CHICAGO—Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

“For so long, there has been this cloud of intimidation over the church,“ ADF attorney Erik Stanley said. “It is the job of the pastors of America to debate the proper role of church in society. It’s not for the government to mandate the role of church in society.“

[...] The battle over the clergy’s privileges, rights and responsibilities in the political world is not new. Politicians of all stripes court the support—explicit or otherwise—of religious leaders. Allegations surface every political season of a preacher crossing the line.

What is different is the Alliance Defense Fund’s direct challenge to the rules that govern tax-exempt organizations. Rather than wait for the IRS to investigate an alleged violation, the organization intends to create dozens of violations and take the U.S. government to court on First Amendment grounds.

“We’re looking for churches that are serious-minded about this, churches that understand both the risks and the benefits,“ Stanley said, referring to the chance that they could lose their coveted tax-exempt status or could set a precedent.

Fortunately this challenge isn’t going.. uh… unchallenged:

Yet an opposing collection of Christian and Jewish clergy will petition the IRS today to stop the protest before it starts, calling the ADF’s “Pulpit Initiative” an assault on the rule of law and the separation of church and state.

Backed by three former top IRS officials, the group also wants the IRS to determine whether the nonprofit ADF is risking its own tax-exempt status by organizing an “inappropriate, unethical and illegal” series of political endorsements.

“As religious leaders, we have grave concerns about the ethical implications of soliciting and organizing churches to violate core principles of our society,“ the clergy wrote in an advance copy of their claim obtained by The Washington Post.

[...] Former IRS lawyer Marcus S. Owens, however, opposes the ADF’s strategy and its legal reasoning. Working with the Ohio-based clergy, he contends that the Supreme Court would be unlikely to overturn appellate court rulings on the issue or a related precedent of its own.

Owens also criticizes ADF and its lawyers for “actively advising churches and pastors that they should violate the tax law and offering to explain how to do that. The tax system would be shut down if you allowed attorneys to counsel people on how to violate the tax law.“

Owens, a former director of the IRS office that regulates tax-exempt organizations, will ask the tax agency to investigate ADF lawyers for “this flagrant disregard of the ethical rules.“ He is joined by former IRS commissioner Mortimer M. Caplin and Cono R. Namorato, who headed the office of professional responsibility at the IRS until 2006.

The two Ohio pastors, the Rev. Eric Williams and the Rev. Robert F. Molsberry, have called for hundreds of clergy to preach on Sept. 21 about the value of the separation of church and state.

Even given the Conservative bent of the current Supreme Court I’d still be very surprised if they overturned the IRS rules considering the rather large number of court challenges that have failed as well as a precedent setting SCOTUS case in the past. That said perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have them challenge it as they risk their tax-free status in doing so. Personally I think Churches should be stripped of their tax-free status and then they can endorse politicians all they want. Make the tax scale progressive so the biggest churches pay more taxes than the smaller churches and things would be just dandy.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create “I Believe” license plates.

The group contends that South Carolina’s government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.

You just know the conservative Christians are going to have a field day over this lawsuit claiming it’s us nasty atheists trying to push God out of the public square once again, but as it turns out there’s no atheists involved in the lawsuit:

Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation.

Not that that’ll stop them from claiming it’s anti-religious sentiment that’s prompting the lawsuit:

Republican House Speaker Bobby Harrell said residents asked for a way to express their beliefs, and legislators responded.

He disputed Lynn’s accusation that they were pandering to constituents in an election year.

“That’s what critics always say when they see something they don’t like,“ Harrell said. “I think this has less to do with the First Amendment and more to do with their disdain for religion generally.“

An argument that’s obviously flawed due to the fact that religious leaders are the ones involved in the suit:

But a Methodist pastor who joined the lawsuit, the retired Rev. Thomas Summers of Columbia, said the plate provokes discrimination.

“I think this license plate really is divisive and creates the type of religious discord I’ve devoted my life to healing,“ he said.

Another of the ministers, the Rev. Robert Knight of Charleston, said the plates cheapen the Christian message.

“As an evangelical Christian, I don’t think civil religion enhances the Christian religion. It compromises it,“ Knight said. “That’s the fundamental irony. It’s very shallow from a Christian standpoint.“

Get ready to cue the gnashing of teeth and whines about us atheists at Wing Nut Daily in 5… 4… 3…

Here’s some more for our Republican War on Science file.  Or should that be - Idiocy in high places file?  Either way, LA Govenor Bobby Jindal demonstrated yesterday that he has no grasp whatsoever of the issues surrounding the establishment of religious dogma under the heading of “Intelligent Design” in our science classes.

Here are some areas where Governor Jindal demonstrates his willful ignorance of the underlying issues:

When asked if he had doubts about the Theory of Evolution, Jindal replied:

I don’t think this is something that the Federal or State government should be imposing its view on local school districts.  As a conservative I think that government that’s closest to the people governs best. I think local school districts should be in the position for deciding the curricula and deciding what students should be learning.

In this case that’s absolutely, positively wrong, Mr. Governor, and you should know it.  You should be aware that Federal interests trumps State and Local interests whenever constitutional rights of American Citizens are infringed.  In the case of Intelligent Design (or ID), federal courts have found that ID is nothing more than Christian Creationism with some scientific-sounding jargon.  The teaching of this isn’t just bad science (or non-science) it also violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  As such - any local school board that attempts to sneak ID into public schools is actually indoctrinating students into a “state-preferred” religion, and the Federal government has an expressed interest in keeping that from occurring.  That is, unless you all want to have your kids recite the Branch Dividian creed in Bology class.  Thought not.

Jindal goes on to say:

I don’t think students learn from us withholding information from them.  Some want only to teach intelligent design, some want only to teach Evolution. I think both views are wrong ... As a parent when my kids go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking.  I want them to make decisions for themselves. I want them to see the best data.

That’s not entirely true now, is it?  The best data in human sexuality clearly demonstrates that abstinence education doesn’t work, but conservative parents like Jindal want their kids exposed to it rather than comprehensive sex-education that could save their lives.  The best data available also clearly demonstrates that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is scientific, while Intelligent Design is instead a religious-political position.  And nobody in a state like Louisiana, that has a large population of conservative Christian voters, wants to dwell on that little truth nugget.

Interestingly, conservatives are ok with science as long as it doesn’t appear to step on their religious toes too much.  For example, most parents are OK with teaching about viruses and bacteria in science classes - especially techniques for minimizing the spread of harmful ones like hand washing and food service sanitization.  Unfortunately, you can’t have it both ways Mr. Govenor.  If your more fundamentalist supporters have their way, ID would replace Evolution in science classes, and we’d also have to replace bacteriology with an “evil spirit” theory of disease.  Interestingly, in some areas (not just beloved Louisiana) this is what passes for medical science, sometimes with disastrous results.

Of course, the scariest part of this whole episode is that, Bobby Jindal is reported to be on McCain’s VP short list, which would mean he has a great shot at becoming president himself since McCain is older than, well, everyone.  Is it too much to ask that we get presidential and vice-presidential candidates that have more than a thimble full of scientific literacy?

TALLAHASSEE, FL—Teachers are one step closer being able to openly criticize the theory of evolution in the classroom.

In a vote of 21 to 17, Florida’s State Senators adopted the evolution education bill, also known as the “Academic Freedom Act.“

[...] One subject facing scrutiny is the in-depth teaching of evolution.

State Senator Ronda Storms sponsored the legislation that would allow teachers to teach theories that contradict the theory of evolution.

The problem, of course, is that there aren’t any legitimate theories that contradict the theory of evolution. Intelligent Design certainly isn’t a theory as it makes no predictions nor does it contribute anything to science. It’s just a security blanket for people hung up on an ancient work of fiction who don’t like their cherished beliefs being crushed by reality.

The sad part is Florida is one of the states we had considered as a possible destination if the economy in Michigan continues to blow chunks. Anne could probably land a teaching job and word has it there’s plenty of technical jobs around Orlando and Tampa. If the winds of fate do end up blowing us that way then at least I can take comfort in the fact that Courtney will have graduated from high school by then.

He joined lawmakers and ministers on the steps of the state Capitol to pray for rain.

While public prayer vigils might raise eyebrows in other parts of the nation, they are mostly shrugged off in the Bible Belt, where turning to the heavens for help is common and sometimes even politically expedient.

“Christianity has more of a place in the culture here than in some other region,“ said Ray Van Neste, a professor of Christian studies at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. “And it’s only natural, in a way, for the public to pray for rain.“

But it doesn’t end there…

Perdue isn’t the first governor to hold a call for public prayer during the epic drought gripping the Southeast. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley issued a proclamation declaring a week in July as “Days of Prayer for Rain” to “humbly ask for His blessings and to hold us steady in times of difficulty.“

This begs the question of what the fuck the is the Governor doing? Why is he leading prayer? Or better yet, asking for people to pray?

“We need to try a different approach,“ said Rocky Twyman, who organized the concert. “We need to call on God, because what we’re doing isn’t working. We think that instead of all this fussing and fighting, Gov. Perdue and all these others would come together and pray.“

“What we are doing isn’t working.“ Is there really all that much can be done besides conservation? My Meteorology isn’t all that great but I thought the processes required for rain don’t shift much from human interaction. I know that global warming shifts weather patterns, and more places will have drought and more places will have flooding from Global Warming and these two scenarios will be less spread out. So in that sense humans have an impact. But in the immediate short term, there really isn’t much human interaction is going to do.

And why the fuck is the Governor leading this prayer. He has every right to pray himself, but what is he doing on the capitol lawns asking for and leading prayer. Is it too much to ask for high level government official that understands the constitution?

In this case, it just seems that prayer is a way to shift responsibility from people to God. I know no one is claiming that, but I have always seen religion as a way to shift responsibility for ones actions. Besides that, I don’t really care if people pray. I have never found it useful, no matter how much I used to believe, or how bad my life was. I never got anything out of prayer, no one answered my calls, and no one fixed my life but myself. So I guess my path in life has lead me to to different answers.

There won’t be a nativity scene displayed on the Berkley City Hall lawn this year, after voters rejected a fiercely debated ballot proposal Tuesday.

“Well, the people spoke,“ said Bob McCoy, 52, of Berkley who served as the finance chairman for the group Berkley Citizens Vote Yes to Christian Holiday Display. “I’m pretty disappointed.“
...
McCoy said he was surprised the measure failed. He said the fight to put the nativity scene back on city property wasn’t about religion but about celebrating the season.

“Christmas is a national holiday,“ he said.

I disagree, this measure was always about promoting religion and the people behind it made that pretty clear in their statements and with the website they set up. There’s no logical reason why you can’t celebrate the season just as well with the Nativity sitting a short distance away on church property. It’s still in full view of the public, it’s no longer being watered down with secular symbols, and there’s no reason Christmas can’t be enjoyed just fine without having it sit where it doesn’t belong. The fact that Christmas is a national holiday has no bearing on the issue especially considering that, technically, the U.S. actually doesn’t have any National Holidays:

Holidays of the United States vary with local observance. Strictly speaking, the United States does not have national holidays (i.e. days where all employees in America receive a day free from work and all business is halted). The U.S. Federal government can only recognize national holidays that pertain to its own employees; it is at the discretion of each state or local jurisdiction to determine official holiday schedules. There are eleven such “Federal holidays”—ten annual and one quadrennial holiday. The annual Federal holidays are widely observed by state and local governments; however, they may alter the dates of observance or add or subtract holidays according to local custom. Pursuant to the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 (taking effect in 1971), some official holidays are observed on a Monday, except for New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. There are also U.S. state holidays particular to individual U.S. states.

OK so that’s being a bit nitpicky I’ll admit, but the point remains that simply because the government gives its employees the day off for what is—technically—a religious holiday (and even that is debatable these days) that doesn’t mean it should be promoting the religion in question with displays on public property.

FRANKFORT, Ky.—Gov. Ernie Fletcher plans to put the Ten Commandments and other historical documents in the Capitol on the day before Kentucky’s general election.

The action comes on the heels of a ruling by U.S. District Judge Joseph M. Hood that a previous injunction in a separate court case doesn’t apply to the display Fletcher wants placed in the Capitol Rotunda.

Fletcher attorney David Fleenor said the governor would issue an executive order Monday directing that the Ten Commandments be displayed alongside other historical documents including the Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence.

Voters will choose Tuesday between the incumbent Republican and his Democratic challenger Steve Beshear, who polls show commands a double-digit lead in the gubernatorial race.

It’ll be truly a sad day if this is all it takes to keep this asshat in office.

Leading the charge for a civic display in Berkley is Georgia Halloran, a 37-year resident angered by last year’s decision by the Berkley City Council to remove the figures from City Hall property and turn them over to the Berkley Clergy Association to display at local churches around the town of 15,500 residents.

Halloran and other residents collected 952 signatures to force the question to a vote on Nov. 6. She sees passage of the initiative—which would amend the city’s charter—as Berkley’s chance to stand up to the American Civil Liberties Union, which told the city the display violated the law.

“I’m tired of these organizations coming into a small-town community and threatening us with lawsuits and the city rolling over,“ Halloran said. “We are celebrating a national holiday. We are not promoting a religion. The government isn’t supposed to be hostile toward religion.“

So the True Believers™ got their panties all in a twist and have managed to get a petition on the November 6th ballot to force the city to reinstate the nativity in front of city hall. They’ve set up a website full of misleading information to try and persuade folks to vote for what is clearly an Establishment Clause violation that’ll just end up in an expensive lawsuit with the ACLU that they’ll probably lose which is just stupid when they could avoid the whole fiasco with what is a very reasonable compromise.

Fortunately there’s a group of folks out there actively campaigning against the charter amendment and they too have a website: Citizens for Religious Freedom and they appear to have a fair amount of support of their own. Additional today’s editorial in the Detroit Free Press advocates Berkley residents to vote NO on the proposal:

The decision made solid sense then, and on Nov. 6 citizens should insist the choice stand now by voting NO on a charter amendment that would require the city to display a nativity scene on public property.

There ought to be equal distaste for the amendment’s demands as there was among some for the city’s bow to the ACLU.

Both smack of inflexible strong-arming. Beyond fumbling with the charter, the proposal overreaches, going so far as to set the dates of the display and the minimum requirements of which holiday figures to include, namely Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Noticeably absent is any mention of Santa Claus.

Georgia Halloran makes the claim that this isn’t about promoting a religion, but if that’s true then why all the fuss over where the nativity is displayed? If not an implied government endorsement then what is it she thinks is gained by having the nativity on government property? How is the display diminished by having it on private Church property where it’s still in full view of the public, but no longer gives the impression of government endorsement? There answers to both questions won’t be found on their webpage because they don’t bother to address them. One is left to conclude that implied government endorsement is exactly the goal in mind.

God’s time is infinite

It has been said that science is man’s effort to understand how God runs his business.

God is infinite. He always has been and always will be. Our finite minds find it difficult thinking of God as timeless. To understand God and his religious ways requires faith.

According to creation, God created all things in stages (and the evening “and the morning were the first day,“ according to Genesis 1:5).

We are so used to thinking of days as being 24 hours of time. But go back and read the creation account again. We know the Earth’s rotation gives us 24-hour days. Yet, the sun and moon were not placed there until the fourth day.

This truth tells us that the first three days could have been millions of years of time. Remember, God is timeless. He has no beginning or ending. Our limited minds try to compact six days of creation into six 24-hour days.

Think about this, theologians, preachers and Bible teachers. Let us admit we were misled. According to this truth, scientists are justified in expressing time in terms of millions.

W. S.

Saraland

So, once again we find some yokel trying to resolve the whole Science/Religion dilemma.  In this case, W.S. takes the tack of arguing that, since God is infinite, we cannot know how He measures time, so the dilemma is solved by quibbling over the meaning of a day.  According to W.S., we cannot take the meaning of the word “day” in the Book of Genesis to literally mean what we know as an “Earth day”.  One might hear some nerdy SciFi fans rejoice, as the word “hour” is not what we know as an “Earth hour” either. 

So, W.S., if we cannot accept the creation story in the Book of Genesis literally, then what other portions of the bible must also be seen as metaphor or allegory rather than literal truth?  Upon what criteria   do you sift the literal from the metaphorical? 

Ah, there’s the rub. 

There are two grand pillars of blind faith.  The first pillar is an unwavering belief in holy writ.  The second is trust. As in, believers trust that someone will tell them what is literally true and what is metaphor, especially when that first pillar begins to crumble.  That someone is usually a person that claims to be closer to God than the rest of the congregation.  You know, someone with a vested interest in having their interpretation of convoluted biblical minutiae accepted as the real truth.  A truthier truth than that proposed by religious rivals from within and without who claim the same position of privileged understanding of God and his or her mysterious ways.  A better, stronger truth than that supported by direct observation and measurement of physical evidence.  A more comforting truth than those derived from the laws of physics, or mathematical proof, or prior history, or predicted by sound theory building, or by rational and critical thought. 

This second pillar, the appeal to some human authority, is what I believe exposes all religions for the frauds they are.  Beneath the sweet facade of piety we find a dirty mechanism designed for social control.  Lord Acton famously said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.“  What then of those to whom countless millions have freely given the power of their absolute trust?  What then of those millions who stumble around as if drunk in a world darkened by a rejection of what their own better senses tell them, all the while believing they are God’s special little angels?

What then?  Well, they’re running the show now, aren’t they? 

John Adams also has a famous saying concerning power: “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.“  If you look at our short US history, you’ll see that we’ve endured our share debacles that arose from misplaced public trust.  The most glaring examples in recent memory run the gamut from McCarthyism, past Eisenhower’s warning about the dangers of the military industrial complex and the ensuing Vietnam war, over the tarnishing of the presidency by both Nixon and Clinton, to the current era of warrantless wiretaps, secret government prisons, a blizzard of presidential signing statements, and a perpetual state of war against “evildoers”.  During the whole time, American faith has not wavered one iota.  During that time, many of our religious leaders have said, “Trust us” and we have forked over billions, because as a people, we tend to believe and trust in the invisible.  In recent years, government has curried favor from religious extremists, granting greater power in exchange for the votes of their faithful, trusting congregations.  As with other manipulative political strategies, this cozying up to the religious right works: power is maintained.  The price of that power, however, may be more than we can pay while retaining the integrity of our federal constitutional republic.

So there we are: we start with a proposal to mend the rift between science and religion by appealing to the supernatural time-perception of an arguably infinitely invisible imaginary being.  What we end up with is the same - an America balancing on the razor thin edge between a rational secular democracy and a powerfully dangerous and irrational theocracy.  Don’t be fooled my friends.  There are some very bad and dangerous people around.  Unfortunately, many of them smile like Ted Haggard, and are in positions of power that they wish to keep.  And they will, with our help, and unwavering trust.

A Gallup poll released Monday said that while the country is about evenly split over whether the theory of evolution is true, Republicans disbelieve it by more than 2-to-1.

Republicans saying they don’t believe in evolution outnumbered those who do by 68 percent to 30 percent in the survey. Democrats believe in evolution by 57 percent to 40 percent, as do independents by a 61 percent to 37 percent margin.

As Jon Stewart might say, “Republicans, meet me at camera three”.

OK, Republicans, we understand that you’re devout.  We understand that you love God.  That’s simply beautiful, it really is.  Regardless of that, you have to stop cherry-picking the facts.  Evolution is a fact, just like some of those other facts that are somewhat less controversial, like Heliocentrism.  OK, this is less controversial now.  The church no longer arrests and executes people who believe that the sun is at the center of our solar system because there’s just simply such an abundance, a cornucopia if you will, of observational evidence,  that no rational person would claim otherwise.

The same is true for the facts of evolution: That species emerge and change over very long periods of time.  That some species that used to exist, no longer exist.  Further, it is a fact that humans appeared relatively recently in the history of our world.

The facts are irrefutable.  They are written in the very bedrock of our planet.  They are there for everyone to see, everywhere: older species in strata below newer species.  Never an exception.  No human jawbones have ever been found in a Tyrannosaurus nest. No dinosaurs after 65 million years ago. No Australopithecenes after about 2 million years ago.  No homo sapiens before about 500,000 years ago. None.  Anywhere.

Now, while you can certainly take a religious position on the explanation of evolution, you cannot take a religious position on the existence of evolution.  In other words, you can certainly disagree with the leading scientific Theory of Evolution, which explains how such facts as we observe everywhere in the world came to be (and does so quite nicely, thank you very much), but you can only disagree with the facts of Evolution to the same extent that you can disagree with the fact that the sun is at the center of the solar system, or that Pasteurization helps preserve foods, or that DNA codes genetic information for all species on earth.

We need to remember that, as Stephen Jay Gould said, there’s a difference between a fact and a theory, and Evolution is both:

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

If you’re planning on rejecting the Theory of Evolution, you know, the scientific mechanism that Darwin proposed almost a century and a half ago, you have to follow the rules.  The rules are simple.  Come up with a better explanation for the Fact of Evolution.  Just make sure it doesn’t require anything beyond what we can expect from our normal, natural, very nonmagical world.

Crossposted from Smugbaldy.com