Theocracy In America

Never has the state of human welfare been more important than it is today.  Rampant religiosity, strident conservatives, absolute dogmatism, and a basic disrespect for the human rights has led me to believe one thing:  People have lost their minds.

How did religion become more important than science?  When did revelation outweigh evidence?  Why in the hell is it taboo to discuss religious principles, holy books, and dogma?

There was a time when religious belief was prevalent and wholly secure in the hearts and minds of individuals - it was called the Dark Ages.  Fundamentalism of any kind leads to oppression, persecution, tyranny, and war.  “My belief in my invisible sky father is right and your belief in your invisible sky father is wrong.”  Holy Book - ditto.  Religious figure - ditto.  Prophecy - ditto.  Authority - ditto.  I don’t think people have seriously thought through their beliefs.

Critical inquiry into your faith should be the first thing on your mind.  Does evidence support what my faith says?  If it does, then keep it.  If it doesn’t, by god, scrap the whole thing.  Catholic clergy saying they understand that AIDS is bad, but condom use would be worse is, frankly, insane, especially in third world countries such as Sudan or Congo where a third of the population is suffering from that horrible disease.  Religious moderates who say that “______ (insert world religion) is a religion of peace”, while those who have actually read the ______ (insert holy book of choice) are blowing up the world.  People wanting to start holy (or unholy) wars because they want to usher in the Apocalypse and bring about prophecy.

As Marcus Brigstocke said, “To the three Abrahamic religions, the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews, do you think that after you get through blowing each other up and smashing each other to bits, do you think we could have our planet back?”

I don’t want to live in a world where everyone gets to hold their opinion and nobody has to consult the facts.

Today, December 10th, is International Human Rights Day, a day in which we celebrate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Declaration of Human Rights, adopted sixty years ago in response to the genocide and torture of World War II ,was a crucial event in turning the tide of human rights violations.  Its adoption created a worldwide standard for the treatment of human beings regardless of their race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.  Its preamble affirms:

• Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

• Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people

With that proclamation a standard was born, one that included every human being and condemned the action of tyrants who would at the first opportunity disregard the inalienable rights of the people.  The declaration also gave us a groundwork for the vision of how to shape the world and its human family.

The first article of the Declaration states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”. It goes on to state in its twenty-fifth article, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control”.

Although the declaration has been adopted in many countries, we still have a long way to go.  The genocide in Rwanda, the torture and abuse in Kenyan prisons, the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe, there seems to be problems all over the world, but it is America that concerns this writer.  Along with all the other countries in the United Nations that signed the Declaration, we were among them, if not the first in line.  That means that in the United States the International Declaration of Human Rights is law.  But we really have abandoned some key principles.

Article five states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”, but in our War on Terror we use “enhanced interrogation techniques”.  Article six says that “Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law”, but we have suspended habeas corpus with the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  Article nine “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile”, along with article twelve “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks” has been violated by Patriot Act 2.  America was the first in line to condemn acts of barbarism but we have no compunction in committing those same acts.  No we haven’t committed genocide or took away the rights of women, but we are on that slippery slope.

President Obama has said that he will bring back the honor of this great nation, we the people can only breathe a sigh of relief, then we need to pitch in and help.

View International Declaration of Human Rights.

Where did we go wrong?  Military Commissions(unlawful court hearings), pre-emptive attacks, enhanced interrogation techniques (torture), illegal search and seizure, warrentless wiretapping and surviellance, and worst of all a complete disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America.

 So, where did we go wrong?

In a post-9/11 country, we veiw the rest of the world as hostile, we’ve allienated our allies, we have committed human rights violations, stripping people of their dignity, become more religious (like those who attack us and our way of life), lost our will to see justice done, and have committed ourselves to a war without borders where everyone is the boogie-man.  In this new world we have lost the honor and integrity that made us who we are.  In other words, America just isn’t America anymore.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor we fought back by dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (we are the only country in history to do so) and soon after the beginning of World War II, on February 19, 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, an evacuation order that commenced the round-up of 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage to one of 10 internment camps—officially called “relocation centers”—in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. (1)

What came of that?  Nothing.

We lost something precious in those moments, not only the lives of our sailors in Hawaii’s harbor, but also the innocence in the way we viewed the world.  We were just as capable of committing atrocites as anyone else.  That past still haunts us to this day.

What will we lose in these moments?  What is the price that future generations will have to pay for our actions now?  Will we look back on the War on Terror and in hindsight recognize our wrong and hang our heads in shame?  Will we learn from the mistakes we’ve made and hold our leaders accountable or will we have learned nothing, as we haven’t from World War II and the mistakes we made then?  What are the repercussions that future generations will have to endure?

We cannot, and indeed, dare not, continue on this path.  We are not the Gistapo, we are not Nazis.  We are Americans.  We believe, fundamentally, in the right to a fair trial, we believe in treating all humans with dignity, hard lessons learned from our past showed us that every human life has worth.  We believe in the right to present evidence in our defence, and the right to be tried before a jury of our peers.  What is happening in Guantanamo Bay and around the world destroys everything that we hold sacred and lessens our ability to be the moral authourity in the world.  Might most certainly doesn’t make right.

And as for my rant: “$#!%”  This is so unmitigatedly stupid, so uncivilized, so demonstrably wrong, words fail me.  I cannot believe we have lost our $#!%ing minds and allowed this %@*! to happen.

(end of part 1)

Hey Guys,

Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men. - Robert Green Ingersoll “Individuality”

Since birth most of us have been indoctrinated with some creed.  We have suckled at the breast of our mothers while they taught us to accept some idea unthinkingly.  We have sat at the feet of our fathers while they lamented on the wisdom of gods and the ignorance of man.  Our parents taught us to revere the the unknowable and revile the proven.

“What do men know?” They ask with scorn.  “What can science teach us, that God cannot?

To these questions those that follow the faith of their fathers, there are no answers but God.  However, to those of us who have come from the unending darkness to the ever brightening day those questions lead to more questions and to some they lead to answers the parents of religion would not have us come to.

What do men know, indeed.  The very book that holds such sway over the minds of men was written by men, with man’s frail mind.  The God that takes up residence in men’s hearts was given reality by man, created by man.  We were not made in the image of God, conversely god was made in the image of Man. God is a jealous God, the bible says.  God is slow to anger and quick to wrath.  Do not test the Lord.  It is better to fall on the rock and be broken than to be ground into powder.  God is infinite in mercy and infinite in vengeance.  These are traits that make sense to man.  An all-seeing big brother who loves you but will annihilate you if you disobey.  God is the sadist father and religion is the dysfunctional family.

Every religion is animism or anthropomorphisation.  We look to the best qualities in ourselves, our love,  our joy, our grace, our mercy and give those characterizations to god then follow them up with our worst traits: Jealousy, revenge, hatred and pride.

God is boastful, and swaggering in the bible.  He made imperfect beings then punishes those beings for being imperfect.  Oh, but it’s not god’s fault we’re so bad we ate the forbidden fruit, that’s why we have to be punished.  This is the logic that some people actually proscribe to.  That of course is with odds of an all-seeing god.  God saw what would happen before he made us and didn’t change the plan or god didn’t see what would happen before he made us.  Either way something is screwy.

What can science teach us that god cannot.  Everything.  If god wanted the bible to be convincing by todays standards he would have included quantum physics, the science few know and even fewer understand.  (Actually nobody understands quantum physics, even the people who had a hand in creating it.)  If god wanted to make a book that would be impressive in the modern world, he would have included electromagnetism, general relativity, astrophysics, physics, biology, mathematics and chemistry, not superstition and barbarism.  The Bible, the Koran, and the Torah are filled with barbaric rituals: How to kill you impure daughter, how to kill your son, how to kill an infidel, how to murder a family, how to commit genocide, how to commit rape and what to do to your wife if she commits adultery.  There is some love thrown in those books but it is far outweighed by the hatred and fear that permeates the pages from cover to cover.

The better questions to ask are:  What does religion know?  What can religion teach us that science, reason and logic cannot?