Editorial: White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is not Church/State Violation but Smart Politics

Atheist Revolution wrote recently about the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, asking the important question:

Why would a secular nation with a constitution explicitly promoting separation of church and state need any sort of faith council?

The neglect done here is toward the religious population of the United States: regardless of our secularism, a fantastic channel to the pulse of the people are their pulpits.

This is a modern organizational practice: vertical solutions are too difficult to build at such large scales; the Bush and Obama Administrations are wise to integrate themselves horizontally with the existing system. The networking of the White House with a religious organization is no more validating to that religion than if it validated a LGBT organization by networking with them.

A certain number of safeguards exist to ensure this is the case (from Wikipedia):

• They may not use direct government funds to support inherently religious activities such as prayer, worship, religious instruction, or proselytization.
• Any inherently religious activities that the organizations may offer must be offered separately in time or location from services that receive federal assistance.
• FBOs cannot discriminate on the basis of religion when providing services

In this context, a religious organization is quite strictly rendered a regular community organization, and a valuable one at that.

Beck rally kicks off today with a ‘return to God’

Today, Glenn Beck hosted a rally at the Lincoln memorial, ‘a few steps down’ from where MLK gave his speech today, many years ago. He opened the rally with cheers when he stated that “America today begins to turn back to God.“ This is an excellent example of how intertwined the message of Christianity is with politics, especially Republican politics. What does this matter? One should be concerned when someone does not make any sense, then mentions God in front of thousands of people, and they all mindlessly celebrate as though the substance does not matter, only the branding.

This Pew study, with the graphic to the left in particular (although there are many other items worth viewing on the link), shows, for example, that 14% of the people who voted for Bush said that the most important candidate quality was “strong religious faith.” Why aren’t things like ‘bring about important change,’ and ‘intelligent’ more important to people? Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (intelligent conservatives aside) are excellent examples of how many Americans don’t want intelligent leaders, they just want devoutly religious leaders. This sort of mindless mentality is not good in politics. Even to a lesser extent the Obama rants about ‘change’ and ‘hope,’ are examples of a similar problem.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-beck-rally-20100828,0,6808932.story

Islamophobia, xenophobia or valid criticism?

46% of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence against nonbelievers. Only 37% know a Muslim American. Overall, 61% oppose the Park51 project, while just 26% are in favor of it. Just 23% say it would be a symbol of religious tolerance, while 44% say it would be an insult to those who died on 9/11.

According to Time Magazine

Park51 is the proposed mosque that is too close for some to Ground Zero. I think to evaluate what makes someone disagree with Islam, the particular things they disagree with the religion about, and what society at large thinks. We’ve made our positions pretty clear in the past about how we feel regarding the Ground Zero Mosque, and you can listen to our latest opinions on it on our previous show. President Obama is even undergoing vast amounts of criticism from the public at large with a resurgence of accusations that he is a Muslim (Obama a Muslim? Rumors gain steam, defying facts, More Americans say Obama is Muslim, White House says Obama is Christian, prays daily). So, perhaps the question to ask, instead of the Time Magazine’s article title Does America have a Muslim Problem?, Does America have a problem with Muslims? The answer seems to be yes. Criticism of Islam is not good, it’s great, but I would feel better knowing that the criticism is good criticism, and not stemming from 37% of Americans knowing a Muslim, the fact that Muslims are, or are assumed to be, ‘foreign’ and ‘different.’ It is so strange to live in a country where religion is so highly respected, so long as you have the chants and the rituals right and if not, it’s a terrible, vile, wicked thing.

Hitchens responds to ‘Ground Zero Mosque’

Hitchens on Anderson Cooper, taken from CNN

In the midst of battling cancer, Hitchens (who had a recent article about him in the Times of London) commented on the conflict over the Mosque placement “at Ground Zero.” His article can be found on Slate, here. An American Atheist also covered the topic some time ago. Hitchens had a compelling interview recently on Anderson Cooper 360.

Update: President Obama recently defended the mosque’s placement saying:

This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”

A full article can be found here.

Update #2: Roger Ebert wrote a fantastic article about Hitchens in the Chicago Sun Times.

NASA can reach the moon, but can they reach Islam?

On this interview, Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden said his foremost duty from President Obama was to “find a way to reach out to the Muslim world.” The message was also to include an encouragement of the Islamic world’s past scientific achievements. For a period of time, while the rest of the world was stagnant or declining in the fields of intellectual curiosity, Islam bloomed. The White House eventually denied the assertion that they instructed NASA to reach out to Islam. Some think that it is unwarranted to encourage Islam to engage in science and space-flight, in particular.

We’ve reported before on the show the low rate of scientific papers and discoveries that come out of Islamic countries, but it seems like encouraging science at times is subversive to religion — or at the very least religious extremism. There is at least a correlation between scientists (and things like accepting evolution), western culture, etc. and decline in religious belief, and at least extremism in the United States. The spread of scientific ideas in these regions might reduce hostility, and especially the hostility towards the West. Many Islamic countries are skeptical of even things such as soccer/football, and Iran recently offered hair cut restrictions for men. The list is almost endless of Islamic resistance to seemingly harmless activities that seem to be ‘tainted’ by the West.

Islam might indeed find the spread of science a threat, and perhaps it is corrosive to Islam — especially strict Sharia law. Islam might see the West drawing a knife and pointing it towards them, only shortly afterward can they realize that the knife we direct towards them is to cut their binds and set them free.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20010324-503544.html

Episode #009 for March 4, 2010

Episode #009 airs, including topics:

* China and the continuing struggle with Tibetan Buddhists

* A possible schism in the Lutheran church over openly gay pastors

* The cancelled Islamic Solidarity Games

* The Obama Administration Invites Atheists to the White House

As always, share your feedback about this episode using the form below.

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