"The Book Of Mormon", Theater For Young Adults

Restaurants in downtown Chicago have very close seating arrangements. The couple next to us at the sushi restaurant, who were kind enough to take our picture, mentioned that they were going to see "The Book Of Mormon" after dinner, and we smiled and said we had seen the afternoon showing. Their response was somewhat predictable.

Fellow Theater Goer (eyebrow slightly raised): "Oh, is it a good Mom and Daughter show?"

Me: "Maybe not for every mom and daughter, but it worked for us."

My daughter: "It was really good."

I should add that my daughter is in the 6th grade. 

She really likes Glee, and that show goes to some pretty dark places. From a parenting perspective, "inappropriate" shows give some good opportunities to pause the DVR and discuss. Still, before planning this trip, I desperately wanted some feedback from other parents who had taken their preteens to the show. I wasn't terribly concerned about the blasphemous parts of the show. (Although, to be sure, if you're raising your child with anything but a pluralist take on religion, this becomes a very big concern.) I just wanted some sense of how much of a challenge this was going to be for me as a parent when it came to the non-God related content. Unfortunately, the only article I could find was one from the New York Times. The reporter had been "uninvited" because his kids were... well... my daughter's age. Not exactly encouraging.

I called the theater to make sure I wasn't headed for the same scenario, and was reassured that if I felt she was mature enough to handle it, I wouldn't have any trouble at the door. Once again, I was given a strong warning that this show didn't just have "some adult themes", it was downright shocking.

Still, I'd also seen the interview where Matt Stone describes the show as their attempt to answer the question, "What would an atheist love letter to religion look like?" Good enough for me. Anything that helps me drive home the point that skepticism towards religious truth claims is healthy, but cynicism about the inherent worth, dignity, and intelligence of religious people can destroy what could otherwise be great friendships has some serious value to me as a secular mom. Tickets to premium seating in hand, I reassured her that I was open to talking about anything that didn't make sense to her or bothered her. I let her know I'd pay for the therapy if she didn't feel comfortable talking to me.

If you're not planning to see the show live (tickets can be tough to come by) or you've already seen it, feel free to watch the video below. If you haven't seen it live yet, and want to, wait for it. One of my least favorite parts of doing the research before the show was how difficult it was to avoid spoilers.

You know your kid best. The themes in this show concerning religion include its power to give people strength in the face of truly frightening odds, and the somewhat bittersweet notion that even clearly false beliefs can be used to cause positive change in the world. These go hand in hand with some other obvious truths; you can bend superstitions to say whatever you want them to say, people will embrace the things that speak to their own fears, and this isn't always a positive thing in society. The villain in this show has a superstitious fear of the power of the clitoris, and he has the guns. Enough said.

If conversations about the holocaust, gay marriage, racism, and Jerry Sandusky aren't unfamiliar territory in your home, this shouldn't be too much to handle. Really, how else are you going to get a chance to talk about the ancient practice of Chinese foot binding and relate that to the horrifying practice of female genital mutilation? Children are raped by HIV positive people in Africa, in the hopes that this will cure their condition. Do you want your teenagers completely oblivious to these facts about the human condition? If the answer to that question is yes, for you as a parent, then I'd take a pass. Even though you really do find yourself empathizing with these earnest young missionaries in their clean white shirts who are in way over their heads, you probably wouldn't be terribly comfortable with the discussions afterward. If, on the other hand, you enjoy laughing your ass off and don't mind finding creative ways to approach awkward conversations in a way that works for your teens and pre-teens, then by all means, go. The show is transcendent, and Katy Perry lyrics have much worse moral messages when it comes to sex.

For the record, coming out of the theater, my daughter let me know that she would not be needing therapy, and she sang along to a few of the songs when I popped the CD in on the way home. The worst consequence of taking her was our shared giggling over the fact that we will never, ever, be able to listen to the song "Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog" the same way again. Frogs. Hilarious.

Seriously, just go see it.

One Size Does Not Fit All: Spiritual Fitness Training And The 33%

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” 
― Lao Tzu

Military families have emotional needs that go far above and beyond what most of us will ever deal with; in a culture that is built around being "tough", depression is a silent killer. The top brass are taking notice, and this is a Good Thing. "Ask, Care, Escort?" Yes, yes, and oh hell yes. 

There are, however, some pretty serious problems with the way this push towards recognizing the psychological demands of military service and building resilience against things like PTSD and depression is being supplemented. Enter a whole new type of assessment: Spiritual Fitness. In this test, soldiers are asked to watch a series of video testimonials from "spiritually fit" leaders who say things like:

Well I believe that it doesn't necessarily have to be God or a Deity like that, I think it goes back to having something to... having something to believe in, you know, having purpose. Being driven... "I will see my family again." That is purpose, that motivates, that gives people the drive to accomplish their mission.

All well and good, except the token humanist (and I don't use those words lightly) who gave this testimony would have failed the actual test. Atheist soldiers, who put their one and only life on the line, are unlikely to respond positively to some of the other more overtly theistic "spiritual" testimonials.

You could do it alone... but it would be so much better to go with a higher power. I think that's very important.

A) I'm not alone. I have my friends, my family, and an entire world with new people to meet, new things to see, and new ideas to explore. 
B) I don't think it's very important to try to force a God into that picture. Been there, done that, and I have the t-shirt. It says "Reason Rally" on it. 
C) Bad coffee is the only thing the military should have in common with a 12-step program.

I remember not wanting to live... I was not motivated... my commander noticed that, too. He was like, hey, you need to bring your performance up... after about two to three weeks, I started coming around and using the church as the foundation and just believing that it was gonna get better, and it started to get better.

Good for her. Not good for me. Not good for atheists in foxholes who aren't at all conflicted about the position they take with respect to religion, or for agnostics who find very little worth exploring in religious beliefs. Lying to yourself and others for the sake of building a "spiritual community" is never healthy.

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans under the age of 30 are religiously unaffiliated. With those statistics in mind, there's an excellent bit on PBS that speaks directly to this topic.

Watch Godless Chaplains on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Rock Beyond Belief was a great step forward. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the end of the road.

While the VA's website goes on and on about the positive benefits of spirituality in the healing process, the fact remains that roughly 33% of the people taking this test are going to be told that they are spiritually deficient, and recommended to counseling from someone who knows just what they should believe in order to become "healthy". The 800 number they are given to help them develop their spiritual health leads to a suicide hotline. 

Being told your apathy or outright opposition when it comes to religion makes you spiritually unfit for duty is not a morale booster. Arguably, it's doing more harm than good for a third of our troops, who have zero incentive to rock the boat and say something about it.

We need humanist chaplains who can provide insight into the fastest growing demographic in the country, people who can give empathy and support for soldiers who are forced to confront questions about the faith they were raised in that they may never have truly come face to face with before, and it's very unlikely to happen without civilian help. We owe the 33% within our military a debt of gratitude. Bumper stickers that say support our troops are fine. Actions that actually protect the career opportunities and emotional health of our soldiers are better.

Jesus Christ, This Rocks!

What's better than an incredibly well done arena rock tour of "Jesus Christ, Superstar?"

An American Tour! With Tim Minchin as Judas!

The arena production of Jesus Christ Superstar is to be filmed and US producers want the entire cast to tour America, Andrew Lloyd Webber said today. Lord Lloyd-Webber said: “I felt in a theatre it was in a straitjacket. In an arena you can have a proper rock band.” He added: “Tim  Minchin and Ben Forster are as good as any Judas and Jesus we’ve ever had, if not the best.” Negotiations are advanced to take the show to Australia and to America, where 6,000 cinemas have already signed up for an as-live relay.

I haven't been this excited about JC Superstar since I found the Amy Ray/Emily Sailers Resurrection CD, which I played so often that it now sounds odd to hear Jesus as a man, baby.

 Also. Squee!!! That is all.

Schadenfreude, Feminism, And The Battle Of Five Armies

On a blog on the net, there was a feminist. Not a nasty, slimy, filthy blog, filled with plots of castration and world domination, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy blog devoid of humor: it was a feminist blog, and I liked it. Then the trolls came smashing through the doors and that blogger had to step away from the angry people.

Suffice it to say, the internet doesn't always bring out the best in us, particularly when we go all Human Torch on each other. I miss Jen's writing. I recognize that not everyone does, and some people were just as elated when she quit as I was sad. I get why it happens, though. In a word, one simple and elegant word that should be taught early and explored often, it's schadenfreude. If you've never heard the term before, Scientific American has a great article on it that begins with an excellent description:

There is no English translation for the German word schadenfreude—that small, private rush of glee in response to someone else’s misfortune. But everyone recognizes the emotion, even if he or she might not have a word for it (or admit to feeling it). 

There's nothing quite like a challenge over the rights to wear the Real Feminism™ label (and whether or not people who want to tear down anyone who isn't a Feminist™ do more harm than good) to bring out the angry in just about anyone. Jen threw down the gauntlet with Atheism Plus, and the secular community exploded. I don't particularly feel the need to go into the details of the latest flare up... if you're following it, you have your own opinions, I'm sure. Long story short, a guy got into a flame war that turned pretty ugly, and there are a lot of people who don't feel he deserves to have a position of leadership in the secular community because of it.

There's a petition out there right now to get Justin to step down, and it's dripping with Schadenfreude, and that's where I draw the line. I don't have to like the way a person behaves online or offline to acknowledge and appreciate a relentless pursuit of goals I care about.

Part of third wave feminism is the recognition that everyone has an opinion to share, and there is no monolithic best way forward. For some people, the notion that anyone should pull their punches and tread gently when egalitarian concerns are brought up is insulting. For some people, the entire idea of us vs. them infighting is, in and of itself, the problem. Call them "chill girls" or "privilege deniers", sure, but if you do it with scorn, you're missing the fucking point. Feminism isn't about what one person, or even what many people, want it to be. It's a constantly evolving reflection of the entire human effort to end sexist attitudes towards women altogether.

This means that we value the voices of the chill girls along with the voices of the shrill girls along with the voices of the somewhere-in-between girls (and boys) who are also individuals, each with flaws and strengths of their own that they bring to the table. Together, we make up the women and men of our community, all of whom are fighting very hard to advance a common goal.

I started this off with a riff on the opening of "The Hobbit" for a reason. The end of that book has a lovely bit where the good people of Middle Earth are getting ready to tear each other to shreds because they can't figure out how to compromise and work together. All the while, the real battle is waiting on the horizon, and it's a battle they can only win if they put their differences aside and work together. While Tolkien himself despised allegory, I'm a fan.

(Please note that my opinions are my own. I'm a secular woman, I'm not *the* Secular Woman. And really, that's kind of the point.)

Cutting down the lines of communication, shunning, and sniping are tactics that should only ever be employed as a very last resort. Communication is key. Even if we have to sacrifice our schadenfreude to do it well.

Marijuana Goes To Court: This Time, It's Federal

A major court case is coming soon to a courthouse near the White House. No, not that courthouse, but close. On October 16th, The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has agreed to hear arguments that could force the DEA to re-examine the classification of marijuana in light of new studies-- studies that find therapeutic value in its use and examine whether or not we have enough data to consider it a safe and effective treatment for a variety of illnesses, both physical and mental.

It's going to make the news, right before the elections, and it will be interesting to see how the candidates react. My prediction:  Romney: "Ummm, pot is bad, mmkay?" Ryan: "It's an issue for the states, and marijuana should never be legal. I have a great power point about the economy, can we talk about that now?" Biden: "I think this is a very complicated question about public health and safety that requires a lot of careful analysis. At this point, the courts are looking into it." (Right answer, both politically and as a human being who cares about other human beings.) Obama: "I'm not in favor of legalizing marijuana. Can we talk about football and beer, now?"

I find Obama's stance on pot... frustrating, to say the least. This is the same guy who gave us a priceless moment of actual honesty from a politician. It was stunning. It was beautiful. It confused me and made me want to vote for him.

"When I was a kid, I inhaled, frequently. That was the point." -- Not-the-President Obama, October 2006

It might not have been the best message to send to the kids at home, but hopefully their parents were wise enough to point out that he didn't do so hot in college while he was toking it up. Good discussion topic.

Six years later, and a bit wiser, Obama is pretty much silent on the issue now. On the rare occasion that he does say something, it's a much less carefree guy who responds with things like this:

"What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana," the president said. "I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana." -- President Obama, March 2012

The problem, of course, is that marijuana is often used as self-medication to treat for depression, anxiety, chronic pain, insomnia... you name it. These are common illnesses, which means there's a very high demand for a safe and effective treatment. Make medical marijuana legal, and you get the not terribly surprising result that many, many people would rather smoke a joint than pop four or five pills every day. This means a lot of revenue in the big cities, which means a higher quality product in the businesses that are run well by people who care about their jobs. Not surprisingly, they make a lot of money, and then invest that money in delivering a better product more efficiently. They get taxed, schools get books, teachers get paid. It's pretty much the definition of a win-win scenario for everyone involved.

Except, of course, for when it isn't. The political reality of marijuana makes it a very risky business to be involved with.

For more than a year, the Obama Justice Department has been escalating its attacks in medical marijuana states, including dozens of new federal indictments and prosecutions. Though U.S. Attorneys often claim that the accused have violated state law in some way, defendants are prevented from using any medical evidence or a state law defense in federal court. If the rescheduling lawsuit is successful and marijuana is reclassified, federal defendants will then gain the basis for a medical necessity defense.

Our President (who, let's get very real here, would not be our President if his youthful dalliances with "pot, and maybe a little blow" had landed him in jail) has basically left it to the courts, and so far the courts still see marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance, on par with heroin. That may be changing, though. There's an awful lot of research out there, and it's getting harder to ignore. Put simply, "Reefer Madness" is not a documentary.*

*although it does make an excellent drinking game


This October will see some arguments that actually have the potential to do some measurable good for people who are suffering. It's about damn time.

Wake The Fuck Up!

I love Samuel L. Jackson. This may just be the best YouTube video, ever.

Understanding Mormons: It's A Real Problem

Mitt Romney has been under a lot of pressure lately. Not that there's anything wrong with or even surprising about that. The lead up to the presidential debates is always intense. Candidates typically respond by delivering their vision with articulate and passionate bullshit, carefully wrapped and vacuum sealed to energize the base without alienating the center. We're used to it.

But there are other types of pressure that have popped up on the campaign trail for Romney this September. For example, there's the pressure of being born wealthy, white and male, which apparently makes politics hard. It sounds awful as a joke, and plays even worse when the makeup artist accidentally goes too dark on the foundation when you're speaking to a Hispanic audience. Bad timing, that. There's also the whiplash realization that 47% of the nation aren't all Obama zombies chanting "hoooope, chaaaange", and many of them actively resent being characterized as such. Rumors flying around that your running mate has taken to calling you "The Stench" don't help either, especially when coupled with the enormous pressure of party insiders shifting their support to candidates lower down on the ballot because your numbers look bad on paper. I'm sure the irony isn't lost on a venture capitalist.

And then there's plain old cabin pressure, which you'd think would be a familiar and comforting thing to someone who flies as often as Mitt does. But he has problems with that, too. High school physics must have been hell. I feel for the guy.

Underlying all of this, though, is the giant elephant in the middle of the room that has only lightly been touched on so far; Romney's tax exemptions include huge donations to a church that includes secret handshakes and sacred undergarments. Join now, become the God/Goddess of your own planet in the afterlife. Certain restrictions apply, must be married and in good standing with the church to see the face of God. What Mitt refers to as "service" in France during the Vietnam war, the rest of us call "sales".

I'm joking, of course, at the expense of good people who happen to be Mormons; I try not to do that too often, because it's a gross oversimplification of what churches do, for better or for worse. Walter Kirn has an excellent article which handles both his troubles with blind faith and his utter disdain for people who make jokes about magic underwear, even though he's not a Mormon anymore. Along the same lines, the carefully focused criticism leveled by Brigham Young's great-great granddaughter, who left the church when she was 50, is more compelling on every level than the obvious cheap shots about Native American Jews. Stories like these lend texture and perspective to an ex-Morman friend of mine's outrage over the way that the church stepped in on Proposition 8 to pit black voters against gay and lesbian couples, and to her ultimate take on the position of women in the church:

"I saw it as what it was - exclusion through exaltation. Motherhood is so wonderful you should be happy god gave it to you instead of the silly priesthood.... The power structure of the church is a huge problem. And the women feel it but it is kinda an "emperors new clothes" thing. No one wants to be the first to say they don't wake up filled with the glory of gods plan!...  The women are the enforcers of it on the other women as the culture is spread and reinforced."

The real question is how Mitt Romney's faith informs his vision for America. Is it one where women like my friend and Brigham Young's great-great granddaughter feel valued for more than just their skills in raising children? Or is it a vision that puts women on a pedestal and then tells them to stay home and clean the toilets? Is he a pluralist who believes in the inherent dignity of humanity, regardless of race, opinions about religion, gender, sexual attraction, or socioeconomic status? Or does he have blind faith in a single path to salvation that excludes 99% of the world? These questions stop being about "freedom of [read: to legislate in favor of a specific] religion" and start becoming terribly important when a President starts making recommendations to the Supreme Court. If you're going to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, I'm interested in whether or not you expect churches to provide lifelong care for severely wounded soldiers instead of the VA. I want to know if you're going to tell a woman who has five kids that she needs to keep that eight-week-old fetus even though there's a risk to her life and only a 50% chance of survival for the child. I probably won't vote for you if I know your interpretation of your role as a bishop involves trying to bully a single mother who used to take care of your kids with threats of excommunication if she doesn't put her soon-to-be-born second child up for adoption. These are, obviously, not random examples.

[edit for clarity] All that being said, I'm not opposed to a Mormon President any more than I am to a Christian one, so long as the person following the religion doesn't try to force their religious values on me. There's something inherently (at the risk of sounding like a zombie) hoooope-ful about a presidential race between a Mormon and an African-American. I wanted to see the Huntsman-Obama debates, and I wish the primary voters had picked the better man. Maybe next time around.

So Be Nude For Goodness' Sake

Some of the links in this post contain artistic expressions of nudity. If you'd prefer to avoid them, I've made them pretty obvious.

If you haven't heard about this yet, there's a fund raising push within the secular community for Light The Night. The Foundation Beyond Belief is aiming to raise $1,000,000 to help win the fight against blood cancers. There are very few things that everyone agrees on, but finding cures for cancer and improving access to existing treatments and counseling for patients and their families is one of them. Please click the picture below if you want to learn more or donate to our team.

So what, you may ask, does walking a few miles with fellow humanitarians have to do with nudity or goodness? Well, the goodness part should be obvious. It's a good and worthy cause to support. But doing that nude or partially nude? October in the Windy City is a time for layers and hoodies, not bare skin!

No, my thoughts on nudity have to to do with a project that Secular Woman has in the works. Atheists Breaking Through: The Reveal 2013 Nude Calendar will be sold to raise money for our women's travel fund and for the Foundation Beyond Belief's contribution to Light the Night (see, I told you there was a connection). Actually, this is the second nude calendar project I've seen promoted this year. The first was a direct critique of patriarchal repression and outright oppression of women, inspired by Egyptian blogger *NSFW*Aliaa Magda Elmahdy. You can read more about that project and download or buy the Nude Photo Revolutionary calendar *NSFW*here. It's worth a look. Just not at work.

This calendar is a little different, though. (Although I still wouldn't bring it to work.) For one thing, women and men are participating. The scope is wider, and the intent to include a broad cross-section of humanity is more, well, explicit. Also, whereas the first project was very much an exercise in solidarity with a very brave woman that made perfect sense to me, this one got me thinking a bit more deeply about marketing, target audiences, and overall messaging. What does a nude calendar have to do with the fight against cancer or helping women who couldn't otherwise meet with other activists in their community come together at conferences? Does the content need to be connected to the causes it supports?

First and foremost, there's the question of why all the nekkidness? If you have kids school aged or above, it's not like you're going to hang that on your wall without killing your child's inclination to have anyone over for the next year or so. The same thing holds true for the coffee table or the end tables. While it certainly wouldn't scar your child anymore than having a tasteful piece of sculpture on the liquor cabinet, you're probably going to hear about it. So, it's a calendar, and it needs to hide in a drawer if you're a parent and don't like it when your kids nag you. Not exactly practical. Then again, I remember being all about the National Geographic magazines as a grade school kid, so that argument is probably erring on the side of forgetting just how naturally curious kids are. Keep it with the other artsy books, and let the kids look if they want to. Let them know it's there so they don't freak out if they run across it, and let them know that you're open to any questions they might have. Surely, that's a lot healthier than letting their only exposure to nudity be through the wonders of cable television and other media outlets less focused on dignity and more focused on making a buck. As a parent, I can see the value in a calendar that presents nudity in an artistic and meaningful context. Sold.

As a feminist and a humanist, I can see the value, too. While I don't actually think a fundraising item needs to be connected to the cause it supports, it helps when it is. In this case, one of the reasons women have trouble getting to events is that we are paid less than men for the same skills in many fields. (For anyone who disagrees, please get back to me after you've read this.) Regardless of your gender, you have to trust your community to help you find your place in society, and to make sure that the deck isn't stacked against you. By including pictures of women and men in the calendar, it underscores the fact that we are all vulnerable, even when empowered. We need each other to thrive, for practical matters like survival and for emotional connections that make survival meaningful and joyful. This is true in general, but it's particularly obvious when someone falls deathly ill and the cure hasn't been found yet, or is financially out of reach. There is nothing quite so naked as raw need, and nothing quite so fulfilling as being able to help.

So this is why I'm going for a walk in the park next month, and why I'll have some tasteful art in my home that isn't buried in a desk drawer to shelter my daughter from nudity.

Although, from a practical standpoint, I'd also like to ask, "Will there be an app for that?"

Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater

Religion is back in the news in its all-too-familiar forms of expression: inflammatory rhetoric followed by violence. Enter Mitt Romney from the safety of the campaign trail, eager to score some political points, when events were still playing out in Benghazi and in Cairo. The fires were, quite literally, still burning when he released this statement:

I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

There's a slight problem with his analysis. The people carrying guns weren't the ones our Embassy in Cairo was reaching out to.

Diplomats don't plead with extremists, they work with moderates to try to keep them from gaining power. Make no mistake about it, these women are risking their lives to hold this vigil. Being reasonable is dangerous when armed extremists rise up in anger. 

While there has been plenty of bipartisan head-shaking surrounding Romney's decision to criticize the use of nuance in a climate where cartoons whipped up violent rage seven years ago, there has also been a strange reluctance to address the most glaring mistake he made in his assessment. In one sense, he was absolutely right; our deepest values affirm our freedom to ridicule religion in all public spaces. This is a fundamental principle of free speech in a secular society.  Where he went wrong (in the most diplomatically inept example of irony I've seen in a long time) is in his failure to recognize one simple truth; even in the land of the free and the home of the brave, freedom of speech is not without its limits.

You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, and you can't attack a religion safely in a land where armed and intolerant radicals who follow that religion hold political power. There is something awfully surreal about Romney's defense of the virtues of secular society while he simultaneously caters to the religious right's attempts to tear down the wall between church and state. We need that wall, and we need it to remain high, rigid, and impenetrable so we all can remain free to say what we want without the risk of violence.

Do I think Islam is a peaceful religion? No. September 11th is a day when the entire world is acutely aware of that fact. Do I think Christianity is a peaceful religion? No. The guy who put this video out was a member of a homegrown Christian sleeper cell of people who are paranoid in the extreme about a "New World [read: Secular] Order". They have guns at the ready to defend themselves against it. They want everyone who is frightened by Islamic extremism to rally behind the banner of Christian extremism. That sort of enemy of my enemy thinking can transform American society, and they know it.

What I sincerely hope people in this country who "don't follow politics" might take away from the events of the past week is that religious moderates, agnostics, and atheists absolutely must pay very close attention to what is happening in our own backyards. The roots of violent hatred for "the other" that developed into what happened in Benghazi find their expression at home, too. If you have never talked with someone who defends a warped utilitarian position for bombing abortion clinics, you might dismiss it. That would be a mistake. Remember Aikan? The guy who thinks that abortion should be illegal in the case of rape and incest because he simply cannot imagine that God would allow a baby to be conceived if it was a "real rape"? He's back to a dead heat in the Missouri senate race.

It might be difficult to imagine violent mobs of religious believers in our streets, especially if you lose sight of the fact that less than a century ago, "communist atheists" and their "sympathizers" had their lives destroyed over differences in religious and political philosophy. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of those "enemies", because he expressed sentiments like this.

If you can name a more lyrical and effective champion of the American Dream, I'm listening. The fact remains, the religious right didn't care for him. In white middle class America, it was largely the communists, the Jews, and the atheists who were rallying loudly behind him, and many of them suffered for it. Some lost their lives.

We must never lose sight of our past. The America that exists on the horizon if politicians who maintain the absurd notion that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim out to persecute Christians gain the House, the Senate, and the White House (and, in so doing, change the makeup of the Supreme Court in the hopes that they will construct an explicitly pro-Christian interpretation of the First Amendment) is a frightening one. When I vote this November, I'll be voting like my freedom of religion and yours depends on it. I hope you'll join me.

Bless her Little Heart

It's one of those phrases that can mean so many things-- kind of like "praying for you".

Had an interesting discussion this morning with someone who just really, really failed to get it. It began, as most warm mornings with a clear blue sky when the calendar reads 9/11 do, with a discussion of how we reacted on that day. One person said it was her last day as a Christian. Another chimed in quickly to say she would pray for her.

Now, there are quite a few kinds of prayers. Some are grounded in empathy or grief. They are an expression of the deepest wishes a human being could possibly have that a bad situation will improve, that pain will be healed, and that good things will happen in the wake of horror. They are the silent agonizing thoughts that desperately hope for intervention from some force outside of the natural world to make things better, like the ones I and every other even remotely "spiritual" person in the world had as they watched the twin towers crashing down into rubble eleven years ago. They are usually private. When they are shared, they are often shared from a position of humility in the face of something huge, not knowing if they will be answered, or even heard.

I may take some flack for this, but atheists have them, too. We are tiny clusters of very old and well organized stardust, and our lives are over in a brief flash in human history. They don't even register in the long view of time. The ultimately inconsequential truth of our fleeting existence does not mean that we don't hurt for humanity as a whole when we see suffering on the scale that we saw it eleven years ago, or that we do not want to make the world a better place.

When tragedy strikes, we bypass the supernatural part. We talk with our friends. We write to leave a record of what we feel, not always knowing if anyone will hear or care, and not always in the public eye. I don't think it's too far off to say our blogs and our journals and our hopes to be that change we want to see in the world are our secular prayers. I recognize these things for what they are-- our hopes, our dreams, and (when we act on them) our legacy to future generations. They are the glue that holds society together and causes us to reach out to one another for support and comfort when we need it, and to give it when and where we can. We are, in a very real sense, little more than what we share with one another. We grow when we confront what we might otherwise hide from ourselves.

Some prayers, on the other hand, are less noble. Call them "selfish prayers": the prayer of an exasperated mother that an overtired child will go to sleep; the prayer that a sticky work situation will be go away after a good night's sleep; or the prayer that an unexpected windfall or the kindness of others will help solve financial problems. (More on that later.) Atheists have these thoughts too, but tend to handle the day-to-day trials and tribulations from a strictly pragmatic approach. We look for advice from our friends, family, social networks, doctors, and lawyers. We bring meals to our sick friends. We argue for what's right and hope it finds a receptive audience. I'm not saying that people who appeal to a supernatural power do these things any more or less than atheists do. We just cut out the thoughts directed towards the middle man when we do them.

But there is that final kind of prayer... the kind of prayer that atheists get from believers who are sad to hear that we have "lost" our faith. Call it a "pity prayer", or an evangelical prayer. It's the kind of prayer that asserts one Truth, and flatly rejects the possibility that this truth may be wrong. It's the kind of prayer that assumes those "other" belief systems are wrong, and many if not all of the world's problems would be solved if only everyone would convert to the True way of thinking. It's the kind of prayer that condescends, while simultaneously demanding respect.

Atheists have these sorts of sentimental wishes, too, when it comes to religion. In the past, we were sometimes silent out of fear we would be killed, beaten, burned as witches, or simply cast aside by society. To be very clear, that's still a risk today. We are social animals, and callous rejection and judgment based on religious beliefs or lack thereof can cause real pain. Or, you know, risk of death if enough people don't react to actual persecution loudly enough. I'm going to call it what it is, self-righteous garbage of the most dangerous sort. We mourn the atheists in foxholes who have died protecting the people who cause that pain, and we get angry when their very existence is denied, belittled, or ignored. This attempt to claim a monopoly on the moral high ground is base tribalism, and does not play well with others.

Don't like it when we deliver a dose of reality? Then, please, hear our "prayer".

****

As an important aside, if you like the pendant, and you want one, click the pic. The proceeds are being used by the artist to help fund a custody battle for his daughter, after being totally cut off from all contact for far too long. Earlier this year, he had to fight against a move to terminate his parental rights. Why? Because he's an atheist, and the grandparents didn't want their grandchild exposed to that. That little girl who loves her daddy is who I think of when I hear the phrase "attacks on religious freedom", and the back story here might help explain my particularly strident mood today. The discussion I mentioned at the beginning of the post? Yeah, it happened on his Facebook page. Please feel free to share with your friends. At $10 a piece, they won't pay off the lawyer, but every little bit helps.

Conventional Wisdom

Ah, the conventions. That time of year when the parties reach out to their respective bases and fire up those boots on the ground. One thing you can always rely on in the wake of confetti and outrageous bar tabs that follow a convention; nothing of substance will have been said. So many crazy hats! So many convoluted twisty strings of earnest soundbytes and zingers! Such a very small chance that anyone will actually change their mind under the mind-numbing deluge of fluffy feel good slogans mixed with dire warnings about the evil that is the other side. After all, those people who are "undecided" at this point in the election cycle are just too busy to be bothered by politics or too fed up to care. Or at least, that's what conventional wisdom tells us. And who am I to argue with that?

Actually, as a skeptic, it's kind of a way of life. I also try to avoid generalizations about large groups of people precisely because large groups of people contain individuals. Some of those undecided and independent voters who research their choices carefully and cast purple ballots are pretty damned smart. You may be one of them. If you are, you might enjoy wonk-extraordinaire David Gewirtz's diary of an undecided voter (GOP version). (I'll tackle his equally amusing take on the DNC's dog and pony show next time out). Both of them are worth a read in full, but if you haven't got the time for that, I'll break down some of the highlights and my reactions to them.

On Paul Ryan:

He says the Romney ticket's goal is to create 12 million new jobs over the next four years. That's a high bar, but it's far from enough. We have about 23 million Americans out of work. Worse, about 2 million new workers enter the workforce each year. So, over the course of a 4-year term, of the 12 million jobs Ryan discussed, only about 4 million of those would be available for the current 23 million out of work. It's not nearly enough.

Given the fact that Paul Ryan draws inspiration from Ayn Rand's Utopian view of the free market, I think it's safe to assume he's not interested in adding to the federal payroll as any part of that jobs plan. Shrinking the public sector seems more likely, and that translates to less money going into the middle class. Those firefighters, teachers, police officers, and bureaucrats buy things. They have families to support. They stop buying things when they get "cut back", and start relying on government aid and student loans.

And yes, I know that the President forges a budget from the depths of his character, and the VP is just a tiebreaker in the Senate or a President-on-deck in the event of a national tragedy. Still, I operate under the informed conclusion that Romney's political convictions, even with all of his experience as a leader in the world of business, find their truest expression in the final line of Bohemian Rhapsody. The Romney that ran against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and implemented the pilot program for Obamacare is a far cry from the guy flying around the country today. Ryan's potential influence in his administration is something I weigh a bit more heavily than I would have if Gingrich had won the primaries.

On Romney:

Romney described five steps to creating those jobs, but one thing he didn't mention was population. Romney has five kids and 18 grandchildren, and so, in this regard, he's contributing to the problem -- rather than helping it. My detailed mathematical models showed that without some attention paid to reducing population, the jobs situation will continue to grow worse.

Excellent point. Gewirtz fails to draw the logical followup here, and that's a shame. This is precisely the area where economics and social issues are joined at the hip. Or, more accurately, they're joined at the uterus. Both Romney and Ryan oppose abortion for any reason other than rape, incest, or the mother's health. Ryan opposes it even in the event of rape or incest.

I'm stopping for a moment to collect my rage and let it go. See, that Buddhist stuff really works! Moving forward, then.

Regardless of how you feel about limiting access to abortion from a moral standpoint, the pro-life platform in general presents some real problems for our economic stability as a nation. Pair it with opposition to birth control measures like the IUD and birth control pills, and we have a recipe for a government mandated population explosion here. (Unless, of course, people stop having sex for anything other than procreation. Think that's likely? Yeah, neither do I.) Nothing erodes the middle class and puts people who otherwise would have been just barely making it into a position where federal and state aid become necessary more than unexpected children. Nothing keeps them there like increasing the odds that they will have more. This is not how you grow a struggling economy.

On God:

....

This is somewhat surprising, because if you listened to any of the RNC at all, it was kind of hard to miss the fact that God was definitely speaking from the stage through the rhetoric of the people who know him best. He wasn't quite the keynote speaker, but everyone there sure did talk about Him a lot. They seemed quite focused on letting the American people know, once and for all, that the values of this nation are the values of the holy and most righteous among us; and if you don't agree with that, you are lacking the core guiding principle that makes our nation great. Psychology Today even did an article about it.

In the process, they alienated plenty of people whose number one voting issue is the separation of church and state. They contributed, once again, to the common misconception that the atheists among you are just about as trustworthy as rapists. Which is a shame, really. I don't eat babies, I don't worship Satan, and I don't appreciate it when people who want to run my government imply that my philosophical convictions are in any way shape or form stunted.

I won't vote for you if that's the way you feel about me, and I just hope my friends and family don't believe it when you tell those lies. E pluribus unum, bitches.

How Not to Address Racial Bullying

Just don't talk about it.  Pretend it doesn't happen. Or, if you try to do that and the story still won't die, give it the 70 seconds of airtime it deserves and make it clear there will be no further comments.

I want to be fair to the media here. Part of the reason why this story slipped under the radar is that the woman at the center of this story has made it clear she doesn't view this as behavior that is unique to the RNC, and has turned down multiple requests for interviews. I can't fault her for not wanting to relive this humiliating and frustrating experience over and over again. Life goes on.

What I can do, though, is talk about my own frustration-- because there are broader aspects to the way this incident played out that will not be brought into the public discussion, and they should be. While CNN was still burying this story, Jamila Bey did a piece for the Washington Post that is very worth a read in full, particularly since the camerawoman was a close friend of hers.  In particular, the part of the story that happened after the officials for the convention showed up to investigate is worth paying attention to. She writes:

"At this point, I expected my friend to tell me how the RNC apologized profusely, how they genuinely seemed to feel bad and how they themselves became outraged by the whole thing. She didn’t. Rather, she told me that RNC security investigated by asking of the assailants, 'Were they black or were they white?'"

I've never been a security guard before, but I expect there is some sensitivity training involved when it comes to getting a physical description of the people you are trying to track down from someone who has just been attacked. To say that this was an indelicate way of going about it is to be charitable. A more accurate assessment of their lead-off question might start with the words overtly offensive. It should also include the phrase statistically challenged and possibly indicate that they were blind in every sense of the word. Surely, the actual RNC officials who came by later would do better, right?  They couldn't possibly try to minimize what happened by immediately falling back on the defense that these people (who, let's not forget, had front row seats by the press pit) must have been attendees, and not actual delegates or people with any influence in the party.

Except, of course, that's exactly what happened.

I keep hearing we live in a post-racial world, one where "reverse discrimination" prevents people from getting the jobs they deserve. "Legitimate" male white privilege is just a figment of your imagination, and certainly wouldn't happen if you were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making sammiches for your six kids where you belonged. Or, you know, in a zoo or something.

I am enraged by this. Everyone should be enraged by this. But mostly, what I'm enraged by is that these nameless bigots got to spend some extra time in the strip clubs and then go home to their local political scene and their families with no repercussions whatsoever. Predictably, the comments in the few places where this was given the attention it deserved  have been "pics or it didn't happen", or "they were plants".

This should have been a wake up call. Instead, the offenders get a slap on the wrist, and we get a snooze button and get told to go back to sleep. Don't worry. I'm sure the alarm will go off again. That's a comforting thought, isn't it?

Happy Birthday, Phyllis Schlafly: Round 1

It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the culture war over women's reproductive rights, to say the least.

There's a lot of research out there detailing exactly how the tides have shifted over the past thirty years, but recent polls and ever tightening restrictions on abortion at the state level have shown that for the first time since the good old days of coat hangers, the pro-life movement has the upper hand by a nice solid margin.

It certainly appears that the cumulative effect of a decade's worth of millions of dollars spent attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade one red state at a time (touched off by the Webster decision in 1989 that kicked Roe in the ovaries and hard) is paying off. Looking at the numbers, it's clear to see why U.S. Senate hopeful Todd Akin felt comfortable talking candidly about how he justifies his position, even in the event of rape or incest.

Of course, another way of looking at the data is that the number of voters who immediately recognized the pro-life movement's connection to the "woman's place is in the kitchen" crowd has been slowly replaced by a younger group of voters who don't really understand how powerful that movement is, or how comprehensively they have been marketed to. Speaking for myself, I'm a Gen Xer. Coke vs. Pepsi, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the first war in Iraq were the big issues of my day. The feminists who fought for the ERA before I was born had been re-branded as feminazis by the time I was in high school, and burning my bra in my twenties seemed like a waste of perfectly good lingerie. Hell, I didn't even know who Phyllis Schlafly was until I had been out of college for years, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in my demographic. She's worth getting to know a little better, particularly for those of us who weren't around when she was fighting the ERA.

This matron-saint of the movement to end all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, gave a speech at the Republican National Convention yesterday in which she said:

“The pro-life plank of the platform...is really not controversial in the Republican Party anymore. It is just a blind statement and, I think, one of the things we have done to make the Republican Party pro-life. Almost all of our candidates in 2010 were pro-life, and they are again this year.”

She's certainly correct about that. But I think there are some important details Schlafly is leaving out. One woman's "pro-life" stance for herself looks very different from a "pro-life" stance that criminalizes abortion. The same set of data, when expanded to allow for a more nuanced approach to the issue, looks quite a bit different.

Looking at the second chart, it's clear to see why Akin maybe should have saved that speech for the country club, where most of the people in that 22% figure are already drinking the same Kool-Aid and calling it science. Don't get me wrong. It's time that we started having a serious national debate about these issues. When some mothers are already being put in jail for crimes against the unborn, it's arguably past time.

Finally, the issue of abortion is getting the deep analysis it deserves on the national stage, instead of a shallow treatment in which we're all free to hold our own opinions and now back to American Idol.

Paul Ryan's followup interview in response to the, shall we say, negative publicity probably didn't help. He rather nonchalantly referred to rape as a "method of conception" just as the headlines were starting to focus on his partnership with Akin in co-sponsoring "personhood" legislation. Did I mention Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed a law redefining the date of conception as taking place two weeks before intercourse back in April? That's getting some attention now, too. But wait, there's more. Just when you thought the crazy train couldn't possibly make any more spectacularly blunderstruck stops, we get another Republican U.S. Senate candidate, Tom Smith, hopping on board to say that carrying a rape baby is not all that different from having a child out of wedlock. (And yes, he actually used the term wedlock.  Quaint, no?)

The backlash is starting to (if you'll pardon the grim pun) bleed over into Romney/Ryan's once solidly red numbers in Missouri. Still, Phyllis Schlafly ended her remarks at her little birthday shindig by telling an enthusiastic crowd, "We're winning. We're on the winning side."

All I have to say is I hope she enjoys that layer cake. If my generation and the younger voters rise up to meet this tectonic shift toward the insane the way I think we will, it will turn to humble pie come November.

What's with the A+ Thing?

There's a new brand of atheist activism being kicked around the blogosphere these days, and some really great discussions have popped up as a result. I want to start by stating clearly here that I am drawing a line in the sand between atheism and the atheist community as a whole. Atheism in and of itself is just a simple statement that says you don't believe in a god(s)/ess(es). Some atheists watch football on Sundays, check none on the religious affiliation surveys, and that's about the limit of how deeply they connect with religion or debates about religion. Some live in countries where religious beliefs are the exception, not the rule, and the idea of seeking out an atheist community is somewhat bizarre to them.

When I talk about the atheist community, though, I'm specifically referring to the people who *do* want to connect with each other to raise awareness for social issues we care about. It's not okay when we're told we need to leave our distaste for the good old boy's club at the door. We want a way to say upfront that we demand to be treated with basic human dignity, and resent being told to be quiet when we speak up about that. Some of the responses I've seen are cautiously critical (see also: Emily Dietle's assessment), and raise concerns about creating an elitist club in response to white male privilege. Irony. It's a lovely thing.

If you want a social justice movement that focuses on embracing diversity without centering on a specific set of religious beliefs, it's called humanism. If that appeals to you, and you also don't believe in supernatural forces, then you have secular humanism. Humanism is a broad and well organized movement with a global presence that we can be a part of without having to come up with new labels.

The problem, of course, is that humanists in general are at best a bit embarrassed by the very vocal atheist contingent within its midst, and at worst outright hostile to us. (To be fair, this may be a reaction to being called delusional idiots because they aren't naturalists. More on that in a bit.) Also, humanism alone does little to address the problem laid out by Sam Harris:

"While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence." 

So, yes, the labels we use do matter. If we don't offer up that bulwark effectively by challenging directly the notion that any person can claim to know for certain that God exists, much less what he wants us to do in our bedrooms or what rewards await us after martyrdom, who will? Humanists? Possibly. But any population that includes believers in its midst is going to have to tread very lightly around these topics if they don't want their membership to turn elsewhere.

Which brings me directly to the other, much more glaring problem that I haven't seen addressed yet. The Atheist Movement struggles when it comes to following the "Don't Be a Dick" rule. (To be equally fair, this may be a direct result of being called immoral and dangerous to society by the same people who threaten our livelihoods and even our safety in certain parts of this country.) I'm not just referring to misogyny within the movement or racially insensitive billboards at this point, although these things are certainly the impetus for the new direction. I'm referring to the general tendency to focus so strongly on calling religion an irrational hangover from a past drenched in superstition that we aim far, far too wide. People who might otherwise be drawn to what we have to offer as a community or even as decent human beings who don't automatically assume that religious = not worth listening to are instantly struck by a sudden urge to wash their hair or watch Doctor Who instead.

Which leaves us exactly where when it comes to leading the fight against religious extremism and religious violence? Ah, yes, an echo chamber of maybe, at best 10% of the American population. Not all of whom vote. Lovely. That'll help. What good does it do to hold the intellectual high ground if we shut out the people who could be standing there with us on issues we care about? I remember seeing a lot of my religious friends reposting this sign back in April:

And you know what? It doesn't bother me in the slightest that they're religious. They get it. They've seen Fred Phelps and his gang, and they're pissed off, too. They understand that people can be good without god (progress!), and we should be working together to simply be kind, regardless of our religious beliefs or lack thereof. Atheism, plus the support of people who are fed up with messages of hatred and intolerance. Humanists, cafeteria Catholics, Buddhists, Pagans, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews. Hell, even the occasional Young Earth Creationist can agree on that message. It doesn't mean we have to agree on anything having to do with religious doctrines, or argue about which invisible robes fit best on an unseen creator, or count the angels dancing on a pinhead. Those are debates that they can have within their own communities.

But these causes that we have in common? We are stronger united than we are divided.

We hold these truths...

You don't really expect to learn anything useful your first day of a lecture hall at a large university.  You expect to find teenagers nursing hangovers from the back to school parties, struggling to stay awake.  You expect to find a professor going through the motions of teaching material you should have learned in high school, and sometimes going off on tangents that leave your notes a jumbled mess of question marks and doodles.  You expect to hear a run down of the syllabus, with dire warnings attached to all of the expectations.

But sixteen years ago, almost to the day, I was sitting in the back rows, straining to see the chalkboard, on which the professor had scrawled in all caps:

ALL HISTORIANS ARE LIARS

He then proceeded to explain the careful process of selection that even the most academic treatment of a topic must go through. You can try to tell the whole story, but you must select the facts you find most relevant.  The details you leave out (or possibly ignore for any number of reasons) may very well be used by someone else to tell a completely different story.

It left an impression. Our brains are giant propaganda machines that filter the things we read and the words we hear so they line up with our core beliefs. Sometimes we embrace things that we shouldn't, because they don't hold up to careful scrutiny. Sometimes we fail to recognize the importance of things that we should be considering, because doing so would force us to face the ridicule of people we admire and respect.

I think it's fairly common for people to experience the cognitive dissonance of loving someone whose religious or political beliefs are in polar opposition to our own. Marriages fail, mothers and fathers disown their adolescent and adult children, and sometimes entire communities go on modern day witch hunts. It's tragic that friends and family can and do stop loving each other over these differences, and start seeing each other through a lens of distrust or outright disgust.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about the solution to world peace here. I'm not suggesting that members of the NAACP should get together with Klan leaders around a campfire and join hands. Some things are worth taking an uncompromising stand on, and I'll probably be talking a lot about those sorts of topics, because they matter to me.

If you disagree with me, though, I'm open to your criticism. It's happened before, and I can think of several times in my life when someone shattered my illusions about some core convictions I held. They pointed out where I was simply wrong, and I'm a better person today because of it. I'm grateful to them, and if I have a chance to be one of those people simply because I have words tumbling inside of my head that need to be released, I'm grateful for that, too.

We hold our truths to be self evident, but sometimes they aren't. Obviously, or everyone would agree with us. So this is a blog about that. Hope you enjoy.