Sick and Tired of ‘God Bless America’

An op-ed in the New York Times because it looks at the seeming growing phenomenon in politics - especially Republican politics - of pandering to the most ignorant, religious extremist elements of voters.  Voters who deny science, joyfully embrace ignorance and who want to force their ugly religious beliefs under the false banner of "religious freedom."   In the current GOP field, Cruz and Rubio are the worse offenders, yet even Barack Obama attends the, in my view, National Pray Breakfast which is sponsored by would be theocrats.  The op-ed argues that those of us who believe that religion has no place in the public square and most certainly not in the nation's laws need to get organized and impose a political price on politicians who prostitute themselves to Christian extremists.  Here are column highlights:

The population of nonreligious Americans — including atheists, agnostics and those who call themselves “nothing in particular” — stands at an all-time high this election year. Americans who say religion is not important in their lives and who do not belong to a religious group, according to the Pew Research Center, have risen in numbers from an estimated 21 million in 2008 to more than 36 million now.

Despite the extraordinary swiftness and magnitude of this shift, our political campaigns are still conducted as if all potential voters were among the faithful. The presumption is that candidates have everything to gain and nothing to lose by continuing their obsequious attitude toward orthodox religion and ignoring the growing population of those who make up a more secular America.

Ted Cruz won in Iowa by expanding Republican voter turnout among the evangelical base. Donald J. Trump placed second after promising “to protect Christians” from enemies foreign and domestic. The third-place finisher Marco Rubio’s line “I don’t think you can go to church too often” might well have been the campaign mantra.

The question is not why nonreligious Americans vote for these candidates — there is no one on the ballot who full-throatedly endorses nonreligious humanism — but why candidates themselves ignore the growing group of secular voters.

Yes, America is still a predominantly Christian nation, but evangelical Christians (including multiple Protestant denominations), at 25.4 percent, are the only group larger than those who don’t belong to any church. At 22.8 percent, according to Pew, the unchurched make up a larger group than Catholics, any single Protestant denomination and small minorities of Jews, Muslims and Hindus.

Secularists remain politically weak in part because of the reluctance of many, especially the young, to become “joiners.” Rejection of labels may be one reason so many of the religiously unaffiliated prefer to check “nothing in particular” rather than the atheist or agnostic box.

But it takes joiners to create a lobby.

Yet there is some controversy over coalition building between those who consider themselves “hard” and “soft” atheists. I suppose I must be a “soft” atheist for believing that there is a huge political upside to ad hoc coalitions with liberal religious groups.

Freedom of conscience for all — which exists only in secular democracies — should be at the top of the list of shared concerns. Candidates who rightly denounce the persecution of Christians by radical Islamists should be ashamed of themselves for not expressing equal indignation at the persecution of freethinkers and atheists, as well as dissenting Muslims and small religious sects, not only by terrorists but also by theocracies like Saudi Arabia. With liberal religious allies, it would be easier for secularists to hold candidates to account when they talk as if freedom of conscience is a human right only for the religious.

Even more critical is the necessity of reclaiming the language of religious freedom from the far right. As defined by many pandering politicians, “religious freedom” is in danger of becoming code for accepting public money while imposing faith-based values on others.

Secularists must hold candidates to account when they insult secular values, whether that means challenging them in town hall meetings or withholding donations.  . . . . politicians will continue to ignore secular Americans until they are convinced that there is a price to be paid for doing so.

“God bless America” has become the standard ending of every major political speech. Just once in my life, I would like the chance to vote for a presidential candidate who ends his or her appeals with Thomas Paine’s observation that “the most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason.”

Republican Candidates Give Religion a Bad Name

I've often noted that the best argument for not being a Christian is the ranks of the "godly Christians" - folks like Tony Perkins (shown above with Rick Santorum), Tim Wildmon, Maggie Gallagher, and even Benedict XVI who focus more on hate, division, and condemning others than they do on the Golden Rule or following the Gospel dictates. Increasingly, the ranks of those who make Christianity look repulsive and surely the religion of hypocrites are Republican Party candidates at all levels, with the current crop of would be presidential candidates leading the way. A column in the Washington Post looks at the increasingly foul image of religion that these candidates are creating. Meanwhile, too many "good Christians" remain silent and fail to challenge these demagogues. Here are some column highlights:

Religion in the 2012 presidential election is the topic that will launch a thousand PhD theses. The pre-Vatican II Catholic candidate, Rick Santorum, has risen largely on the support of evangelicals, who, before the Second Vatican Council, often regarded the pope as the Antichrist. The former Mormon bishop, Mitt Romney, won Ohio and Michigan (and thus probably the nomination) arguably because of Catholic support. Meanwhile, a significant portion of the Republican electorate regards a president who has affirmed “the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ” as a closet Muslim.

In light of these developments, Americans have every right to be confused. But they hold one conviction about the role of religion in politics with increasing clarity: There is too much of it. . . . Republican expressions of faith have been frequent and frequently crude. . . . It is difficult to imagine Bachmann or Perry in the same political universe as evangelical abolitionists and social reformers William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury.

The poll, for example, found that GOP voters who believe there is too much religion in politics are far more likely to support Romney. Consider this a moment. At least among Republicans, Romney’s Mormonism is viewed as a haven from an excessive emphasis on religion.

The Pew poll also serves as a reminder that the Democratic Party coalition remains diverse on religious issues. Concerns about excessive public religious expression are concentrated among Democrats.

So maybe the message of Americans on religion and politics isn’t that confusing after all. They don’t like sectarianism. But they also reject secularism. There is, fortunately, a distinctly American alternative: religious pluralism, humanized by tolerance.

The Correlation Between Religious Belief and Science Illiteracy

I have long contended that the Christian Right - and now by extension, the Republican Party - embraces ignorance in a rear guard effort to protect their house of cards religious beliefs from collapsing in the face of hard, objective evidence that the Bible is anything but inerrant. And this willingness to embrace ignorance is often pretty shocking. It also carries over into areas beyond just a simple denial of the theory of evolution - and more recently a denial that Adam and Eve in fact never existed as described in Genesis. Via Civil Commotion, I came across an article on Why Evolution is True that looks at studies that confirm what many of us have long thought. The figures are frightening and one cannot be help wonder how America is going to remain competitive in the world when large segments of the American population are actively making the decision to remain ignorant. Here are some article highlights:

there’s this, from an analysis by David Masci at the Pew Forum in 2007:

When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll.

It also seems obvious that religion impedes acceptance of not just evolution, but science in general—at least that brand of science, like stem-cell research or work on global warming—that threatens religious views. That conclusion has just been buttressed by a new paper by Darren E. Sherkat in Social Science Quarterly, “Religion and scientific literacy in the United States.” Sherkat’s analysis plainly shows that even excluding issues of evolution, religion in America plays a substantial role in reducing science literacy.

[T]he 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) collected by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) here at the University of Chicago, a survey of 4,510 randomly chosen Americans who were asked questions about their race, income, immigrant status, geographic region of residence, gender, urban or rural home, and so on. . . . The GSS also surveyed people about their religious identification and how they interpreted the Bible.

The results, especially for the effect of religion, were striking:

■ The percentage of correct answers on the science exam was strongly (and statistically significantly) affected by religious beliefs. Those who take the Bible as the literal word of God scored 54% correct, those who see the Bible as “inspired by God” got 68% correct, and those who see the Bible as a “book of fables” got 75% correct. This classification explained 13% of the total variation in science literacy.

■ Dividing up people by religious identification rather than by how they regarded the Bible, we also see strong effects on science scores. Sectarian Protestants scored 55% correct, Catholics 65%, “other Protestants” and non-Christians 68%, and nonbelievers (yay!) 72%.

Fundamentalists are less science literate than those who see the Bible as inspired by God, who in turn are less science literate than those who see the Bible as a book of fables.

Sherkat concludes that: The gap between sectarians and fundamentalists and other Americans is quite substantial. Indeed, only education is a stronger predictor of scientific proficiency than are religious factors. . . .Scientific literacy is low in the United States relative to other developed nations, and this research suggests that religious factors play a substantial role in creating these deficits.

Sherkat also found that Catholicism is a significant factor reducing science literacy . . .

It would seem that rather than worry about immigrants threatening America's future (at least in the minds of the "godly Christians"), the Christianist ought to take a good look in the mirror and grasp that they are one of the biggest threats to America's future prosperity and place in the world.

America's Fastest Growing Religious Segment: Those with No Religion

A new Trinity College report looks at what ought to be freightening to all religious denominations (perhaps the Catholic Church the most): the fact that the fastest growing segment of the American population in terms of religion is those people who profess no religion. In some ways, the results should not be surprising: the conservative Christian denominations can now be better defined by who they hate - i.e., generally everyone who isn't just like them - and the more liberal denominations are allowing the hate merchants of the far right to monopolize religious discussion at the national level. The result is that religion - particularly Christianity - does not have a very attractive image. Then of course there is the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal that shows the rot and corruption within that Church's hierarchy. That's not to say, however, that these "Nones" as the report calls them are all atheists or agnostics. Many are very spiritual and may hold Christ's gospel message as worthwhile. They just want no affiliation with institutional churches that do not practice what they preach if you will. The full report can be found here. The following are a few highlights:

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One of the most widely noted findings from the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2008), which was released in March 2009, was the substantial increase in the No Religion segment of the U.S. population, whom we designate as “Nones.” The Nones increased from 8.1% of the U.S. adult population in 1990 to 15% in 2008 and from 14 to 34 million adults. Their numbers far exceed the combined total of all the non-Christian religious groups in the U.S.

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“None” is not a movement, but a label for a diverse group of people who do not identify with any of the myriad of religious options in the American religious marketplace – the irreligious, the unreligious, the anti-religious, and the anti-clerical. Some believe in God; some do not. Some may participate occasionally in religious rituals; others never will. Nones are easily misunderstood. On the one hand, only a small minority are atheists. On the other hand, it is also not correct to describe them as “unchurched” or “unaffiliated” on the assumption that they are mainly theists and religious searchers who are temporarily between congregations. Yet another incorrect assumption is that large proportions of Nones are anti-rationalist proponents of New Age and supernatural ideas. As we will show, they are more likely to be rational skeptics.

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There are some characteristics that distinguish the Nones from the general U.S. population, but two stand out, gender and age. Nones are disproportionately male, 60%, while women actually make up a slight majority of the general U.S. population, 51% (see Figure 1.1). Additionally, Nones are significantly younger than the general population: 30% are under age 30 and only 5% are 70 years or older. . . The median age of adult Nones is 41 years, compared to 46 years in the general U.S. population. These two demographic differences help explain some of the other ways in which Nones differ from the general U.S. population.

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Regarding belief in the divine, most Nones are neither atheists nor theists but rather agnostics and deists (59%) and perhaps best described as skeptics.

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Politically, 21% of the nation's independents are Nones, as are 16% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans. In 1990, 12% of independents were Nones, as were 6% of Democrats and 6% of Republicans.

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24% of current Nones (and 35% of 1st generation or "new" Nones) are former Catholics. The ethnic/racial profile of Nones shows Asians, Irish and Jews are the most secularized ethnic origin groups. One-third of the Nones claim Irish ancestry.

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The most striking change among the racial and ethnic groups is among Hispanics. In 1990 they comprised 6% of U.S. adults and 4% of adult Nones. In 2008 Hispanics doubled their percentage of the U.S. adult population to 13% and tripled their proportion among adult Nones to 12%. This means that Hispanics are not only the fastest growing racial group in America in general, but are the fastest-growing minority group among Nones. This, too, is a noteworthy finding considering the stereotype of Latinos as a deeply religious population.

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Obviously, this trend ought to be setting off alarm bells in the GOP. The Party is courting to the exclusion of others, the declining far right religious elements in the country. Moreover, since to win elections, the votes of independents most be secured and independents are far more likely to be Nones and probably not attracted to the growing religious extremism of the GOP base.

Are the Culture Warriors Waning?

Frank Rich had a column in Sunday's New York Times which I enjoyed and thought very much on point, or at least I did until I learned yesterday that President Obama is lending credibility to and perhaps foolishly breathing some life into two notoriously hateful Christianist organizations that have been invited to the White House almost as if the Chimperator were still the president. Long term, I suspect Rich is still correct that the over all trend away from religion and the weakening of the power of the Christo-fascists is waning. The youngest generations of voters seem to be trending strongly away from the "culture wars" so loved by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson which have at their base a message of hatred against those who are different either religiously, racially, culturally, or in terms of sexual orientation. Personally, I believe it is important to hasten the demise of the divisive and hate based influence of the Christianist set from power particularly since their admitted goal is to more or less to strip freedom of religion and equality under the law from both state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution. Here are some highlights from Rich's column:

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SOMEDAY we’ll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation. The subject — which Bush hyped as “one of the most profound of our time” — was stem cells. For a presidency in thrall to a thriving religious right (and a presidency incapable of multi-tasking), nothing, not even terrorism, could be more urgent.

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What has happened between 2001 and 2009 to so radically change the cultural climate? Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.

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In our own hard times, the former moral “majority” has been downsized to more of a minority than ever. Polling shows that nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with ending Bush restrictions on stem-cell research (a Washington Post/ABC News survey in January); that 55 percent endorse either gay civil unions or same-sex marriage (Newsweek, December 2008); and that 75 percent believe openly gay Americans should serve in the military (Post/ABC, July 2008).

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What’s been revealing about watching conservatives debate their fate since their Election Day Waterloo is how, the occasional [David] Frum excepted, so many of them don’t want to confront the obsolescence of culture wars as a political crutch. They’d rather, like Cantor, just change the subject — much as they avoid talking about Bush and avoid reckoning with the doomed demographics of the G.O.P.’s old white male base. To recognize all these failings would be to confront why a once-national party can now be tucked into the Bible Belt.

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The religious right is even more in denial than the Republicans. . . . [Tony] Perkins is now praying that economic failure will be a stimulus for his family-values business. “As the economy goes downward,” he has theorized, “I think people are going to be driven to religion.” Wrong again. The latest American Religious Identification Survey, published last week, found that most faiths have lost ground since 1990 and that the fastest-growing religious choice is “None,”

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Another highly regarded poll, the General Social Survey, had an even more startling finding in its preliminary 2008 data released this month: Twice as many Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in the scientific community as do in organized religion. How the almighty has fallen: organized religion is in a dead heat with banks and financial institutions on the confidence scale.

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This, too, is a replay of the Great Depression. “One might have expected that in such a crisis great numbers of these people would have turned to the consolations of and inspirations of religion,” wrote Frederick Lewis Allen in “Since Yesterday,” his history of the 1930s published in 1940. But that did not happen: “The long slow retreat of the churches into less and less significance in the life of the country, and even in the lives of the majority of their members, continued almost unabated.”

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History is cyclical, and it would be foolhardy to assume that the culture wars will never return. But after the humiliations of the Scopes trial and the repeal of Prohibition, it did take a good four decades for the religious right to begin its comeback in the 1970s. In our tough times, when any happy news can be counted as a miracle, a 40-year exodus for these ayatollahs can pass for an answer to America’s prayers.

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Perhaps Rich is too hard on some elements of organized religion - one of my tenants for instance, the assistant to Bishop for the Virginia Synod of the ELCA, oversees a number of amazing charity works that largely go unrecognized. On spiritual matters, however, I believe that the leadership of the ELCA and other mainline denominations are losing ground. In my opinion, they are increasingly sliding to irrelevance because they lack the courage to do what is right, are too hesitant to reject the divisive haters within their denominations, and fail to speak out against the most heinous conduct of the Christianist set.

Catholic Population in New England Plummeting

I previously wrote about the decline in the percentage of Americans who consider themselves Christian and also the increase in the portion of the Americans who label themselves as having no religion. Buried within that larger story is the steep exodus of individuals from the Roman Catholic Church in New England, once the Catholic bastion within the country. As the Boston Globe reports, the decline in the number of Catholics is rather staggering and in my mind reflects a trend that will continue in many parts of the country unless and until the Vatican (1) does the right thing and cleans house within the corrupt hierarchy and (2) begins to bring the Church into the 21st century. Personally, I do not see either development occurring any time soon and certainly not under the Nazi Pope, Benedict XVI. Nonetheless, eventually the decline of the Church in the west will hurt the Church's cashflow position and as it has throughout history, the Church will change when the loss of money gets sufficiently bad. Here are some highlights from the Globe:

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The Catholic population in New England, long the most Catholic region in the country, is plummeting, according to a large survey of religious affiliation in the United States. . . . The American Religious Identification Survey, a national study being released today by Trinity College in Hartford, finds that the Catholic population of New England fell by more than 1 million in the past two decades, even while the overall population of the region was growing. . . . the six-state region is now 36 percent Catholic, down from 50 percent in 1990.

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In Massachusetts, the decline is particularly striking - in 1990, Catholics made up a majority of the state, with 54 percent of the residents, but in 2008, the Catholic population was 39 percent. At the same time, the percentage of the state's residents who say they have no religious affiliation rose sharply, from 8 percent to 22 percent.

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The study did not ask New Englanders why they ceased identifying with Catholicism, but the researchers said it was probably some combination of the general secularization of American society with alienation among some Catholics over the sexual abuse crisis and other issues.

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Silk said the study found that Irish-Americans, along with people of Jewish ancestry and Asian-Americans, are disproportionately represented among those who report no religious affiliation. "The other thing is that New England Catholics have become sort of like New England Protestants - not particularly attached" to religion, he said.