Last Friday, the city manager of Dubuque, IA, sent out a standard memo to all city offices saying that they were going to be closed on April 2nd for, “Spring Holiday” — a departure from the typical nomenclature of calling the day, “Good Friday”.   This was due to a May 2009 recommendation by the city’s Civil Rights Commission suggesting that changing official city holiday names from religious-based ones to generic, non-religious ones would be fair to everyone involved.

The Christian Right went apeshit.

Much of this simply has to do with kneejerk reactions to really poor reporting on the case of many news sources that stated the headline as some form of, “City Renames ‘Good Friday’ to ‘Spring Holiday’”, which seemingly implies that they were renaming the holiday for everyone in the entire town or some crazy crap — which it wasn’t.   It also wasn’t official, since the city manager cannot by himself make any sort of permanent change in policy without a city council vote.   And it only applied to one memo, distributed and applicable only to one group, the city employees.

The Christian Right still went bananas.

Apparently the phones have been ringing off the hook in Davenport city offices, saying such things as, “I’ll never visit Davenport for as long as I live,” calling the city manager profanities and so forth, and generally being extremely abusive and negative about the entire thing, all the while citing the supposed, “war on Christianity”.     Of course the city has issued apologies, retractions, anything and everything to stop the flow of crazy into their offices, but it’s astounding what has been said in the meantime.

I perhaps made an error in joining in the discussion on one of the reporting news sites and tried to inject a bit of sanity into the mix, citing the facts of the case and saying that this was a good thing, really, and nobody should feel offended whatsoever.   However, the sheer amount of hatred and insanity and obstinacy encountered set me back on my heels despite the fact that I’ve seen all this before.   It’s truly amazing and scary how vehemently blind people can be in their rage when you’ve come anywhere near their beliefs.

So much for following the typical Christian principles of kindness, meekness, and humility, eh?   Nice score, folks.

Frankly, in many ways, I’m tired of trying to inject logic and sense into arguments with such people.   I prefer to take the high road and remove the emotion from the situation and instead focus on the facts and solutions, but time and time again there’s these waves of ugly people screaming in my ear with no regard to how they’d face up in an intellectual match-up.    How can you make such obtuse statements and never once stop to hear what the other is saying?

ONE:  There is NO WAR on Christianity — I don’t care what you think the rest of the world is trying to do, they’re not attempting to quash your religion or your beliefs.   Rather, we’re trying to level the playing field.   For years Christians have gotten a nod above the crowd in America and it’s high time we live up to our founding principles of being a land where you can worship as you please and live as you please without discrimination in any direction. Just because YOU don’t feel discriminated against because you ARE a Christian and 90% of this country and culture is aligned in that direction doesn’t mean that Joe Muslim or Jane Jew over here isn’t feeling like crap because of it.    Remember:   My freedom is not complete until everyone else’s freedom is complete.

I don’t favor putting any other religion above Christianity, but it clearly has far too many concessions.    The only fair and right thing to do is to make it…fair and even and uninfluenced, which brings me to my second point:

TWO: Whether or Not “Separation of Church and State” is in the Constitution, it’s Still a Damned Good Idea™ — Here’s the thing, folks — no matter what beliefs you have, you want the government to stay OUT of them.   Entirely.    It only works right now for you because there’s a majority of Christians in this country and the government is mostly run by Christians of one flavor or another.    But how about a whole set of Muslims get in office, or Jews, or Wiccans, or…anything?   Do you want them to be naming official holidays after their religions or would you rather there be a generic name for everyone?   Do you want them to say, “Well, prayer in schools is fine, but only if you perform the Salaat“?   It is better, and fair, if we simply let people believe and practice as they please without any influence of any sort in the public sector.

Repeat after me:   Religion doesn’t belong in Government, and Government doesn’t belong in Religion

THREE: Engaging in a Logical Argument with Bible Verses, Invocations of God, and the Like Makes You A Moron — Do not comment or join in an argument where your only engagement is to quote scripture or go off on other, “god is great, god is good, you’re evil and you’re gonna burn” sort of statements.   It makes you look like a crazy nut who is incapable of slotting your intelligence against anyone else so instead you spout off the only thing you know which is what you were told to say and think.    If you cannot offer up a reasonable argument or point, keep quiet.   You’ll be doing everyone a favor, including yourself.

Audience Participation!

What do you think?   Is there a war on Christianity or simply an influx of nuts?   Do you think Dubuque was smart or stupid?    What’s your recommendation for going forth and making things better in this arena?

In the various talks, debates, and arguments about the merits and details of national health care/health insurance reform, I have become increasingly confused at the position of the religious right on this issue and, indeed, on their position on most social issues, not just health care.   They, along with most of the conservatives are hellbent on stopping any sort of reform in any format or flavor.    What confuses me about this, however, is that it simply doesn’t fit their moral structure.

Frankly, religious right — WTFWJD, eh?

Here’s the thing — based on the teachings of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, or any of your typical mainstream religious figures, the staunchly religious should be all over social reforms such as poverty, homelessness, and health care, right?    I mean, what did these great teachers instruct if not tolerance, kindness, taking care of the poor, the sick, the needy, befriending the outcast, reaching out to the lowest or loneliest in society and wrapping them up in arms of love, service, and help?   They as a group should be jumping all over the idea that we’re trying to reform health care so more people get the proper care and we add the 40+ million uninsured Americans into the system.

And yet on that side of the aisle we see exactly the opposite, opposing reform, opposing taking resources from those that “have” to give to those that “have not” and generally turning a blind eye and an upturned nose on those who can’t make it as easily as they have.    “They’re just lazy,” comes the reply when you ask about the lower-class family struggling to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads.   “If they just worked harder, they could have health care insurance, too.”

It’s simply astounding to me at the attitude carried by this group about social matters.    Instead of, “alms for the poor”, it’s “go work at Walmart”.     When considering a proposal to provide cheap housing to low-income neighborhoods, the response is, “Stupid bum — why don’t you get a job and buy a house?”   Eyes roll at the kids who have to get free or reduced lunches in order to get a decent meal — “Bloodsucking parents…”

Their rhetoric spreads far and wide in teabagging protests and angry townhall meetings — “You are NOT entitled to what I earn!”    Oh, really?    Let’s hope God thinks you’re entitled to what you earn, you hypocrite.   Maybe you ought to be a better steward of your earthly riches?

The counter-argument to this is that such donations to help the less-fortunate should be given voluntarily, not through government intervention.   As nice of a sentiment as this is, it obviously doesn’t work or we wouldn’t have the problem in the first place. The fact is, most of these people touting these ideas are hypocrites and prefer to hang onto their cash at all costs, the needy and desperate around them be damned.   At least I will be freely honest about the fact that I don’t donate much to charity because I prefer to use it on my own family.    But even I’m not enough of an asshole to say, “Oh, no, don’t raise my taxes slightly so more people can get health care.   I prefer having that on my conscience.”

There is far too much emphasis being placed on whose fault it is that we have the poor and lowly amongst us and not enough action being done to attempt to correct it.    There are legitimate concerns, I realize — some folks in these tight positions are there because they were incompetant or reckless — but does taking the attitude that they must all be in that position really do anything to help or resolve the issue?    Instead, it ends up being a distraction to the real problem at hand — we have under- or uninsured people getting sick, going broke, and sometimes dying because they can’t get the help they need.     How do we solve this?

In the end, if the religious right is going to preach a particular theology, then they would do well to live by it.   After all, Jesus did not ask Mary Magdaelene for her financial records to see if she was a prostitute out of desperation or because she gambled it all away.    He did not tell Zacheus, “I’m coming to your house — but only if you’re not crooked.”    He did not commission his followers to be servants to humankind just so they could make excuses about why they shouldn’t.

Who knows?  God might even approve.

Time to pull out those textbooks, folks, and gear up for your next exam — this time, in theological engineering! (an oldie, but a goodie — let’s see what answers you can come up with!)

THEOLOGICAL ENGINEERING EXAM 1
5 Questions, 60 Minutes

• You may use a calculator, the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and the Book of Mormon.
• The speed of light is c and is always blindingly pure.
• Show all work. Notate all divine inspiration.
• For all problems, assume a perfectly spherical Jesus of constant density D.
• No praying during the exam.

Question #1: (20 pts) Bob and Joe are standing on a street corner. God loves each an equal amount L. Bob then accelerates to 0.9c. In Joe’s rest frame, how much does God now love Bob?

Question #2: (20 pts) Sven, a Lutheran, is in a state of grace. He then has sex with standard-issue sheep S.

a. (8 pts) What is Sven’s atonement coefficient following the act if the sheep was not willing?

b.(12 pts) What if the sheep, while not technically being willing, could not be said to mind, either?

Question #3: (20 pts) Let the eternal, all-abiding love of the Holy Spirit be the x – y plane. Let Sue’s soul be at (0,0,5) at t=0 seconds, traveling at 5 m/s in the direction of the positive z axis. Everything is in Cartesian coordinates bespeaking subscription to a perfectly rational Enlightenment attitude towards the Universe. At what time t will Sue be saved? (Hint: Assume a point soul.)

Question #4: (20 pts) Assume the Rapture occurs at time t. Cornelia, a saved human being weighing 90 kg, in a state of grace, has her head in the closing jaws of an alligator at time t. What mass of meat will remain to the alligator at time t + 10 sec.?

Question #5: (20 pts) Stan is a frictionless, massless Mormon in a rest state. His sin level (l) for his faith is currently at 11 McBeals. He eats 0.3 kg of pork and enjoys it very much. Assume that the Jews are right about, well, pretty much everything:

a. (10 pts) What is Stan’s sin level now?

b. (10 pts) Assuming Stan repents at a constant acceleration of 0.32 petitions/hour, at what point will he reach a state of Holiness?

Extra Credit (10 pts): 25 grams of wafers and 20 ml of cheap wine undergo transubstantiation and become the flesh and blood of our Lord. How many Joules of heat are released by the transformation?

Hand in the exam when done and may God have mercy on your work.

Since losing my religion, I’ve noticed that my extreme emotions, especially on the joy/elation/happiness side of things have mostly gone away, or at least really hard to replicate, unlike when I was masked by that rigidity in my mind.   I’ve been musing about why that is and whether or not the feelings I felt back then were really true or not.

Let’s be clear here; when I say something about “losing my religion”, I am speaking specifically of that dogmatic, biased, conservative film that was placed over my life and mind for so many years of my life.    I speak not of belief, which is unconnected with this (and which I’ve retained, just in a different form.)   Until I entered my college years, I was as much of your typical Bible-banger as the next and if I was still in that state I’d probably think that the sun shines out of McCain and Palin’s ass as much as the next Republican fundamentalist whacko.  Fortunately, that’s not the case.

Losing all that was a long process that I’m not entirely sure I am finished with.   The first formative years were very hard; like a harsh solvent contacting an old portrait, logic, critical thinking, doubt, and speculation cut through the years of the caked-on paint of religious indoctrination, something supplied by my parents, my church, and many of my activities, including summer church camp.   Finding myself dropped into a vat of searing new ideas, I screamed.    The removal process was painful, confusing, and incredibly depressing.    But as the old grime came away, I discovered that the restoration process was, in fact, a good thing.

I emerged from the living hell as a better person, both mentally and emotionally.   Now I am left mostly with whatever is left — a more truer me, a justifyable credo, and a newfound appreciation for everything outside of myself.    I am significantly less in substance due to eliminating a large amount of my history, but I’m more real.    However, somewhere along the way, I lost my profound emotions.

I do not know if you, dear reader, have ever been involved in the extreme psychological experiences that the various acts and rituals of religions can impose upon a person, but most of my highest highs derived directly from my experience with the church.     Singing just the right hymn in the right context used to bring me to tears; hearing trumpets on Easter morning had me leaping for joy; the slam of the book at the end of Good Friday service sent chills down my spine; Christmas Eve was full of warmth and happiness;  joining arms with fellow church campers and singing praises to a song played by guitar while staring at a mirror-encrusted cross in spotlights made me weep uncontrollably with joy.

I sincerely doubt you’d get me to react that way anymore in the same situation.   But I think I’m ok with that.

I muse at these reactions that I used to have and their place in my life at that time, but then I also think of them in the context of what I know and believe now, and how they are so misplaced and misguided, they almost make me sick to think about it.    How could I have let myself get carried away like that?   It’s not only illogical, but is fully within the corruptive, rapturous behaviors that let groups of people whip themselves into a religious frenzy and do all sorts of crazy things devoid of thinking.

I think one of the greatest dangers of organized religion (amongst many others) is its ability to tap directly into that part of our brains which controls our unhindered emotional states and to trigger those extremes through use of a directed fantasy painted ontop of a base of suspended logic and glued together with dogmatic rituals and rites.   As we well know, emotional rollercoasters end up being very addicting, even those not enhanced by drugs or alcohol.   Some people live for the rushes, even if they come naturally.   Get enough religion under your belt and you have a constant source of high that doesn’t involve tying off and slapping your forearm or rolling up a roach.   How convenient.

Don’t get me wrong — I still have moments of extreme feelings in one direction or another, so it’s not like I’ve become a completely vapid creature.   Rather, many of the things that wind people up simply don’t affect me because I’m rationalizing my reaction.   Certain things still get me, however; particular performances of music, my wife, my son, specific writings, certain songs, some movies, the occasional commercial, etc.   I don’t know if these are illogical throwbacks and/or failings of my ability to intellectually handle all aspects of my life, or if they are expressions of my desire to, on ocassion, suspend my own reality in favor of another.   And on a moderate basis, I think that’s perfectly natural.

The question is, am I alone in my experiences?   Do the people who have religion automatically have a greater emotional range within them due to those extremes, or do they exist outside of the realm of belief?   Have I, by insisting that my life be directed by intelligent, rational, and calculated thought and conclusions, automatically excluded myself from ever truly achieving such profound emotional experiences?    It seems that the only way to truly reach those states is to suspend or deny reality so that they can be reached without the hindrances of thinking.

What of joy, oh heart?  Oh death, where is thy elation?

My ears ache and my head starts to throb in non-sexually-pleasurable ways any time someone brings up the topic of gay marriage, polygamous relationships, or other joinings of people in ways that aren’t traditionally mainstream. The unwashed masses toe up to the lines on the playground and throw feces at each other across the quad while I sit here with a simple, obvious solution to all of this mish-mash, and all I can do is reel under the waves of debate, screaming, “WHY DO YOU PEOPLE SUCK!?”

Yes, I’m on medication, just not the kind you’re thinking of. ~

Here’s how you solve the “problem” of marriage, once and for all, for all situations, types, and combinations, without hurting anyone’s feelings, stepping on any religious toes, or violating any laws of the land. This solution is airtight, I believe, and really doesn’t have any downsides — at least, until you prove otherwise. Feel free to show me a moron if I am, truly, barking mad.

The Problem

Parishioners get their petulant panties in a twist anytime someone goes to get married that doesn’t fit their religion’s bill of tender. Yet the act of not getting married means that the couple (or group, as the case may be) does not get to participate in the tax breaks and other civil benefits that marriage brings (for instance, getting to be your partner’s health care decision maker). Married folks clearly have the advantage when it comes to this, as well as simply being able to state, “We’re married.” Most homosexual couples are happy enough to simply have a “commitment ceremony” to say their vows to each other, but they feel they’re being shafted in the benefits department (and rightly so) by a society geared towards heterosexual unions.

The Solution

The answer to all of this is very simple (told you), can be understood by anyone, and involves little change from our current way of administering and handling marriages. It is also compliant with all religious beliefs, whether they specifically allow or disallow homosexual marriages or other different unions.

Marriage is, right now, a combination of two facets: one, the legal joining of two people in the sight of the government and society for purposes of taxation, health care, benefits, names, and other associations, and two, the religious ceremony that unites two people into one unit.

The key is to disassociate these two acts from being one act into their separate facets once again without any cross-association between the two. Once we are able to do this, marriage can happen and civil unions can happen and nobody gets their feathers ruffled.

The Civil Union

The word marriage gets stripped from government and the legal side of things and in its place the civil union is born. This is a legally-binding agreement that joins two or more people together in an entity that is recognized by government and society as being a single unit for purposes of taxation, health care, names, responsibilities, etc. I say two or more because what is to prevent a group of four from becoming a civil union? Logically, there’s no barrier to this. The result is very much like incorporating a business; you have to fill out the forms, jump through the legal hoops, pay your fees, and then you are joined. There’s no religious involvement — indeed, no ceremony at all. It is simply a matter of following procedure. The process should be difficult enough so as to not be easy but simple enough to not prevent anyone from going through it. The cost can be set high enough to make it a significant financial decision, yet not out of reach for the poorest yet well-intentioned.

The process for disjoining would be similar to the dissolution of a corporation. Agreements about assets and liabilities would have to be resolved, agreements made, and the courts involved to review the case and agree to the divorce. Again, it should be difficult enough such that it won’t be taken lightly and the system clogged with weekend pranksters, yet workable for the poor and inept to accomplish if necessary.

The Marriage

Marriage, then, is left to be a purely religious ceremony, carried out in whatever way that particular belief chooses. The religion of note can choose whether or not to support homosexual or polygamous relationships or to disavow them, much like it already does now. There would be no paperwork for the State involved with a marriage — if the religion has paperwork, so be it, if not, that’s fine, too. It is performed before or after the civil union or without it as people like — having a marriage does not mean having to have a civil union, nor does having a civil union mean that a marriage is required. They end up being two completely different acts.

It Works. Really.

The separation of these two aspects into different acts is the solution I propose. It allows any sort of combination of people to reap the benefits of government and society without being tied to a religious definition. Anyone can have a religious ceremony without having to make a civil committment. Divorce is taken in the context of which it was conceived — you can break your religious connection without dissolving your civil one if you choose. Each belief system can condone or disown each couple or group as they like.

“But Nathan,” you say, “I don’t believe that homosexuals should get married!” Fine. What’s the problem? You can believe that all you want, but you cannot tell me that in a religiously-neutral context it makes any sense to legally disallow gays or other groups from being civilly joined. If you insist that the government disallow civil unions because they aren’t allowed by your religion, then you are asking the government to align with the beliefs of your religion and that, my friend, simply isn’t right. Nobody wants the government to dictate religious beliefs — that’s a founding principle of the United States — so why do you insist on doing so with marriage?

The solution above is the best of all worlds. People can once again reap the benefits of being legally associated with others and conform to whatever religious belief they prefer (or to none at all, if that suits them). What astounds me is why nobody seems to think of this on their own.

Why is there such a barrier to an idea such as this? How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

The world may never know.