Bringing Back Prayer In Schools? It Never Left.

With yet another school shooting Political Evangelicals (people who want the government to give preferential treatment to Christianity) are back with their lamentation that the problem with school shootings is that God was taken from schools. Some even go as far as to spread the false notion that God isn't allowed in schools.

God was never taken out of schools. What happened was schools required students to read from the Bible and required teachers and faculty to lead prayers. It was Christians and Jews who argued against the Bible being required to be read from by students and Christians, Jews and one Atheist who argued against faculty-led prayer. Students, however, have full religious freedom in school. Students are legally permitted to pray on their own, read their Bible in school during free time, wear religious clothing, jewelry, etc. Trust me as long as there are pop quizzes there will be prayer in schools.

Political Evangelicals seem to want their religion to be mandated by government and pushed upon students. Religion is a private matter and should not be practiced, endorsed, given preferred status or sanctioned by those in authority at schools and/or state or federal government. Schools can offer citizenship and civics classes to teach them to be responsible, fair and just citizens and should be secular. Being secular in this instance being impartial in regards to religion. However, as a secular humanist, my morality is based on empathy. That is something these school shooters lack because they are mentally ill. Most of us have empathy we inherit empathy and altruism as a genetic trait being that we are a social species and empathy and altruism aid our group survival as a form of kinship selection. You cannot teach morals to those who lack empathy but you can show them empathy by getting them the help they need.

Why Do Atheists Have A Problem With God?

Atheists don't have a problem with what we can justifiably gather for all intents and purposes is a nonexistent being. We just have a problem with the delusion that a belief in the unproven and unprovable is somehow professed as being equal to knowledge and in some cases made to justify things that go from the outrageous to the horrific.

We want theists to admit that they do not know God exists but that they believe and that belief does not entitle them to a status above anyone and then go forth and practice that statement in action. Stop demanding that a nation's foundation was dependent only upon your belief system. Stop demanding that an unproven idea that contradicts all that is known about the way the universe works is on equal footing with science. Stop marginalizing others and demanding that people be denied equal protection under the law because your religion does not approve of how they live and love. Stop labeling other belief systems as being inherently violent when your belief system went through the same problem. Stop demanding you have a monopoly on morality when your own guidebook excuses some things that we today condemn as immoral. Stop saying your belief system is being suppressed because you can't use it to endorse a political candidate while refusing to contribute to the system. Stop saying you're being oppressed because you are having your ideas openly questioned when in the past questioning your ideas meant those posing the questions were often killed in extremely horrific ways. We don't have a problem with God because he's not the one doing these things. Some of his followers however...

Fight Your Own Way

Well, I haven't written anything in a while on my old blog and I've written nothing on this one. I've been busy and what not trying to get things together but with recent events in Manchester, I had to stop and say something.

First being a human being and a father I can rightly say that this attack is repugnant to everything humanity stands for. No belief system can find justification in such an act. I am glad that individual Muslims are coming forward to condemn this attack not just as Muslims but as people. I am not going to get into a discussion of religion here or turn this into a political rant either. I also refer to ISIS as DAESH because they find it disrespectful and full of scorn and that's exactly what they deserve.

What I saw was the breaking of an artist's heart, the ending of beautiful lives, the agony of the ones left behind and the glorious beauty of a people coming together to condemn an act of senseless and unreasoning hatred. Yes, we have a moral compulsion to reject DAESH and end them utterly, however, we cannot all fight them the same way. So this is a letter to Ariana Grande and her fans and to all people. 

Fight your own way. Ariana, I swear girl I cannot name a single one of your songs. I'm more of a trance, futurepop, industrial kind of guy. That being said I do admire and respect the joy and happiness your music brings others. The teen girls who flock to your concerts need a positive role model one of their own who can for even a short while lift them up. I don't want you to give up. You are what the people who follow DAESH hate. A woman leading other women, speaking out, having opinions. Just by being who you are you fight them because you are what they must destroy in order to bring about their dark vision. If you leave your music and art behind they will feel a victory they will have what they want and humanity will have lost a voice it needs. I don't think the fans whose last memories in this world were of the joy you gave them would want that taken from others because some men who live only to control others through fear cannot stand the fact that there are people who aren't just like them.

You take some time to heal and wipe away those tears and fight. This is not a fight to be won with just bullets and bombs. This is not a fight that will be easy or free of pain. This is not a fight that we will win alone but by the coming together of those who can do what the foe can not. See beyond what makes us different and cherish what makes us all the same.

Starting Over

This is the WordPress blog formerly known as "Like An Infidel In Mecca". I'm taking a more philosophical approach to my writing and starting over as my previous blog was quite random and I rarely devoted much time to it. Now that I have more time and I've polished my writing and thinking I am back to it.

Now for people unfamiliar with my previous blog it was rather confrontational and sarcastic. This is a different exercise that I hope you'll enjoy and will hopefully serve as a springboard for an upcoming book I hope to write on helping the religious understand atheism and secular humanism a bit better. I hope you'll join me.

New computer, new blog, new host, fresh cup of tea and some ambient music.

Let's begin, again.