Over at MSNBC there’s a video and an article called: “Atheism makes headway in two surprising places“. The places include the Vatican and the Arizona legislature. We already know about the Pope’s admission that atheists can do good, with the implication that those good atheists might be able to meet the Catholics in heaven.
More interesting is something I hadn’t heard about until recently: Juan Mendez, an Arizona State Representative, was asked to give a prayer in the Arizona House. I don’t think they realized that he was an atheist, and Mendez said this “prayer” (you can see the video the invocation at the MSNBC website):
Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all the men and women here in this moment, sharing this extraordinary experience of being alive, and dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of our state. This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. But this is also a room where, as my secular humanist traditions stress, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences…Let us root our policy-making process in these values that are relevant to all Arizonans, regardless of religious belief or non-belief. In gratitude and in love, in reason and in compassion, let us work together for a better Arizona.
That’s fantastic—much better than religious “prayers”! Sadly, Mendez’s invocation of humanism peeved his fellow religious legislators, who, of course, not only attacked him but offered a counter-prayer to propitiate God, who was obviously pissed off at Mendez’s atheism (I haven’t been able to find a transcript of the counter-prayer). As the Associated Press reports (reprinted at The Big Story),
Republican Rep. Steve Smith on Wednesday said the prayer offered by Democratic Rep. Juan Mendez of Tempe at the beginning of the previous day’s floor session wasn’t a prayer at all. So he asked other members to join him in a second daily prayer in “repentance,” and about half the 60-member body did so. Both the Arizona House and Senate begin their sessions with a prayer and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
“When there’s a time set aside to pray and to pledge, if you are a non-believer, don’t ask for time to pray,” said Smith, of Maricopa. “If you don’t love this nation and want to pledge to it, don’t say I want to lead this body in the pledge, and stand up there and say, ‘you know what, instead of pledging, I love England’ and (sit) down.
“That’s not a pledge, and that wasn’t a prayer, it’s that simple,” Smith said.
But here’s the good news, and remember, it’s from Arizona, where everyone but Mendez and readers Ben Goren and Kelly Houle are religious:
On Wednesday, [Arizona House Speaker] Tobin said he had no problem with Mendez’s prayer.
“From my perspective I didn’t see an issue with Mr. Mendez yesterday,” said Tobin, R-Paulden. “I can appreciate what Mr. Smith was saying, but I think all members are responsible for their own prayerful lives and I think the demonstration that we take moments for prayer we all do collectively and in our own hearts.”
Rep. Jamescita Peshlakai, who represents a northern Arizona district on the Navajo reservation, did take offense. She said Smith’s criticism of another member’s faith, or lack of it, was wrong.
“I want to remind the House and my colleagues and everybody here that several of us here are not Christianized. I’m a traditional Navajo, so I stand here every day and participate in prayers,” even without personally embracing them, said Peshlakai, D-Cameron. “This is the United States, this is America, and we all represent different people … and you need to respect that. Your God is no more powerful than my God. We all come from the same creator.”
Well, the stuff about the “same creator” presupposes a god, but at least Peshlakai noted that not everyone in the legislature is a Christian. Let’s hope the U. S. Supreme Court remembers that when, later this week, they hear the case of mandatory prayer before town meetings in Greece, New York. In the Greece case, nearly all the prayers were Christian, one of the bones of contention. Their decision, whatever it is, will be important. (I’m guessing that they’ll support prayer.)
What a crazy religious country I live in!
h/t: Doug
Mendez for president!
““If you don’t love this nation and want to pledge to it, don’t say I want to lead this body in the pledge, and stand up there and say, ‘you know what, instead of pledging, I love England’ and (sit) down.”
Do what now!?
Yes the juxtaposition of those two statements do seem like they were done on purpose with an implied accusation of being against America.
What Steve Smith seem to want to really say is if you don’t pray and believe in my god and receite The Pledge (with my god in it) then you are a bad American and possibly a traitor.
apologies for my typos etc. 🙂
And should be locked in a cell in the dark, until we can arrange an auto-da-fé.
**
I wonder what Steve Smith wanted to repent of? Overt racism in the Arizona immigration debate? Apathy towards the preservation of (ostensibly his) god’s creation? His party’s war on the poor, on women, on gay people? I’m guessing that these were not on his list. In fact, I’m reasonably confident that, much as the pharisee in Luke 18.9-14, he rather cherry-picked a list of “sins” that he does not commit, and then commended himself to (his version of) god as one who doesn’t do those horrible things that other people do. Smug self-satisfaction, and religion as an offensive weapon; been there, done that, know hundreds who still do.
“Juan Mendez, an Arizona State Representative, was asked to give a prayer in the Arizona House.”
” . . . if you are a non-believer, don’t ask for time to pray,” said Smith . . . .”
Per the first para., he was ASKED. Therefore, he did NOT ASK, per the Honorable Mr. Smith in the second para.
Mr. Mendez should press for the privilege (right?) of taking his occasional turn at offering such a reflection.
Well done, Mr. Mendez. Mr. Smith: just the opposite, and I have little doubt you will fail to take advantage of this learning opportunity, as well.
Doesn’t Lawrence Krauss also live in Ariz? (when he’s not galavanting around our globular globe)
Great “prayer” but pathetic responses.
Hey, I live in Arizona. And I’m sorry. But. I. Am. Crushed. I have been a JCHC
(Jerry Coyne Hard Core) atheist since my sophomore year at ASU. I hereby openly
pledge my allegiance to WEIT. May I please join Ben “cheers” Goren and Ms Houle
(and Lawrence Krauss)
now that I’ve “come out” of the Arizona closet? I know
I’ll lose friends. Wait; I don’t have any friends now.
I’m OK.
You now have very many atheist friends. Hopefully there is a local group in your area. The Secular Web has many writers on atheist issues. Greta Christa’s book which I am reading is highly informative, “Why are you atheists so angry?” and has a great list of resources in the back of her book. Might check out Evil Bible, even if you think you know know you the Bible well, you will find out that you do not. You can join regional groups online for free and they probably have discussion pages. but check out the internet sites. There are many sites. Bill Bolinger Kansas City, 70, lifelong atheist find me on Facebook
‘Sokay, Dan. There’re actually a surprising number (a dozen? more?) of Arizonans active here on WEIT…but I wouldn’t expect Jerry to notice any but the couple who stand out. Kelly’s working on an illuminated manuscript of Darwin’s seminal masterpiece, and I’ve spilled waaaay too many electrons here for Jerry not to have noticed me. But most of the rest don’t post very often, and few make note of where they live when they do so.
We should probably put some thought into some sort of Arizona WEIT get-together, ideally coupled with Jerry’s presence at a lecture / book signing / debate / whatever. I’m afraid I’m not exactly a good candidate to organize such a thing, but I’d be more than happy to show up should anybody else wish to organize it.
How ’bout it, Jerry? What would it take to get you to visit the Grand Canyon State long enough for not a handful of creationists to hear (but not listen to) your ideas, but instead to spend a bit of time with your friends?
Oh — and, for the record, I live in Tempe, but I’m not in Representative Mendez’s district. He represents LD26, which encompasses downtown Tempe, ASU, and part of Mesa. I live in LD27, which is mostly South Phoenix (including South Mountain Park), but which includes the town of Guadalupe and the very small chunk of Tempe that’s my neighborhood…as well as the town of Laveen which is practically a world away. It would probably make sense for me to be in his district (or LD18 to the south), but that’s Gerrymandering for you….
Cheers,
b&
I’m in Chandler where everyone seems to be uber-religious. Tempe has a much better vibe. There are parts of it that are very hip and eclectic. ASU being close by probably plays a part. I make a point of shopping near the Changing Hands bookstore where every fourth car is a Prius with an uplifting liberal/or pro-secular car sticker on it. Makes my day!
Note that Krysten Sinema is also from Arizona. It’s unfortunate she’s made the calculation being seen as an open atheist is not what she wants to be typecast as. MSNBC thinks AZ is a “surprising” place for atheism to make headway. We actually have a committed secular constituency, concentrated in university towns of course. If I’m not mistaken AZ has one of the highest membership rates as a proportion of state population to the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
“…Arizona, where everyone but Mendez and readers Ben Goren and Kelly Houle are religious…”
Hey! Me too!
It is good to see we are making headway. Every little bit helps.
A step at a time!
I’m sure this is a foolish question, but why were they praying in the House to begin with? It probably has to do with the same issue that Jerry mentioned at the end about Greece, New York. But is it a common occurrence that prayers are offered at government proceedings? I would expect that to be a blatant violation of the separation of church and state.
You’re forgetting that “separation of church and state” is taken to mean “no infringement of my religion (‘cuz it’s true); no toleration of yours (‘cuz it ain’t)” by many if not most of the religious right. After all, according to one of their policy manuals, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
oink, oink!
Some of them have adopted the fiction that the government proceedings start immediately after the prayers have finished. I don’t know if that’s the case here. (Arizona? Probably they haven’t even bothered, actually.)
Can’t a thing be it’s own creator? There’s no evidence of a creator for the universe. It just seems to have created itself. Also evolution has no guiding hand except necessity yet is quite creative so he may be right after all and we do all have the same creator it’s just that most people have a naive conception of it.
Sure you could say that but Jamescita Peshlakai was assuming creator in the accepted religious sense and saying “your god is not my god” so “creator” here and well everywhere makes me feel uncomfortable because it seems like we’re just trying to get along with the religious. I’d prefer a more direct approach: I don’t accept the existence of your gods. Don’t make me pray to any of them.
Even Juan Mendez’s speech, as awesome as it was, made me squirm a little when he referenced his “secular humanist tradition” because it had a very slight whiff of dogma.
But I’m sensitive that way. 😉
Squirming was noticeable here too. =D
The “secular humanist tradition” line sounded a bit weird to me, too…but then I realized. He probably does have his own secular humanist tradition. And, just because he has that and because he and I are both godless doesn’t mean that we share a secular humanist tradition as well. And I don’t think that he implied that all the godless share his same secular humanist tradition, either, except for the American traditions of the Constitution and what-not.
So I’m cool with it. It’s obviously important to him, and it’s perfectly fine for somebody giving an inspirational speech to draw upon their own personal reasons for why they’re advocating whatever it is they’re advocating.
I just got back from playing Taps at the Escalante Community Center. It was interesting to contrast the Jesus-specific opening and closing prayers offered by the (retired) Marine chaplain with the dedicatory speech given by Hugh Hallman, past mayor and now gubernatorial candidate. (It wasn’t an official city function, although plenty of city officials were present; it was a community-organized affair with prominent members of the community partaking…the Jesus prayers were kosher in a strict sense, though definitely a bit insensitive and gauche.) Anyway, Hugh gets it; he went out of his way to note that the veterans represented a broad cross-section of the community itself and named as many geographic and ethnic and religious examples as he could off the top of his head, including non-believers, and how we draw strength from joining together to uphold our shared values even while we have plenty else to disagree over.
It’s actually kinda curious. Hugh is a Goldwater Republican who thinks that the New Deal was America’s biggest mistrake. But, aside from economics, he and I are on the same sheet of music on virtually everything else.
I don’t know that I’ll vote for him should he win the Republican nomination, but I do know that I’ll only sleep well at night if he’s the one to get said nomination. He’s the only sane and rational Republican I’m aware of who’s active in politics today.
All y’all Arizonans who aren’t actually Republicans but who’re registered Republican so you can vote in Republican primary elections? Please, please, please vote for Hugh. Don’t do the self-defeating tactical thing of voting for the weakest candidate; that just gives the crazies an even louder voice. Hugh is exactly the sort of Republican the Republican party — and the rest of the country by extension — needs most.
Anyway, that’s probably an excessive amount of rambling on Arizona politics for one day….
Cheers,
b&
Yeah, it’s his tradition but it still gave me the wiggins. 🙂
Traditions are good things, and I can’t think of a tradition I’d more want to see in people than one that celebrates humanity — especially if said celebration finds anathema the coercion of others into its tradition.
It might feel icky, but this is the sort of thing we should be publicly supporting.
I would be perfectly appropriate to note that non-believers come from a very diverse set of backgrounds and traditions and that, while Representative Mendez comes from a tradition that’s not yours, it’s one you find a lot in common with and that you’re glad to see him so positively demonstrating the value that all Americans have to offer — not just the religious.
Try it on for size. It might not be a perfect fit, but I don’t think it’ll be all that uncomfortable, merely unfamiliar.
One can easily imagine a parallel with, say, a lesbian who might personally find gay male sex icky but who fully supports marriage equality for all, not just heterosexual and lesbian couples. If she’s got any sense, she’s not going to make a big deal of her sense of ickiness (or, if she does, she’ll do it in a way that emphasizes the importance of civil rights that much more over a sense of ickiness).
Cheers,
b&
Jeez Ben, you’re making me sound like a bigot. Come on, I said I’d take that gay atheist witch course on an earlier post! 🙂
I’d just like people to feel comfortable saying their atheists in public. It could be he is secular humanist but often people just say that because the “A” word has so much baggage. It’s only recently that I started just owning “atheist” because I want people to see how cool we all are (LOL maybe I’m a bad example & I hurt the brand).
they’re – damn you English language!
Me, too, but I’m just fine with people using synonyms and code phrases in the mean time. Once people are comfortable expressing the sentiment and / or don’t freak out when the sentiment is expressed, then not only can we worry about the way in which the sentiment is expressed but the problem will largely take care of itself.
Does it really matter much any more whether a woman in a committed relationship with another woman self-identifies as homosexual, gay, lesbian, queer, butch, or whatever? She’s likely got her preference and it would be polite to follow it when describing her in particular. But what’s important is that her office mates treat her spouse juts like all the other spouses at the company picnic.
It’s the same deal here. Representative Mendez doesn’t have any gods but he thinks of himself as a secular humanist instead of an atheist? Fine. So long as he remains in the standard rotation for pre-session public contemplative speeches, I’m more than happy for him. I’d love to have a knock-down drag-out argument with him on the subject over a good cup of coffee / lunch / beer / whatever, but that’d be between the two of us. He’s still more than welcome to self-identify with whatever he thinks best represents his own self — even if I disagree with his definitions and / or strategic choices.
Cheers,
b&
Yeah, but just being an atheist doesn’t give you anything inspiring to say during prayer time. What’s the heck’s wrong with secular humanism?
I think it’s not so much “secular humanism” it’s the “tradition” part. That’s what makes me squeamish. If he said “as a secular humanist” I probably wouldn’t have squirmed, but the “tradition” part invokes a whole dogma feeling. I actually had secular humanist on my social media sites and I changed it yesterday to just “atheist” after the conflation of “tradition” freaked me out.
…and I think as an atheist there would be a lot I could say during prayer time….skipping the obvious that there shouldn’t be a prayer time, I’d say probably a lot of what was already said…that I don’t believe in gods but I do believe in compassion, empathy, hard work, community….
….and optimistically we can probably estimate that some of those who joined him felt bullied into it in not wanting to look like a bad old atheist so it’s even better news!
Self-organizing systems create themselves, but out of simpler parts of course.
More generic examples would be that a sufficiently large space of random numbers will have large volumes of order (assuming a metric), conversely from ordered algorithms you can generate sets with pseudo-random numbers that are sufficiently close to random for any precision you want to resolve the difference with.
Or read Krauss “Something from Nothing”.
Hey, I think we have our “prayer” 😀
Hey, Jerry, we do all have the “same creator.” It just happens to be a process not a being.
Regarding Sen. Mendez
That’s the cats meow
‘So [Smith] asked other members to join him in a second daily prayer in “repentance,” and about half the 60-member body did so.’
ABOUT HALF! ABOUT HALF! THAT’S GOOD NEWS!
I noticed that too!
This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. In gratitude and in love, in reason and in compassion, let us work together for a better Arizona.
Would Steve Smith et al have felt the need to repent if Mendez had just said the above?
Is it the absence of the word “God” which disqualifies it as prayer for Smith? What is the proper interpretation of “prayer” within the given context. Chambers dictionary includes “a petition to a public body, eg a legislature” where petition means public plea.
I’m currently living in the Pacific Northwet (not a typo), but I’ll always be an Arizonan at heart. I haven’t lived there since 2002, but I still consider Tucson to be home.
Cheers.
Hate to ruin the perfect comment count, but as an agnostic (just getting into Humanism as an idea) living in Arizona for college, I’m not very surprised by this response. Most of the intellectuals in Phoenix (still a minority even in the capitol) would appreciate an open prayer of either alternating religious/nonreligious belief or to any nondescript entity.
I’m rather hurt by the response to such a beautiful prayer… Just goes to show how the majority in Arizona can be sometimes. And that there is a Native representative that also sits quietly accepting the Christian prayer every meeting as well just amplifies this issue…