Trivial Atheism

In my online arguments, the question often comes up - why are you atheists so petty? Why do you seem so obsessed about trivialities, like an invocation prayer before a city council meeting, or a Ten Commandments poster in a public school? Why, in God's name, do you want to yank "Under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" off the money?

The obvious answer is, of course, "If it is so trivial, why do YOU care?" But that really sidesteps the point, so let's look a little closer at it. Those two phrases, in particular - are they really so trivial?

From the beginning, they were intended as attacks upon atheists. Both phrases have a long history of people pushing for them – but those efforts got nowhere for decades. It wasn’t until 1954 when “Under God” was added to the Pledge, and 1956 that “In God We Trust” was approved as the official national motto. By no coincidence, those actions were passed during the McCarthy Era, as a direct “in your face” attack to the “Godless Communists.” We wanted to distinguish ourselves from the communists that were supposedly hiding behind every bush, so we declared – officially – that to be American meant believing in God. In doing so, we silently declared the obvious corollary – that atheism itself, even if not directly connected to communism, is un-American.

And how are these phrases used today? Well, for starters, hardly anyone says the Pledge itself. Scouts, of course, and I believe some – but not all – public schools still recite it to start the day. And of course, no one ever reads their money, reverently admiring the motto printed upon it. But those two phrases are still in everyday use. Look at the envelopes you get in the mail. I see a lot in my job – a small but noticeable percentage have either “In God We Trust” or (more often) “One Nation Under God” stamped or printed on them. Not “Jesus Loves You” or any other religious message – those two specifically. Look at bumper stickers while you’re on the road. You’ll see a lot of fish placards, church ads, and other religious slogans and greetings – but you’ll also frequently see those two phrases repeated over and over. For bonus points…when you see those two officially endorsed slogans, check to see if one of those other expressions of Christian faith are affixed alongside. More often than not, you can tell exactly which god they trust and are under.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to prevent these private expressions of faith. People can put whatever they want on their envelopes, car bumpers, yard signs, and billboards. But these particular expressions seem disproportionately popular. It appears to me that people want not merely to express their religious beliefs – they want to show that their government endorses those beliefs. It isn’t the private expression I oppose – it is the government endorsement.

While you’re checking bumpers, check the license plates. At least five states currently offer plate designs that include one of those two phrases. Indiana, in fact, tried to offer their version at no extra cost to better encourage people to display their faith on an official government-issued placard. Georgia offers a sticker to be added to the plate at a nominal fee of $1 – probably not enough to cover printing and administrative costs – to be affixed covering the county name on the plates – thus eliminating whatever benefit those county names provide that caused them to be added in the first place. In public schools, where other direct expressions of Christianity have been forbidden as government, those two phrases are often posted as substitutes. In case after case, those two phrases are used to slip religious expression – usually Christian expression – into government settings where it does not belong.

Check out this editorial by the mayor of Tifton, Georgia. Note how he uses “In God We Trust” to support his call to explicitly endorse Christianity. The Supreme Court says that those two phrases are mere “ceremonial deism” with no direct link to any specific faith. Does it look like Mayor Cater agrees with that?

Look at public school teacher Bradley Johnson. He posted huge banners displaying those phrases and others to “celebrate the religious heritage of America” – in his public school math classroom. Note that he claims that forcing him to remove the banners is discriminating against Christians – not deists, not believers in general, but Christians. Does he think those phrases are non-sectarian?

Look over the Congressional Record to see the debate on the recent House Resolution to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as the national motto. In example after example, the various representatives cite Christian quotes of how important God is to our heritage. Rep. Harper (R-MS) cited John 15:13. Rep. Franks (R-AZ) claimed “And I would submit to you…if man is God, then an atheist state is as brutal as the thesis that it rests upon and there is no longer any reason for us to gather here in this place. We should just let anarchy prevail because, after all, we are just worm food.” Rep. Aderholt (R-AL) hinted that while knew they could not legislate a Christian nation into being…that’s really what they intended. Rep. Pence (R-IN) thanked Rep. Forbes for introducing the resolution and his “defense of America’s Christian heritage.”

It is possible, from an objective and disconnected point of view, to interpret these two phrases as trivial, non-sectarian, ceremonial deism. But in the real world, that is not how they are used. In reality, they are used over and over again as expressions of specifically Christian faith, as proof of government endorsement of that faith – and as attacks against atheism and atheists. If you see our opposition as “petty” – then you prove only that you are not one of those being called un-American every time the phrases are used.

Why Cover Up?

I think the Republicans missed a golden opportunity last year to take a moral stand, deflect a lot of the corruption issues that have come up, and reverse their steady decline in popularity over the past year. I find myself wondering why.

According to statements in the Washington Express (a mini-paper published by the Post), Speaker of the House Hasturt’s staff knew at least a little about ex-Representative’s Foley’s “indiscretions” sometime last fall. Apparently Rep. Boehner and Rep. Reynolds discussed it directly with the Speaker last spring. Now a senior Congressional Aide says he brought it up THREE years ago. According to those statements…he knew.

Picture it, Washington D.C., November, 2005 – House Speaker Hasturt accuses Rep. Foley of sexually harassing Congressional Pages. He has provided copies of e-mails and instant message logs to the House Ethics Committee. Rep. Foley is expected to resign later today. Republican and Democratic leaders have issued statements calling for improved oversight of the Congressional Page program and deploring Rep. Foley’s behavior…

The media would have gone nuts – much as they have this week. The Democrats would have pointed to the moral decline of the Republican party…but not too much. That pitch would have been deflected by the fact that the Republican leadership was hanging their own man out to dry. The Republicans could have collectively shaken their heads, expressed their disappointment in Mr. Foley’s conduct and the way he fooled them AND his constituents for so long…and then continued on with business. In fact, they could have held the incident up in the future. – “We will not accept such unethical and immoral behavior in the Republican Caucus – when we find it, we will remove it, just as we did with Foley!” By now, a year later, it would have become a positive point to bring up on the talk shows, instead of an embarrassment and distraction.

Admittedly, I’m looking at this with the ease of hindsight. But it seems so obvious that it could have been a boon instead of a blunder that I wonder why it didn’t happen that way. Has Congress as a whole gotten so used to covering up scandals that this one didn’t seem to be any different? Is it possible that it ISN’T any different, that this sort of thing is rampant within the House of Representatives, and we just happened to hear about this one? Or nearly as bad, is it possible that Mr. Foley knew of enough damaging scandals to paralyze the party leadership for fear that he would take them down with him? I don’t know. I strongly suspect that the Democratic Party would not have reacted any differently in the same situation. I’m also pretty sure that the first party to clean house, dumping their own rascals in order to make themselves scandal-proof, will end up with a major lock on both houses and the Presidency. To do that, though, one of them has to have enough honest members to sit as a majority in the House and Senate. It frightens me to think that neither of them may be able to manage that.

Duck and Cover

Here’s a hypothetical for you to consider.

A successful U.S Army Recruiter has been sexually harassing some of his 17- and 18-year-old prospective recruits. Someone discovers this and reports it to his Battalion Commander, a fairly senior officer. The Battalion Commander looks at the statistics and decides that without this Recruiter, his Battalion is going to come up short on their recruits for the year. He doesn’t report it, he doesn’t initiate an investigation, he doesn’t move the Soldier to a less-sensitive position. Instead, he covers the whole thing up and looks forward to making his annual goal.

Several months later, the papers get hold of the story. Certainly, the Recruiter is going to get slam-dunked – probably court-martialed. But what’s going to happen to the Battalion Commander? A brief “watercooler survey” of some Soldier friends of mine suggest that even if the media wasn’t involved, the officer would be transferred to a staff position and probably never again promoted. With the public watching, he’d more likely be relieved of his command (that’s a career-ending move, for those of you not in uniform), and possibly court-martialed alongside the Recruiter he protected.

Now, let’s replace some of the people involved. For the Recruiter, former Representative Foley. For the Battalion Commander, Speaker of the House Hasturt. And for the recruits, let’s substitute 15- and 16-year-old Pages.

So what should happen to The Honorable Mr. Hasturt?

Name Games

It seems that a Senate investigation has found that FEMA is completely beyond repair. The only way to correct the disastrous performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is to junk it completely, and start from scratch – build a brand new agency to do the same job. They’ve determined a new name for it – National Preparedness and Response Authority. And just to make it totally clear that this is a new a different agency, they’ll put it under the authority of the Department of Homeland Defense – oh, no, wait, that’s not the different part, FEMA fell under Homeland Defense. What was that new part? Oh, yes! The new agency boss will be authorized to report directly to the President in crisis situations, bypassing the Secretary of Homeland Defense. Cutting out that step should dramatically speed response time and eliminate the problems of communicating the urgent nature of a disaster.

But where are they going to get the employees to staff this new agency? With experience and training in handling natural disasters and terrorist incidents? Not to mention the administrators, mid-level managers, clerks, janitors, receptionists, and so on. Well, rather conveniently, it seems that a great number of current government employees are about to be let go. Since they’re mostly union members, they will need to be given equivalent positions somewhere within government service. It should work out very well – odds are pretty good the employees won’t even have to change desks…since they’re “transferring over” from FEMA.

While I suspect that for the most part this name change will result in little more than changing the stationery and business cards, it may actually prove beneficial. After all, the most senior leadership of FEMA will not be able to transfer over to NPRA, lest that expose the nature of the “rebuilding.” And changing the leadership may indeed result in changing the organization. I think we could save a lot of money by leaving the sign outside the building alone, though, and just firing everyone on the top floor.