Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

At the 2011 Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Forum, right wing Christian activist Gopal Krishna attacked America for building a multicultural society (E Pluribus Unum), in which “every weird and kinky lifestyle” is given equal legal status under the law.

A weird and kinky lifestyle? Whatever could Mr. Krishna have been talking about?

How about people who claim to have a personal relationship with a two-thousand year-old zombie from across the ocean who walks on water? Would that count as a weird and kinky lifestyle?

Most people have heard by now of the findings of a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that American atheists know more about religion than religious believers do. The story that they didn’t hear coming out of that survey is that Christians have a more general ignorance as well, when compared to non-Christian Americans.

One of the particular manifestations of Christians’ ignorance is in the realm of politics. When I speak of the political ignorance of Christians in America, I’m not using the term “ignorance” to describe merely having opinions that I disagree with. I’m talking about ignorance of basic political facts. In the Pew Forum study, Christians demonstrated a much greater political ignorance than atheists did.

One of the political facts that the survey tested respondents on was the identity of the Vice President. An astonishing 42 percent of American Christians surveyed had no idea that Joseph Biden is Vice President of the United States. Only 17 percent of American atheists were ignorant of this fact.

The political implications of this finding are not reassuring. The rate of Christian identity in the United States is in decline, but Christians still make up the majority of voters in the nation. If so many of them can’t even remember who the Vice President of the United States is, then how can this large bloc of voters be expected to make intelligent choices in this year’s congressional elections, when less well-known facts are at stake?

Proof that prayer has no power to make concrete changes came from Episcopal priest Kurt Gerhard, who stood before the U.S. House of Representatives to hold an unconstitutional official government prayer worship ceremony. As part of this congressional worship, Gerhard called upon the powers of his deity to manipulate the minds of the members of Congress.

His mystical incantation:

“O Lord our God, creator and sustainer of all nations and people,

On this day, bless the Members of this House with anger at the injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that they can work for justice, freedom and peace.

Bless them with enough foolishness to believe that they can make a difference in the world so that they can do what others claim is impossible.

Bless them with the humility to know that they can be wrong so that they can respect the perspectives of others.

Bless them with frustration with the way things are so that they will be motivated to create new solutions.

Send Your Spirit of courage and understanding upon each Member of this 111th Congress so that they will hold fast that which is true and serve these United States of America with glory and honor.

We ask this all in Your Holy Name.

Amen.”

So, what happened? Were the members of Congress infused with new supernatural dedication toward doing their jobs?

No. After Kurt Gerhard’s prayer ceremony, members of Congress worked for about three minutes, and then went home. Gerhard’s prayer proved to be profoundly impotent.

Barry C. Black the government-appointed, tax-paid high priest of the United States Senate, spoke yesterday of the evils of self-sufficiency. Praying to his Christian deity, which he wrongly presumes is the deity of every American, he preached, “Deliver us from the self-sufficiency that will not recognize our need of You.”

In these times of record-braking budget defecits and general economic disarray, is a message against self-sufficiency really what our nation needs to hear? Has the problem with Wall Street been that it was too self-sufficient? Do we need more corporate dependence on taxpayer bailouts?

Is corporate welfare the message Barry C. Black intended to communicate, or does he merely want the United States to become dependent upon his religion?

Government-appointed Chaplain Barry C. Black was at it again yesterday, preaching bizarre Christian religious prophecies from the floor of the United States Senate. This time, Chaplain Black begged his deity to unleash some kind of weird cosmic attack against the Earth.

“God of grace and glory, pour Your power on Your people!” he prayed.

I hope Black’s prayer isn’t answered. Having God’s power poured onto me sounds kind of sticky.

Am I the only one who found this last weekend’s Faith Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania to be an excruciating display of humiliating and yet pointless pandering?

America is having a presidential election. We’re not selecting an interim minister for a church. Yet, religious groups have pushed to be granted the power to submit presidential candidates to an onslaught of religious test, interrogations designed to see whether the candidates are sufficiently Christian to be President.

For a reason I wish I didn’t understand, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agreed to go along with the parade of shameful faith-based nonsense.

Here’s just a short selection of the irrelevant nonsense that came from the Messiah College team of inquisitors (read the rest):

“You said in an interview last year that you believe in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And you have actually felt the presence of the Holy Spirit on many occasions. Share some of those occasions with us.

CLINTON: You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life. And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining. But, really, ever since I was a child, I have felt the enveloping support and love of God and I have had the experiences on many, many occasions where I felt like the holy spirit was there with me as I made a journey.

It didn’t have to be a hard time. You know, it could be taking a walk in the woods. It could be watching a sunset…”

Why on earth do we need to know whether Hillary Clinton really believes in the doctrine that heaven contains a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? What does that have to do with being President of the United States?

They might as well have grilled Clinton and Obama about what their favorite color really is. It would have been about as relevant.

Senator Obama, I know that you say that blue is your favorite color, but as we all know there are a lot of different shades of blue. Will you finally get specific about what kind of blue is actually your favorite?

Christians love to hear stories about how prayer affects people’s lives. Let me indulge them with this article, about an eleven year-old girl in Wisconsin, and her parents, and the power that prayer had in their lives.

It killed the girl.

Madeline Neumann grew increasingly ill over the space of a month, but her parents refused to take her to see a medical doctor, even after other family members begged them to do so.

To the end, even when Madeline Neumann had entered a coma, her parents insisted that the best thing to do was just to pray that God would intercede with his supernatural magical powers, and cure the girl. An ambulance was only sent to the house when the Madeline Neumann’s aunt made a telephone call without the parents’ permission. By the time the ambulance arrived, however, it was too late. Madeline Neumann was dead.

The death of their daughter was a powerful, concrete demonstration that prayer has no power. Sadly, Madeline Neumann’s parents don’t seem to have learned the lesson of the loss. The mother declares that “Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time.”

Strength? I don’t see any strength in these parents. I see criminal negligence. Their faith in the magical powers of God is not giving them strength. That faith sent their daughter to her death.

The parents also say that “We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do.” Really? These people didn’t know how to drive their daughter to a doctor’s office when she was feeling sick for weeks on end? They didn’t know how to call an ambulance when their daughter went into a coma? Nonsense. Madeline Neumann’s parents knew how to better for their daughter, but they chose to follow weird supernatural beliefs instead.

Apparently, this couple has other children beside Madeline. Let’s hope that those children don’t become sick until they are able to leave home and learn some more sense than what they’ve been taught at home.

Athanase Serombawar isn’t a name you’re likely to read about in the Religion section of your newspaper, but it ought to be. Serombawar is a Catholic Priest who led a mob to trap 1,500 people, including children, inside a church, pour gasoline through the roof, and set the church on fire. The 1,500 people were all killed, and Serombawar had the burned building bulldozed to make sure of the fact. Serombawar didn’t just participate in the mob violence. He led it. He issued to the order to kill all the people trapped in that church.

Athanase Serombawar is only one of many priests and nuns who led murderous attacks during the Rwandan genocide. That’s the power of faith.