God, Guns, and Kids

[filkertom]

If anyone -- best friend, S.O., sweet old grandma, anyone -- tells you at some point today how wonderful and important it is give your life over to God, show 'em this:

A Nashville church that's fighting to keep from registering its daily child ''camp'' as a state-licensed day-care center posts armed guards on the church grounds, which is raising alarms for state human services officials.

The church also defied a court order yesterday and continued with its day camp, which accommodates more than 150 children up to age 5.

Priest Lake Community Baptist Church officials say that the guards carry their weapons legally and that the state is trying to force an ''atheist'' view on the congregation by requiring it to register as a day-care provider.

State officials say that under the law, any child-care provider cannot have any weapons around children.

''We have no intention or want to go and get a license,'' church spokesman Charles Bennett told reporters yesterday. Bennett is a deacon with the church whose 4-year-old son attends the day camp. ''We would more than comply with whatever the DHS has to offer as it relates to safety and child welfare. These are our kids; that's the thing that they seem to forget. These are our kids. If there's a safety concern there, believe me, as a parent I would be the first one to be concerned.''

Armed guards around kids? So they don't have to register with the state as a day-care center?!?

Y'know, between this, gay marriage, abortion rights, denial of communion, general political ass-kissing, and all the other intrusions into the workings of government, maybe we should create Margaret Atwood's Republic of Gilead. I suggest roping off a few states -- say, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas south of Little Rock (basically, everything between the Georgia border and the Mississippi river) and letting all the fundies go there and play. Contrary to the Bush Administration's ravings, containment does work. And then the rest of us can get on with our goddamned lives, with the smallest chance of rationality rather than abject stupidity in the name of Big Invisible Superhero In The Sky.

Comments

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

And people wonder why I ascribe to no organized religion (although I'm considering dropping in on the local Unitarian Universalist services)... I have to wonder whether that guard presence is to keep people out, or to keep them in.

This is why I say that the problem isn't religion, it's fundamentalism ... everyone has their own concept of what the fundamentals are, and tend to become fanatical about them to the exclusion of reason. Sheesh.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Reason has nothing to do with religion. To reason, you need proof. To believe, you need faith.

And I sincerely hope that they don't need the guns to keep kids up to five years old in... but I no longer rule out anything with these yahoos.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Well, reason can take you at least up to the point where you can say for yourself whether you choose to believe or not. And I freely admit that I can't prove what I believe. There's a vast difference between belief and knowledge. I believe that there are other intelligences in the universe, based on what we know about life's ability to gouge out a foothold damn near anywhere there's energy and water ... not to mention statistics. To borrow from 'Contact', it'd sure be a waste of space otherwise.

Similarly, based on my own experiences, I believe in a higher power.

In neither case will I tell you that I know these to be true facts. That's where reason comes in to religion--the ability to know the difference between faith and fact.

This is why I say that agnostics and not atheists are the true rationalists: the atheist has to make a Kierkegaardian 'leap of faith' as much as the theist does, in order to say that based on the evidence there is no God. The agnostic says there's not enough evidence either way, and truth be told, they're the ones who are right. We can't know with certainty.

As far as the guards go ... they don't even have to be pointed inward to keep people in. The unspoken message is "We are protecting you from them. You don't want to be one of them, do you?" Children notice these things, subconsciously at least. They're being taught to fear outsiders, that outsiders are Out To Get Them, and that's a far more efficient prison on their minds than any armed guard.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I used to think of myself as an agnostic -- I had too much Sunday School to really regard myself an atheist -- but what it comes down to is being a humanist. If there is a God, I really don't think he/she/it/they cares two figs for what's going on down here. I think people tend to be good, if only because of instincts to preserve the tribe, and I think they don't need religion to be good.

I also think that some people regard religion as a game -- a deadly serious one, but a game nonetheless, with winners and losers and levels of victory. And those are the ones who anger and scare me, because they're the ones who intend to win at any cost because God will reward them in the afterlife, so they'll do whatever they believe is the will of God, and secular agencies just can't understand.

Which is why we've got the damn First Amendment. Freedom from, freedom of.

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I've been very happy with the UU churches I've attended - especially the one in Nashville, of all places. I guess they needed a little bubble of sanity in the town. :P

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I belong to no organized religion, as anyone who's ever sat on a synagogue board of trustees can tell you.

[cleverthylacine]

**sporfle**

Me too. As anyone who's ever looked at the history of the OTO or been involved in running a Lodge can tell you!

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Speaking of the Unitarian Universalists, you might wish to read this entry at pnh's Electrolite, about how one of the UU's churches in Texas has been denied tax-exempt status because "the organization 'does not have one system of belief.' "

Definitely time to repeal ALL religious tax breaks, and render unto Caesar etc.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

I saw that in dragonscholar's LJ; he provided this link. As one of the commenters on that page said, "First they came for the Unitarians, but I said nothing because I was not a Unitarian..."

I think the better quote from that page is: "As a born and raised Unitarian, I think someone missed something. Unitarians have no dogma, but we do have a central common idea... we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. Even those who have their head up their ass." :)

Not surprised it happened in Texas--these are the people a majority of whom first thought The Liar was a good idea.

I'm not sure what I think about taxing churches; I can see arguments for both sides, and haven't figured out which side I agree with. I guess my solution would be a greatly progressive system, so that the small rural parish that's barely getting by isn't hurt, and the megachurches and TV ministries that are raking it in hand over fist pay. And perhaps there should be a way to direct the tax payment, so that for example a church with a pacifist dogma can direct that it not be spent on the military, or direct that it be spent on the Peace Corps, or something like that.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Great. Yet another blog to read regularly. Thanks. :-)

As to removing tax exemptions from churches, I'd suggest that they be treated like any other corporations -- except that I know far too much about how corporations don't pay taxes.

I see no reason why churches should be allowed to direct their taxes any more than I ought to be. I dislike many of the items my tax dollars are used for -- see "faith-based initiatives" for example -- but am not allowed to indicate that my taxes may not be used to fund these unconstitutional items.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, church taxation is a sticky one. Like I said, I really don't know how I feel about it.

As I recall, the Office of Faith Based Initiatives is essentially dead -- The Liar's right-wing fundie supporters turned against it when they realized that not only was there no way to guarantee they'd get all the funding, there was also no way to guarantee that the money didn't go to liberal or (gasp!) non-Christian religious organizations. So even they can do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons. ;)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Church taxation -- Oh, yeah. God needs a tax break. Screw 'em. Tax their property, tax their income, tax it all. You want to have a limit to benefit smaller churches? Dandy. I'm for that. But these ornate cathedrals with animated billboards and parking for two thousand... tax their self-righteous asses off.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Contrary to the Bush Administration's ravings, containment does work.

Only until such time as the contained get sick of confinement.

The folks you are worried about here tend to like guns, like to proselytize, and aren't really concerned with other people's rights. These are not people you want to put down into an enclave where they can do what they like. Unless you really like the idea of the monumental expense of guarding such a long border against later incursions....

Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I understand the point. But I'm almost serious about wanting to wall the nutbars in. How many good things, how many good people, how many lives have been harmed or destroyed because of some shrill diatribe about offending a God who should freakin' well be able to take care of him/her/itself?

[umbran.livejournal.com]

A good many decent people have been harmed, sure. But...

1)NIMBY approaches don't solve problems. They only relocate them. The problems would continue to exist, and would fester out of reach. People would still be harmed.

2)Such a walled-off enclave for fundamentalists would make a mockery of our claim to freedom of religion. What happens when they start calling you the fundie?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Armed guards roving the perimeter, surveillance cameras, "church services" that last 12 hours.. Sure, guys, whatever you say.

Doug wanders off whistling Deutchland Uber Alles

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Well, as for walling them in, since the possibility of them not staying confined has already been pointed out. may I point out another flaw in that idea.

It's all fine and dandy, until they start handing out the cynide flavoured kool-aid.

Not to mention it'd be a shame for anyone born there, who didn't want to be part fo the fundie state. I mean, it's hard enough leaving those religions as it is.

It goes to show that gun worship runs deep.
[what, it wasn't a church of gun-ho?]

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Understood. But, in that case, I want 'em to keep their damn hands off our laws. And read all of the Second Amendment -- y'know, that part about the well-regulated militia.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

You know what. It saddens me that me, a Brit, has probably read and studied the Consitution and the Bill of Rights more than most Americans...

and I doubt that there are many Americans that can say they've studied the British Parlimentary system at all. [I mean, can you name a single article in the Magna Carta for example?]

But then, I like politics and I think it vitally important to understand how the country you live in is controlled.

[gpeefalt.livejournal.com]

At least I have actually flipped thru C-Span and watched some of Prime Minister's Questions (not sure of the official wording) and find it rather amusing. Imagine Bush standing in front of Congress not giving and address, but rather fielding questions from both sides of the aisle!

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

It's actually reffered to as Prime Ministers Question time. And it does rather tend to keep them honest...mostly.

You see parliamentry questions are arranged in advance [yes I know it doesn't look it, but whom the Speaker of the House chooses to speak, is prearranged.]

However, if you have a gripe, you approach your MP, and with a bit of luck, he raises the matter in the parliament. Which can be pretty embarressing to the PM at times.

You can even use it to raise questions about injustices, or miscarrages of justice.

However, given recent events with the breach of security in Parliment [somebody threw a condom packed with purple powder at the PM actually in Parliament.] It's entirely possible that changes will be made, doing away with Question time, or at least restricting access. :(

But you're right. I somehow can't see Bush managing to handle something similar. I mean, the man can barely get his pre-scripted, prepared, practiced, speeches right !

[sashasword.livejournal.com]

This is just furthur proof that all religious people are nutters, to some degree.
I just can't help thinking that it's an adult form of an imaginary friend, because they have insufficient belief in themselves.
It's all rather sad, really.

Not to mention that it seems to be a great way for the churches to get stinking rich by hoodwinking the weak-minded.
If I want something to happen in my life, I'm not going to close my eyes and whisper to myself like some sort of loony. That's not going to do a damn thing. Taking action and being responsible for my own life will.
Religious gits shit me.
Especially the ones that wake me up out of my glorious Sunday sleep in to ask me have I heard the word of god, or some such crap.
It's wrong to inflict your belief onto others like that.
It's like a nasty little virus.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

This is just furthur proof that all religious people are nutters, to some degree.

Well, I don't think the madness starts until a little dial in the brain ticks over from "I have found a way to satisfy an inner need of mine" to "Well, of course other people have the right to believe differently, even though they're wrong" to the worst-case "I have found the way for everybody!"

Even though the decision to believe (or disbelieve) in a divine power cannot be reached all the way by logic and reason, belief can still be acted on in a rational manner -- principally, respecting the fact that other people can and do believe otherwise, or not believe at all, or not even have an opinion on the matter, and that their position is no less valid than one's own.

Heh ... can you tell my circle of friends includes Catholics, Jews, Taoists, Pagans, Atheists, Born-Agains and lapsed/minimalist/secularized Christians of various flavors? :)

[cleverthylacine]

Gotta agree with da bird, and he KNOWS how much I hate fundamentalists.

I'm a Thelemite. We don't do that shit.

[poltr1]

Y'know, somewhere along the line, the emphasis shifted from living one's life in a Christ-like manner (or as Benjamin Franklin put it in his list of Virtues, "Imitate Jesus and Socrates") to reciting likes from the KJV by rote, blindly following that book or their minister, or doing the hard-sell on people to "come to Jesus".

I've got one in my town who used to regularly hold a book-burning around Halloween. He would burn record albums, role-playing game manuals, even the Koran. One year he tried to burn the Talmud, but the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League put a stop to that. 11 years ago, I was one of a handful of silent protestors who videotaped his actions, sent off a copy to the local air pollution control agency, and got him shut down. Until he countersued, claiming his First Amendment rights. I don't know if he's still burning books; I've not heard anything since.

To quote a bumper sticker, "Religion is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have been there."

music: XTC, "This World Over"

Regarding tolerance

[janet-coburn.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would probably *not* show the hypothetical friend or relative this item. It is no more likely to convince my mother (to use a relevant example) that her beliefs are wrong or stupid than anything she says is likely to convince me that my beliefs are wrong or stupid. Not to mention the fact that neither my mother nor the people with whom she worships are responsible for this particular atrocity or anything remotely similar.
Not all religious people enforce their beliefs at gunpoint, and while those who do are beyond scary, lumping all religious believers in that category is not supportable. There are differences, and some of those differences really make a difference. Many Quakers, for example, are extremely devout in their religious beliefs and would no more try to coerce, bully, or force others into accepting those beliefs than you would. Yes, religious believers have started and perpetuated wars, torture, and many other heinous things and attributed it to righteousness, but religious believers have also done a lot of good--i.e., helping the poor, feeding the hungry, or in the case of the aforementioned Quakers, refusing to participate in and working to stop wars.
Organized religion freaks me out a lot of times too, but truth, I've heard it said, is a three-edged sword.
Thus endeth my rant.

[shannachie.livejournal.com]

You know, to a European, the fact that every crackpot can start a religion and ignore constitutional laws under the pretense of exercising his freedom of religion, is one of the more frighteing aspects of American culture.
One of them.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Some people manage to "give their life over to God" without being armed nutcakes. Some armed nutcakes are atheists. There might be a correlation, but there are plenty of (unarmed) Christians I'd be happy to leave my children with without worrying about them being brainwashed.
The Gilead suggestion is tempting, but a bit hard on those non-fundie residents who would be forced to move out first.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Understood; agreed. You are talking individuals, and any individual can be good or bad.

My point is that there is a, if not large, vocal contingent of fundamentalist evangelical Christians who, because of their volume and their fund-raising and their extreme activism, exert what I consider to be an unhealthy level of influence over our lawmaking process, to wit: They constantly attempt to undermine our laws to conform to their religious views -- something which is outlawed by the very first Amendment to the Constitution.

And, from what I have noticed throughout my life, they are part of a larger trend with virtually every religion, ever, to not tolerate those who believe differently. And by not tolerate I mean they try to intimidate them, they organize hate protests against them, they occasionally try to kill them (and occasionally succeed). They don't want the government influencing their way of life; they want the government to mandate their way of life.

In this particular case, they are keeping loaded guns around kids in what's supposed to be a church-run day-care center. Why? Because they don't want an "atheist lifestyle" foisted upon them. I'm willing to bet two taco kits and a bag of chips that several of their "day-care providers" aren't licensed, at the minimum.

So, to reverse the Republicans' standard attack on those who question the wisdumb of BushCo: Why do fundamentalist Christians hate America?

[janet-coburn.livejournal.com]

Based on what I learned about child care centers from a number of years ago, it's also possible that they're dodging regulations because they don't want to admit black children, but prefer to call their objections something else. Oh dear, has the cynicism bug bitten me again? (I'm assuming that since the news media did not mention race, the people involved are white. Ooops, more cynicism.)

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

>I suggest roping off a few states

Funny you should say that...some of them would like to do that too.

What can we do to encourage this? Or, to encourage it more?

(link courtesy of velvet_knife)

[(Anonymous)]

Religion of any sort sets my teeth on edge, but I don't see the value in licensing day-care centers, or denying the 2nd Amendment. People who trot out the "well-regulated militia" clause don't know their history very well.
Jeff Lawson

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I admit that I don't know what you mean. Day-care centers are licensed to make sure their facilities are up to health code, their caregivers are trained, their application practices are non-discriminatory, and such. This place is trying to keep the government out because they're all worried about icky Satan 'n' stuff.

And, I admit that I don't know what you mean. The Second Amendment is a concise phrasing of the necessity to defend ourselves and our nation, based on the British Army's tendency to take guns away from colonists and on the primary gun technology being the end-loading musket. They couldn't abide the former, and they couldn't predict the fall of the latter to cheap and easily concealable hand weapons, or automatic and semi-automatic weapons capable of killing dozens of people without reloading. People who ignore the prominently placed "well regulated militia" clause are trying to split hairs in Constitutional law.

[channe.livejournal.com]

There's a church in Los Angeles that has regular gun-smashing parties. Neighbors bring the guns they've found and the parishioners melt them down and turn them into art.

anthropology/history/scifi student with lawyer-father checking in

[(Anonymous)]

Containment?

That is only an ethical idea if you first sterilize the persons contained. After all, fundamentalism isn't bred, it's taught. Shouldn't the children of the fundies have a chance to grow up near other-thinkers? Or should they be forced to grow up without mental options, inside a spiritual pressure cooker? (please see short story by Robert Heinlein that I've forgotten the name of)

Likewise, is it good to be rid of the more violent opinions among us? Madness is dangerous and contagious, but if we don't learn how to deal with irrationality in our daily life, how will we recognize it in our leaders or ourselves? After all, there were people who thought the HitlerJugend a kind of Boy Scouts. (please see "Federation World" by James White)

Also (I hate to say this) we might need them. Societies that only have a limited amount of opinions have a harder time adjusting to radical shifts in history. The Future is just round the corner, folks. Genetic diversity isn't the only thing we might need.

By the way, on behalf of the Big Invisible Superhero in the Sky, colour me affronted. He obviously gave us brains (unless you're a Manichean), so He must have intended us to use them. Can't blame Him if some people are too lazy to.

Why should we give our lives over to God, by the way? I thought they belonged to Him already? Religious people are weird....

Flavia (bv97045@utb.hb.se)

Re: anthropology/history/scifi student with lawyer-father checking in

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- good thoughtful post. I've gotta say that, while I was over the top on the original post, I do kinda think containment is an option -- if only in the sense of, if they want to, say, go off and form their own country (as has been suggested lately by them), then we let them go, pick a state or two and secede from the Union, and treat them as any other adjacent foreign country -- customs, border guards, the works. Their laws would be their laws, and would not impinge upon ours any more.

This, too, is over the top. But I still can't figure out what part of the First Amendment these folks don't understand. Every time they try to shove through laws promoting their flavor of Christianity over any other faith, or lack of faith, they are doing something un-American.

I also think it's hideous that the same people who advocate oppressing people on the basis of religion are the strongest advocates of home schooling, and of not having standards for such education. It goes all the way back to the Church's objections against Gutenberg printing the Bible:

... the translation of the Bible from Latin into the languages of the people gave them the power to discern for themselves the word of God. Through the rapid growth of literacy that accompanied the growth in Bible and other book publication this development became quite extensive. Thus the church became very alarmed by the publication of the Bible--more alarmed that it was over the publication of pagan Roman and Greek literature--protesting that this wide dissemination of the Bible would cause the emergence of wrong interpretations and subsequently the spread of new heresies. The church well understood that it was thus rapidly losing its monopoly on learning and authoritative knowledge.

-- New Geneva Center (http://www.newgenevacenter.org/west/renaissance2.htm)

And, yeah, we all need the darkness in all its forms, so we can know the light.

And, regarding B.I.S.i.t.S., I've always agreed with that assessment. As Drummond says in Inherit the Wind, "Then why did God plague us with the power to think?" And, if I were God, I'd be pretty offended that my divine judgment, promised after death, wasn't good enough for My followers, who felt it necessary to come up with their own punishments -- as if I needed the help in softening 'em up....