Feeding the Flames

Here in Washington State, we've decided that we've gone far too long without a Teapot Tempest, and so we've embarked upon giving everyone a cause to remember that favorite conservative cause - The War On Christmas. (I curious to see which side will prevail - Christmas... or the Christians. The Christians have proven more tenacious than I'd credited them, so they might yet succeed in destroying the Holiday.)

Freedom From Religion has posted a sign near the Nativity scene in the state Capitol building in Olympia. It reads:

At this season of the winter solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

Just like Richard Dawkins, it seems, they've "[...] learned using logic and reason isn't enough. You have to be a dick to everyone who doesn't think like you." Of course, to be fair, Bill O'Reilly also seems to have learned this lesson quite well. And his story seems to have brought every Culture Warrior who can hold a weapon out of the woodwork. Not to mention your garden variety rabble-rousers, like the folks who have decided that what Washington State really needs is a Festivus Pole. Even those perennial wackos, the Westboro Baptist Church, have gotten in on the act, laying about them with wild abandon, and pressing for a sign that seeks to attempt to prove that no matter how big a dick that militant Atheists might be, it takes a Christian Church to really bring the hate:

You'd better watch out, get ready to cry, You'd better go hide, I'm telling you why 'cuz Santa Claus will take you to hell. He is your favorite idol, you worship at his feet, but when you stand before your God He won't help you take the heat. So get this fact straight: you're feeling God's hate, Santa's to blame for the economy's fate, Santa Claus will take you to hell.
“Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell.” Westboro Baptist Church

The idea - the one (in my opinion) that really drives the Culture Wars - that the best thing for the United States is to be a single cultural entity, where the "best" culture runs everything at the expense of deliberately marginalizing and de-legitimizing anyone with the temerity to disagree, is going to take us nowhere than over the cliff at the end of the Road to Ruin. The clumsy and ill-considered Washington State policy that created this mess in the first place (and has since been suspended by a moratorium on new and pending requests) needs to be changed. I don't think that there is any way to do this in a way that everyone will consider "fair," so that's not really the consideration. But state policies need to be not only neutral in the Culture Wars, but also avoiding adding fuel to the fires. The cultural arsonists do enough damage without government enabling them.

What the Hell?

So Microsoft created a new tool to upload photographs to one's Windows Live Spaces weblog. It kicked in when I attempted to upload a picture to the blog. Because they killed the old tool, I had to log into a different webpage to sign in again to the Skydrive service to get the new tool to install. That required me to navigate away from the post I was working on, which deleted the post. Now, as you can see from the post on Blogger, it wasn't a very long post, unlike some of my other ones, so I didn't lose much. But forcing someone to navigate away from a post they're working on so you can update a tool on the fly is annoying, and the last straw. I'm done with Windows Live Spaces for now. For the foreseeable future all new posts will only appear on the Blogspot site. Yes, I realize it may simply have been a bug. I don't care.

Blogger vs. Windows Live Spaces. Blogger wins. It lacks some of the bells and whistles, but it's miles easier to use for, well, blogging. (Don't get me started on how hard it can be to indent text in WLS...)

We Get Paid Either Way...

This is great. Thanks, Ben, for pointing it out to me.

Watched From Above?

I was reading the Seattle Times today, and came across an article about a lawsuit launched by an Atheist group over a Kentucky law.

"Of particular concern is a 2006 clause requiring the Office of Homeland Security to post a plaque that says the safety and security of the state 'cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon almighty God' and to stress that fact through training and educational materials."

As you might expect, the this ignited an uproar over First Amendment issues. In case you don't remember it:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Okay - but what I would like to know is: What would happen if they didn't? If Kentucky's Director of Homeland Security followed Shinto (for instance), and nixed the plaque, what would the sanction be? Jail time? Firing? Loss of pay?

If an employee were to blow off the trainings because it's legally mandated that they include an acknowledgment of one's helplessness without God, could they be fired?

What if an instructor said that the necessity of God's help in protecting Kentucky (or the rest of us FROM Kentucky) was not a fact, but only a theory - would they be disciplined under this law?

Those are the questions that need to be answered to really understand what the constitutional issues might be. Many religions have quite rigid prohibitions against making overtures to other faiths - does making someone violate that injure their free expression of their chosen religion? But what if your religion doesn't? Can you be forced into nonexclusivity of worship if both faiths allow it? (Not that Christianity is considered to allow it, but it makes an interesting question.)

Silly People, Holes Are For Foxes

So this week, on On the Media, Bob and Brooke haul out an old story about the New Atheists. One of the topics that they covered was the old saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes," and NPR's John Burnett learning, the hard way, that many Atheists are quite offended by the phrase.

It's demeaning to atheists. It's saying that under very dire circumstances or frightening situations, atheists will stop being atheists; they will start believing. And this is really just a wish on the part of the religious, because it's not based in fact.
Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists

But like many things, this is a double-edged sword. For isn't this just another way of saying that no-one, believers included, has the courage to face up to their imminent death?

To ignore issues of faith is to ignore a pretty fundamental part of all people's lives when they're in a hospital, facing death. I'm not saying all people find God, but they certainly do ask those questions.
David Shore, writer and creator of "House"

Personally, I disagree with this idea - mainly because the one time in my life that I was certain that I was going to die (clearly, I was mistaken), I had more important things on my mind than asking questions about issues of faith.

But in the end, perhaps the best response to "there are no atheists in foxholes," is to roll with it. After all, there are no bomber pilots in foxholes, either. Some folks have the foresight to find way to lay the smack down on the enemy without being downrange of live ammunition. Just saying...