Sleepycatz

Expulsion from the Garden

Someone alerted me this evening to the story of Steve Bitterman, who was dismissed from teaching at Southwestern Community College in Iowa for telling his students that not to take the story of the Garden of Eden literally. Students viewing a simulcast of the class at a neighboring college complained that Bitterman had denigrated their religion and threatened to sue; the college responded by firing the adjunct professor. Here’s the irony: Bitterman was teaching a class in western civilization.

Anyone who has had to go through the intro to western civ sections as a college freshman understands that it was the re-introduction of reason and logic from the ancients which fueled the expansion of western knowledge and civilization. Even as early as the fifth century St. Augustine wrote:

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are.

By rejecting the idea that reason should trump doctrine, Bitterman’s students are rejecting the very core of the class they are taking. They are telling their college that knowledge should not challenge their preconceptions or beliefs. By firing Bitterman the college has sided with this ignorance. Instead of telling the offended students that they should grow up — or perhaps find a different class — the college has said all students now must bathe in the ignorance of the few. They have sacrificed Bitterman to the modern inquisition of fundamentalism.

It is very apparent that if the complaining students have their way there would be no western civilization, and certainly no study of it. For they have decided to reject the fruit of the tree of knowledge and embrace ignorance. Unfortunately, they want to drag the rest of us to their fairy tale land with them.

Him who judges righteously

The last few days have wreaked a veritable theo-paluzza of christian supremacist essays. It seems, based on these, that conservative christians have moved beyond simply preaching that there’s is the best interpretation to christianity - or any relationship with the divine - to actively stating that no belief other then their’s is christian, let alone divinely inspired.

First up we the Miter Man, the heir to Peter, Pope Benedict XVI. This week his holiness reasserted the primacy, or central truth, that his is the one and only true church of God:

These ecclesial (sic) Communities [Protestant denominations] which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called “Churches” in the proper sense.

Ie. No celebrate priest + No magic wafer = No God for You. To be fair, this has always been part of the catholic doctrine, and was hammered into us when I was a kid, but you’d think the church would have a somewhat more expansive view of the world and humanity after nearly 2000 years.

Next up, the battling Calvinist, Cal Thomas. On Tuesday, the pious pundit published an essay attacking the faith of Hillary Clinton. At the end of the piece Cal tries to suggest that he’s simply upset that Clinton would use faith a political prop: shocked he is; shocked I say! to discover there’s religion going on in politics. But make no mistake, Cal’s real problem is that he finds Clinton’s theology false:

Liberal faith, which is to say a faith that discounts the authority of Scripture in favor of a constantly evolving, poll-tested relevancy to modern concerns — such as the environment, what kind of SUV Jesus would drive, larger government programs and other “do-good” pursuits — ultimately morphs into societal and self-improvement efforts and jettisons the life-changing message of salvation, forgiveness of sins and a transformed life.

Yes Cal takes particular issue with the the notion that salvation is tied to good works — one can’t imagine why. Granted, this is an issue of hot theological debate, but Cal’s dismissing of it as just silly is sure to offend the Miter Man and his followers. As the catechism of the catholicism states:

1815 The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it. But “faith apart from works is dead”: when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.

But who you might ask could be more theologically unhinged then Battling Cal? In this ring we present Madman David ‘The Moralist’ McCullough. Crazed by the notion that Democratic candidates would participate in a debate on gay and lesbian issues, McCullough sat down at his 1961 IBM selectric, fed in some carbon paper, and began foaming away:

In the attempt by the three leading contenders for the Democratic nomination America will see for the first time (or at least the ten viewers who get LOGO as part of their cable package) how far Democratic candidates are willing to pander to get a vote.
Does it take an entire broadcast hour for each of them to “out gay” the other one? Will Obama and/or Edwards show up in Chiffon? Will Hillary pass love notes to Etheridge?

What will happen is that each of these candidates will have to also later face the same “faith-based” audiences that they have been attempting to woo in recent weeks. Heaven forbid, but Obama might even have to make a follow up appearance in Rick Warren’s pulpit to announce the results of his most recent AIDS test. And what will they have to say then?

See here is the unrelenting truth, put as plainly as humanly possible:

Homosexual behavior and Christianity do not mix. From the standpoint of theory, theology, doctrine, and practice the two are totally and completely incompatible; as are adultery, pornography, bestiality, pedophilia, pre-marital sex, incest, cross dressing, multiple partner orgies and the list goes on. So the candidates can not have it both ways.

Wow - what a rant: you got lesbians, a couple of references of cross dressing, and a little AIDS jab - just to remind us that even though the disease is killing millions of people a year, it’s still a ‘gay thing’. For the Madman, it just inconceivable that churches exist which welcome gay and lesbian parishioners. Christian churches which actually, allow gays and lesbians to serve as deacons, ministers, and even bishops. Dave makes it clear, these institutions just aren’t christian — of course this is bound to annoy some Episcopals and other denominations. In all fairness to The Moralist, a good half of his rant is devoted to the fact that the Democratic candidates will not appear on Fox News for a debate. He opines that they are simply afraid of the unbiased sharp wit of Brit Hume — a man who has dedicated more air time to John Edwards hair then any other newscaster. I would assume that that the Mr. Obama, and the other candidates, simply believe there is more substance in debating gay and lesbian issues then there is in receiving tonsorial tips from Mr. Hume.

Finally, we come to the fitful, fearful, fundamentalist, American Family Association. These defenders of all things American and religious issued a fatwa warning their followers of the gravest threat to America yet: Hindus. It seems that Rajan Zed, a hindu chaplin, was to deliver the open prayer for the US Senate on Thursday. The very idea of this sent them into a fit of conniptions:

WallBuilders president David Barton is questioning why the U.S. government is seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god. Barton points out that since Hindus worship multiple gods, the prayer will be completely outside the American paradigm, flying in the face of the American motto “One Nation Under God.”
. . . “And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, did the Declaration [of Independence] when they talked about Creator — that’s not one that fits here because we don’t know which creator we’re talking about within the Hindu religion.”
Barton says given the fact that Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public, he questions the motivation of Senate leaders. “This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world,” he observes. ” . .
And while Barton acknowledges there is not constitutional problem with a Hindu prayer in the Senate, he wonders about the political side of it. “One definitely wonders about the pragmatic side of it,” he says. “What is the message, and why is the message needed? . . .”

Yea, what did India ever give us — except for sine, cosine, the modern decimal numbering system, the concept of zero, and metallurgy. But what have they done for us lately? The apoplectic AFA just can’t fathom the notion that maybe the message we are sending is one of religious tolerance and diversity. For them diversity is a simple matter of which jesus you worship: avenging jesus or salvation jesus. Yesterday, of course, some of the possessed, heading the AFA’s call to save our nation from the horrors of polytheism interrupted Chaplin Zed’s prayer. Shouting “Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer which is an abomination in your sight.”, they were handcuffed and removed. Their final words while being ejected were “we are Christians and patriots”. While one, obviously, cannot argue with the former, the latter is open to grave skepticism.

As an atheist, of course, I find all of this a little sad and amusing — like watching a group of children argue as to whose father can beat up whose. As a human being and an American, I find all of this more then a little repulsive and appalling. As one commentator to some of these events pointed out, he was reminded of the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Others have pointed out that our religious tolerance has as a nation has fostered internal peace and theological growth. I have generally seen religion as a primeval force for division and disharmony, other have argued that it is the great motivating force to bring about a unified humanity. At this point, the evidence appears to be on my side.