Happy As Kings

Religious Civil Rights: Why Have the Washington Times and the Air Force Academy Savaged Them?

 Last week, a Washington Times editorial, "Air Force witchcraft," tried denigrating adherents of earth-centered religions by referencing a timely quote from Julius Caesar.

The religions of the barbaric tribes of Europe faded away as the Roman conquest brought civilization to the region. ... "They have likenesses of immense size, the limbs of which are composed of wicker, that they fill with living men," wrote Julius Caesar, describing a Druid ceremony. "After these are set on fire, the men inside perish in the flames."

 This appeal to ancient authority prompts me to rhetorically ask whether adherents of Christianity ever committed atrocities -- perhaps inquisitions, or religious wars, or genocide of civilizations new-to-Europeans? (I suppose Jewish atrocities are the ones in the Tanakh/Old Testament in which the Israelites wiped out neighboring tribes) Some might say, "Those things happened long ago. They don't happen now."  Children in Nigeria disagree. 

Another inaccuracy in the Times editorial is the statement:

All of the actual Wiccans and Druids died out hundreds of years ago.

 The thrown-together thinking behind the "actual" sentence is shown by the anachronistic mixing of Druids and Wiccans.  Druids were iron-age Celts; Wicca is a modern development; witches in the popular conception -- since the word is one synonym for Wiccan -- are, to my mind, mythological along with sorceresses and wizards.  In the here and now, some people do call themselves Druids, but as these neo-Druids are building websites and sending out home study courses, they've hardly died out.

 Another indicator of sloppy thinking by the article's writer is by referring to "actual Wiccans and Druids."  What is an "actual" Wiccan, or an "actual" Druid?  Would an "actual" Druid's physical existence be biologically equivalent to the body of a believer of a mainstream religion, or is there a difference between "actual" people and those who merely believe?  To me, the labeling of Wiccans and Druids as "actual" indicates the writer thinks that genetic Harry Potteresque wizards exist(ed), which brings up a pretty theological question:  Since most religions gain members by thoughtful teaching/conversion, do "actual" members of a religious group have their religion in their DNA?  If that were true, wouldn't an identifiable DNA marker for a specific religion lend more legitimacy to the status of "actual" believers?  (possibly? [see final paragraph])

 Metaphysics aside, how are secular authorities supposed to treat religion?  Should only the adherents of large-group religions be respected?  If that is how things should be, should secular authorities ignore minority-religions, or perhaps ban them? What is an appropriate secular treatment of group members with religious beliefs?

 Again from the Times article:

This is a space cadets can use to perform rituals if they happen to be witches, warlocks and tree-worshipers. ...

The Air Force is not alone in pandering.

 I'll overlook the Freudian "space cadets," although it gave me a laugh, but "pandering" is impossible to misconstrue.  One definition of pander is to receive special treatment. In a modern, tolerant country is it "pandering" to allow people to worship as they choose? 

The Times writer continues with the special treatment theme:

These neo-Pagan worshippers now have a federally supplied space they can call their own in the hills of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Why not?  The famous Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel is also "federally supplied," so why can't the minority-belief worshippers have a space in the hills?  Who is injured by either facility?

In the United States, practicing your religion is not a privilege, it's a right.  Which brings me to USAF Academy grad, Mikey Weinstein:

Religious Civil Rights: Why Have the Washington Times and the Air Force Academy Savaged Them?, 9 May 2011, Truthout

Shame, shame, shame on the Times for failing to recognize that, while the First Commandment might indeed say that "you cannot have any other Gods but Me," the First Amendment's clarion call is quite simply, "Oh yes you can!"

 The "clarion call" is echoed in the booklet, "Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups" published by the U.S. Army.  (link to text: here)

 The United States is not a theocracy.  The Constitution (the one the cadets will swear to uphold when they become Air Force officers) says so.  What Julius Caesar thought, is of no civic consequence.

Spiritually speaking: Japan’s earthquake as a sign of Apocalypse Soon

Anyone can be 'published'

A Yahoo writer wrote that God means the earthquake-tsunami in Japan to be a sign about Jesus returning to earth.  The person used three disaster dates, allegedly with 11 in them (World Trade Center, Haiti and Japan), and a Bible verse numbered 11 that includes the word "earthquakes."  The writer got one of the dates wrong (the Haitian earthquake was on a 12th, which eliminates one of the 11s) and chose only a single '11-verse' out of 260 possible '11-verses' throughout the New Testament.

As disasters go, the writer failed to include the recent flooding in Australia (31 December), and the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand (22 February).

Stacking the Bible

Biblically, John is left out of the earthquake prediction business, but in the book of Luke, the earthquake verse is 11.  In the book of Matthew, it's number 7.  In Mark, the earth quakes verse 8. If sending coded messages by natural disaster is the way the Almighty communicates with people, does this mean that when the Holy Spirit was guiding the hands of those who divvied up the Greek writings into chapters and verses for Bibles that the Holy Spirit was hedging the Holy Spirit's bets for staging disasters?  [insert coy tone] "I'm coming!"

With earthquake verses having different numbers, did the Holy Spirit choose the 7th, 8th or 11th of … of what?  Wouldn't the likely dating be in Jewish months?  Since time-counting by lunar cycles does not synchronize with solar cycles - lunar calendars slip 'ahead' of the solar calendar we're accustomed to use - was the Holy Spirit thinking ahead?  Is this why the Holy Spirit went with synchronizing New Testament verses with dates using Western months long before people who would be Western needed months?  The Holy Spirit was also savvy about figuring in the calendrical changes convenient for catastrophes, such as the time the calendar "lost" eleven days.

Can't you just see the H.S. scratching His Head as he 'did the math' for that one so that after 2001, all natural catastrophes would fall on the 11th of each month?

I would think that in a court of law that these 11-connections wouldn't qualify even as circumstantial evidence.

 

Probability and science

That devastating events happen on similarly-numbered days is coincidence.  As a non-mathematician, non-statistician, non-probability figurer-outer (no clue as to what that person's job title is), I'm guessing the odds of events happening on similarly-numbered days is roughly 1-in-30.  Year after year, decade after decade, century after century we code events as happening on roughly one of more or less 30 days per month.

Over millennia, with 'stuff' happening all the time, it is likely that there will be significant events that fall on the 'same day,' but since 2001, if it has an 11 in it (instead of 10 for the hurricane of 1780, or 8 for the Chicago fire, or 31 for the Johnstown flood or the Galveston hurricane, or 18 for the San Francisco earthquake, or 25 for the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, or 1 for a Mississippi River flood and an Aleutian tsunami, or 3 for Hurricane Diane, or 9 for the Rapid Creek flood in South Dakota, or 17 for another San Francisco earthquake that people watching the World Series saw on television) we all see the numerical equivalent of Tarot's Death card.

 

Back to the Bible

Now even if you take these connections seriously, what is it that you're actually serious about?

• In Luke, since that was the Yahoo Writer's choice of verse, it appears to be the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  We would file that under "old news." 
• In Mark, it's not so clear.  Could be the temple, could be Jesus' return. 
• Matthew is equally unclear.

What is clear, though, is who, in this cast of characters, is going to 'know.'

Go to Mark, chapter 13. Skip down from the earthquake verse, number eight, to verse 32.  We'll leave aside verses 30 and 31 about that generation not passing before all the earthquakes, wars and nations rising against each other, that was about 100 generations ago, and we're here, not them. Mark 13:32 states in English (depending on your translation), "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Only the Father, not Jesus the Son, not Luke the disciple, and definitely not the Yahoo Writer.  Since the Father apparently keeps his lip zipped, no HeaveniLeaks that I've noticed, can we stop with the scare stuff?

 

What's the point?

I can't tell what the Yahoo writer means by writing what s/he did.  Warning? Threat? What?  What's the point?  The Earth has been seismically active throughout its life.  It's going to stay that way because of plate tectonics and magma. Scientists have documented at least 27 earthquakes of the magnitude of the Japan catastrophe since the 'time of Jesus' (as that's when the destruction was first promised).

As people try to find some small comfort in which to wrap themselves against the effects of the power of nature, and our helplessness against much of it, this person seems to revel in the idea of divine global catastrophe. Isn't it enough for the Yahoo Writer that tens of thousands of people are dead, drowned in terror as the deep crashed over them, suffocating their screams as the fouled nightmare water rolled them like ants being washed away by a stream from a gardener's hose?

Not only do I not understand that way of looking at things, I don't want to understand it.

Lydia Schatz, via Salon

The Pearls are not "normalized" in the homeschooling circles I'm part of ...

Godly discipline turned deadly, 22 Feb 2010, Salon.com

Because they did not want to admit that a 'normal' home-schooling mom could abuse her child to death, they did not want to admit that a book that has been normalized in home-schooling circles was a factor in the death, ...

 

G. Washington: Letter to Hebrew Congregation at Newport

Letter to Hebrew Congregation at Newport

...

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

...

cdesign proponentsists

See the blog post Intelligent Design = Creationism at Pharyngula.

The 'words,' "cdesign proponentsists" were found in a draft of Of Pandas and People.  According to a Wikipedia entry,

FTE founder Jon Buell claims that the word creationism was a "placeholder term" whose definition "changed to include a religious context after the draft was written, so the writers changed the word." [15] However, the proof that intelligent design was creationism re-labeled played a significant part in the Kitzmiller trial, and "cdesign proponentsists" has been described as "the missing link between creationism and intelligent design."

Trinity joke

Tomorrow is Trinity Sunday, so the Trinity was the focus of Bill Tammeus's column today in the Kansas City Star.  Mr. Tammeus cracked me up over my breakfast by ending his column with a Trinity joke.

Explain the Trinity and remain humble

Jesus said, “Who do people say that I am?” His disciples replied, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah or another of the prophets.”

Jesus replied, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as his rationality and then, by an act of his will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only because Scripture speaks of a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple.”

And Jesus answered, saying, “What?”

Booking through the Bible

A Bible reading series is going on at The Meming of Life.  A recommended read-along is The Skeptic's Bible.

Looks as if it could be interesting.

American founders and religion

How the Christian Nation Thesis Hurts Religious Conservatives...Again, 28 August 2007, jonrowe.blogspot.com

Sali starts off his op-ed with quoting one of David Barton's phony quotations.

The Founders recognized that “it is impossible to rightly govern the without God and the Bible.” It is unfortunate those words, which come directly from George Washington, would be deemed narrow-minded or bigoted if they were spoken today.

Sorry, Washington didn't say it. And David Barton, the one most responsible for spreading the quotation, admitted it was "unconfirmed" and admonished followers not to spread it. But, alas, most of them haven't gotten the message (Sali is not an exception, do a google search on the Internet of that and the other "unconfirmed" quotations and they are presently constantly spread by the Christian Nation crowd).

Global warming and the Flying Spaghetti Monster

(for background, see the post farther down:  Global warming's easier to accept if you've seen a glacier shrink)

We can all cross our fingers and hope that the Flying Spaghetti Monster looks kindly on the resurgence of pirates and smooths over the climate change.

Global Warming, Pirates, and the Rise of the FSM, 23 June 2007, The Cincinnati Beacon

If you have never heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, read this open letter from Bobby Henderson to the Kansas City School Board. Henderson, who wanted to protest the inclusion of intelligent design in high school curriculum, wrote his letter that he would like his god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, to be included. According to Flying Spaghetti Monsterism—whose followers are called "Pastafarians"--the FSM really likes pirates, and has been punishing the world with global warming since pirates have disappeared. The proof: Henderson has a chart showing an inverse statistical relationship between the number of pirates and the increase of global warming.

Ramen!

Harry Potter as a religious text?

Natalie, at The Homeschool Cafe, has a post about the most recent 'banned book' lawsuit concerning the Harry Potter series.

Harry Potter books to stay in GA school libraries

Priceless snip:

At Tuesday's hearing, Mallory argued in part that witchcraft is a religion practiced by some people and, therefore, the books should be banned because reading them in school violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

If that were the case, then book banners would be busy in most school libraries, not only in the fantasy section but all over the shelves looking for any book mentioning Easter, Christmas, Yom Kippur, or Ramadan.  But, I'm happy to say, that is not the case. 

The Harry Potter series is no more about witchcraft-practiced-as-religion than Morris's Disappearing Bag is a Christian text.  What's more, Harry Potter isn't about witchcraft-practiced-as-religion -- it's fantasy, it's fiction, it's made up.  Novelists do that.

One of the things in the Potter stories that jerks me out of the suspension of disbelief necessary to read fiction and stay 'in the story' was that Hogwarts has Christmas break -- not winter break, mind you, but Christmas break.  The kids in the story get Christmas presents, Dumbledore presides over Christmas dinner, and Mrs. Weasley spends what must be a good deal of time knitting sweaters for everyone as their annual Christmas presents.  Christmas gets a lot of space in Harry Potter's world although Christmas is not a pagan tradition -- Yule is, but not Christmas.

Another dissonance was that Sirius Black is Harry's godfather.  Godfathers and godmothers are a Christian tradition.  It may be that in some pagan traditions initiates have sponsors (I haven't a clue), but it is in Christian traditions that children are blessed with godparents.

Some critics argue that Christmas has become a secular holiday, and that many people who aren't Christians celebrate it.  Non-religionists may celebrate a secular form of Christmas, but it is unlikely that people of another religion (especially those who want to convert people to their own religion) will make a religious celebration of Christmas day.  Heathens and pagans-who-are-so-inclined celebrate Yule or the Solstice, not Christmas.  Regardless of a person's choice of winter holiday, secularists do not bestow godparents, so Sirius Black, as Harry's godfather, is in a curious position if the thrust of Harry Potter's world is to be anti-Christian.

I also have to wonder about the Latinate flavor of many of the 'spells' used in the Potter stories (and I'm not the only one who's noticed).  Latin was one of the languages of the early Christian Church, which was later scaled back to be the Roman Catholic Church.  Latin-flavored spells add a literary gloss to the Potter stories, but they also unsuspend my disbelief as the Episcopal liturgies often include bits of Latin here and there.  References in the Book of Common Prayer to the Nunc Dimitis, the Magnificat or Te Deum laudamus rather spoil the otherworldly feel of lumos, colloportus and crucio, but I manage to soldier on.

Authentic witchy spells in another language are more likely to be in Gaelic or the tongue of where the tradition originated.  Latiny words could ruin the mood, especially since the Inquisition's prime document, The Hammer of the Witches, the Malleus Maleficarum, was originally titled in Latin.

The opinion of a witch can be found at Witchvox:

Adult Pagan Essay Series:  Harry Potter ...

But c'mon! Nobody can just wave a wand while blurting something in amusingly-mangled Latin and expect to work magic. Which, to be honest, is part of the fun for real- world Witches: only in our dreams is magic that easy and the result that spectacular!

Good to know I'm not the only one to notice.

The writer continues with what many think is the underlying theme of the Harry Potter series, xenophobia and genocide.

Voldemort can only have been based on Adolph Hitler: his rise to power is created by appealing to the fears, prejudices, and in some cases snobbery of wizarding society. He preaches racial purity, advocating the destruction or enslavement of all who are not from "pureblood" wizarding families. His and his followers' treatment of non-human magical creatures such as house-elves is extremely cruel, echoing the forced slavery of non-Jewish prisoners in Third Reich war industry. Their term for Muggles, "mudbloods," even echoes the racial rhetoric of the Nazi party**. Yet as the child of a Muggle and a witch Voldemort does not meet his own standards of racial purity, just as Hitler the swarthy Austrian was anything but the Arian ideal.

Those flaws still plague the world of humans, and they have nothing to do with witchcraft -- despite any use by the SS of what they thought to be occult practices.  The SS would have gassed witches just as they did the Rom (aka gypsies).

The banning of Harry-as-witchcraft also uses as a reason that witchcraft is anti-Christian, which isn't the case any more than apples are anti-oranges.  Satanism (I'm supposing, since I don't know any Satanists and don't have the time or carpal tunnel flexibility to do substantive research) is the Christian heresy, not witchcraft (or Wicca). 

The practice of witchcraft has nothing to do, one way or the other, with the middle-eastern Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity or Islam.  Much of witchcraft, or Wicca, usually (but not exclusively) derives from European pre-Christian religions. 

• Italy:  Stregheria
• Wales:  Dynion Mwyn
• Northern Europe:  Ásatrú (a recognized religion in Iceland)  These are the heathens.

Other non-Christian religions are included in paganism, as well, and they, too, are not related either to Christianity or it's presumed opposite, Satanism.

In any case, the Harry Potter books are novelistic fantasy, not witchtracts.  I'll have to join the good Presbyterian, Ian Isherwood, and point my wand at the boggarts trying to ban Harry and yell, "Ridikulus!"