Barack O-Bible

I just listened to the first installment of Another Goddamned Podcast, and they discuss the topic of politicians (Barack Obama in this case) pandering to Christians. (A great podcast by the way!)

This has been a problem longer than I've been alive. Every time any legal challenge tries to draw a clear line between church and state (nativity scenes on government property, ten commandments on government property, the phrase "under God" in our pledge of allegiance, the phrase "In God we Trust" on our currency, etc.) the politicians of both parties practically fall over each other trying to be the first to condemn any such challenge. These are some of the only times you'll see unanimous votes in the House or Senate to overturn any such ruling. It is very clear that Atheists have no voice in politics whatsoever.

In fact, we have less support now than we had at the turn of the 20th century. Adding "In God we Trust" to currency and "Under God" in the pledge all happened in the Twentieth Century.

And now we see this recent turn of events where Barack Obama is going out of his way to proclaim his Christianity and make it clear that he will live and lead as a man of faith.

I have so many mixed emotions on this subject that I could literally argue with myself for days. I want Atheists to have a voice, and I want them to have the option to oppose candidates who threaten the separation between church and state. But after 7 years of the current crop of Republican leaders (it's not just Bush), I've changed my voting registration from Independent to Democrat, and I'll support even an Evangelistic Christian Democrat over any of the current crop of Republican candidates.

The Background

Although this is highly oversimplified, let's group Americans into one of 4 categories:

1. Social Liberal and Economic Liberal
2. Social Conservative and Economic Conservative
3. Social Liberal and Economic Conservative
4. Social Conservative and Economic Liberal
   

But we only have 2 parties to choose from, and so the parties gravitate toward the two largest groups, which seem to be groups 1 and 2.

Group 3 tends to be people who register as independents, and they can be tipped into either party.

Group 4 is a perfect fit for evangelical Christians, and likewise should split evenly between Democrat and Republican. And yet Evangelicals overwhelmingly vote Republican.

Why do Evangelicals vote Republican?

Just a few decades ago, the Bible Belt voted overwhelmingly Democrat. Christian morals and the Democrat political values were a natural match. The Democrats stood up for the poor and disadvantaged. But this lead to supporting the Civil Right movement of the 60's, and this was highly unpopular in the Bible Belt. And honestly, the Bible is not a great champion of Civil Rights.

But the Civil Rights movement worked very well for the Democrats, and so they became the party supporting women's rights as well, and this lead to supporting abortion, and even attracted supporters of gay rights and animal rights.

The Bible is not a strong supporter (to say the least) of women's rights. Although the Bible doesn't say much against homosexuality, it says just enough to allow homophobes to use the Bible like a sledgehammer against anyone supporting gay marriage. The Bible doesn't have a single passage that is clearly anti-abortion either, but it has enough literary references to life before birth that Christians seem to have interpreted it that way, and they've made it a major issue.

Southern evangelicals live in a very homeostatic world, and anything that supports a social change is terrifying to them. This was the tipping point that converted evangelicals to the Republican Party.

I think after being in the Republican Party for so many years, the evangelical Christians have become slightly brainwashed with some of the extreme forms of economic conservative beliefs as well. (Evangelicals are prone to brainwashing. What a surprise.) I've seen Christians who live in poverty but vocally support tax cuts for the wealthy. They've also adopted this the Republican slavish worship of business that says if capitalism is good, then all businesses must be good, and corporations can do no wrong. Republicans LOVE Wal-Mart and Microsoft and Haliburton and Lockheed-Martin and Enron (until they got caught) and Oil Companies and any company that makes money at the expense of everything and everyone. And now many evangelical Christians have adopted this philosophy...even when it is (sometimes) at odds with Christian morals.




Barack Obama

Anyway, all of the above is the foundation for what is happening to the Democratic party today. The Republicans get all of the Group 2 vote, half the Group 3 vote, and all of the Group 4 vote. It has been a rough time for the Democrats for the past few decades. The loss of the evangelical Christians has hurt the Democrats in ways that they've never been able to fully recover from. They only managed to barely get control of congress after a long series of historically tragic mistakes on the part of the current Republican leadership. (Again, it's not just Bush. I could ramble off at least 20 names in the Republican leadership...or 10 if you don't count the one's who have already been forced to leave office.) But this backlash against Republicans won't last.
Many Democrats honestly believe that they cannot prosper without stronger evangelical support. We will always be this "divided nation" of two Americas unless the one of the two parties can make a home for disenchanted factions in the other party.

Barack Obama's pandering to faith is nothing new. Bill Clinton would quote scripture with the best of them, and Jimmy Carter was one of the most religious presidents in recent history. The Democratic party is doing everything it possibly can to appeal to the Christian majority of this country.

And as an Atheist, this very troubling to see all of American politics kissing up to Christian evangelicals every chance they get, but we have to fact the facts that Groups 3 and 4 have all the power right now, because Groups 1 and 2 are entrenched and loyal and evenly matched. Democrats are going to have to attract groups 3 and 4 by promising to cut spending and promising to lead with faith.


Big Picture

People who have a strong belief in God are the vast majority of the American population today, and will be so for at least another 50 years if not much much longer. There is nothing that can be done about that. If the Democratic party is to succeed, they very much need to attract people of faith. Many Evangelicals are NOT opposed to the economic liberalism of the Democratic party. Mike Huckabee is proof of that. What they are (mostly) opposed to is the social liberalism of the party.

The Democratic party needs to prove that it's political values are more in sync with Christian moral values than are the Republican political values. They need to prove that they have a realistic form of economic liberalism that will keep spending in check.

For Barack Obama to pander to the Christian majority is totally expected and needed. Is it dishonest? Maybe, but I don't know Obama's personal beliefs. He seems very genuine in his spirituality, and yet he's had the guts to openly support and enforce the separation of church and state. He seems to understand the difference between espousing faith and governing by faith. The Republicans clearly don't understand that difference. The Republicans are convinced to their very core that this is a Christian nation because the founding fathers were all devout Christians. They definitely were not.

I will be keenly watching for any moves that directly violate our Constitution, but outside of that, I'm fine with Barack making moves to bring more Christans into the Democratic party. Those Christians who are militant about abortion above all else will probably never be Democrats. But there are lots of moderate faithful who are not one-issue voters, they will balance all these concerns and be willing to back whichever party supports the greatest number of their values. These are the Christians who are largely voting Republicans but are disenchanted with many current Republican policies.

So, I wish Barack Obama all the luck. I think he has a better chance of winning converts from the right than Hillary does. He has a better chance of making all of us put down our hot-button pet issues and come together as a nation to solve the bigger problems facing us all. I voted for Barack over Hillary, and I sincerely hope he wins.

Go Barack!!!!!!!!!!!!


(Side Note)
It's not that I don't like Hillary. She rates highest on support for the sciences. But I don't think most Americans realize how much Hillary is hated on the right. Even the people on the right are keeping it quiet, but it's there. I spent some time in rural Tennessee...disguised as a Republican...and I swear those people are ready to lock-and-load and start causing violent trouble if she looks like she'll win. I think she also might have a chip on her shoulder against Republicans (and deservedly so) which would prevent her from working as well with Republicans as Barack. There are too many Republicans who would lose all of the credibility if they suddenly agreed to anything Hillary wants.

Right now, we are facing such dire issues that I'm totally in the mood to forgive everything any Republican has ever done and just get on with our lives. I think Barack has that attitude as well. I'm not sure Hillary does.

Then again...only Nixon could go to China and only Kirk could make peace with Klingons. Maybe only Hilary can appease Republicans? :)

A good rant!

I love a good rant. This one is nearly a year old, but it's still VERY timely and appropriate for today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mEEjX6j_f4

The Politics of Science

With all the problems this country is facing, the presidential candidates are heavily focused on issues of change, the economy, and the war in Iraq. It is difficult to discern their positions on many issues that are important to the scientific community. Even if the other issues are more important, some small part of my vote is still going to be based on a candidate's support for the sciences, and I would like to know where they stand.

I have made my own modest effort to read and research to try and find out what candidates have said and done in regards to many of these issues.

Of course, all politicians are good at saying what they think people want to hear. Whether or not any of these candidates are willing and/or able to actually follow through with their promises is questionable at best. And I make no claim to even remotely have the research skills our resources of a true journalist. So, take my ratings with a *big* grain of salt.

Here is my scale of 1 to 5 atoms:

- Excellent support for and understanding of the sciences
- Reasonable support for multiple branches of science
- Not especially focused on science, but not threatened by science either.
- Confuses science with politics and subjective beliefs
- Here comes the 2nd Dark Age

The Rankings:

Hillary Clinton -

• Vocal supporter of stem cell research
• Opposes teaching Intelligent Design in science class
• Vocal supporter of Internet Neutrality
• Vocal supporter of investments into alternative energies
• Vocal supporter of NASA and space exploration
• Supports 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050
• Focus on technology and innovation to drive economic growth, and reversing what she calls the Bush Administration's "assault on science".
• Establish a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to invest in technologies to promote conservation, combat global warming and reduce dependence on foreign oil.
• Speed the development of a vehicle to replace the aging space shuttle fleet, and "fully fund NASA's Earth Sciences program and initiate a Space-based Climate Change Initiative" to better study global warming.
• Increase the budget of the National Institutes of Health by 50 percent over 5 years.
  Direct all federal department and agency heads to safeguard against political pressure on scientific issues.
• Re-establish the position of Assistant to the President for Science and Technology.
• Ban political appointees from unduly interfering with scientific conclusions and publications.

"For six and half years under this president, it's been open season on open inquiry, and by ignoring or manipulating science, the Bush administration is letting our economic competitors get an edge in the global economy." -- Clinton at the 50th anniversary of Sputnik

Barack Obama -

• Supports doubling federal funding for basic research, thereby "changing the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology."
• Opposes teaching Intelligent Design in science classes
• Supports Internet Neutrality
• Supports more equitable distribution of wireless bandwidth ranges to bring wireless internet access to rural areas.
• Voiced very strong and continuing opposition to recent congressional budget cuts for major science projects such as the International Linear Collider and the ITER fusion-power experiment. I would rate Obama 5 atoms for this stance alone were it not for the fact that this is likely mostly a policitical move on his part, because Senator Obama represents the state (Illinois) where Fermilab (one of the major targets of the budget cuts) is located.
• Generally, Obama has a somewhat narrow focus on immediate practical applications of science in the fields of health care. He is more interested in what science can do to help people now rather than what we should be investing in science to help people in the future.
• Proposes greatly increased spending on science education, but would pay for it with cuts in NASA's budget.

John Edwards -

• Overall John Edwards is not as vocal about scientific issues as Clinton or Obama, and he focuses on a pretty narrow set of topics.
• When questioned on scientific issue positions, he sometimes offers up vague and non-committal answers. For example, when asked about funding for NASA his answers have been something along the lines of "Space Exploration is great and we need to do it." But he hasn't put together a detailed policy.
• Supports stem-cell research
• Opposes teaching Intelligent Design in science class
• Supports Internet Neutrality
• Strong supporter of active policy to control emissions
• Strong supporter of increased science education in schools.
• In the Senate, he has a consistent record of supporting environmental improvement measures
• Believes that careers in science are vital for America's future and not something we should offshore.
• Proposes to eliminate political litmus tests for government scientists.
• Proposes to protect the integrity of government science by prohibiting political appointees from overriding agencies' scientific findings unless the chief White House science advisor concludes they are erroneous.
• Proposes to reverse the demotion of the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and restore the office to a central role as an assistant to the president, a rank held in previous administrations.
• Has an unfortunate record of occasionally using "junk science" as a trial lawyer prosecuting medial malpractice lawsuits.

"The disregard of science by the Bush administration -- the censorship of data and analysis of global warming, the treatment of stem cell research, mercury emissions and other subjects - has been shameful. As president, I will ensure that government professionals charged with the collection and analysis of scientific data--from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to the EPA--are insulated from political influence. Period." -- John Edwards

John McCain -

• Strong supporter of environmental issues. John McCain has stated that global warming is “the most urgent issue facing the world”. He hasn't always seen global warming as a serious issue, but better late than never.
• He has an unclear position on teaching Intelligent design. Has supported Intelligent Design on and off in the past.
• Opposes Internet Neutrality
• Overall, McCain is a pragmatist and has show a willingness to listen to scientific opinion and change his mind take action when needed, even when it contradicts a position taken by the Republican Party.

Rudy Guiliani -

• Rudy has virtually no record on scientific issues, positive or negative. He seems to care very little for science, but he also makes no effort to impede the progress of science. He is likely to take advice on scientific matters from the experts.
• Although he is a Republican, he has made little effort to bow to the desires of the Evangelistic branch of his party. He seems somewhat resistant to their anti-science message.
• The danger with Rudy is that the President has the ability to influence what issues the congress and the country focuses on. And Rudy is the type who will never focus on scientific issues. When pressed with questions about global warming, he will begrudgingly admit it's an issue, but then turn the subject into our reliance on foreign oil.

Mitt Romney -

• On record as opposing teaching Intelligent Design
• Opposed Internet Neutrality
• Much like Juliani, Mitt has virtually no record on scientific issues, and doesn't seem to care. If you go to his website, http://www.mittromney.com/, he doesn't list any positions on any scientific issues...not even global warming.
• His big weakness is his desire to please the evangelists in his party. He sees himself as a personal representative and defender of the Mormon religion, and he obviously feels he has something to prove to the Christian Evangelicals. This is what could cause him to side with Evangelicals rather than scientists on key issues where they tend to disagree.

Mike Huckabee -

• Supports Internet Neutrality
• Believes that Evolution is a farce (YIKES!)
• Unclear record on environmental issues
• As with Romney, the issues he chooses to advocate only center around the central Republican themes of God, Family, and America.
• He has a reasonable and practical aspect to his personality, and this is the only thing keeping me from giving him a 1 atom rating. He is the embodiment of all the risks that come from mixing Church and State. However, he has also demonstrated some ability to listen to others and to build concensus as much as possible. He is the "compassionate" conservative that Bush never was.

Fred Thompson -

• Straight-line ideologic conservative from top to bottom. (Or maybe he's just acting, but he's a good actor!)
• He values his political positions absolutely everything else, and is unwilling to listen to people who disagree with him. He is very much like George Bush in this regard. If any of his ideological positions are shown to be un-scientific, then science itself must be fallible, because his ideas are not.

As I'm writing this, I just heard that Fred has dropped out of the race. This is good news! He was my only 1-atom rating besides current president George Bush.

This means that ANY president we get from these remaining candidates will be an improvement over our current president. (At least in the area of support for the sciences.)

The science of faith

I was chatting with an acquaintance recently, and our conversation wandered into the topic of Evolution. He thinks Evolution is all fake. Naturally his view of Evolution is entirely based on the fact that he has already accepted on faith that the Bible as absolute truth. Once your reality is based on faith, you can believe whatever you want to believe.

But I've found that many religious people are at least willing to attempt to debate on facts, because nobody wants to be seen as being irrational. (Never mind that they retreat deeper into faith if they start to lose the battle of facts.)

This individual wasn't even willing to debate me. The reasons he gave were reasons I've heard before, and reasons I'm hearing more and more lately...enough to think there is a real movement behind this.

The argument goes something like this:

"Look, people have been debating the existence of God and the meaning of life for thousands of years, and nobody has ever come up with a winning answer. How could I be smarter than all of them? I have accepted God on faith, and there is no use in thinking about it or debating it any further. You can show me any reason to doubt God's existence, and I can find someone on the other side who would counter your argument. Debating gets you nowhere. I'm going to focus on living my life and being happy."

Obviously there are holes in every part of his "just believe and be happy" argument. It assumes mankind has collectively learned nothing at all, it assumes that human beings are totally incapable of reasonable judgment, it assumes that happiness is a greater goal than truth, and it is a defeatist attitude in the face of an imaginary challenge of their own creation! It is a complete abandonment of reason. You could justify anything with that kind of logic.

And yet what this presents is a more difficult and vexing form of faith that what I usually encounter. Many people want to believe that their religion is reasonable and logical and can easily stand on the facts. They want to believe that we all live in the same reality and that reasonable people will come to the same conclusions when presented with the same evidence.

But this "believe and be happy" form of faith takes the shape of a conscious decision to see the world as they want to see it, to willfully believe whatever they want to believe, without any concern for seeking any absolute truth. If mankind has proven itself unable to discern what is real and what isn't, then everything must be faith, and we might as well just sit back and enjoy the ride.

It's like something right out of the movie "The Matrix", and yet this is real, and it's happening right now. Hundreds of millions of people are making a conscious choice for the blue pill.



Do I value truth over happiness? Yes...but I don't believe they are mutually exclusive. A life without magical thinking offers the freedom of the mind that is necessary to have an enriched and well examined life. I also don't believe that a blue-pill life leads to happiness. I know plenty of religious people who suffer terribly and are miserable people.

But I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to live in a bubble of blind faith...to be able to believe whatever I want to believe, and be absolutely certain that it was the truth. I would never even be aware that I had traded truth for fantasy. I would never know a red pill even existed.

But once you've seen the real world, it is most difficult to go back. And when I think about that, I wonder how I got "unplugged" in the first place. Why do a few of us escape the bubble of faith that traps so many?

How can the world be so full of religion, and yet I feel so sure that I have reached an awareness that most people have not? I don't consider myself as being any better than the believers. I've met religious people who are brilliant and wonderful people. So it is a puzzle to be an Atheist in a world full of religion. Atheists sensed that something wasn't right, and that there was more to the world that what we were told. We were skeptical and inquisitive, and we wouldn't stop digging until we found some answers. And what we discovered turns out to be vastly different than what most of humanity just accepts on faith because they aren't so inquisitive.

But why are the majority people people not inquisitive?




"You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." -- Morpheus






Most people aren't inquisitive because most people have a lot invested in their chosen reality. And that is what makes atheists such an unpopular minority: We deny their reality. We are a much greater threat to their world than any other religion. Having multiple religions in this world only serves to reinforce their reality. The existence of Islam reinforces Christianity, and vice-versa. Worshipers look around the world and only see other worshipers. So they see no need to question their reality. The only question is who picked the right god.

But atheists deny the reality of what these religions have all collectively created. We are the weirdos. We are the glitch in the system that they want fixed. Every religion throughout history has had it's "enforcers" who have attacked and hunted us. We are the one group that everyone can agree to hate. Polls have shown that people would rather elect someone from another religion than an atheist.

In this country, "religious freedom" is interpreted to mean that you can believe in God any way you want...just so long as you still believe...just so long as you remain plugged-in to the system and admit that faith is all there is. I can't count the number of times I've heard religious apologists claim that even Atheism is an act of faith...that we are no different and we play by their rules.

And this brings me back to my blue-pill friend who just doesn't care about science, philosophy, or religion. To him, atheism is just one of many ways to view this reality. But no, he is very wrong. They are all very wrong. Something fundamental has changed, and even many atheists don't realize it. This is not the same philosophical debate that has been raging for thousands of years. This is something brand new. In very recent human history we have seen the enthusiastic and universal application of the scientific method, and this has given us our first true glimpse of the real world.

For the first time in history, we are developing the ability to see the raw data of this reality. It is only in the past 100 years that all of the pieces of biology, geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, and psychology have come together into a coherent picture of the real world.

100 years ago, within the lifetime of many people living today, there was no concept of galaxies, no concept of continental drift, no DNA, no general relativity, no protons, no neutrons, no big bang, no understanding of evolutionary mechanisms, and no way to see the "code" that makes up reality. What science has delivered in the past century is nothing less than the physical reality that lies underneath our perceived reality. This is an absolutely brand new challenge to religion and it is the ultimate challenge to the inevitability of faith.

Atheism has teeth now. The Atheistic stance has changed from "Maybe the world could work without supernatural influence" to "Here is actually how the world actually does work without supernatural influence." It is a switch from inductive to deductive arguments based on our new-found ability to observe the physical reality of this world.

Religion is losing it's last foothold in reality and is being forced entirely into the realm of faith, and faith is losing it's legitimacy. In the past, faith was the act of believing in the absence of hard evidence. Today, faith is the act of believing in spite of hard evidence. The doorway to reality is finally open for all of us, and the only way to miss it is to willfully choose to look away. And this, of course, is exactly what most people will do.

If science becomes the tool that unplugs humanity from the false realities of religion, then science will eventually be attacked or be abandoned by large segments of the population. I can only hope it's not a majority of people. But even a rabid minority can cause catastrophes. The theory of Evolution will be the front line and the pivot in this battle. We can gracefully progress to the next stage of human society, or we can willfully close our eyes and slam ourselves back into another Dark Age. A significant percentage of the world's population, including my blue-pill friend, will absolutely prefer the latter.

I would no more push Atheism on someone than I'd want them to push Christianity on me. (And believe me, they do!) You can't force someone to take the red pill. But what I will advocate with utmost conviction is science. As a species, we are strong and we are many, but to survive we must move forward, and to move forward we must learn. We need the collective insight and wisdom to solve our own problems instead of waiting for the man in the sky with the white beard to save us.

It's not that I'm optimistic that science will find easy answers to all the problems that face our planet, but rather science will allow us to see our problems for what they are, and science will give us the best options for dealing with them. Science will give us the red pill we desperately need, and then the rest is up to us!

(To help support the advancement of science, please visit http://www.aaas.org/)