We have another guest post from the indefatigable Sigmund. He uses a recent column by Lisa Miller to make an important point: by working together and pointing out the follies of unsubstantiated belief, all of us, not just “atheist celebrities,” can advance the movement.
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Lisa Miller fumes at “small minded” atheists
by Sigmund
Lisa Miller is annoyed with atheists again. Miller, a regular religious contributor to the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith’ section, takes issue with recent remarks of Tom Flynn, executive Director for the Council for Secular Humanism. Flynn had written a blog post complaining about Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s statement about the current U.S. drought during a White House press conference:
“I get on my knees every day,” he [Vilsack] said, “and I’m saying an extra prayer right now. If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance, I would do it.”
Flynn provides three reasons why the Agriculture Secretary might be advised to keep his personal religious thoughts private.
“First, farmers need to keep doing whatever they can to mitigate the drought’s impact. Time spent praying is time they can’t devote to efforts to save their crops or livestock. Second, for a Cabinet official to recommend prayer as a solution, or call attention to his own devotions, may violate the Constitution’s prohibition against establishment of religion. Third and most important, prayer doesn’t work. Secular humanists think prayer doesn’t work because there’s nobody up there to answer those prayers. But if you want to do test the power of prayer yourself, consider this. Apparently Secretary Vilsack’s been praying for rain every day; how’s that working out?”
For Miller, however, Flynn has gone too far, and her fury at the questioning of religious privilege is apparent:
“A decade ago, atheists were brave, fierce warriors bent on battling conventional wisdom and easy piety. These days, it seems, atheists are petty and small-minded ideologues who regard every expression of public religiosity as a personal affront – not to mention a possible violation of the First Amendment and a sign of rampant idiocy among their fellow citizens.”
Miller, in her post entitled: “Praying for rain: Atheist critics show how petty and small-minded they’ve become”, complains that Flynn “rather meanly” suggests that prayer doesn’t work.
Despite Miller’s insistence that “the jury may be out on the efficacy of prayer” it is Flynn, however, who has the facts on his side. The best scientific study of the prayer to date has shown it to be useless in aiding recovery (and may even be detrimental to patients who are made aware they are the subjects of intercessory prayer.) [JAC: note also that there’s apparently a new study on the inefficacy of intercessory prayer studies for breast cancer. I am trying to dig this up, but if any reader knows, please let me know.]
Having said that, it’s worth noting that Flynn’s piece itself is not without error. The first commenter points out that the remarks of Vilsack, in response to a question from a Christian reporter about Rick Perry’s prayers for rain, made it clear that he was not advocating prayer over other actions.
QUESTION: I’m Dr. Harper, the Intermountain Christian News. And Governor Perry last year had this national day of prayer and fasting, and he was encouraging people to pray and fast in these national disasters. Do you have any figures on that?
VILSACK: Well, I can only speak for myself. I get on my knees every day and I’m saying an extra prayer now. If I had a rain prayer or rain dance I could do, I would do it. But honestly, right now the focus needs to be on working with Congress — they have the capacity to help these producers by creating greater flexibility to programs, providing us some direction in terms of whatever disaster assistance can be provided. Those are the kinds of things we’re focused on.
That Miller ignores the context (she published her piece on the 26th of July, a week after Flynn’s blog post and comments had addressed the full quote), and focuses on the ‘mean’ attacks on religious belief is highlighted by another charge:
“In addition to the small tempest they made over the Vilsack comment, atheists have also, in recent days, reflexively whined about a tweet from Pastor Rick Warren’s office (which they mistakenly thought was anti-evolution when it was really anti-premarital sex).”
Miller somehow forgets to mention that Warren’s Saddleback church IS anti-evolution.
So the constitutionality question is merely a red herring. Miller’s real issue is with outspoken atheism itself and its annoying habit of using fact-based reason to trump religious assumptions, something that is clear from reading her previous contributions to the discussion.
Just last October, for instance, Miller used her On Faith column to rail against a rather innocuous paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showing that using reason provides more accurate results than using intuition. The study, Miller fumed, “got me thinking for the zillionth time about how much I have come to detest the “faith vs. reason” debate.”
Disputing the devaluation of ‘faith’ suggested by her reading of the paper, Miller opined;
“The religious impulse may well be rooted in intuition. But what’s wrong with that? “
One might suggest that what’s ‘wrong’ is that the application of intuition always provides worse results in the real world when you can apply scientific rationality. Miller’s ultimate objection to the science/faith debate, though, is summarized in one sentence from her 2009 Daily Beast article about Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris.
“We have allowed three people to frame it; its terms—submitting God to rational proofs and watching God fail—are theirs.”
And if this is the real fear of the religious, that the ‘new’ atheists have the temerity to demand evidence for religious claims, then Miller provides an important lesson to the atheist movement at large. The major efforts in combating religious entitlement may have little or nothing to do with the activities—by and large invisible to the general public—of the ‘rockstars’ of the celebrity atheist/skeptic conference circuit. Instead, the real work of sowing the seeds of reason is being done by the multitude of unknown atheists who take a moment to write a letter to newspaper or leave a comment on an online religious article (to the unmitigated fury of religious types like Miller), simply pointing out the lack evidence for the claims of the faithful.
Some years back, when Canterbury (in South Island, New Zealand) was having a drought, there was a TV news item about a local vicar who was leading his flock in praying for rain. (This was rare enough in NZ to be considered newsworthy). And the TV reporter asked the vicar, “Does it work”. And the vicar said “Oh yes, always. Eventually.”
Personally, I think the rev. knew perfectly well the implications of his ‘eventually’, he just wasn’t going to let on that he knew.
That’s very similar to the adage “God helps those who help themselves” from ancient Greece (and sometimes falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin).
“A decade ago, atheists were brave, fierce warriors bent on battling conventional wisdom and easy piety.”
Easy piety (example 1.a): “The religious impulse may well be rooted in intuition. But what’s wrong with that?”
Conclusion: A sign of rampant idiocy from a fellow citizen.
nice. +1
Ha. I just challenged a minister on an African America LinkedIn group about his sermonizing in a business forum. I have avoided doing this in the past because most AAs are religious and my skepticism could hurt my business. But I’m tired of religious people expecting those who disagree with them to remain silent. No more.
good for you.
I don’t shut up any more either when some faith head sounds off in my presence. It has resulted in arguments with family members – yes, silence is no longer an option for me as well.
Went to the Washington Post site and commented on Vilsnack’s statement about “prayer”
I am an outspoken atheist, but I do have a problem with Flynn’s first point about time spent praying could be time spent doing something positive to mitigate the drought. I guess that 3 or 4 seconds praying “Please make it rain soon,” is hardly likely to be used more productively in the real world. If we rationalists want to pretend that we spend every waking moment productively being rational we do kind of look foolish.
Does time commenting on Jerry’s Website constitute being more productive in mitigating the drought than someone else saying “It’s kind of dry here, God, would you get off your fat ass?”
Hear hear, Mike Haubrich. Humans communicate in metaphors, and when someone says, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ what they’re really saying is, ‘I care about you a lot.’ Perhaps someone should conduct a study on the scientific efficacy of that.
Sean Dixon, are you so sure about that? Perhaps “I’ll pray for you” is really saying “I couldn’t care less, and don’t want to lift a finger, but want to appear like I care, or am holy and have the direct hotline to the almighty, so I’ll delegate this upwards.”
Sometimes people say “I’ll pray for you” as a way to say “I’m going to try to get the almighty to smite you, because I think you deserve it.”
Naw. Not always.
In fundiespeak:
I’ll pray for you = fuck you, asshole. It’s pure passive aggression.
Sean, I’ll pray for you too.
I tend to agree with gr8hands and raven on this one. Here’s what Monicks had to say; this is a quote I’ve saved and used:
“What, exactly, are you going to pray for?
When you say “I’ll pray for you”, what I hear is “I’m better than you, and you need to conform to my interpretation of a deity”, which is very Christian and arrogant of you.
Please, don’t let my comment stop you. By all means, pray. Since, according to you, prayer is considered a form of communication to your god, it’s reasonable to assume that you’re asking your god to do something magical, that would make me find your arguments more agreeable. But since your god won’t listen, you’ll be proven wrong.
On the other hand, praying in this way means that you’re making an honest effort to override my intellectual autonomy because I disagree with you.
You here imply that I am missing something, that I’m either blind to something that you see, or that my facilities for discovering truth from falsehood have not done a good enough job, and I find it disrespectful.”
URL: http://monicks.net/2010/09/20/john-316-revisited/
I’ve muddled around for decades and never come close to figuring out a satisfying reply to the condescending, passive-aggressive ‘I’ll pray for you’. Thank you very much, Monicks, and Mark Joseph. Now to try to boil it all down to a pithy, corrective back-at-ya; the two words I’ve used up to this point somehow offend.
My favorite response to the “I’ll pray for you” is to say something about it being too much to ask for them to do anything that would require real effort.
Call it pray or call it wish it still doesn’t work…
I am personally a little disturbed at some of the rantings and ravings by extremists of both ‘faiths’. IE. those that stand by their faith in only what is proven or assumed by the scientific world, and those who are set in their ways refusing to accept challenges to what they perceive to be god-given truth.
There can be no good conclusion, there are two schools of thought and ever will that remain, and this is because all people of reasonable disposition should understand that the existence of a deity cannot be proven. Equally it has to be accepted that the existence of a deity cannot be dis-proven. Sensible Christians keep an open mind and question previously interpretations of the Bible, those without faith should continue to seek and accept/reject spiritual and scientific views as they see fit – but the idiotic name-calling on both sides shows an incredible lack of both tolerance and intelligence in my opinion – I find it very sad that people are (increasingly) so unwilling to find common ground, and so willing to categorise negatively those who do not accept their beliefs.
“I am personally a little disturbed at some of the rantings and ravings by extremists of both ‘faiths’. IE. those that stand by their faith in only what is proven or assumed by the scientific world, and those who are set in their ways refusing to accept challenges to what they perceive to be god-given truth.
There can be no good conclusion”
There already is a good conclusion. Science gets answers; religion doesn’t.
Thanks for helping to explain the issues and reach mutual understanding…
Faith is belief without evidence. The scientific method advocates only beliefs based on sufficient evidence. How does that make it a “faith?”
Atheists have a tendency toward impolitic displays of frustration toward religion, and of course conservative theists are dogmatic, but how could atheists to “find common ground” with theists? I can’t figure out what you’re asking for, except that you don’t seem to like it when atheists speak up and say that religious ideas are bunkum. Well, that’s asking rather a lot, and I’m not sure you realize how much.
Sigmund’s post is about theists’ refusal to consider evidence. How is a rationalist going to find common ground with someone until that person is willing to listen to reason? The whole point is that theists, Lisa Miller in this case, whine and put their fingers in their ears whenever atheists point out that their ideas can’t be right.* Atheists call this “religious privilege”, because no one would demand this kind of silence regarding car repair or politics or what ave you. How do you find common ground with someone who won’t enter into a discussion with you?
We atheists want an honest debate, and the theists don’t. Where’s the common ground? I’m serious, what does common ground look like?
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*Your post argues that atheist claims about god are no better than theist claims. What I hear you saying is that the question is unanswerable, so anyone who claims knowledge is selling something. The problem is that there are strong arguments against theism (belief in god), whereas theists have no arguments or evidence, only faith. You’re right that theists in general have little substance to add to the discussion, but atheists do, and that’s what I’d like you to appreciate.
There is no rational justification for belief. (You seem to acknowledge this, but either you’re unaware of the arguments against belief or you don’t find them persuasive.) That’s the difference between the atheist and theist positions. You, a theist, insist that nothing can be said to convince anyone of anything (re God), thereby invalidating the whole discussion. We atheists meanwhile continue trying to make our case in the hopes that someone is listening.
Here’s our case, in brief. God is a highly complicated being: super-intelligent, super-powerful, willful, etc. Christian ideas of his goodness, continued interactions with us, having a “son”, etc, add a great deal of complexity to the notion. So you have some complicated idea, but we have no idea what changes in the world would be wrought depending on whether it’s true or false. You must concede this, since, by your own admission, God’s existence cannot be “proven”. (I take “proof” lightly here. If you could establish that God’s existence is more likely than not, I’d consider that proof.) If we knew what differences we would see in a world without God, then we would know God exists because we don’t see those differences in our world.
So, whether this complicated idea is true or not, the world we see would appear no different (or, if different, different in some unknown way). Note that it’s much simpler to imagine that this complex being doesn’t exist than that it does. This is Occam’s Razor at its clearest: two hypotheses, atheism and theism, explain the evidence, but one is much, much simpler, and therefore preferable. Given how complex the idea of God is, we can reasonably infer that it’s very unlikely. So belief in god is not justified. Not even close.
Whether or not you find this argument convincing, hopefully you will agree that it’s worth discussing the merits. There is no reason to expect atheists to silence themselves and never speak their minds on the issue.
I have common ground with many theists – many theists are, as I am, opposed to wars of aggression, opposed to racism, in favor of helping others, in favor of social democracy. Many of us even like the same music and TV shows.
But we’re not going to find common ground on the existence of the supernatural.
Of course, I agree. Humans have common ground with one another, universally. It seemed to me that Jay was unhappy that atheists lump the world into “theists” and “atheists”. Or something – I’m not sure exactly what his complaint is. I don’t see any of the “name-calling” he’s referring to, I only see Sigmund arguing against a theist and religious privilege, so I don’t know how to interpret “find common ground” except to infer that Jay wants us to stop criticizing theists and leave his religious privilege be.
Maybe I’m wrong; I’d be glad. Hopefully, Jay will reply and help me understand where he’s coming from.
Actually, we don’t give a rat’s ass about the xian’s beliefs.
We are totally sick and tired of them trying to force them on us. Attacking science and scientists, trying to sneak their mythology into our kid’s science classes, bombing family planning clinics, attacking women, trying to destroy our society. It goes on and on.
If the xians would just stay under their rocks and tell their lies to each other, no one would care. They can’t and won’t do that though. We know from millennia of experience.
Proof: We don’t care about the Amish. They aren’t out bombing power lines. Or the Bigfootists, Elves, Elvists, UFologists and so on. They aren’t trying to force their beliefs on us.
When did religious special pleading come to cover the definition of “reasonable”? Oh, right, at the same time it became “reasonable” to have an inquisition.
That is your problem right there, because scientists, skeptics and atheists doesn’t “stand by” or have “faith” in observations and working theories, they test them again and again.
That is why there are no “proofs” or “assumptions” here, but tests and constraints (say, how to test).
Then nearly 100 % of the most successful scientists, skeptics and atheists, which would be most of the non-seculars from ~ 15 % of US to ~ 80 % of swedes, are of unreasonable disposition.
Because clearly we _have_ tested that the god who listens for intercessory prayer – it doesn’t exist. And all that can read those papers understands that.
Similarly we know that the deity that runs car engines – it doesn’t exist. The deity that runs gravity – it doesn’t exist. The deity that runs the universe – it doesn’t exist. And the list goes on and on.
It is, to make a reasonable observation from a reasonable disposition, now known that the god who creates universes out of physical laws are neither necessary nor very likely. According to current physics, universes must arise from physical laws.
So the god who creates universes – doesn’t seem to exist.
Similarly it is, to make a reasonable observation from a reasonable disposition, now known that the god who creates physical laws are neither necessary nor very likely. According to current physics, physical laws can arise out of various types of selection processes.
So the god who creates physical laws – doesn’t seem to exist.
That leaves, just by making reasonable observations from a reasonable disposition, a god that for all practical purposes – doesn’t exist.
“Equally it has to be accepted that the existence of a deity cannot be dis-proven.”
No. No it doesn’t.
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“Squatting in between those on the side of reason and evidence and those worshipping superstition and myth is not a better place. It just means you’re halfway to crazy town.” PZ Myers
“I find it very sad that people are (increasingly) so unwilling to find common ground . . . .”
For starters, have you yourself found common ground? If so, would you care to specify it in this discussion forum?
This god fails under any questioning. We see this in that there are thousands of religions and sects of religions. It doesn’t take subjecting this god to “rational proofs”, it takes one person decideing that someone else’s version of god isn’t quite up to snuff for them, so they make one up for themselves. All gods are built on personal delusion and as such, are built to never be able to be shown as some magical “truth”.
Ok, on one hand the Secretary was saying “this bothers me a lot” in language that many understand.
On the other hand, we had members of Congress (Joe Shimkus, Jim Inhofe) openly say that we didn’t have to worry about climate change because their god was “in charge” (links provided on request). So any chance to push back against publicly stated superstition should be used.
Praying for a change is the same as doing nothing….and many, many people in the US still don’t understand this.
Let’s not forget the best example of recent failed Christian rain dances. Last year Texas Governor Rick Perry’s state wide prayers (to Jesus of course) for rain were immediately followed by one of the worst droughts that Texas has ever seen.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/rick-perrys-unanswered-prayers/
And that was followed by the worst presidential run Texas has ever seen.
Either this Jesus fellow doesn’t exist, or he just really hates Rick Perry.
Not to mention, there were also very large wildfires in Texas that destroyed a lot of houses.
Made worse because Rick Perry had cut the funding to fight wildfires to save a few dollars.
Apparently the magic of the free market was supposed to put those fires out.
Can I bid on this?
I’ll study it for a million.
Ooops wrong thread; please disregard.
But not inappropriate!
Research proposal: Which kinds of prayer does God answer (eventually)?
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Prayers for funding to study the effects of prayer? (via Templeton)
it’s worth noting that Flynn’s piece itself is not without error
The one Sigmund points out isn’t the only one:
for a Cabinet official to recommend prayer as a solution, or call attention to his own devotions, may violate the Constitution’s prohibition against establishment of religion
No it doesn’t. Government officials don’t lose their freedom of speech (from the same 1st Amendment) when they take public office. They can recommend prayer or talk about their own beliefs just as any other person can. The Establishment Clause forbids government action to support religion. If he used government funds to pay farmers to pray or ordered government employees to pray, then he would be violating the Establishment Clause. Just saying he prays or recommends that others pray doesn’t even come close.
Baffling. Why would economical support differ from authoritative support?
For example, if an official would have recommended to pray instead of using medicine or medical abortion, he would have been disabusing his position and likely caused some people harm. Wouldn’t he then be sued, and not only for economical damages?
Isn’t it just that economical support has been explicitly judged in court, while the the issue of freedom of speech in public (Constitution) vs freedom of religion in private (Constitution?) hasn’t been tested in US?
Why would economical support differ from authoritative support?
It has to do with our notion of “authority.” A public official has no “authority” other than what he can force other people to do through the use of government power, including his authority over the use of taxpayer money. In the US you can’t sue a government official for “recommending” something (with some exceptions that come from other areas of the law … such as a goverment doctor who recommended prayer instead of life saving medical treatment … but then s/he would be sued for malpractice instead of for establishment of religion). Since no one has to follow the recommendation and since, in this case, no government money was involved … it was a comment made at a press conference, not some goverment publication … the government’s authority was not involved.
Isn’t it just that economical support has been explicitly judged in court, while the the issue of freedom of speech in public (Constitution) vs freedom of religion in private (Constitution?) hasn’t been tested in US?
Under our Constitution, the freedom of speech includes the right to publically speak about your religion. That’s been tested many times. What the Establishment Clause denies is the power of the government to force you to adhere to a religion, or religion in general, or to pay taxes to support a religion, or religion in general.
Of course, it’s more complicated than that but that’s the gist.
What the Establishment Clause denies is the power of the government to force you to adhere to a religion, or religion in general, or to pay taxes to support a religion, or religion in general.
The Establishment Clause is not now, and as far as I’m aware never has been, held by the courts to prohibit only the kinds of government action you list above. The basic rule the court has devised for Establishment Clause cases is the Lemon Test. That test describes a much broader standard for violation of the EC than merely “forcing” people to adhere to religion or pay taxes to support a religion.
“It has to do with our notion of “authority.””
So it hasn’t to do with the Constitution but how it is interpreted. In Sweden there are preambles that takes care of that, with later precedents if needed.
I didn’t remember the Lemon Test, but it applies to laws: “the fact that a law may have a “religious purpose or be motivated by religion does not mean it is unconstitutional as long as it also has a bona fide secular or civic purpose””.
I guess it is lucky for officials when they act besides the law without “bona fide secular or civic purpose”. Or conversely, there seems to be room to reign in the religious behavior of officials, under the Constitution.
“the freedom of speech includes the right to publically speak about your religion.”
That was what I said on freedom of religion in private. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
I don’t think it means that you can recommend prayers as solution to officially handled problems. To strike that down is not prohibiting free exercise, it is to reign in officials that doesn’t do “bona fide secular or civic purpose” good.
In Sweden there are preambles that takes care of that, with later precedents if needed.
Cool. And when you need advice on how to structure your Constitution, I’m sure you’ll ask us for it … and vice versa.
I didn’t remember the Lemon Test, but it applies to laws
It also applies to any official governmental action. The problem here is that, when an official says at a press conference “I believe in prayer” or “I think people should pray” s/he is not doing an official act. Note also that the Lemon Test is, as the article you pointed to sets out, mostly discrete. If any of the 3 conditions apply, the law or act is constitutional.
I don’t think it means that you can recommend prayers as solution to officially handled problems.
But that’s what Sigmund pointed out: Vilsack didn’t offer it as an official government solution. Most importantly in this context, he did not base any official government act on his belief in prayer. Despite what the Swedish Constitution says, our Constitution does not forbid any official from just recommending prayer.
john pieret
The problem here is that, when an official says at a press conference “I believe in prayer” or “I think people should pray” s/he is not doing an official act.
Why not? It was a government press conference, held on government property, and the official was speaking in his capacity as Secretary of Agriculture. He gave no indication that the comments in question were to be considered merely his personal opinion as a private citizen rather than a public recommendation from a government official.
Note also that the Lemon Test is, as the article you pointed to sets out, mostly discrete. If any of the 3 conditions apply, the law or act is constitutional.
Wrong again. To be constititional, an act must pass all three parts of the test. Read the ruling again (Lemon v. Kurtzman).
Why not? It was a government press conference, held on government property, and the official was speaking in his capacity as Secretary of Agriculture.
Because he spoke personally: “I can only speak for myself”.
In any case, press conferences are not “government actions”. They are chances for the press to ask wide ranging questions (in aid of freedom of the press), many of which have little to do with official actions. Imagine if press confernces on goverment property were were deemed to be official government actions. It’s illegal for Federal officials to use government resources to politic. So a reporter couldn’t ask the president a question about his campaign if the conference was in the White House. They’d have to separate conferences in a non-government location to ask political questions.
Don’t let your personal dislike of religious speech lead you to think that it is unconstitutional. That’s just the flip side of this:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/08/03/rocker-doesnt-understand-free-speech/
Wrong again. To be constititional, an act must pass all three parts of the test.
I did say earlier that it is more complex than can be explained in a comment thread and I said “mostly”. I also expressed it badly. If a law has a valid secular legislative purpose, it doesn’t matter if the law had some sort of religious impetus as well. It’s rare to see a law with a valid secular legislative purpose that has a primary effect (an incidental effect is not enough) of either advancing or inhibiting religion. The only such case I can call to mind is Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Lumet. So, usually, if there is a valid secular legislative purpose it is unlikely to fail the primary effect prong. The excessive entanglement prong is the rarest of all. As a practical matter, if you survive either of the first two prongs of the test, you’ll survive the other. And a legislature/official has to work really hard to excessively entangle themselves with a religion.
In any case, mea culpa.
Because he spoke personally: “I can only speak for myself”.
No, he said that in response to a request for figures about how many people were fasting and praying, because he didn’t have any figures.
In any case, press conferences are not “government actions”.
If they’re government press conferences, of course they’re government actions. And “actions” in this context include acts of speech. That is why the courts have ordered the removal of religious displays from government property, as a violation of the Establishment Clause — because the displays are a form of speech that implicitly endorses religion.
I did say earlier that it is more complex than can be explained in a comment thread and I said “mostly”. I also expressed it badly.
What you said about the Lemon Test wasn’t just a simplification or badly-worded. It was wrong. To be constitutional, a government action must comply with all three parts of the test, not just one of them. And your earlier claim that the only things the Establishment Clause prohibits is “forcing” people to “adhere” to a religion or pay taxes to support religion is also wrong.
If a law has a valid secular legislative purpose, it doesn’t matter if the law had some sort of religious impetus as well.
Now you’re just repeating the same false claim you made before. A law is not constitutional merely by virtue of having a valid secular purpose (the first part of the test). The law must also pass the other two parts of the test. It most definitely matters if the law has a “religious impetus,” because that may cause it to fail either the second part of the test, or the third part, or both.
The Establishment Clause forbids government action to support religion.
A government official promoting or recommending prayer in his capacity as a government official, rather than simply as a private citizen, *is* government action. Vilsack made these comments during a White House press conference, speaking in his official capacity as Agriculture Secretary.
That was what I was thinking. Thanks for pointing that out!
So, if Obama happens to say during a press conference that he loves his wife and children, that is an official government action that is being imposed on American citizens? We are now bound by law/government action to believe he loves his his wife and children or that we must too? C’mon people, get used to it. What an official says is not the same as what s/he does under the color of government power.
So, if Obama happens to say during a press conference that he loves his wife and children, that is an official government action that is being imposed on American citizens?
No, that statement would obviously be an expression of Obama’s personal feelings towards his family. He would be saying that *he* loves his family, not that the Office of the Presidency or the Obama Administration does.
The burr in Lisa’s bonnet is nicely addressed by a cartoon today at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2012/08/old-atheists-vs-new-atheists/
Some people really do have very skilled and accurate intuition in reading other people from body language, just as dogs are very good at detecting human emotions through odor. But I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about it.
Other folk are very bad at intuitive guessing, and supernaturalism is intuition run wild.
As such, intuition can be a very valuable source of !*generating*! hypotheses, while scientists are committed to reason for !*testing*! hypotheses. Reason’s role is partly to filter (and structure) intuitions.
It’s very human to trust intuition, since it’s sometimes very effective. Rationalists and religionists differ on what is the proper interaction between intuition and intellect.
+1. Rationalists sometimes sneer at intuition, but it has its place, and a very useful one at that. Just don’t take it too far.
Needless to say, all the prayers to end the US drought haven’t worked yet!!!
So:
Lisa Miller 0, Reality 1.
My guess, and experience, is that every one of the so-called christians who believe in the power of prayer (John 14:14 “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”) will go to the emergency room if they have an accident that results in a wound with gushing blood.
They will NOT merely stop and pray. They will NOT merely open scripture or annoint themselves with oil. They will NOT merely ask for a laying on of hands by their elders.
They will turn to good old fashioned scientific medicine.
In short, they are theists of convenience, worshipping the god of the sniffles (that seems to be the only thing their god can ‘heal’).
Not long ago I had a conversation with a recent former President of the Methodist Conference in the UK about some ongoing problems I have. He offered to pray; I asked him not to, but to spend the time trying to think of something to help; but he insisted that he was going to pray for me.
A few weeks later, I emailed him and asked whether he had seen any results because I hadn’t. He was offended by this email and considered that I was being flippant. However, he later explained that god doesn’t work like that, granting wishes, it is more complicated etc etc. Nonetheless, he said that he would continue to pray for me, explaining that it is literally the most powerful thing which he can do.
Not only is his postition somewhat contradictory but he simply ignores my wishes. I am not sure I can stop him but in the light of the well-known study where the patients who knew they were being prayed for got worse, maybe I can get some sort of court injunction to prevent him doing so!
It’s the most powerful thing he can do to help you, but don’t expect to see any results. He’s worse than a software salesperson.
Yes, if you really want to see “sophisticated” Christians tie themselves in knots, ask them to justify petitionary prayer. They realize there is something shameful about the idea that their God grants special favors in response to specific requests, but they also can’t bring themselves to dismiss prayer, because it is such an important part of Christian tradition.
Or watch any Christian try to justify petitionary prayers to a supposedly omnipotent deity.
re Perry’s 2011 prayer campaign for rain, God waited for the atheists to show up in Houston (October) before he made it rain.
Instead of praying, host an atheist convention and all will be well.
Speaking of chipping away at religious privilege, here is a press release on an article about “Judging the role of religion in law”:
“There’s a passage in the Old Testament’s Deuteronomy that says if a case too difficult to decide comes before the courts, it should be brought to the Levite priests who will render a verdict in God’s name. However, one University of Alberta researcher says that may be taking religious freedom a step too far.
Sarah Hamill, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Law, recently published an article in response to a premise that said judges who lack direction-setting precedence in cases should use religious-based reasoning. Hamill contends that—aside from being a serious breach of the separation of church and state—such decisions would be constitutionally dangerous. She says that when it comes to deciding on issues from human rights to balancing conflicting rights, cooler, secular heads should prevail.
“In order for everybody to be able to agree with a judicial decision, they have to start from a position of neutrality, which is the state,” said Hamill.”
[…]
Hamill says judges need to remain unbiased and impartial in any case they preside over, and should recuse themselves from a case when they believe themselves incapable of remaining neutral, to remove any chance of impartiality or bias. Impartial legal decision-making actually favours all parties; otherwise legal findings could alter significantly depending on the religious bent of the judge. Whichever side of the court Canadians find themselves on, she says, the absence of religious-based reasoning ensures fairness and equality.
“An impartial judiciary is crucial for ensuring fairness and justice in the application of the law,” said Hamill. “Judicial decisions free of religious-based reasoning ensure that the state does not support one religion over another, or impose religious beliefs on those who may not share them. Thus it actually upholds, rather than infringes, freedom of religion.””
Bad C&P: From University of Alberta, the comment said originally.
Mainly she is furious that the delusional ideas she makes her living from can be so simply debunked in the new era of data transparency.
There is no where to hide anymore with dum and deeply false claims and lies. A quick goggle search tells all. Thank god!
Reblogged this on emmageraln.
“I get on my knees every day and I’m saying an extra prayer now. If I had a rain prayer or rain dance I could do, I would do it. But honestly, right now the focus needs to be …”
This is merely amusing, since the phrase “…but honestly..” is probably here used as meaningless filler in speaking. And I guess the Secretary or whoever he is in fact was speaking, not writing.
However, normal English usage of that phrase would imply that something said just before was a lie. I don’t suppose many would subscribe to both xian prayer and american aboriginal rain dances, and one would hope to neither. But politicians ……
As God is impossible to exist, why not lambaste theism in the name of knowledge? Science is acquired knowledge whilst faith begs the question of being knowledge, as Sydney Hook notes. Faith, that begged question, is just the we say so of credulity! Reason removes mountains of ignorance whilst faith rests on the argument from ignorance.
http:igmor.blogspot.com
Not sure if it’s the breast cancer study you’re interested in, but there looks to be a study back from 2009 or so — (doi:10.1007/s00520-008-0482-5).
There’s also some followup studies, such as (doi:10.1188/12.ONF.E310-E316), which suggests prayer is sometimes effective as a coping mechanism… though nothing more.
As for the question of what’s wrong with intuition, one doesn’t even need to get to dealing with the real world to run into the problems. As Jerry Bona jokingly observed “The Axiom of Choice is obviously true, the Well-ordering theorem obviously false, and who can tell about Zorn’s lemma?” The joke being that the three are logically equivalent; intuition is less reliable than other alternatives.
The best ‘false’ one is that you can chop a solid ball of radius 1 into a finite number of pieces, slide and rotate some of them to produce a ball of the same radius, then slide and rotate the rest somewhere else to get another ball of radius 1, thereby doubling the volume of what you started with, without anything but volume-preserving moves (slide and rotate).
So I suppose jebus must have iterated this Banach-Tarski paradox with the loaves and fishes. But those pieces are something else! Maybe it proves that xian mathematicians have to accept the axiom of choice to avoid heresy.
Then they can Zornicate like crazy without fear of transgression (Sorry Zorn, can’t resist!).
“Easy piety”?
Such as praying for rain instead of doing something?