The Invisible Library

Americans love God. Love, love, Love! God. Pat Robertson and George W. Bush say so. And they wouldn’t lie. According to recent statistics, 90% of Americans profess belief in the invisible Man that lives in the clouds. 9 out of every 10 Americans think an anthropomorphic dude with a flowing white beard and preoccupation with shellfish and butt sex cares about fetuses, who they vote for and which language the Bible was really written in. ¹ I’d think, being King of the Whole Friggin Universe, he might be more interested in what Black Holes and Pulsars are up to but that’s just me. 9 of 10 people you and I know, think otherwise. Which sounds pretty damn impressive. Except, it’s not true:

• The percentage of American adults who identify themselves as Christians dropped from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001. This is an unprecedented drop.
• Confidence in religious institutions has hit an all-time low.
• There appears to be a major increase in interest in spirituality among North Americans. However, this has not translated into greater church involvement.
• Mainline denominations have been losing membership for decades in the U.S.; conservative denominations have been growing.
• At the present rates of change, Islam will become the dominant religion in the world before 2050 CE.
• At the present rate of change, most Americans will be non-Christians by the year 2035 CE.
• The numbers of “unchurched” people has increased rapidly in the U.S. These are individuals who have not attended church in recent months.
• Agnosticism, Atheism, secularism are growing rapidly.
• Interest in new religious movements (e.g. New Age, Neopaganism) is growing rapidly. In particular, Wiccans are doubling in numbers about every 30 months.
• The influence of the central, program-based congregation is diminishing as more cell churches are being created.
• Many Christians have left congregations and formed house churches - small groups meeting in each other’s homes.

According to one survey, 76.5% of adult Americans identified themselves as Christians in 2001. But less than half attend church regularly, if at all. A similar study found that those who practice what they preach is a modest 30% and falling. The survey breaks it down like this:

• 30% are totally secular in outlook
• 29% are barely or nominally religious
• 22% are modestly religious
• 19% regularly practice their religion.

If 60% of those who claim to believe in God act just like us Atheists, are they really religious? More importantly, do they really believe in God or are they just saying so to be polite? We are conditioned from a very early age to equate belief in God with good behavior. But what if in fact we do the reverse and equate good behavior with a presupposition that the person in question believes in God?

I know from personal experience that this is often the case. My in-laws thought I was a nice guy until my wife told them I was an Atheist. Her mother gave me suspicious looks for the first year we were married, to make sure I didn’t have baby’s blood staining my teeth or smell like I’d just been raping puppies out back. She eventually realized I was actually a good person and yet I didn’t believe in Jesus, or pray or anything like that. I think she’s still trying to figure out how that works.

In many places, specifically, the South where I currently live, this equation Good People=Theist is a given. It is assumed that you are a believer and more specifically, a Christian, regardless of the facts or actual behavior. ² And since first impressions are so important, well, so what if your girlfriend’s grandmother thinks you and she get up early on Sundays and go pray at Church (the other one, across town. No the other one, next to the one with the neon sign. No the other one) rather than sleep off a hangover form the party the night before? What she doesn’t know won’t make Thanksgiving any more awkward than it has to be.

Except, it’s not really even that conscious. Most people profess to believe in God, because they’ve never given it any real thought. God, like the wind through the trees, is just there. You don’t have to think about it or really invest any actual energy in believing in Him, except maybe on Easter or Christmas and even that’s more about candy and presents. So, what was the question again? Oh sure, I believe in God. But let’s skip church and go see Snakes On a Plane instead. That Samuel L. Jackson is one smooth motherfucker!

David Byrne has a blog. What’s more, he recently reviewed a documentary called Jesus Camp, about summer camps where the Am Taliban indoctrinates children:

There were some perfect sound bites — at one point Pastor Fischer instructs the little ones that they should be willing to die for Christ, and the little ones obediently agree. She may even use the word martyr, which has a shocking echo in the Middle East. I can see future suicide bombers for Jesus — the next step will be learning to fly planes into buildings. Of course, the grownups would say, “Oh no, we’re not like them” — but they admit that the principal difference is simply that “We’re right.”

In another scene a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush, with his trademark smirking smile, is brought out and the children are urged to identify — many of the little ones come forward and reverently touch his cardboard hands.

I kept saying to myself, “O.K., these are the Christian version of the Madrassas (those Islamic religious instructional schools in Pakistan and elsewhere, often financed by Saudi oil money)…so both sides are pretty much equally sick, there’s a balance.” (Although it must be said the Madrassas provide some regular education and literacy where no other option is available, they do community work that is non-religious…and they take in aimless troubled youth.)

They want to turn the U.S. into the “Christian” version of Iran or Saudi Arabia. A theocracy. The separation between church and state, already shaky with Bush in charge, is under full frontal assault by this bunch — and they are well organized, too. The megachurches tell their parishioners who to vote for, what judges to support, letters to write, and where they should stand on the issues. Well, we all do this to some extent — even in casual chats with friends we attempt to deduce and arrive at a consensus of opinion; a sloppy democratic give-and-take on any number of subjects often gives way to agreement. But this is top-down messaging — no discussion allowed. There’s a scene in the Colorado Springs megachurch run by the Preacher who talks with Bush once a week — same deal as with the kids, only most of the attendees are pliant adults.

People give me weird looks when the topic of conversation turns to American religion and I mention groups like the ones in this film. As if religion is somehow so different once you cross the border into America. we don’t have anti-fundamentalist radar, people and it can happen here and already is. That’s the scary part.

The good news is that there are people who are making these documentaries. People like the gang over at Science Blogs, PZ Myers and the lot, who make it their goal to spread scientific knowledge, to combat this virulent drivel. And, in no small part, that’s part of why I became a Librarian. If I can get someone, anyone to read a book and think a little bit more critically about some of these things, especially children, then maybe we can stop these Jesus freaks from turning the next generation into a bunch of Zombies for Jesus.

A few readers have written in to let me know that I’m too hard on the Faihful, that religious people aren’t kooks, or idiots, that they are fine, upstanding and moral folk with a deep rooted sense of tradition and values. I direct those people to this piece in Harpers, which says otherwise:

I too am soooo excited!! I get goose bumps, literally, when I watch what’s going on in the M.E.!! And Watcherboy, you were so right when saying it was quite a day yesterday, in the world news, and I add in local news here in the Boston area!! Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, oh happy day, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!!

* * *

I am excited beyond words that the struggle of this life may be over soon and I can finally be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

* * *

This is so exciting….I’m having a hard time believing this is ‘real’!

True Believers are happy that a confluence of superstition and geopolitics has led to chaos, destruction and untold loss of life. Truely, these are the chosen people, the most holy and righteous.

Tristero reminds us that the Creepy Evangelical Video Game (Where you either convert or kill everyone in New York City) is not a product of some fringe White Supremacist Malita or some publicly disavowed wacko like Fred Phelps but a genuine article from the most vociferous of the Faithful:

[…] There is nothing about the worldview of this videogame that cannot be found in the writings and speeches of political operatives like Dobson, LaHaye, Robertson, Falwell, Rushdoony, and others in their milieu (here’s a paean to intolerance co-authored by James Dobson’s son. ). The particular balance of extremist positions varies to some extent among all these people, but the overall thrust is clear: they advocate replacement of a democratic American republic with a theocracy (Christian Nation)and the conversion or elimination of all non-believers.* The craziest of them - eg Rushdoony - are not merely cynical dirtbags trying to snatch every last nickel they can from ignorant rubes. The worst of them actually believe this stuff. But here’s the rub: even the less worse are willing to listen to the worse, and prominent politicians today are are also listening.

Troutfishing has all the skin-crawling details for those just tuning in:

The “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” videogame that lets players simulate converting to Christianity or killing the citizens of New York City has become a dead cow in the living room to leaders of the Christian right. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, and The Southern Baptist Convention have not denounced the game and have refused to even comment on it

The best part though:

Tyndale House, which licenses “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” also publishes a book, by [infuriated Christian conservative attourney and activist, Jack ] Thompson, against videogame violence!

It’s easy to dismiss a Conservative Christian Publisher as being more about the Business of Publishing than the heartfelt lifestyle of a Conservative Christian, only out to make a fast buck exploiting the fear and loathing of the Evangelical market. But just keep in mind, that fear and loathing comes from a real source. And if there is one thing the faithful are good at, it’s inventing bogey men to exert control over their followers. If there’s two things they’re good at, it’s stirring the pot until it comes to a boil.

Today is the day the world ends. Or else, it’s Tuesday, depending on how you wear your goggles:

The Number of the Beast is mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the Christian New Testament and has long been accepted to be 666 (or, in some cases, 616) *. The meaning of the number is debated. In some interpretations of Christian eschatology the “Beast” is believed to refer to a being controlled by or equated with the Antichrist, whereas some scholars, such as Dr. Delbert Hillers and the editors of the Oxford & Harper Collins translations, contend that the number is a code for the Roman Emperor Nero[1], a view that is also supported by the Roman Catholic Church [2].

it’s fascinating how some people get so worked up over a coincidental arrangement of numbers on a calendar. Global warming? Just a myth. But three (count ‘em!) three sinister 6s in a row on your Garfield desk calendar and it’s time to break out the Cabala tables and start thinking critically. Remember Y2K? Yeah, that was fun, wasn’t it? Idiots buying upa ll the toilet paper within three counties for fear that the world will end because our computers aren’t smart enough to add correctly.

But this is even more retarded because it isn’t based solely on ignorance of science or banal superstition. it’s also got two millennia of traditional superstition and ignorance backing it up That’s quite a shadow. But it still amounts to nothing more than people being scared of the dark.

Of course, George W. Bush is still in Office, and it is still early yet.

Orac has more, including a story about a woman so bone headed, she wants to induce early labour so as not to give birth to Satan.

I don’t get Christian themed entertainment. Every Christian rock group I’ve ever heard sucks, up to and including a fair amount of U2. Every Jesus centered movie or book I’ve ever read or seen is just an insulting bit of jingoism wrapped up with a light glaze of five-year-old pop culture to make it go down with the hip kids (you know the ones with the drool stains on their shirts who wear a helmet when they go the bathroom). How anyone can find this crap entertaining is beyond me and even more baffling is how the creators of such pabulum actually delude themselves into thinking someone is going to read Left Behind or listen to Creed and say,” Oh right, now I get Jesus! Count me among the saved!”

Having said that, I know it’s not just my blind spot to Jesus-flavored pop culture that makes this Evangelical Kill-em-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out video game just creepy as Hell. It’s like it comes from some alternate reality where Jesus was a shotgun wielding bad ass who didn’t take lip from no Roman (Just like Shaft but with a really pimped out yarmulke).

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission — to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is “to conduct physical and spiritual warfare”; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.

That’s right— it’s a video game based on the premis that you go around shooting non-Christians (and though it’s not stated outright its strongly implied that you also shoot non-whites and homosexuals too). Which is just what Jesus would have done, had he been able to get his hands on a few automatic weapons.

I’ve never bought into the idea that violent video games (or TV shows or movies) inspire violent actions on the part of impressionable youngens but there’s definitely a moral dimension at work here and not one that in any way jives with anything I’ve ever read about Jesus or his teachings.

Pam Spaulding over at Pandagon is as baffled, sickened and wigged as I am about this. (several other bloggers have written at length about it as well). Jonathan Hutson, at Talk To Action, a liberal Christian blog tries to untie some of the knots:

[…] According to Mr. Warren [He of The Purpose Driven Life and the game’s developer], the worst of American culture is reflected in examples of violence, terrorism, shootings, and the coarsening of our society, that turn people away in disgust. And in addition, “some people are more materialistic than ever.”

If violence, coarseness, and materialism are serious social problems, then what purpose is served by exploiting a global pastoral network to mass market a game about mass killing, whether in the name of Christ or the AntiChrist?

On the one hand, this video game is anti-American, because it endorses roving death squads engaged in faith-based violence without any regard for Constitutional law. On the other hand, the video game is anti-Christian, because it argues that the Kingdom of God can be advanced by using the methods and tools of the kingdoms of this world, namely guns and bombs.

If I wrote a story in which the main characters went around murdering Evangelicals (while pontificating on the moral and spiritual goodness to be had by doing it) I’d be called a bigot and a nut and deservedly so. Someone please explain to me how this makes him a better person than little old Godless me, what with my pacifism and multicultural tendencies.

PZ Myers brings to our attention to this fine little defense of atheism by Slojov Zizek:

During the Seventh Crusade, led by St. Louis, Yves le Breton reported how he once encountered an old woman who wandered down the street with a dish full of fire in her right hand and a bowl full of water in her left hand. Asked why she carried the two bowls, she answered that with the fire she would burn up Paradise until nothing remained of it, and with the water she would put out the fires of Hell until nothing remained of them: “Because I want no one to do good in order to receive the reward of Paradise, or from fear of Hell; but solely out of love for God.” Today, this properly Christian ethical stance survives mostly in atheism.

Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God’s will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God’s favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God’s existence.

It’s a nice little reversal of the usual take on atheism; presenting a moral analog to religion that is not dependant on the mythology to derive it’s moral weight but possessing an equivalency none the less. He goes on to make a point I’ve been trying to verbalise for some time: that if Theists want to be taken seriously as rational individuals they need to take responsibility for the fundamentalists in their midst just as we atheists need to treat all Theists as, “serious adults responsible for their beliefs.”

Responsable adults take full credit for their actions, good or bad. They don’t blame the Devil for their own selfishness (as it creates complacency in the face of genuine, human evil) or defer to some ambivalent deity in the sky the windfall of good timing and reasonable actions.
Or, as Hume said: to show true respect for God by acting morally while ignoring God’s existence.

There’s much more about Zizek and his writings on Wikipedia. He also has a new book out, for the really curious.

Some Catholics are throwing a hissyfit over the Da Vinci Code movie:

May 13, 2006 –- The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and its America Needs Fatima campaign are inviting concerned Catholics to join a petition against The Da Vinci Code. So far, the effort has garnered 100,946 signatures and steadily continues to gain steam.

“A growing number of Catholics are expressing their unequivocal rejection and disgust of the blasphemous Da Vinci Code film,” said America Needs Fatima director Robert Ritchie. “The more Hollywood mocks our faith, the more it demonstrates a brazen contempt for God.”

The petition addressed to Columbia Pictures is available online at www.tfp.org and states:

“I am deeply opposed to the showing of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code as a movie. Please consider that millions of Catholics see this as Christ-bashing and insulting to the Catholic Church. The book, written as fiction, attacks all I hold sacred – the Divinity of Christ, the Gospel, the Papacy and the holy mysteries of my Faith.”

This really is something quite amazing. Here you have people getting uppity over a movie based on a book that has the unmitigated audacity to suggest Jesus did something incredible and unbelievable: he got married and had kids.

As if all that other stuff about walking on water and raising the dead, turning water into wine and curing leprosy and blindness, was just your run of the mill, first century sort of a Saturday night.

Judas: Hay Jesus, me and the guys are going out for a few drinks, want to come along?

Jesus: Nah, I’m gonna hang out at home and transubstantiate for a while, then toss one off and hit the sack. Say hi to Mary, though.

Come on Catholics, are you going to let those Muslim fanatics hog all the faith and glory? They rioted for nigh on a month over a few comics! and all you can manage is a cranky petition? That’s just week. Two hundred years ago, you would have rioted, burned down the cinema, and hanged the projectionist.

Link via Neil Gaiman

Via PZ Myers, a new study that shows atheists are even more feared and hated than Homosexuals and Muslims:

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past– they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy– and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,” says Edgell. Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.

Edgell believes a fear of moral decline and resulting social disorder is behind the findings. “Americans believe they share more than rules and procedures with their fellow citizens– they share an understanding of right and wrong,” she said. “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

This line: “Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public,” really jumped out at me. It’s knee jerk reaction at its most base. “We don’t know who you are, what you believe and couldn’t pick you out of a crowd but we sure as hell don’t like you.”

Which is odd, seeing as how atheists don’t throw bombs into abortion clinics (That would be Christians) strap bombs to their chests and detonate restaurants (Muslims and Jews), hijack planes and crash them into buildings (Muslims), trample people to death in a religious ceremony (Hindus), throw acid in the face of woman who turn you down for a date (Muslims, Hindus), or ritually scar young men (every religion believes in the utterly useless procedure, circumcision*). We atheists just question you’re fairy tale-derived “wisdom” and want a concrete explanation for why things work. And for that we are even more distrusted than Sadr (Muslim Cleric), Robertson (batshit crazy Fundamentalist) and Hitler (German Catholic)?

It’s a funny world.

Isaac Hayes Quits South Park:

Isaac Hayes has quit “South Park,” where he voices Chef, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion.

“There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins,” the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist said.

“Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored,” he continued. “As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.”

“South Park” co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, “This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology… He has no problem � and he’s cashed plenty of checks � with our show making fun of Christians.”

It’s hard to figure out if this is just Hayes being a cranky old man or just an old crank. I’m going with old krank, since Scientology trumps all reasonable expectations of typical behavior (See: Tom Cruise’s crazy ass).

That quote from Matt Stone really nails it though: Mr. Hayes is just fine pissing all over other religions but oh no, we can’t besmirch the name of L. Ron Hubbard and his holy Pyramid scam. Oh well. Guess it’s back to obscurity for Isaac, where he can practice his kooky alien religion without having to be offended by the booming sound of the world snickering behind his back.