore not to be endorsed by the State, but they also happen to be cruel and barbaric as compared to the far superior secular ethics entrenched in the laws of a civilized society like the USA. My ethics maintain that cutting off a person's hand as a penalty for stealing a loaf of bread is wrong. The ethics of a religion (Islam) that is honored by one third of all religious believers on earth believes that such amputation is to be revered as a holy thing to do, in praise of its so-called "merciful" Allah. One other third, the Roman Catholic Church believes in the death penalty. See Abortion as death penalty? Why is the Catholic Church against abortion when it is not, in principle, against killing adults?
Saying of Jesus: "'But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.'" . . . Luke 19:27
Does that sentiment of Jesus sound like a good ethical basis upon which to found a democracy? Does it speak of brotherly love -- or of a theocratic "Christian" dictatorship based on the barbaric morality of Jesus?
3. Founding fathers and early presidents were not pro-Christian, contrary to popular belief:
Many of the drafters of the Constitution and the first six presidents of the USA were not Christian, and were not afraid or ashamed to clearly state why in their writings (as can be seen below). Madison and Jefferson, for example, saw in Christianity and the Bible a debased standard of morality and cruelty based on superstitious and contradictory myths. See the following: Tough Questions for the Christian Church and What They Said About Religion, FFRF*, Inc.: http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/quotes.html (*Freedom From Religion Foundation) for quotations, including the following, which give some insight as to the attitudes of the Founding Fathers and a few others.
It is important to read over these quotations in order to overcome revisionist views fostered by not only the Religious Right, but by a great majority of religious people, who are under the mistaken impression that the USA was founded on a reverence for religion. The truth, as reflected in the actual quotes below, is quite the opposite. The USA was founded on the basis of very real doubts and fears as to the harm that religion could do in a society, especially if its powers were augmented in any way by the state.
See also the following links:
Links, Founding fathers were not Christian
The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians: http://atheism.about.com/religion/atheism/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dimensional.com%2F%7Erandl%2Ftinq.htm by Steven Morris, in Free Inquiry, Fall, 1995. "The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity.
This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments. Quotes.
The words "In God We Trust" were not consistently on all U.S. currency until 1956, during the McCarthy Hysteria.
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. -- James Madison
When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. -- Benjamin Franklin
Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separated. -- Ulysses S. Grant
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. -- Thomas Paine
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -- Thomas Jefferson
I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. -- Charles Darwin
Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on hand-outs. All beggars teach that others should give. -- Robert Ingersoll
The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known. -- John Stuart Mill
The Founding Fathers on Religion: Religion vs. Morality: http://religion.aynrand.org/quotes.html:
As the quotes on this page illustrate, the claim that America was founded on Christianity is a myth. Many of the Founding Fathers and Revolutionary War leaders were Deists, and upheld a firm separation of church and state.
Webster’s New World Dictionary — Third College Edition
Deism: (1) The belief in the existence of a God on purely rational grounds without reliance on revelation or authority; especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. (2) The doctrine that God created the world and its natural laws, but takes no further part in its functioning.
“Point for point, the
Founding Fathers’ argument for liberty was the exact
counterpart of the Puritans’ argument for dictatorship
— but in reverse, moving from the opposite starting point to
the opposite conclusion. Man, the Founding Fathers said in
essence (with a large assist from Locke and others), is the
rational being; no authority, human or otherwise, can demand
blind obedience from such a being — not in the realm of
thought or, therefore, in the realm of action, either. By his
very nature, they said, man must be left free to exercise his
reason and then to act accordingly, i.e., by the guidance of his
best rational judgment. Because this world is of vital
importance, they added, the motive of man’s action should be
the pursuit of happiness. Because the individual, not a
supernatural power, is the creator of wealth, a man should have
the right to private property, the right to keep and use or trade
his own product. And because man is basically good, they held,
there is no need to leash him; there is nothing to fear in
setting free a rational animal.
“This, in substance, was the
American argument for man’s inalienable rights. It was the
argument that reason demands freedom.”
—Leonard Peikoff, “Religion vs. America,” The Voice of Reason.
United States Constitution:
The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”
Article VI, Section 3: “...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
John Adams (the second President of the United States):
Adams signed the Treaty of
Tripoli (June 7, 1797). Article 11 states:
“The
government of the United States is not in any sense founded on
the Christian religion.”
From letters of Adams: “Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”
Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the United States):
Jefferson’s
interpretation of the first amendment in a letter to the Danbury
Baptist Association (January 1, 1802):
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies
solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none
other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers
of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate
with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people
which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church
and State.”
From Jefferson’s biography:
“...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words,
‘Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion,’ which
was rejected ‘By a great majority in proof that they meant
to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and
the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the
Infidel of every denomination.’”
Jefferson’s
“The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom”:
“Our civil
rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on
our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government
extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does
me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no
god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
From Thomas Jefferson’s Bible:
“The day
will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme
Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed
with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of
Jupiter.”
Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia:
“Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments.
To make way for these free inquiry must be indulged; how can we
wish others to indulge it while we refuse ourselves? But every state, says an inquisitor, has
established some religion. No two, say I, have established the
same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?”
“They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the alter of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
“I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.”
“In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear....Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue on the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure for you.”
“Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever shone on man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.”
“...that our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry.”
James Madison (the fourth President of the United States):
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments:
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”
Additional quote from James Madison:
“Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
Thomas Paine:
From The Age of
Reason, pp. 8–9:
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish
church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish
church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know
of....Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and of
my own part, I
disbelieve them all.”
From The Age of Reason:
“All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish,
Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human
inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize
power and profit.”
From The Age of Reason:
“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties,
and the
greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had
their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed
religion.”
From The Age of Reason:
“What is
it the Bible teaches us? — rapine, cruelty, and
murder.”
From The Age of Reason:
“Loving of
enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has beside no meaning....Those who
preach the doctrine of loving their enemies are in general the
greatest prosecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for
the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy
should act the reverse of what it preaches.”
From The Age of Reason:
“The Bible
was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst
use of it — not to terrify but to extirpate.”
Ethan Allen:
From Religion of the
American Enlightenment:
“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never
disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”
And, from the following source: Quotes on Religion: http://www.truthbeknown.com/religionquotes.htm:
Religions impose their dogmas, bend conscience under their laws, deny freedom of discussion and of judgment to their clients, and, in the name of God, proscribe all thought which they do not control, all liberty except the liberty to bow down and believe. -- Louis Jacolliot
At that time, contrary to what the right-wing Christians would have us believe, only about 5% of Americans went to church regularly. Many of them had seen enough of the repression forced upon people in Europe, and which still continues to some extent to this day -- in Germany, for example, where the state still collects taxes (thanks in part to Hitler and the Vatican and their despicable Concordat of 1933) for the churches and helps those churches to suppress religious minorities such as any religion that is not Catholic or Lutheran, These mainline churches with at least the tacit support of the state employ smear tactics to viciously attack minority religious groups, and, in particular, the Church of Scientology.
4. Referee of religion?
Will the USA now need to appoint a Referee of Religion to decide upon such questions as the following:
a. Jewish groups have already expressed concern that the Nation of Islam might get such funding.
b. Many fear that the Church of Scientology and the Moonies will get funding -- and, why shouldn't they?
c. Should the Ku Klux Klan and its Christian ministries, and some other groups of at least partly a religious nature, such as The World Church of the Creator, and the American National Socialist Party (Nazi) get funding? (Some people in Skokie, Ill., might not like it if they do -- especially as many of them do not like to see Nazi Swastikas in parades on Main Street, USA.) If not, why not? The Ku Klux Klan recently won a battle in the Supreme Court of Missouri to gain the right, against severe opposition by Missouri, to sponsor clean-up programs for state highways and to require the state to post signs which, in effect, but not literally, acknowledge, if not thank, the Klan for its charitable sponsorship.
See: States Want Klan out of Highway Cleanup Program: http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/10/05/kkk1005_01.html. APB News. 5 Oct 00. The state had argued that it wanted to exclude the KKK, partly on the basis that it preached discrimination, and partly on the basis that excluding the KKK represented an act of freedom of expression by the state. In April, a federal district judge ruled that the KKK could take part in the program, stating that the Department of Transportation could not use its regulations to target the Klan's "unfortunate beliefs." It may now proceed to the US Supreme Court. The case has been underway since 1994, with the ACLU defending the rights of the KKK. States now face the prospect of being forced to validate the Klan through the erection of highway signs announcing its presence as a "partner of government."
The Klan case illustrates the difficulty of having the state involved as an arbiter of belief or preaching, religious or otherwise.
d. How about the Wiccans, the Raelians, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Southern Baptists, the UFO Society of Roswell, . . . ? Why not the Elvis Sighting Society of Graceland? Not religious enough? Elvis was religious.
5. Obligatory charity is no longer charity
It seems contradictory for a church to ask for money from government so that it can dispense charity. By my definition, spending other people's money -- especially money forced from other people by way of taxation -- is not charity. Such an arrangement subverts the church's servants from their role of being givers of charity to now being part-time civil servants dispensing not charity, but government services forcibly funded by other people. To make matters worse, instaed of getting a government-provided meal, the faith-based initiative dispenses "love" along with the meal. And what does that "love" consist of? In most cases, it consists of the religious givers demanding that the recipent abase himself in some abject ceremony of religious piety or hymn-singing, contrary in many cases, to his own intellectual and ethical integrity. Who said that slavery has been abolished? It is obscene, but it is already happening. President Bush just wants to expand this manyfold.
In fact, it has always seemed contradictory to me that people get a tax write-off for so-called "charitable" contributions. I think that these deductions should be abolished. These deductions have the effect of taking a portion of my taxes paid and directing them to organizations which I might not approve of and which the state has no business funding, e.g., churches.
The following extract from a speech by Ellen Johnson illustrates this point very well. Ellen Johnson is the President of American Atheists. That organization was founded by Madalyn O’Hair who was a plaintiff in the historic 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case Murray v. Curtlett which helped to end mandatory prayer and Bible verse recitation in US public schools. In a speech to the National Press Club, Washington, DC, on 23 Feb 01, she spoke as follows (as set out at Ellen Johnson's Prepared Remarks on Feb 23, 2001: http://www.americanatheist.org/supplement/wh-2001-ej.html):
One of the major accomplishments of the American Revolution was the process of disestablishing the official religious sects and churches of the original colonies. Often, one had to be a member of this church to live in a particular area, or enjoy other rights such as holding an office of public trust. Tax money and other entitlements, including land grants, were often used to secure the power and privilege of these organized religious sects.
The Founding Fathers were disenchanted by this colonial artifact, and they knew full well the danger of having an official state church, as many European nations did. In the wake of the Revolution, a move of disestablishment swept the new nation. It was energized not only by the Enlightenment philosophy of the era -- an emphasis on science, liberty and human rights -- which many of the founders embraced, but also by minority religious which desired to see a more pluralistic America. The Baptists, for instance, fought to dissuade state legislatures from recognizing the special status of the Anglican or Episcopal church. Virginia led the way, and in 1786, Jefferson’s ACT FOR ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM was introduced.
It’s words speak to us today. It stated, in part:
“NO MAN shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions of belief; but that all men shall be press to profess ... their opinion in matters of religion.”
I would like to call your attention to the phrase that “no man” -- and I would say that today this would mean “no taxpayer” -- “shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever.”
What part of that don’t you understand, Mr. President?
We will also be presenting the White House with a copy of an on-line petition which we have had on our web site for the past several days; it bears the names of over a thousand Atheists from across this nation who join with us in demanding the abolition of this federal office. It speaks out against what is clearly a “Religion Tax” on the American people, including the 10% of the American citizenry who define themselves as Atheists and just plain non-believers.
Let me address some of the more confusing statements that have been concerning the new Faith-based initiative.
First, this IS about religious faith, and promoting religious groups. President Bush has declared that his office will not promote a specific religion, but instead welcomes all religions.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter to us that any and all religious groups are included in this program. It doesn’t matter if “no one religion” is promoted over others, although this is surely a constitutional danger. The fact that our tax money is being confiscated and then distributed to a slew of different religious groups does not, in our opinion, make it less unconstitutional. Jefferson spoke of no man being compelled to “frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.”
What part of the word “any” don’t you understand, Mr. Bush? . . .
Organized religious groups are already receiving hundreds of millions of dollars to operate programs, but must ostensibly use this money only for the “secular component” of their outreaches. There is little active monitoring or oversight to see that they are obeying this requirement. . . .
Even if there were more controls and monitoring on the religious groups accepting government money, well, “no” still means “no.” It is our position that all government funding of religious groups, both direct and indirect, should be suspended. These groups benefit both directly and indirectly from such entitlement programs, and with this money comes the inevitable temptation to use it to support a religious outreach. We hear constantly of how religious groups receiving public funding simply ignore the rules; they integrate religious components and requirements into their programs; and they flaunt the rules until they are threatened with a loss of funding.
It is our position that Atheists should not have to fund any of these religion-based outreaches and programs. . . .
6. Funding of church groups amounts to the funding of religious discrimination and the avoidance of other secular laws, such as labor standards.
We continue on with extracts from the speech of Ellen Johnson.
Bush and other supporters of the new Faith-based initiatives speak of creating a “level playing field” between secular and religious providers. Religious organizations can only be compared to government and secular organizations when they both operate under the same rules. Religious groups are exempt from anti-discrimination laws, they may use a religious litmus test in hiring and other policies, something secular groups receiving government money cannot do. They are also exempt from any government regulations and they do not need to report back to us on how they spend our money.
Secular programs already exist to handle these outreaches. The criticism that government programs are bad because they are “impersonal and bureaucratic” is desperate and reaching.
The only thing that religious groups would do differently is administer religion, in various ways, along with services. Of course, gods will be given credit for the services, not the taxpayers who fund them.
I am pleased when religions employ “Atheism” to help America’s needy. Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, giving medical treatment to the sick and injured is the philosophy of Atheism. Praying, preaching, reading holy books, converting, engaging in religious rituals, or invoking the aid of the “spirit world”, does not solve those problems and does not deserve the aid of government. If Americans want theology they should go to their local houses of worship. And there is the crux of the matter. Because of “empty pew syndrome” and stagnation in the ranks of many denominations, the religious are taking their religious message to where the people actually are - at public expense.
Additionally, it must be added that at least the government won’t abandon the hungry over a difference of opinion on religion. Advocates of the faith-based partnerships claim that religious groups would administer services with “relentless and sacrificial love,” yet when our government asked the Memphis, Tennessee Union Mission, which accepted that “nasty old governments” surplus food, to stop compelling people to declare their belief in a god, before and after their meals the mission said no. They decided to let the poor people go hungry instead. That is, if they could not compel vulnerable people to declare their allegiance to the Christian god, they would then the people could starve.
7. If the state controls the purse strings, why not also control, pressure, or selectively choose the beliefs?
If the state can co-opt such services in such a way, why should the state not just go one tiny step further and also influence what beliefs are considered to be "government approved"? I can envision it now. A stamp USDARBCP: United States Department of Acceptable Religious Belief for Charity Purposes.
We continue with extracts from the speech of Ellen Johnson.
We are also somewhat surprised at how reticent many religious groups are about these programs. Some rightfully see that with government money could come government supervision. Frankly, from our point of view, that would be only fair. We point out that this would add to the cost of these programs, but this would undermine the very argument offered by churches that they would administer these programs more cost effectively than government. So, religious groups should take this as a warning -- if you continue to move in the direction of tying your religious message to the public treasury, one of the ways we will oppose these programs is to demand oversight and monitoring by the government. This is a potential policy minefield not only for the integrity of state-church separation, but for the independence of religious groups as well. Take our money, you’re going to pay the price! . . .
These faith-based programs constitute what is, in effect, a “Religion Tax” on the American people. It violates the constitution, and it also violates one of the building blocks of the American Revolution, which was the disestablishment of religion. This process of disestablishment ended a policy where often an “official religion” was supported by the government -- it effectively compelled people to promote religion. In our view, the disestablishment has been eroded over the years by laws and government programs which seek to funnel aid, especially to religious schools, hospitals and other institutions, under the excuse that it supports a neutral or secular activity rather than religion. Whatever you think of that claim, though, it is clear to us that what Mr. Bush is hoping to achieve doesn’t even rest on such a disingenuous argument. This is clearly the public funding of religion. It compels ALL Americans, including Atheists, to support whatever religious group steps up to the public trough. . . .
8. Why Canadians should worry.
The message for Canada should not be overlooked. With the likes of Stockwell Day and his fellow Alliance Party Christians in power, the temptation to follow the unfortunate lead of President Bush would be overwhelming -- unless they thought a bit about some of the consequences. In Canada, we do not have the same protections from freedom from religion and religious discrimination as they do in the USA. Contrary to the USA, which guarantees freedom from religion and of religion, and freedom from religious discrimination, the Constitution of Canada has a reference to a supreme being. In practice, laws in Canada not only do not prevent religious discrimination and separation of church and state, those in Ontario actually enforce such measures.
Furthermore, Canadian citizens, by default, owe an allegiance to the titular head of state, the Queen. That Queen, as being also the head of the Church of England, occupies a position of obvious religious discrimination. It is an anachronistic case of statehood being still merged with Divine Authority and the Divine Right of Kings. That I as a Canadian citizen should have to swear allegiance to the Queen and all she stands for religiously is abhorrent.
The laws of Ontario specifically endorse religious discrimination against non-Catholics in the state funding of schools for religious indoctrination, and allow for religious discrimination in the hiring of staff by those schools. Our overly polite society calls these schools separate schools. A more apt term would be state-funded brainwashing schools. Canada has been served formal notice by the UN of such blatant violations of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Canada replied that it could not take corrective action because of the province of Ontario. In other words, Canada cannot act as a country because of the opinions and laws of one of its provinces? I do not think that the UN finds such an answer to be very believable, whether it comes from Canada or from Iraq or Iran, where religious beliefs and state-endorsed (and enforced!) religious laws also just happen to stifle human rights. For my more detailed thoughts on this, see my letters Subsidized teaching of Catholicism, and Non-Catholic teacher ineligible for job opening at Pius X re state-endorsed religious discrimination in hiring.
As partial substantiation of my claim that the ethical standards of religions in general, and of the churches, in particular, are inferior to those of the best of those instantiated in the secular laws of the most advanced nation morally, the USA, I observe, with no great surprise, that the Catholic Church has not objected, as has the UN, to Canada's blatant subsidization and other support, of religious discrimination of these various forms as outlined above.
It is just one more instance in which the churches in general throughout the centuries have been dragged against their will in most cases to higher levels of ethics by the pressures of heretics, agnostics, and atheists to try to improve their moral codes -- to try to lift them to the higher levels of those advocated by the best of secular humanism. Should we be surprised that none of those churches and religions have ever attained so high a level as the best of secularism? By their very nature, those religions can never attain that high level. Why have those churches, which claim to teach such immortal truths, changed their positions over the centuries, even on very fundamental issues?
Why, for example, do the churches no longer support the institution of slavery? See my article Christianity's endorsement of slavery. The Bible upon which the Christian churches is based fully supports and endorses slavery (not just servitude -- there is a big difference) in both the Old and New testaments.
"When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money." . . . . Exodus 21:20
But, you might say, that was the Old Testament. Have you forgotten that Jesus is quoted in the Bible as fully supporting the old teachings? If Jesus supports slavery, why have Christians abandoned their support of slavery, but mind you, only within the past century -- and even then, mainly under the pressure of secular humanists? Why do those churches no longer think that some of the "immortal" teachings of its own Master are no longer "immortal"? I see a very simple reason for it. The abject barbarity at the essential core of Christianity is the image of a supposedly loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God watching and waiting while His Son slowly dies on a cross. And why is Jesus being sacrificed on the cross by His Father? To redeem mankind and save people? Save people from what? From -- through sheer belief in Jesus -- from allowing believers to go to Heaven after death, instead of going to Hell where they will be tortured forever by that loving God! Can you believe it? Most Christians have to believe it; otherwise, by definition, they cannot be called Christians.
What a "wonderful" father figure Christianity presents for us to emulate! The image of a father watching as he allows his son to be tortured to death in the front yard, without the father even reaching for the cell phone in his shirt pocket to phone 911 for help! If Christianity must worship such a God, then all of the issues of human rights that the secularists like me worry about -- and even the value of human life itself -- pale in triviality in comparison to the barbaric cruelty inherent in the very foundation of Christianity. As Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (see http://www.inquiria.com/nz/index.html) has so acidly pointed out, Christianity appeals to the slave mentality of masses of people who must live in fear subject to the dictates of a cruel and morally arbitrary supreme dictator of a slavemaster called God. In that state of slavery, the highest and most noble sentiments of man are to be subjected to the perverse notion of unconditional belief by the slaves in the power and glory of their perverse dictator God. The perversity is that this God offers love and salvation in return -- but not an unconditional offer. The offer is conditional upon the proper belief by the slave. This dictator God offers this elusive love -- but one which is conditional at best. As the alternative, God will torture the unbeliever forever in His torture chamber called Hell. As befits a slave mentality, at no point in the Bible is there any praise for the idea of learning, wisdom, or scholarship. See also the following: Emma Goldman: Homepage and writings, including The Failure of Christianity
An additional objection is the presumption by our justice system that the swearing of an oath on a Bible or other religious document is somehow superior to the swearing of no such oath at all. It is ironic that an otherwise civilized society like Canada should still try to base its public ethics on some of the tenets of Christianity when some of those basic tenets are so morally bankrupt and barbaric. In particular, it is the height of irony that a seemingly Christian society should insist on, or at least strongly advocate that, an oath should be taken on a Bible, when that very Bible has strong admonitions against the taking of such oaths. See my letter God Out of Courtroom re ban oath on Bible and remove ref. to God from Constitution.
End of part 417 of 60 of Religion Page 417. More articles on Page 50.
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You can email me at waynerp@sympatico.ca