Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Atheist ads to adorn New York subway stations - CNN.com


Several atheist groups have come together in New York City to post anti-religion statements on the New York Subway. Clicking on the title of this post will send you to an article on this plan.

Any advertisement that calls attention to faith and God is good for all religions. The faithful need to fear is indifference, not dislike. Too many people in this country have, at best, a cultural belief in a supreme being but no personal experience with God. These ads may make people think about the role of God in our national life. The atheist is far closer to God than someone who never thinks about faith.

These ads may have one pernicious result. Atheists like to portray Christianity in its most conservative form. In the Midwest, a group is placing anti-Christian ads on billboards that are aimed at Christian fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is easily caricatured and ridiculed. These ads in Detroit are designed to cement the image of Christianity as fundamentalism in the minds of non-believers.

Christians are already portrayed in simplistic fashion by the media. These ads may enforce the worst image of the faith as anti-science and anti-intellectual. Mainstream Christianity is neither. Mainstream believers need to advertise our viewpoint. We also need to enlist those of other faiths in the struggle. We must contact the media and demand a balanced view of all religions, not just ours. The time has come for the truth to set us free.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Resources in Pursuit of Christian Apologetics


In an article entitled the War over Religion, the author, Ian Boyne, notes that the atheists and secularists seem sometimes to have the better arguments, but that is due to lack of knowledge and rigor on the part of Chrisitian apologists. Mr. Boyne, a Jamaican journalist, goes on to give a list of intellectual rigorous works that can help Christians refute the arguments of anti-religion scientists, atheists, and secularlists as well as works by seculalists and atheists.

One statement by author Karen Armstrong reflected what I had noticed about the argument of some atheists. These atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are not arguing against Christianity as a whole but instead against Christian fundamentalism. Their choice of target inherently makes their arguments weaker.

After reading this article, I know I now have a new reading list. I plan to read works on both sides and broaden my knowledge. For me, increased knowledge has led to increased faith.

Photo by Bryan Cummings

Monday, October 12, 2009

Thirty Senators Vote Against Women

Thirty male Republican senators and only these senators voted against an amendment brought by Senator Franken. All female Republican Senators voted for the amendment including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. The amendment is a result of a US contractor's attempt to suppress an American woman's right to take court action because she was raped while working in Iraq for the contractor. The company attempted to coerce the women into concealing the rape. This Minnesota Post article explains the circumstances and the discussion on the floor of the Senate.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas voted against the amendment. Since he is one of my Senators, I questioned him on Facebook. My questions and his answers appear below. My question leads. I have removed citizen names. Obviously, I did not like his answer.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Islam in the World - Statistics



A new study on the distribution and population of Muslims has been published. An article in the Guardian touches on the major conclusions of the Pew study.

One in four people in the world is Muslim. One in three people in the world is Christian. Christianity and Islam account for more than half (7/12) of all religious people in the world.

Both these monotheistic religions share a common progenitor: Abraham. Abraham's two sons father great societies. From Isaac, the younger son, come the Jews. From Ishmael, the older son, come the Arabs.

Both Jews and Arabs worship one God. I believe they worship the same God. If each would realize that perhaps peace would come to the Middle East.

We learn from the demographic study that most Muslims live in Asia, but Muslims can be found everywhere. Christians need to realize that Islam is a complex and nuanced religion. Most Muslims only want to live peacefully. There are only a fringe groups of jihadists, just as in Christianity there are fringe groups that espouse violence. We must learn to coexist in a diverse religious world.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Constitution and the Cross


The Supreme Court will decide the case (Salazar v.Buono) of a cross displayed on federal land that has been deeded to a private entity. The Court must decide if the cross violates the Constitution. The title of this post is a link to a New York Times article on the case.

If the Supreme Court rules that the cross will have to be removed, what impact will that have on such displays in government owned cemeteries? Is it enough that monuments representing many faiths are present?

My law and religion professor, Douglas Laycock, is opposing the display of the cross. The NPR article raises more issues. Usually my professor is on religion's and the winning side.

The Wall Street Journal article makes the point that the government should not be hostile to religion. Where do we draw the line? The authors represent the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The American Legion, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the American Ex-Prisoners of War as amici curiae in Salazar v. Buono.

If the Supreme Court allowed the cross, any government entity could display a religious symbol to the exclusion of others. I believe the Supreme Court will decide that the cross must be removed unless other religious monuments are allowed in the same area. Buddhists were denied the right to their own monument on this federal land. Their monument would dilute the symbolism of the solitary cross. The addition of other monuments would be the equivalent of what occurs in cemeteries and allowable.

Photo courtesy Liberty Legal Institute

Friday, October 2, 2009

Politics as religion in America -- latimes.com

I enjoyed this opinion piece by Neal Gabler that postulates that conservatism has been transformed "into a religion with all the absolute certainty of religious belief." (To read the article, click on title of this post.) I agree that the beliefs of the far right have become a certainty in the minds of the followers, but I disagree that this is the exclusive purview of conservatism. Those on the far left are zealots in the same degree.

The difference between the right and left is the domination of radio by the far right and the singlemindednes of the Fox News network. These right wing voices drown out the same belief in one's own rightness on the left.

We tend to think of political beliefs as stretching out a straight line. With moderates in the middle of the line and the true believers on the left and right.

I would argue we should think of political belief as a circle. On one side of the circle lies moderate belief. On the far side of the circle resides fanatical belief. Right meets left at the point of moderation and at the point of fanaticism. Moderates see each other as brothers. Fundamentalists of the right and left see each other as evil incarnate, but they are closer to each other than to the moderates.

What America has to a fear is a shift of its citizenry to the side of fanaticism. Tip the circle too far to one side and even those only slightly removed from moderation will slide to fanaticism. Such a shift could destroy our nation.

Those in the middle need to take a stand and acknowledge the danger. On this I would fault the Republican party. Their rhetoric has become extreme, i. e. death panels and government takeover of fill-in the-blank. GOP elected officials need to take a stand for the middle. They do not need to agree with the Democrats, but they do to make their disagreements less extreme. Democrats should not allow their rhetoric to escalate to that of far right jihadists. Representative Grayson's comparison health care problems to the Holocaust is an example of such an escalation. Such language must not be used.

Read the L.A. Times commentary as applying to both sides. Acknowledge the danger to our nation from both the left and right.