The "Christian" Right's Foul, Judgmental Men

"Family values" hate merchants

I have tracked the activities of the so-called religious right's "family values" groups since the 1990's - well be fore I came out and while I was active in the Republican Party.  From the beginning, my impression was that these groups' main focus was (i) denigrating others, including gays, blacks, other minorities, and independent minded women, (ii) gaining and then maintaining political power, (iii) inflicting their toxic religious beliefs on all of society through any means necessary, including lying incessantly and displaying stunning hypocrisy in the process, and (iv) supporting a Republican agenda that sought to harm the poor, the homeless, the sick and the hungry and anyone else they deemed as "other."   Typically, these groups are headed by chauvinistic men thirsting for power - James Dobson and Tony Perkins are two prime examples - who care nothing about basic morality.  Other than ranting against gays, abortion, rejecting responsible sex education, and restoring mandatory  school prayer, true morality is absent from their agenda.  Now, with society displaying revulsion toward sexual harassment as embodied by Roy Moore, Harvey Weinstien, and Donald Trump, these Pharisee like men are not only failing to call out sexual predators, but in many cases are actively supporting the perpetrators so long as they are not "liberals."  A column in the Washington Post by a former George W. Bush White House staffer calls out the moral bankruptcy of these toxic  men and their followers.  Indeed, if one believes in true morality, look for it anywhere except among the "godly folk."  Here are column excerpts:

Even in a political season of routine marvels, few developments are more spectacularly incongruous than this: The United States has seen a swift, dramatic shift in attitudes toward sexual harassment with Donald Trump as president.

It is sometimes assumed (including by me) that the presidency sets a moral tone for the nation, influencing what society considers normal and acceptable in a kind of trickle-down ethics. But the sexual harassment revolution emerged from society in spite of — or even in defiance of — a president who has boasted of exploiting women and who stands accused of harassing more than a dozen.

It is a sign of hope that moral and ethical standards can assert themselves largely unaided by political, entertainment and media leaders — except when they serve as cautionary tales of egregious behavior. We are seeing an example of how social change often (and increasingly) takes place. Advocates of a cause can push for a long time with little apparent effect. Then, in a historical blink, what seemed incredible becomes inevitable. Over a period of years, this is what happened with the same-sex marriage movement. A type of inclusion that initially appeared radical and frightening became an obvious form of fairness to a majority of Americans. Politicians, including President Barack Obama, were left catching up to the new social consensus.

Over a period of weeks, this is the story of the revolt against sexual harassment. What seemed for generations the prerogative of powerful men has been fully revealed as a pernicious form of dehumanization.  . . . An ethical light switch was flipped. Moral outrage — the appropriate response — now seems obvious.

On sexual harassment, our country is now in a much better ethical place. And how we got here is instructive. Conservatives have sometimes predicted that moral relativism would render Americans broadly incapable of moral judgment. But people, at some deep level, know that rules and norms are needed.

And where did this urgent assertion of moral principle come from? Not from the advocates of “family values.” On the contrary, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family (now under much better management), chose to side with GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama against his highly credible accusers. “I have been dismayed and troubled,” Dobson said, “about the way he and his wife Kayla have been personally attacked by the Washington establishment.”It is as if Dobson set out to justify every feminist critique of the religious right. Instead of standing against injustice and exploitation — as the Christian gospel demands — Dobson sided with patriarchal oppression in the cause of political power. This is beyond hypocrisy. It is the solidarity of scary, judgmental old men. It is the ideology of white male dominance dressed up as religion.

Conservatives need to be clear and honest in this circumstance. The strong, moral commitment to the dignity of women and children recently asserting itself in our common life has mainly come from feminism, not the “family values” movement. In this case, religious conservatives have largely been bystanders or obstacles. This indicates a group of people for whom the dignity of girls and women has become secondary to other political goals.

We are a nation with vast resources of moral renewal. It is a shame and a scandal that so many religious conservatives have made themselves irrelevant to that task.

If the nation is lucky, the larger society will learn that if one wants a truly moral society the last place it will come from is evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who are in most cases devoid of compassion, concern for others, and basic decency.  Hatred and condemnation of others and false piety are their true hallmarks. 

Can Morally Decent Conservatives Serve A Trump Administration?

There are some such as New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, who have argued that morally decent conservatives have a duty to stay on and/or accept positions in the Donald Trump presidential administration to counter or steer away the administration from toxic or dangerous policies and actions.  While there is a certain logic to the argument on the surface, others make the case that to serve Trump is to set one's self down the road for moral evil and becoming subsumed into trying to justify normalizing the unacceptable.  One need only look at history and those who tried to serve and accommodate the policies of figures such as Lenin, Stalin and Hitler to see where service to an administration can take one.  Two different pieces make the case against working in a Trump administration.  One ids a op-ed in the Washington Post.  The other is a piece in Just Security.  First are highlights from the Post op-ed: 

[T]he episode has caused me to change my mind about recommending that conservatives serve in the administration, albeit with a firm view in their minds of what would cause them to quit. This was a tipping point. The tenor of the Trump team, from everything I see, read and hear, is such that, for a garden-variety Republican policy specialist, service in the early phase of the administration would carry a high risk of compromising one’s integrity and reputation.

In a normal transition to a normal administration, there’s always disorder. There are the presidential friends and second cousins, the flacks and the hangers-on who flame out in the first year or two. There are the bad choices — the abusive bosses, the angry ideologues and the sheer dullards. You accept the good with the bad and know that there will be stupid stuff going on, particularly at the beginning. Things shake out. Even if you are just blocking errors, it is a contribution.

This time may be different. Trump was not a normal candidate, the transition is not a normal transition, and this will probably not be a normal administration. The president-elect is surrounding himself with mediocrities whose chief qualification seems to be unquestioning loyalty. He gets credit for becoming a statesman when he says something any newly elected president might say . . . . and then reverts to tweeting against demonstrators and the New York Times. By all accounts, his ignorance, and that of his entourage, about the executive branch is fathomless. It’s not even clear that he accepts that he should live in the White House rather than in his gilt-smeared penthouse in New York.

In the best of times, government service carries with it the danger of compromising your principles. Here, though, we may be in for something much worse. The canary in the coal mine was not merely the selection of Stephen K. Bannon for the job previously filled by John Podesta and Karl Rove, that of counselor to the president and chief strategist. Rather, the warning signs came from the Republican leaders excusing and normalizing this sinister character — and those who then justified the normalizers.

One bad boss can be endured. A gaggle of them will poison all decision-making. They will turn on each other. No band of brothers this: rather the permanent campaign as waged by triumphalist rabble-rousers and demagogues, abetted by people out of their depth and unfit for the jobs they will hold, gripped by grievance, resentment and lurking insecurity. Their mistakes — because there will be mistakes — will be exceptional.

My bottom line: Conservative political types should not volunteer to serve in this administration, at least for now. They would probably have to make excuses for things that are inexcusable and defend people who are indefensible. At the very least, they should wait to see who gets the top jobs.

So what should the policy community do for now? Do what you can do in other venues, and remember that this too will pass, and some day a more normal kind of administration will either emerge or replace this one.  Your country still needs you — just not yet.

The lengthy piece in Just Security takes a similar tone with more emphasis on the moral suicide that service in a Trump administration will likely entail.  Here are excerpts:

Two of my friends, both of them principled and talented conservatives, told me they were approached by members of the Trump team about possible posts in the incoming administration. Both of them find Trump horrifying and did not vote for him. Both had the same initial reaction: No way. Both would have been willing, maybe honored, to take posts in a different Republican administration. All this was before the election.

Now, both recognize that they face an ethical dilemma: If the transition team approaches them again, should they say yes?

A similar dilemma faces career lawyers in government service who object to the new president and fear what they might be asked to do. Should they look for new jobs? As for law students and other lawyers considering government service, including anti-Trump Republicans: Is joining the administration a moral obligation, in order to fight for the rule of law and fact-based decisions in the administration of an erratic president? Or is it an unacceptable moral sell-out? Should you go into the administration because they need your voice? Or is exit, not voice, the principled option? 

That makes the dilemma worse, and so far, unfortunately, the signs are not good. Trump may be in the process of appointing some of the most extreme people in public life to high positions. Douthat counts on the Senate to deny confirmation – but what if the Senate does no such thing? In any event, it seems likely that the new administration will be the most right-wing in U.S. history, more than either the Reagan or George W. Bush administrations. Perhaps it will be more right-wing than Trump himself. And that, unless you share those views, is a problem.

The nightmare scenario is that Trump and his allies aim at an authoritarian Big Man presidency that actively targets political opponents – tangibly, not just rhetorically.

[M]y answer to the moral question is straightforward. Don’t go into the administration. If you’re in it when things start going south, get out. Don’t tell yourself you can tame the beast, because the beast will tame you. And don’t let the words “lesser evil” pass your lips. You will be fooling yourself.

In a powerful essay written half a century ago, Hannah Arendt warned about lesser evils (pp. 35-36):

If you are confronted with two evils, thus the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Those who denounce the moral fallacy of this argument are usually accused of a germ-proof moralism which is alien to political circumstances, of being unwilling to dirty their hands. …

Politically, the weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil. …  

Why do they forget? It isn’t hard to fathom. Once you are inside, your frame of reference changes. The work is challenging and invigorating and cutting-edge. You see that many of the people you’re working with are decent and likable. You tell yourself that decent people like these wouldn’t do anything indecent. Gradually your moral compass aligns with theirs . . . . You lose your sense of outrage, which is, after all, a feeling we experience when we see something abnormal. Once the abnormal becomes routine, outrage fades.

And above all, you reassure yourself of your own decency because you can contrast yourself with the real radicals, the true believers. They’re right down the hall.

[W]hen you stay in your job, and perform lesser evils, you are supporting the administration, even if in your own mind you abhor it. Your own mind is irrelevant: if you participate, you support. . . . In the nightmare scenario, you are deluding yourself to think you can turn the train, or even slow it down. Maybe you could in an administration committed to the rule of law. But that is not the nightmare scenario we are talking about.

What about the large majority of public employees who are not directly complicit in wrongdoing, but for that very reason have no ability to mitigate it? Arendt’s warning that participation is support applies to them as well. Not only do they keep the enterprise going, their participation normalizes it in the eyes of their colleagues and the larger public. They cannot plead “lesser evils.” If they have a realistic, non-ruinous exit option, they should take it. . . . When it comes to rotten compromises of your principles, exit takes precedence over voice and loyalty. Exit doesn’t necessarily mean resigning, although it may. It certainly means refusing to participate.

 These concepts underscore my position: #NotMyPresident.

Most American Catholics Ignore the Pope and Vatican on Moral Guidance

A new Pew Research Center survey contains more bad news for the Vatican and Pope Francis - most Catholics look to their own conscience rather than the Pope and/or Church dogma for moral Guidance.  Thus, one has to wonder why the media is so breathlessly reporting Church synods on the families or Pope Francis' recent blather about divorced Catholics and gays which did nothing to change long standing Church misogyny.  Here are some sample findings:

About three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (73%) say they look to their own conscience “a great deal” for guidance on difficult moral questions. Far fewer Catholics say they rely a great deal on the Catholic Church’s teachings (21%), the Bible (15%) or the pope (11%) for such guidance.

Catholics who are highly religious are more likely than less religious Catholics to turn to church teachings, the Bible or the pope for guidance on difficult moral questions. Still, far fewer highly religious Catholics say they rely a great deal on any of these three sources for guidance on tough moral questions than say they rely on their own conscience.

Among those who identify as "Nones" church attendance and/or holding religious belief is viewed as having little bearing on whether or no one is a moral person.  Indeed, honesty is one of the aspects that is seen as something that is essential to being a moral person.  Ironically, among Christofascists, honesty holds little value given the incessant lies that they disseminate about others.  Here is some of what Pew found in this regard:

Relatively few religious “nones,” who make up 78% of the non-Christians surveyed, say religious beliefs or behaviors are central to what it means to be a moral person. For example, only about three-in-ten respondents without any religious affiliation say believing in God is either essential (13%) or important but not essential (18%) to what being a “moral person” means to them. And only about one-in-ten religious “nones” say attending religious services is essential (2%) or important but not essential (10%) to what it means to be a moral person. By contrast, about half or more of the unaffiliated say honesty and gratitude are essential to being a moral person.

New Survey: Religion Is Viewed as Toxic in the UK

As noted before on this blog, all things considered, in my view religion brings more evil and negatives to society than good.  That view seems to be taking hold in the United Kingdom where a new Huffington Post UK survey has revealed results that one can only hope will someday be the view held here in America.  One might say  that over all, religion has become a ‘toxic brand’ in the UK.  Here are excerpts from The New Civil Rights Movement:

Only about one in 12 people describe themselves as very religious, and 20 percent of those people think that religion is harmful to society. A quarter of very religious people and 55 percent of those surveyed think that atheists are actually more likely to be moral than religious people, which pollsters think challenges the belief that "religion is one of the last remaining bastions of British morality."

The poll also found that young people are more likely to view religion positively. Thirty percent of 18-24 year-olds think religion does more good than harm, compared to 19 percent of 55-64 year-olds. 

Linda Woodhead, a professor of sociology of religion at Lancaster University, found the results "striking."

"This confirms something I’ve found in my own surveys and which leads me to conclude that religion has become a ‘toxic brand’ in the UK," she told HuffPost UK. "What we are seeing is not a complete rejection of faith, belief in the divine, or spirituality, though there is some to that, but of institutional religion in the historic forms which are familiar to people.

Woodhead thinks Brits may be drifting away from religion for "numerous" reasons, including sex scandals in the church and conflict in the Middle East.

"I’d add religious leaderships’ drift away from the liberal values, equality, tolerance, diversity, [which is] embraced by many of their own followers and often championed by non-religious and atheist people more forcefully," she said.

Meanwhile, here in America, the Christofascists and professional Christian crowd are pursuing exactly the type of agenda that has led to the public repudiation of organized religion in the UK.  The cynic in me hopes that they continue their hate filled agenda and in the process hasten the demise of institutional religion in this country.

Atheists Divorce Less Than Christians

With the ongoing hyperventilating by the Christofascists over the series of federal court rulings striking down same sex marriage bans and deranged claims that God will smite America for "embracing homosexuality," it is worth revisiting a story from last year which again documents that it is the godly Christian folks themselves who are the gravest threat to marriage.  As noted before, the Bible Belt has the highest divorce rate, the highest teen pregnancy rate and the highest obesity rate (gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, not that the godly folk seem to have noticed).  But even more damning for those who whine about the "sanctity of marriage" is the fact that godless atheists divorce less frequently than evangelical Christians.   Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement:

An Evangelical Christian pollster finds that atheists commit less crimes, divorce less, and are better educated than their fellow Christians. “It is obvious that you do not have to believe in a higher power in order to live a moral and successful life. Quite the opposite,” the Knoxville News‘ Al Westerfield writes of the study, adding that “the groups with the highest crime rate, the poorest marriages and the lowest education continually strive to force their beliefs on the nonreligious. And the politicians pander to them. Why else would they pass laws to put religion in the schools and on courthouse facades? And then they wonder why the godless could possibly be upset.”

“According to a Barna Research Group report, fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce rate, followed by Jews and Baptists,” Westerfield writes: 

The godless are tied with Catholics and Lutherans for the lowest divorce rate. It seems that some groups that claim to follow the Bible most strictly are not putting their money where their mouths are. The godless who are thought to be without morals seem to take their vows more seriously.

According to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey, the least-educated Americans are Jehovah’s Witnesses, followed by black Protestants and fundamentalist Christians. The most highly educated are reformed Jews, followed by Unitarian Universalists and the godless.

Some groups seem to like their flocks ignorant so that pastors’ interpretations of God’s edicts are not questioned. Other groups prize scholarship and achieve more in their lives here on Earth.

In fact, a review of worldwide studies found that criminality and religion go hand in hand. The countries with the most religious people have the highest crime rates, highest sexually transmitted diseases and the highest teen pregnancy rates.

This is also true in the United States. The more religious a state’s population, the higher the crime, STD and teen pregnancy rates.

Indeed, it would appear that if we really want to increase morality and reduce crime and many other social ills, the best thing we could do is reduce the number of fundamentalist Christians.  P.S. Yes, the image above is a bit mean, but the hypocrisy of these "godly folks" drives me to distraction. 

The Vatican Makes A Nun's Sexual Ethics Book A Best Seller

It seems that the bitter old queens in dresses at the Vatican can't do anything right.  Their program of deliberately hiding the rampant sexual abuse of children and youths by priests blew up in their face a decade ago and continues to explode literally daily somewhere around the world, costing the Church billions of dollars in the process.  Lately, the Nazi Pope cannot even keep his private correspondence private and the hierarchy finds itself in a political war with the President of the United States.  And then there's the issue of the troublesome, uppity American nuns who refuse to conform to the Vatican's version of keeping women barefoot and pregnant.  Now, because of the Vatican's condemnation, an obscure book by an American nun on sexual ethics - which doesn't conform to the Vatican's own sick obsession with sex and anything pleasurable - has become a best seller.   It couldn't happen to a group more deserving of humiliation and exposure as hypocrites.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the Vatican's disastrous attack on Sr. Margaret A. Farley’s book.  Here are some highlights:

If Margaret A. Farley’s fine theo-ethical work causes “grave harm to the faithful,” Catholics live very graced lives. War, poverty, ecocide, racism, colonialism, sex and gender injustices of all sorts come to mind in the “grave harm” category. But not in the wildest imagination of anyone other than a Vatican bureaucrat would Dr. Farley’s sexual ethics qualify.

Recent attention to her work only serves to deepen her impact and broaden her audience; 24 hours after news broke of the Vatican censure the book was propelled from an Amazon ranking of 142,982 to 16. 

The June 4th Notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) [formerly known as the Inquisition] titled “Regarding the Book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics by Sister Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M.,” left many scandalized by the intellectually embarrassing and morally tawdry work of a group that obviously needs a permanent vacation. William Cardinal Levada and company at the CDF are simply out of their league theologically when it takes them 6 years (the book was published in 2006) to comment on an important work—and they still get it wrong.

A first-year graduate student could have handled the analysis in a week. S/he would have figured out that Dr. Farley was dealing with ethical method—how we frame and approach moral questions—not defending the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

Vatican interlocutors, who obviously have no clue about such matters, only embarrass themselves by publishing their ignorance in six languages. They leave the distinct impression that they are oblivious to the fact that postmodern ethical analysis emerges from multi-disciplinary, multi-religious discussions grounded in concrete actions for justice.

A scholar of Margaret Farley’s stature must terrify the staff of the CDF. She is, after all, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School; a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America which gave her its highest award in 1992; as well as a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics.

Rather than embrace her project and explore, as she does, the range of ways that good people try to love—with an emphasis on the demands of justice in every intimate relationship—the CDF theologians boiled down her opus into five cherry-picked nuggets on sex and marriage that reflect their priorities, not hers. They missed the forest for the trees. Their statement is deeply insulting, not to mention morally suspect, in that such a stellar scholar’s reputation is impugned. As my mother would say, “Consider the source.”

The Roman men are hell-bent on reining in American nuns, if only to prove that they can rein in somebody in a world that pays them increasingly little heed. They fear that such intellectually powerful and theologically persuasive women, who identify with the institutional Roman Catholic Church through their membership in canonical communities, will trump them in the public arena.

The Notification’s 5 little points need no rehearsal. Her critics simply miss the fact that Margaret Farley does not do ethics the way that they do. She does not share their ethical priorities on what Catholic moral theologian Daniel C. Maguire calls matters of the “pelvic zone.”  .  .  .  .  But the fact that they would dwell on it speaks volumes about their ethics and their rapidly eroding power. Sexual power is power, and more and more women have it. Apparently the struggle to wrest it back is high on the agenda of those who live on the 110 acres called the Vatican.

The impact of Margaret Farley’s work will be measured in many ways, but none will be more accurate than an assessment of her long-term commitment to women who live with HIV/AIDS in Africa.  .   .   .   .   
The result was practical, not theoretical—the founding of a now-flourishing NGO, All-Africa Conference: Sister to Sister, with support from Margaret’s community, the Sisters of Mercy. She still makes regular visits to Uganda and Cameroon to teach and learn as a collaborator.

The organization “brings together women religious so that they may address the crisis of HIV and AIDS by listening to, learning from and empowering one another to collaborate in strategies for prevention and care in response to the pandemic.

Long after the Vatican’s Notification has been forgotten, generations will recognize that the HIV/AIDS pandemic occasioned a seismic shift in moral theology. Real world experience drives the discussion. Margaret Farley’s name will forever be associated with Catholic moral theology that does justice.  

The psychological and emotional sickness of the bitter men at the Vatican - and in bishoprics around the world - is becoming more and more obvious to both Catholics and non-Catholics and is why more and more Americans chose to ignore the pontificating of the morally bankrupt old men in Rome.  The irony is that as they strive to "protect the Church" they are the ones who are killing it long term. 

Atheism Continues On the Upswing in America

Even as the Republican Party races to turn itself into a completely religious based party, the trend in the larger American public is away from religion. True, there are many reasons for the trend, but I continue to believe that no small part of the movement away from religion traces back to the Christianists who are making Christianity into to something truly foul and ugly where hatred of others is the principal hallmark. Indeed, I increasingly find myself not wanting to even acknowledge myself as a "Christian" because of the negative connotation that the word has come to have associated with it. From comments of readers who identify as Christian (not to mention author Anne Rice's widely covered pronouncement some months back), I know that I am not alone in this feeling. I can only hope that the trend either causes a "reformation" on the party of decent Christians not defined by hatred who will retake the Christian brand or ultimately the death of Christianism. Here are excerpts from a Washington Post story that looks at the growing flight from religion:

As the survey results come in, as the irreligious best-sellers sell, and as the scientific analysis gets published, it is increasingly clear that Western atheism has evolved into a forward-looking movement that has the wind at its back, is behind the success of the best run societies yet seen in human history, and is challenging religion as the better basis of morality. Even in the U.S., a religious anomaly in the Western world, atheists are making major gains while Christianity withers, already having lost the mainstream culture to secularism. The least religious regions of the nation are enjoying superior societal conditions.

Religious conservatives commonly contend that only a transcendent supernatural intelligent designer can provide the absolute and perfect morality and the wisdom necessary to run successful societies – it’s become the de facto position of the GOP.

The science-based evidence leaves no doubt that, although very human in its flaws, democratic atheism is proving superior to faith-based mythical doctrines in practical societal and moral terms.

The still-common claim that nine out of ten Americans still believe in God is an outright falsehood. When asked if they believe in God or not, about 90 percent say yes, but when asked about whether or not they believe in God or a higher power or universal spirit, the actual God-believing theists drop to eight in ten. Two Harris polls also show that a fifth of Americans are atheistic to a greater or lesser degree.

Bible literalism is in strong decline, and the religious right, always a minority, is showing signs of distress as an internal report by the Southern Baptists bemoans that “evangelistically, the denomination is on a path of slow but discernible deterioration.” That’s because the churches are losing the digitally connected, traditional organization-averse youth; today’s twentysomethings are twice as irreligious as was the same cohort in the 90s.

The future of American faith is grim as the nation undergoes the secularization process that has already pretty much wrecked the churches in the rest of the West. So what will happen to American society as it too becomes as non-theistic as, say, Canada? My next essay will show how the loss of religion is not the big social/moral deal many make it out to be.

I agree with the conclusion that the loss of religion in public policy - at least the Christianist version that applauds executions, cheers at allowing the uninsured to die, and boos gay military service members - can only be a positive good. I will try to follow up on the next column in this series.

Morality May Have Roots in Our Primate Ancestors

The UK's Daily Telegraph is carrying a story that will surely set the anti-evolution crowd to foaming at the mouth. Why so? Because it reports on a new study done at Emory University in Georgia that discovered monkeys and apes can make judgements about fairness, offer sympathy and help and remember obligations. Things heretofore often believed to be abilities reserved to humans and God endowed. Personally, I have no issue with religion and evolution existing side by side. I do not take the Bible literally and thus am not threatened by anything that contradict a literal reading of the Bible. Likewise, I am not so insecure and in need of having all the answers - putting God in a box if you will and checking off boxes on a list - that I cannot live with some uncertainty as to precisely how and why we humans came to be. Not so our Christianist enemies who I suspect will condemn the study findings since it runs counter to their simpleminded world view. Here are some highlights:

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Although morality has always been viewed as a human trait that sets us apart from the animals, it now appears our closest ancestors share the same scruples. Scientists have that discovered monkeys and apes can make judgements about fairness, offer sympathy and help and remember obligations. Researchers say the findings may demonstrate morality developed through evolution, a view that is likely to antagonise the devoutly religious, who see it as God-given.

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Professor Frans de Waal, who led the study at Emory University in Georgia, US, said: "I am not arguing that non-human primates are moral beings but there is enough evidence for the following of social rules to agree that some of the stepping stones towards human morality can be found in other animals." In tests carried out by Prof de Waal, the primates were given a set of tasks to carry out and rewarded with food and affection.

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A separate study found chimpanzees spontaneously helped both humans and each other during controlled tests. Prof De Waal suggests the traits may have developed through natural selection. Some anthropologists believe a sense of morality developed during the last ice age when humans were forced to band together to survive in an increasingly hostile environment.

George Bush's False Morality

As he prepares to leave office after causing untold damage to the USA and world, the Chimperator seems totally lacking in remorse and continues to view himself as a moral and righteous person. Torture: not a problem. Taking the country to war based on lies: not a problem. Ignoring the needs of the poor and sick: not a problem. Unfortunately, Bush is all too typical of the Christianist (and similar fundamentalist) mindsets that ignore objective reality, dismiss scientific knowledge and close their minds to anything that doesn't conform to their simplistic and mindless religious beliefs. Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, has a column in the Washington Post that analyzes Bush's sick morality. Here are some highlights:

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It may seem contradictory to many that President Bush thinks America's moral standing in the world has not been harmed during his tenure. He believes this despite a widespread practice of torture and systemic civil rights violations of "enemy combatants" during his administration. But if you adopt the President's definition of morality, the contradiction disappears.

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As Bob Woodward documented in his book, Plan of Attack, President Bush's particular kind of Christian faith has given him an extremely high degree of moral certainty that the actions he has undertaken to protect the United States from terror are by definition justified. We are fighting the "axis of evil" and so we must be the agents of the good.

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President Bush's rigid moral certainty has left him no room to see the contradictions between torture and goodness. This rigid moral certainty made it possible for this man, who claims to be a serious person of faith, to have as his legacy the sustained and deliberate policy to torture prisoners and to render them to "black ops" sites outside the United States for horrific maltreatment.

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The world has a different definition of America's moral standing. On May 4, 2004, the graphic pictures of prisoners being tortured at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison raced around the world. What the world saw was the face of the United States, not as the symbol of freedom and democracy, but as a nation turned rogue state like Argentina under its military junta, South Africa under Apartheid, or Germany in the Nazi era.

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President Bush's definition of what it means for the country to act morally needs to be thoroughly rejected along with the shameful practices of rendition and torture. Candidate Barack Obama promised the country change and the country agreed. One of the biggest things President Obama and the country need to change in the next four years is the definition of what it means for this country to act morally.