The Freedom From Religion Foundation goes after NASA for giving a grant to study theology

June 9, 2016 • 11:00 am

On Monday I described how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a U.S. government agency, gave a grant of $1.1 million to the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI) for studying the religious implications of finding extraterrestrial life. The other partner who contributed money for this initiative is, of course, the John Templeton Foundation.

The theology aspect is prominent; as the CTI’s announcement noted:

Announcing the NASA grant, CTI’s director William Storrar said, “The aim of this inquiry is to foster theology’s dialogue with astrobiology on its societal implications, enriched by the contribution of scholars in the humanities and social sciences. We are grateful to the NASA Astrobiology Program for making this pioneering conversation possible.”

I considered this not only an unconscionable and ludicrous waste of money, but also a potential violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from advancing religion. When the First Amendment alarm bell goes off, my actions are automatic: I call the matter to the attention of the estimable Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which can judge if there’s a real problem.

In this case there seems to be. I have heard now from Andrew Seidel, one of the FFRF’s constitutional lawyers, who saw a problem and wrote the following letter to the director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute and Mary Voytek, a senior scientist at that institute—the agency that gave 5% of their yearly budget to theologians. The letter he sent is below (click to enlarge), or I can send you the pdf if you email me. Feel free to disseminate it; it’s now a public document.

The letter is unusually strong, I think, emphasizing the inability of theology to know anything or resolve any questions, and states clearly the Constitutional law ruling that the government cannot become engaged in matters of theology: “the government cannot fund religion’s pursuit of theological doctrines.” It’s an interesting letter, calling for NASA to take the money back and use it for less wasteful projects. I will of course keep readers informed.

Note also that the FFRF has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out the details of how the grant was given.

I’m pleased to have contributed to the letter a bit about the relationship of science to religion, and perhaps that will be enough to earn me the Discovery Institute’s “Censor of the Year” award, something I dearly want to receive for the second time.

Anyway, congrats to the FFRF, the Official Website Secular Organization™, for being an attentive watchdog as religion tries to creep into our government. (You can join here for only $40 per year, which comes with a great monthly newpaper.) And shame on you, John Templeton Foundation, for wasting money in this way.

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NASA gives $1 million grant to a theological organization to study the religious implications of extraterrestrial life

June 6, 2016 • 11:00 am

Well if this don’t beat all! According to the webpage of the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI), NASA (the National Aeronautic and Space Administration, a part of the U.S. government), has given a huge grant to the CTI to study the implications of extraterrestrial life for religion. The money will fund a team of scholars, including theologians. I quote the announcement in its entirety:

The Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a grant by the NASA Astrobiology Program to convene an interdisciplinary inquiry into the societal implications of the search for life in the universe.

The project is intended to refresh and expand scholarly and public dialogue on this subject, which is of growing interest due to the discovery of thousands of extrasolar planets and the ongoing search for potentially habitable environments in our solar system and beyond. With this $1.108 million grant, CTI will oversee a resident team of visiting scholars in theology, the humanities, and social sciences that will conduct an interdisciplinary inquiry on the societal implications of astrobiology, the study of the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.

This inquiry will extend over two academic years from 2015 to 2017. It will focus on the societal implications of astrobiology’s current research goals and findings, which will be studied in symposia and video-linked conversations with leading scientists in the field. Applications will be welcomed from collaborative scholars who are examining the concerns raised by astrobiology for the humanities, or pursuing research on societal issues related to the evolution and future of life.

Announcing the NASA grant, CTI’s director William Storrar said, “The aim of this inquiry is to foster theology’s dialogue with astrobiology on its societal implications, enriched by the contribution of scholars in the humanities and social sciences. We are grateful to the NASA Astrobiology Program for making this pioneering conversation possible.”

CTI is an independent academic institution for interdisciplinary research on global concerns with an international visiting scholar program in Princeton, NJ. Further information on CTI’s resident program and application process can be found on the Center’s website at: www.ctinquiry.org. The Request for Proposals on this topic for the 2015-2016 academic year can be found here, with the online application window open from December 15, 2014 to January 31, 2015.

On the page that lists the “research team,” you can also read the bit below. Guess who else is part of the program?

Yep, you got it:

So now we have the U.S. government teaming up with the odious John Templeton Foundation, giving one million dollars of taxpayers’ money for a stupid and meaningless attempt to figure out what will happen if we find life on other planets. I expect they will deal with the Big Questions about whether space aliens could be saved by believing in Jesus, or if they might go to limbo instead of Hell because they never got a chance to hear the Good News. Alternatively, as Michael Ruse has suggested, there might have been an intergalactic Jesus who flew from planet to planet bringing salvation.

Seriously, this is an outrage and a huge waste of money. I also see it as a violation of the First Amendment, for it is an unnecessary entanglement of church and state. But even if it were legal, it’s completely ridiculous. What was NASA thinking? Think how many lives could be saved in Africa or India if that money went to provide food or clean water?

Here are the CTI’s “honorary trustees”:

Chino Valley town council vows to continue prayer

February 19, 2016 • 10:45 am

Two days ago I reported that Mayor Chris Marley, mayor of Chino Valley, Arizona (and a “part-time Baptist minister”, whatever that is), has repeatedly begun the town council meetings with a Christian prayer. After promising that he’d stop the process pending a discussion of the prayer issue, Marley reneged on his promise (i.e. lied) and again praised Jesus at a meeting on February 9. A rabbi in attendance, Adele Plotkin, objected vociferously, whereupon Plotkin had her heaved out of the meeting (the link includes a video).

A little bird told me that both the ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation have warned Mayor Marley that they have to stop this unconstitutional practice now. That was confirmed by the local paper. Do you think the council will listen?

Hell, no! It’s Arizona, Jake. As the Chino Valley Review notes, they’re standing firm:

Chino Valley has been ending its invocation with “praying in Jesus’ name” for years. The controversy began on Dec. 8 when a Chino Valley resident, Sherry Brown, objected to the practice.

Marley said he’s drawing a line in the sand and the rest of the Town Council backed him up, saying they have no intention to change their invocation.

After the Mayor chucked out Rabbi Plotkin, the council voted to stick with Jesus. The mayor said this (my emphasis):

“Unfortunately, the content of the invocations offered here in Chino Valley has become the subject of some contention, so we – your Town Council – will deal with it,” Marley said in an opening statement. “Our Bill of Rights protects us against the establishment of religion by the state, and yet it would appear that secular humanism with its mantra of political correctness has become just that, the state established religion which the First Amendment was supposed to protect us against.

“Our oath of office requires that we defend the Constitution, and yet we are being asked to give up our right to freely worship according to the dictates of conscience. As a nation, we have already lost a number of our freedoms: The right to peacefully assemble and our protection against unreasonable search and seizure are already gone, and a number of others are being stripped away as we speak.

“I can’t speak for the rest of the Council, but I believe it is time to draw a line in the sand, at least for me it is.”

After discussing eight different options on how to handle the invocation at future Town Council meetings, the council voted that they would make no changes to the current tradition, which is a member of council gives the invocation without any guidance if they wish to be in the rotation to do so.

“I believe that we as a council have every right to continue to offer the invocations,” Marley said.

I’m always amazed how state imposition of religion, as the town council is doing, is justified as adhering to the First Amendment. The founding fathers, who voted against opening the Constitutional Convention with a prayer, would surely disagree. Note too that Mareley argues that by opposing public Christian prayer, his detractors are trying to make secular humanism the state established religion! It’s hard to avoid calling people names when I hear crazy arguments like that. That is, “no religion” is characterized as a religion!

And the “right to freely worship” means, chowderheads, anywhere but at governmental functions! Why can’t Preacher Marley restrict his prayers to his house or to his Baptist Church? For some reason, these people feel that their “right” to pray means a “right” to impose their religious beliefs on others in a formal government setting. Would he sit quietly if a Muslim offered up a prayer to Allah? Or if a Satanist proffered a prayer? I doubt it.

What will happen? The die is cast:

“I want the citizens to be aware, us standing our ground, if this is challenged, it could cost the town money to defend it,” Council member Corey Mendoza said. “Personally, I’m willing to do that. But we are representatives of the town, so speak up when you get a chance and we’ll unite around this.”

Yes, it will cost them considerable money if there’s a lawsuit, and if they don’t give in, I suspect there will be. Although such suits require someone with “standing” to initiate them, and there’s a certain peeved rabbi who, I think, does have that standing.

h/t: Dennis D.

Rabbi thrown out of Arizona city council meeting after objecting to Jesus prayer

February 17, 2016 • 12:00 pm

Religious hijinks are rife in Arizona, as the state repeatedly tries to flout the First Amendment by holding prayers before meetings of the state and city legislatures. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) reports two recent instances (my emphasis):

First, the Phoenix City Council laudably opted for a moment of silence, as FFRF has advocated for years (after a not-so-laudable emergency measure to avoid an invocation by the Satanic Temple). Its meeting dragged on for hours, with scores of citizens commenting passionately on the issue.

Next, the Legislature prohibited any invocations that do not call on a higher power. Arizona state Rep. Juan Mendez delivered a historic atheist invocation to the Statehouse in 2013. (FFRF presented him our Emperor Has No Clothes award for this brave act of open secularism.) Mendez gave another secular invocation in 2014. But this year, he was banned from doing so because his opening remarks would not address a higher power. This clearly violates the U.S. Supreme Court precedent (Town of Greece v. Galloway) that allows government prayer but only if minority faiths and atheists are heard, too.

Could you invoke the Universe as a “higher power”? Or is that not a “power”?

Now there’s a third episode, called to my attention by sometime reader Ben Goren. As the Daily Kos and the Chino Valley Review report, this one involves a meeting of the Chino Valley (Arizona) Town Council on February 9. Many previous meetings of the Council had begun with prayers. Then, in view of objections, the local mayor, Chris Marley, announced that he would not say a prayer at that meeting, and confirmed twice thereafter that no prayers would be said at any meetings until the Council discussed the issue. (The prayers had always been Christian, invoking Jesus.)

Rabbi Adele Plotkin (notice, Catholics, that there are female rabbis!), who had protested the Christian prayers, planned to attend the February 9 meeting, and was under the impression from the Mayor that no prayers would be offered.

Well, Mayor Marley, apparently under the power of his Savior, changed his mind and offered up a Christian prayer. As the FFRF reports,

He initially read a “disclaimer,” claiming the prayer was only his personal belief. Rabbi Adele Plotkin started to complain. Marley warned she would be removed if she continued, so she stopped. After Marley ended his prayer in Jesus’ name, Plotkin stood up and loudly protested. Marley had a police officer remove the rabbi from the room. So much for free speech and petitioning the government for redress of grievances.

Indeed, and so much for a lying mayor (see below).

And, Ceiling Cat be praised, there’s a video of the whole incident, with the prayers, with the rabbi summarily ejected, and then a vigorous Pledge of Allegiance. See what we face in the U.S.? A bunch of religionists who refuse to abide by the law of the land. Have a look at this three-minute episode:

Marley sounds like Jack Nicholson, doesn’t he? I almost expected him to yell at Rabbi Plotkin, “You can’t handle Jesus!”

The upshot is reported by The Daily Courier:

The one change that Marley said he would make, [sic] is he would ask the Town Clerk to post a notice outside of council chambers notifying the public that an invocation would be part of the proceedings.

Plotkin said she’s not going to let the issue go.

“I had a near-death experience, and I went through the bargaining phase, and I made a deal with God, that anything He put on my plate, I would run with,” she said. “I’m running.”

All seven members of the council spoke in favor of keeping the current tradition.

“If they don’t like it, they can vote us out,” Marley said.

Fat chance that that will happen in Arizona! Notice the Mayor’s defiance of the law. But the FFRF is on this one, and they’re tenacious.

The “In God We Trust” police-car poll is now secular!

February 11, 2016 • 9:00 am

Yesterday I wrote about a sheriff in Virginia who had spent nearly $1500 of his personal money to outfit his unit’s police cars with “In God We Trust” decals. Sheriff J. D. “Danny” Diggs said this, among other things:

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.” Diggs said. “It honors God. God has been good to me and this agency.”

“Having ‘In God We Trust’ on our vehicles does not injure or threaten anyone. It is not an attempt to urge anyone to support or convert to any one religion. God has blessed me and the Sheriff’s Office. This is one way of honoring God by acknowledging Him for His blessings upon us and it shows our patriotism by displaying our national motto.”

. . . Diggs also stated Monday, “The legislatures and courts approve, and God is most certainly approving of this.”

But this gesture is clearly a violation of the First Amendment’s mandate for a separation between church and state.

WAVY.com also had a poll about whether readers supported the sheriff; the question was this:

“Do you support the Sheriff’s Office’s decision to place ‘In God We Truist’ on its patrol cars?” When I made the post at about 8 pm last night (UK time), these were the results:

I added that I’d be disappointed if I woke up and found the “yes” votes still leading. Well, it’s now 11 a.m. in England, and here’s the latest tally:

The tide has turned! I wonder why? Well, there’s still an opportunity to vote your conscience. Simply click on the link above, or on either screenshot, and scroll down to the poll. (You can vote only once).

I have about 38,300 subscribers, and surely all of them would want to vote one way or the other, if for no other reason than it’s a small gesture and because I don’t ask anyone for money or expose them to ads! All I ask is for you to vote your conscience. And I’m hoping that we’ll give a ringing endorsement to secularism. The faithful continue to vote, and we should too.

YES WE CAN!

Antonin Scalia tries to tear down that wall (the one between church and state)

January 4, 2016 • 12:30 pm

On Saturday, Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice, conservative, Catholic, and “originalist” (one who thinks that law must ultimately rest on the original and unchangeable meaning conveyed by the authors of the US Constitution) gave a short speech at Archbishop Rummel High School, a Catholic school in Metairie, Louisiana. In that talk, as reported by two sources (the Associated Press and the New Orleans Times-Picayune), he basically reinterpreted the First Amendment to the Constitution. Instead of claiming that that amendment protects believers and nonbelievers alike, he claimed that it applied only to the faithful, not to atheists or agnostics. That is a stunning reversal of precedent, and, if you know anything about history, a rejection of Scalia’s own originalism.

Here’s what he said (my emphasis):

He told the audience at Archbishop Rummel High School that there is “no place” in the country’s constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence.

“To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?” he said. “To be sure, you can’t favor one denomination over another but can’t favor religion over non-religion?”

and

The Constitution’s First Amendment protects the free practice of religion and forbids the government from playing favorites among the various sects, Scalia said, but that doesn’t mean the government can’t favor religion over nonreligion.

That was never the case historically, he said. It didn’t become the law of the land until the 60s, Scalia said, when he said activist judges attempted to resolve the question of government support of religion by imposing their own abstract rule rather than simply observing common practice.

If people want strict prohibition against government endorsement of religion, let them vote on it, he said. “Don’t cram it down the throats of an American people that has always honored God on the pretext that the Constitution requires it.”

That’s just wrong. Here’s the First Amendment, written by James Madison in 1789 and passed in 1791 (my emphasis):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Madison was at most a deist, and there’s no indication of religious belief in any of his writings. He was, however, a good friend of Thomas Jefferson, who was again at most a deist, but more probably an atheist/agnostic. And Jefferson’s own views on religion clearly influenced Madison’s.

Three years before the First Amendment was written by Madison, and five before it was passed, Jefferson’s own law, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, had been passed. (Jefferson actually wrote it in 1777 and introduced it to the Virginia legislature two years later). That statute, by the way, was one of three of his accomplishments that Jefferson wanted engraved on his tombstone. The other two are his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and his founding of the University of Virginia; his Presidency isn’t mentioned. What’s clear is that Madison’s First Amendment is based on Jefferson’s law.

It is clear in the Virginia Statute, as well as in Jefferson’s own writings, that he held nonbelief to be just as privileged as other beliefs. Here’s the conclusion of the Virginia Statute (my emphasis):

. . . .Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

Note the crucial phrases: “no man. . . shall suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief” and that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of Religion.” What is nonbelief but “an opinion in the matter of religion”?

If Scalia were really an originalist who interpreted the Constitution according to the authors’ intent, he wouldn’t be saying that it’s okay to favor religion over non-religion. That would have appalled both Jefferson and Madison, and their documents don’t say anything about denigrating nonbelief.

Further, anyone who’s studied American history knows that Jefferson was a man without belief—a deist only if you stretch the term. But Scalia denies even that, jettisoning the palpable facts of history. As the Times-Picayune reports:

Scalia noted that Thomas Jefferson, who first invoked the idea of a “wall of separation between church and state,” also penned Virginia’s religious freedom law, founded a university with dedicated religious space and, in writing the Declaration of Independence, regularly invoked God.

Such deference for a higher power has been consistent ever since, Scalia said.

Has Scalia read the fricking Declaration of Independence? (The Constitution, by the way—the document to which Scalia says he adheres—does not mention God ONCE.) There are two mentions of goddy beings in the Declaration, the first being the rights that come from “The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”, which is a dubious way to invoke a deity—indeed, it could be seen as pantheism. The other mention is this: men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. . .”. That’s a pretty watery statement, probably designed as a rhetorical flourish, and hardly shows Jefferson “regularly invoking God.” If you want to know what Jefferson believed and what Madison intended in the Constitution, look at their personal histories and statements of belief. You won’t find anything about a personal God, and their laws were clearly designed to protect nonbelievers as well as believers.

Oh, Scalia said more:

Citing a quotation attributed to former French President Charles de Gaulle, Scalia said “‘God takes care of little children, drunkards and the United States of America.'” Scalia then added, “I think that’s true. God has been very good to us. One of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor.”

That is a severe case of faith-based delusion. Why isn’t God so good to Muslims, who do him (in the form of Allah, peace be upon him) even more honor? And clearly God has been best to Scandinavia, where most people are atheists but societal well-being is far higher than in the U.S. Clearly, God loves those best who deny Him most.

Scalia should not be sitting on the Supreme Court. He’s not only addled by faith (remember his belief in Satan?), but he’s violating his own originalistic philosophy when it’s convenient for him to do so. That is judicial activism. Let’s hope that he’ll be off the bench within the next decade, giving Hillary Clinton an opportunity to replace him with someone sensible.

-335ff278a52421bb — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks at Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie on Saturday, January 2, 2016. (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com |The Times-Picayune)

h/t: Les, Randy

Cops insist on putting “In God We Trust” on police cars

October 5, 2015 • 10:15 am

No comment needed; from the New York Times:

“If it’s on my money and it’s on the state flag, I can put it on a patrol car,” said [Polk County] Sheriff Moats, who wrote to Georgia’s sheriffs this year to promote the motto’s placement on law enforcement vehicles. “Just about every single day, I have another sheriff calling and saying, ‘I’ve done it’ or ‘Can you send me a picture of your patrol car?’ ”

Some officials contend that their display of the motto is elementary patriotism, a four-word way of “standing up for America, standing up for our country,” Sheriff Moats said. Others in law enforcement say the stickers are a response to the battering their profession’s reputation has taken after more than a year of high-profile killings and extraordinary scrutiny.

“With the dark cloud that law enforcement has been under recently, I think that we need to have a human persona on law enforcement,” said Sheriff Brian Duke of Henderson County, Tenn. “It gave us an opportunity to put something on our cars that said: ‘We are you. We’re not the big, bad police.’ ”

So that’s why we have this:

04trust-SUB-master675 — Sheriff Johnny Moats’s department vehicle in Cedartown, Ga., the seat of Polk County. He bought the “In God We Trust” sticker with his own money after he heard that Missouri sheriffs had begun displaying them. Credit Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times

And the only sensible response, from Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom from Religion Foundation:

“This motto has nothing to do with the problem of police forces’ shooting people, but it’s a great way to divert attention away from that and wrap yourself in a mantle of piety so that you’re above criticism,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, a co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based group that has demanded that law enforcement officials stop exhibiting the motto. “The idea of aligning the police force with God is kind of scary. That’s the first thing you’d expect to see in a theocracy.”

The cops respond:

“I don’t know why an atheist is so upset about us putting up ‘In God We Trust,’ ” Sheriff Moats said. “I’m not saying that they trust God. I’m saying that we, as the guys in this department who put this on our cars, we trust in God. And why is that a bad thing? Even if you don’t believe, you know God’s all about good.”

Does that mean that every cop who rides in those cars is a believer? And how do they know that “God’s all about good”? If that were the case, why would the cops have to deal with (and sometimes commit) the murder of innocent people?

The problem, of course, is that this motto has been repeatedly deemed Constitutional by the courts, and so the cops can use it with impunity. But it’s still a prima facie violation of the First Amendment.

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