78% of Americans don't believe in Evolution by Natural Selection

A quick note on Religion

While reading Melissa Harris-Lacewell's "A Right for the Life of the Living" in the April 5th edition of The Nation, I couldn't help but puzzle once again people's strange invocations of "God's will" or "God's plan" in horrible situations. Suppose for a moment that you believed that God was this all-powerful, all-knowing being, and that whatever happened on Earth was part of his divine plan, then you would think that whatever happened was a) meant to happen, and b) God's will, and finally c) an inevitable part of God's plan. Believing that, from a religious standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense to punish criminals (they were just carrying out God's will), treat disease (interfering with God's will), or work to undue any damage done in the world since it all happened for a reason.

I realize that some people, mourning the loss of a loved one, or trying to make sense of a tragedy too awful to comprehend feel the need to turn to some superstitious nonsense and say things like "at least they're with God now" but it saddens me to think of how many seemingly rational people can think like this and make decisions about important things while believing this fairytale lunacy. No offense to religious doctors, but if you think your patient's cancer was given to them by God how can you effectively work against it?

Hey Sam Brownback, shut the hell up!

I pity the highly religious people of America. Really I do. And some of my friends say it's condescending of me to feel pity. That I am placing myself above those religious zealots and see myself as superior to them and their small minded beliefs. Well...that's true. To use President Obama's oft spoken preface, "let me be clear," if you believe that the Earth is between 6000 and 10000 years old you are stupid. You (Senator Brownback of Kansas) should not be in a position to make laws that I have to abide by if you cannot grasp that simple fact. I'm not even asking that Mr. Santorum embrace the "theory" of evolution, but simply accept that the Earth has existed for thousands of millions of years and that humans and dinosaurs did not exist at the same time.

You might accuse me of being mean, or picking on these simple minded fools. You might feel indignant and ask how dare I attack one's religious beliefs, after all, this country was founded on the principles of the freedom of religion. Religious freedom is fine, so long as it is genuine freedom, and not an excuse to impose the anti-scientific views of flat-Earthers and creationists in an effort to retard the advancement of American progress. It baffles me how we all agree that those who deny the existence of the moon landing, the holocaust or the American civil war are crazies who should not be listened to, yet we continue to allow people who do not believe that anything existed 10,001 years ago to make our laws and determine the fate of the nation.

Minirets and Majority Rule Mistakes

Democracy is good and all, but there are times when democracies fall victim to the mistakes of blind majority rule. Such is the case with the recent Swiss referendum vote that prohibits the construction of minarets within the country. For those who don't know, minarets are "Minarets are generally tall spires with onion-shaped or conical crowns, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure"(wikipedia). Besides being tall spires, they are also typically found on mosques.

While we at PutridPundits wholeheartedly reject religion and religious doctrine, and see it as a blight on society that keeps the masses ignorant and docile, we neither can stand by and watch as even smaller minds pass referendums that are solely designed to intimidate and isolate an already insulated segment of society. It is exactly these types of thoughtless actions that push groups of people closer to their religious leaders; that make people embrace their foolish faith more than ever.

Much like the banning of head scarves, or the stopping of Christmas celebrations, all of these actions do nothing to free men and women of the chains of belief. They also don't make secular society any safer from the dangers of religious fundamentalism. It is too bad that the Swiss have been so short sighted on this issue, and more unfortunate still that enough people believe in fairy tales about massive floods and walking on water.

C'mon New York - be better than California

I couldn't decide whether to write about the gay marriage storm that's brewing in New York at the moment, or the tragic death of Dr. George Tiller, a brave man who provided professional medical services to women in need. As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I'll take a stab at the gay marriage issue in New York first, and maybe later post about Dr. Tiller's untimely death.

Both subjects, however, show the need for us, as humans, to divorce ourselves from these cave dwelling superstitions we call religion. If not for the primitive "need" of so many people to believe in physics defying feats, whether they be burning bushes that produce no heat, or people walking on top of water, then Dr. George Tiller would likely still be alive today, and the gay marriage opposition would have died long ago.

The more the issue is discussed in the media, the more we are shown the faces of opposition like that of New York's Maggie Gallagher and her "National Organization for Marriage." Like all innocent sounding political action groups, this is not a pro-marriage organization since it seeks to limit marriage and does nothing to protect marriages that exist today. While it would be easy to rest of the fact that she is an objectively ugly person who holds ugly ideas, what needs to be focused on are those ugly ideas.

In their most recent television ad NOM once again employs the tried and trusted tactic of trying to scare heterosexual couples, particularly parents, about what their kids might learn in school. This is a truly repulsive message disguised as protecting a parent's rights with regards to their children's education. The notion that it is wrong to teach children to accept homosexuals or same-sex marriage is no better than complaining if they are taught racial tolerance in school. If a teacher takes the time to show students that there are people of many different races and cultures, it doesn't mean that they are advocating their students to change their race or culture. So why do these people think that if their children are taught to tolerate homosexuals it's going to magically make them all run out and become gay?

The most obvious answer might lie in the types of people who are most adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage or homosexuality to begin with. Since so many prominent opponents to the rights of gays have themselves been shown to be closeted homosexuals, like Senator Larry Craig, perhaps the anger towards same-sex marriage, and fear of its toleration stem from those "family values" organizations' members uncertainty with regards to their own orientation. It seems to me that whenever you see the spokespeople for these groups on CNN or FoxNews, they're always speaking about same-sex marriage or homosexuality as if the only thing keeping them from running off to an airport bathroom stall or taking up permanent residence in San Francisco is their devotion to Christianity.

I really hope that the New York State legislature, aided by Governor Patterson's realization that he's not getting another term, will allow this initiative to succeed and New York can be the 6th state to legalize same-sex marriage and the 2nd to do so through the legislature and not just the courts. What the opponents of same-sex marriage legislation don't seem to understand, or don't care to think about, is that the same arguments they are using today to oppose the marriage between two men or two women, is so similar to the language used to prevent blacks from entering certain restaurants, or bi-racial couples to marry. The fact that they cannot see the line of history they are on is sad, not only for them, but I would imagine it will be a point of shame for their descendants since being the children or grandchildren of bigots cannot be a pleasant experience.

Finally, I am grossly dissappointed with President Obama for maintaining his view that he is ok with civil unions but not same-sex marriage. As a lawyer, he should know that the two terms carry a different status with regards to federal and state benefits for couples. While a same-sex domestic partnership may grant you the same benefits as married people in one particular state, that may not carry over to another state, nor will federal benefits be awarded to couples with civil unions.

The answer seems obvious. Make all state and federal unions between two people, whether they be same or opposite sex, into civil unions, and allow the churches, synagogues, mosques or house of superstition safeguard the word "marriage." Until we can all get past this attachment to believing in things no more ridiculous than a spaghetti monster, these archaic teachings will continue to divide us based on the ridiculous principles dreamed up over 2000 years ago.

1000 dead - half of them women and children

While the pro-Israel lobby evades questions about morally bankrupt weapons and their media teams assault journalists and politicians to avoid condemning their actions, the IDF has killed over 1000 Palestinians. They claim to be targeting Hamas leadership and they claim that this action is in response to Hamas breaking a ceasefire by launching rockets into Southern Israel. While the western news media has repeatedly reported that Hamas broke the ceasefire the fact is that the Israelis broke the ceasefire by storming into Gaza on November 4th and killing 6 members of Hamas.

As for the Israelis claim that they are targeting Hamas only and that the civilian deaths are an unfortunate consequence I have only this to say. If you have killed as many or more civilians than legitimate targets you are either horribly inept and should not be engaging in military action, or you are lying and the civilians are intended targets.

In America, so much energy, money and passion is devoted to the "pro-life/anti-abortion" movement. The idea that every life is sacred, even the little zygote is a human being. But where are these voices when 300 children, human beings with names, and dreams, and hopes, and parents, and siblings, and teachers are killed. Where is the outrage at the murder of all these children? My guess is those same people who beat the drum about the sanctity of life for the blastocyst are also rallying behind Israel on this one in the hopes that this conflict will bring about their much anticipated revelation that they learned by reading Left Behind.

How does Jane and Isabelle's marriage affect yours?

With the renewed discussions about gay marriage in the national spotlight I find myself posing this question more and more: how does the marriage between 2 women or 2 men affect you and your marriage?  While I've heard a lot of bull shit in response to that question I thought I'd throw down the most common responses along with my evisceration of those reasons.

1.  It diminishes the meaning of marriage and therefore is an attack on my marriage:

Really?  Does your neighbor's divorce diminish your marriage?  Does your co-worker's infidelity diminish your marriage?  If an other's divorce or infidelity negatively impact your marriage are you for a constitutional ban on divorce?  Or criminalizing adultery?  My guess is you are not and so your stance against gay marriage is not only hypocritical but misplaced.  By including same-sex couples into the realm the marriage you add proponents for policies and issues that defend and support marriage, be they tax policies or public education for your children.  Ultimately the more people who marry the stronger the institution of marriage becomes.

2.  I don't want my children to go to school with the children of gay couples because it will teach them that there's nothing wrong with being gay:

This is one of the last forms of acceptable discrimination in our country.  I'm not saying that other forms of discrimination do not exist but most attacks on other groups (based on race or religion) are met with strong opposition in the public.  This line of argument points to a problem in your own life and your discomfort with gays and lesbians.  Most of the data show that younger generations are more comfortable with gays than their parents and grandparents, so chances are your children will encounter homosexuality during their time in school and be OK with it.  The easiest response to this argument is that there was a time not too long ago when the same arguments were made against integrating schools.  Complaints from (mostly) white parents who did not want their children in school with "Negroes" was the driving force behind maintaining segragation as long as it lasted.  Luckily we have, for the most part, agreed that this reasoning was bigoted and wrong and hopefully we will view the issues of homosexuality through a similar lens in the years to come.

3.  My religion/church/spaghetti monster tells me that a marriage should be between one man and one woman:

For starters, let's remember that most major religions were founded over a thousand years ago and that they also contained passages like the following: "Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."  So the next time you want to use the bible or some other holy book as a defense for your discriminatory policies towards gays remember that there's a lot of rules and decrees found in any religious text and if you aren't following every single one of them who are you to judge someone who is breaking one of them?

4.  Studies show that children do better when raised by one man and one woman:

This study, which is often brought up by groups like "focus on the family" (side note: organizations with the word "family" in them tend to be very bad for families) as a reason to stop gay marriage.  What these studies usually look at is the presence of two parents versus one parent in the home.  I assure you that Rosie O'Donnell's kids or Ellen DeGeneres and Portia deRossi's kids will have a fantastic life and will not have any socio-economic issues despite the absence of a father in the home.

If you have or have heard any other reasons why two men or two women should not be wed please let me know.  I'm sure we can debunk them as well.

Catholics and Politics

I was watching c-span today and I caught a video broadcast of a Denver radio show called Calpis and Silverman.  It's a small radio show gets to be on c-span once a year (or so I understood from the clip I watched).  It fit the genre like so many other bi-partisan shows these days with one host on the far right and other to the right of center, it's an interesting sea saw with one guy on the end and another in the middle (leaning to the right).

Calpis was going on and on about what a radical Obama is and what radical Jeremiah Wright is but what really "ground my gears" (thanks Peter Griffin) was the focus of Calpis' abortion debate.  He talked about Bishop Chaput who has echoed the same nasty rhetoric that we heard back in 2004, that Catholics that support abortion rights or vote for a candidate that does should not be eligible for communion.  While I personally think that Catholicism is shit and that Priests are either child molesters, child molesters that haven't been caught yet, or secretely having sex with parishiners, this idea that if you disagree with the current teachings of the Catholic church you cannot be a Catholic would only make sense if the Catholic church had always been on the right side of history.  Even if they don't believe in evolution, I would turn Calpis and Silverman's audience to the flat earth/round earth debate.  If that was going on today, and the pope with his infallible words was proclaiming that the earth was flat and to think otherwise was heresy, why should that invalidate a person's belief that Jesus was the son of god and through loving him you can attain eternal salvation?

I'm sorry if it seems I'm picking on Catholics.  To be honest I think that all religions are a farce but if you want to believe in spaghetti monsters, your political views should not prevent you from doing so.