Hello, Ron Gold here:

The Community Issues Council, a Christian group opposed to the separation of Church and State, has gotten into the billboard business. They’ll soon have 10 up across Florida, including this one below:

There are a couple of problems with these billboards. Not only will it be tough to comprehend a long, complicated sentence when speeding down the highway, but also, some of them will have fictitious quotes. Even the group’s local chapter president, Terry Kemple, admits to this:

The billboards showcase quotes from early American leaders like John Adams, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin. Most of the quotes portray a national need for Christian governance.

Others carry the same message but with fictional attribution, as with one billboard citing George Washington for the quote, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

“I don’t believe there’s a document in Washington’s handwriting that has those words in that specific form,” Kemple said. “However, if you look at Washington’s quotes, including his farewell address, about the place of religion in the political sphere, there’s no question he could have said those exact words.”

Whether the quotes are made up or not don’t seem to matter to Kemple and billboard financier Gregg Smith, since, as they assert, they are doing God’s work:

More recently, Christian separation critics have scoffed at President Barack Obama’s assertion in April that Americans “do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation.”

At the time, Kemple and Smith were beginning to plan for the billboards.

“I don’t think it’s coincidental,” Kemple said. “I think God had his hand in it.”

More information about the billboard campaign can be found on the propaganda site www.NoSeparation.org.

Hello, this is Ron Gold reporting.

Damn. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been reelected as President of Iran by the suspiciously high margin of 62.6% to 33.7%. He defeated reformist candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi in a highly disputed election, which has been filled with accusations of corruption. So not only will the world still have to deal with a Holocaust denying nut job, but now the people of Iran may have a President that they don’t like and think is illegitimate (insert George W. Bush joke here). Yet it might not be over, as Moussavi hasn’t thrown in the towel:

He warned “people won’t respect those who take power through fraud” and said the decision to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad the winner was a “treason to the votes of the people.”

The conflicting claims, coming after an extraordinary campaign that saw vast street demonstrations and vitriolic televised debates, seemed to undermine the public legitimacy of the vote and to threaten unrest.

The only person who could give legitimacy to the situation is the Ayatollah, but it doesn’t appear that he’ll do anything, besides saying Ahmadinejad’s victory is God’s work:

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, closed the door on any chance he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the disputes from Friday’s election. In a message on state TV, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a “divine assessment.”

Well, if it really is “divine assessment,” Allah has strange taste in politicians.

But it’s clear many Iranians aren’t satisfied with the Ayatollah’s answer, and are taking to the streets (raw footage here). I wish them the best of luck.

This post is courtesy of Ron Gold.

A court has ruled that the Bible shouldn’t be read during show-and-tell for kindergartners:

A kindergartner’s mother cannot read Scripture during show and tell, even if the Bible is the boy’s favorite book, a U.S. appeals court ruled.

“Parents of public school kindergarten students may reasonably expect their children will not become captive audiences to an adult’s reading of religious texts,” Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica wrote in Monday’s split 2-1 opinion, which upheld a lower court’s ruling.

In October 2004, the Marple Newtown School District in suburban Philadelphia told plaintiff Donna Kay Busch that she could not read the Bible passages during her son’s “All About Me” program. The school did permit the boy to discuss a poster that included references to his church as well as his family, pet and best friend.

Busch argued that the young students heard stories related to Passover, Christmas and other religious holidays, but the court concluded there was a “significant difference” between identifying such holidays and reading from Scripture.

I have to agree with the ruling.  First of all, reading something as boring as Bible passages will put a class of 5 and 6-year-olds to sleep in no time. Furthermore, they wouldn’t understand them even if they were paying attention. Unless it’s nap time, there isn’t any point in reciting the Bible to kindergartners.

Also, it’s hard to believe that the boy in question was a huge Bible fan. The court thought so too:

The district contended that the case was more about the mother’s interests and motives than her son’s. A family baby sitter described the children’s book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” as the boy’s favorite that year, the school district said.

I find the baby sitter’s claim much more believable than the mother’s.  It makes sense that a little kid would prefer a book with pictures of cuddly bears (“Brown Bear”) to a book where a couple of bears kill forty-two boys (The Old Testament).

Hey everyone, this is Ron Gold reporting:

During his eight years as president, there was always speculation that George W. Bush believed his decisions were guided by God.  Since leaving office, these suspicions have only intensified.  For example, take this nugget:

[There] are new accounts emerging from France describing how former president Jacques Chirac was utterly baffled by a 2003 telephone conversation in which Bush reportedly invoked fanatical Old Testament prophecy – including the Earth-ending battle with forces of evil, Gog and Magog – in his arguments to enlist France in the Coalition of the Willing.

“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins,” Bush said to Chirac, according to Thomas Romer, a University of Lausanne theology professor who was later approached by French officials anxious to understand the biblical reference. Romer first revealed his account in a 2007 article for the university review, Allez savoir, which passed largely unnoticed.

Chirac, in a new book by French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, is quoted as confirming the surreal conversation, saying he was stupefied by Bush’s reference to biblical prophecy and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

Assuming Bush really did receive divine guidance, this still leaves many questions.  For starters, exactly when did Bush believe he communicated with God?  Perhaps on 9/11, when he was appeared entranced by My Pet Goat, he was actually receiving messages from God about Gog and Magog.
 
Also, were all of Bush’s actions guided by God—including the clearing of brush on his Texas ranch and his lengthy golf vacations—or just his foreign policy decisions?
 
Learning that a former president probably thought he was fighting in a war “willed by God” is unsettling, to say the least.  Of the many possible drawbacks, the worst one might be the illusion of infallibility.  When someone thinks they are performing God’s will, they aren’t going to second guess themselves or be self-critical in the least, even after making a clear error.  This fits the Bush profile; indeed, he was famously unable to list a mistake of his during a press conference.
 
Now contrast Bush with President Obama.  With the exception of a certain type of conspiracy theorist, Obama is widely considered to be the type of Christian who finds his faith very important.  But unlike Bush, there is no indication that he thinks he communicates with God, or for that matter, that he believes we’re living in the End Times.  Even if Obama holds his share of irrational beliefs, they are on a totally different level than those as his predecessor.

Hey, this is Ron Gold (obviously).  Today marks a year of blogging for me, so I decided to commemorate the event by telling the story of how I became an atheist. I hope everyone enjoys it:
 
I was only six or seven years old at the time, but I remember it vividly. I was going through my first (and as it turns out, my last) crisis of faith. To this day, I have never been so burdened with doubt. This wasn’t any ordinary variety of doubt, either; it was the sort of doubt that kept me awake at night, that made me not want to eat, and in the darkest of moments, made me wonder if life was even worth living.
 
Having no one to share my burden with made things even worse.  I jealously watched my blissfully ignorant schoolmates continue to happily live their lives.  But how could they be so firm in their faith when there was so much evidence against there being a higher power?
 
Eventually, I decided if I ever wanted to move on in life, I would have to come to grips with the truth.  With great reluctance, I finally accepted the facts: There was no Santa Claus.
 
Over the next few weeks, my belief in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and God would all fall like dominoes. As it turned out, this wasn’t so bad. I still got presents and candy on Christmas, more candy on Easter, and money whenever a tooth fell out. And losing my faith in God was no problem at all. I had tried praying to Him when I was still a believer, and He never answered my prayers. Now that I didn’t believe in Him, my prayers still weren’t answered. Nothing had changed.
 
It was much easier for me to reject the notion of a God than the average person since I had the luxury of never being indoctrinated in any religion, which gave me the added bonus of never fearing hell. This was thanks to having one non-observant Jewish parent and one non-observant Christian parent. It’s not that my parents ever told me there was no God, they just never told be there was one. My scant religious knowledge as a child was mostly picked up from TV and comic strips. The most sophisticated beliefs I ever had about God were that His tears were rain, in was sunny when He was happy, and silly stuff like that.
 
It would be a while before I used the atheist label on myself. More than anything, religion was a non-issue at this point in my life, and I almost never thought about it. Besides, I was too busy with important things like Nintendo and Super Soakers to think about God.
 
A few years after I rejected the existence of my four entities, I casually mentioned that I was a non-believer to my parents.  This statement was met with apathy, to put it strongly. It’s good to have parents who care.
 
When I was in my early teens I started to become conscious that my lack of religious beliefs put me in the minority.  I finally started identifying as an atheist, but only because I realized that there was a lot of hatred directed at anyone who didn’t believe in God. In my youthful naivety, this surprised me; I never cared at all what someone’s religion was.  Why would they care about mine?
 
It’s now been about 20 years now since I stopped believing, and even though there is a lot of anti-atheist discrimination out there, I’m happy to say it’s never been a problem for me.  May my lack of faith continue strong!

Hello everyone, it’s Ron Gold here.

Anyone living in Texas, Connecticut, Minnesota, or a handful of other states is probably aware that blue laws are still on the books in many areas. Blue laws, for those lucky enough not to be familiar with them (and who missed Trina Hoaks’ post on them last month), are archaic laws that seek to make religious beliefs part of the secular code. Frequently, they were designed to enforce the holiness of the Lord’s Day, and would often forbid stores from operating on Sundays. These laws often date back to pioneer times, when politicians had even fewer qualms with legislating religious morality than they do today.

Most blue laws have been rolled back throughout the years, but the ones that still exist often prohibit alcohol sales on Sunday. For example, in my home state of Minnesota, there is a very unpopular rule forcing liquor stores to be closed on Sunday. Obviously, it isn’t very effective in stopping people from drinking, since they can stock up on Saturday, and I’ve even known a few people who drove great distances to buy their booze in another state.

It’s probably no great surprise that moralistic Utah has some of the harshest, most ridiculous alcohol prohibitions in the country. All bars have to technically be “social clubs,” where to buy a drink you must first be a member. Typically, anyone can buy a three-week membership for $4 or an annual membership for $12. This is a big pain to bar hoppers, who must become a member at every “club” they go into. Additionally, bartenders have to work behind a glass partition that’s commonly referred to as the “Zion Curtain.”

The driving force behind these very strange laws is clearly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormon Church). Indeed, the abstaining Mormons comprise 60% of Utah’s population, and an overwhelming 80% of the state lawmakers.

Considering the teetotaling Mormons are in charge, many people were shocked when the club system was recently scheduled to be eliminated in time for the summer, when the state will start allowing normal bars. Although the governor has wanted this change for a long time, it took him a while to gain the courage to push for it:

The foundation for this year’s changes was laid in 2004, when Republican Jon Huntsman, a former deputy assistant secretary of commerce, was elected governor.

Huntsman, a Mormon, got an earful from tourism officials about the liquor laws. But reforming the rules was politically impractical until November, when Huntsman won a second term in a landslide.

Still, Huntsman faced an uphill battle. Some lawmakers waited until the final days of the legislative session, expecting to hear opposition from the Mormon Church.

When it didn’t come, lawmakers could vote for the changes without much fear of backlash from Mormon constituents.

It’s nice to see Utah adopt a modern policy towards alcohol, but my question is why now? There are a couple of possibilities. First of all, it might be because Mormonism has mellowed out over the years. Mormons still tend to be a conservative bunch, but there’s no doubt that the religion is more progressive than it used to be. Unlike when the religion was founded, it now allows black ministers and has outlawed polygamy, and perhaps has gained a tolerance for those who want to imbibe in the occasional beer.

The other possible reason for the change is purely economical. Utah hasn’t been immune to the recession, and they can’t afford to scare away potential tourists. Tourism officials have blamed the blue laws for sending “lucrative conventions and skiers fleeing to neighboring Colorado.” Also, one Salt Lake City resident “said the changes should make Utah look a little more normal,” and be more inviting to non-Mormons who would come and spend their money there.

I wouldn’t think that Mormons would want to admit the change is for economic reasons, because if they truly believe drinking is immoral, that would mean that their bank accounts are trumping their religious values. I can’t prove which of these theories is correct, but I like to think it’s a little bit of both.

Good evening, Ron Gold here:

I finally got around to reading Hemant’s book, I Sold My Soul on eBay (a good read, you can buy it on the sidebar). Even though Hemant didn’t actually sell his soul, only his attendance in different churches, the book has still inspired me to share the story of when I tried to sell my soul.

I was around 11 or 12 at the time, but even at that young age, I had a variety of reasons for wanting to sell my soul. I had a burgeoning awareness that not believing in God made me different than most of my classmates, and my instincts told me to take advantage of this fact for monetary gain. Also, I must have been influenced by the episode of The Simpsons where Bart sells his soul. But mostly, it was a way to get some badly needed pog money.

Since selling my soul could only be done once, I had the brilliant idea of dividing it into 100 shares that could be individually purchased at a bargain price. I advertised my deal on the school bus, that great elementary bazaar.

Unfortunately, business was not very successful. Maybe two or three of my friends who thought it was funny bought a share of my soul, but I soon realized there was no fortune to be made. When I gave up, I had made maybe $1, though on the bright side, I retained majority possession of my soul. Realistically, I was probably destined to fail, because 6th graders just don’t have much money.

Although my disbelief in the concept of a soul continues, I don’t think I would sell my soul today unless it was for some obscene amount of money. It’s not that I see anything wrong with the selling of souls, it just seems like it’s a way of rubbing one’s disbelief into the face of believers. And God knows that I don’t like it when religious people push their faith onto me.

If everyone out there doesn’t mind sharing, I’m wondering what all of your opinions are on the ethics of soul selling. Those who don’t believe in souls, would you, hypothetically, be willing to sell yours? And those who do believe in souls, does this concept offend you at all? And finally, what kind of person would want to buy a soul?

Hi, Ron Gold checking in.