School Vouchers

"A recent Washington Post story highlights the growing and exorbitant cost to taxpayers subsidizing vouchers paying for private — nearly always religious — schools. In addition to reporting on the dramatic expansion of voucher programs in states throughout the country, and the eroding line between state and church, the Washington Post article documents the astronomical sums going to religious schools."

Click on the link below for the details:

New Wash. Post exposé discloses huge cost of religious school voucher schemes

Religious Chaplains In Public Schools?!

The camel's nose is under the tent. (link)

"Across the country, efforts to install chaplains in public schools threaten to undermine students’ religious freedom rights and their well-being. Here’s what you need to know."

Just another f*cking problem from the Christian Nationalists. Click here for the details: (link)

Christian Nationalism: The Death Of The USA?

"So, a high-ranking Republican speaks to a secretive Christian Nationalist conference…no big deal, right? Unless the person is 2nd in line for the Oval after the VP…are you hearing warning bells yet?"

Click on the link below for a concise but deep dive into the greatest threat to the representative democracy of the USA. The country is acting like the frogs in a slowly boiling pot!! Wake up and

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!!:

Will the GOP’s Self-proclaimed “Moses” lead the destruction?

Ponder the courage of the Founding Fathers when they fought against religious factions that wanted another Christian theocracy based on THEIR brand of such.

The US Supreme Court: It's Worse Than You Thought

"The U.S. Supreme Court — that over sixty years ago ruled against state-led prayer in public schools — has swung back the other way with a vengeance. The ultra-conservative majority on the current court has reversed 60 years of progress and put the rights of non-believers in jeopardy.

"In this episode, Jim Underdown speaks to Nick Little, former Director of CFI’s Legal department, and Eddie Tabash, Chair of the CFI Board of Directors. The two lawyers talk about the state of the court, recent decisions, and the problematic future for secular Americans."

Click on the link below for a podcast exposing, not just its destruction of the separation of religion and government, but essentially the foundation of the entire US Constitution:

Supreme Injustice

Lying: Essentially the ONLY Tool Of The Republican Party

Lie: 

(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

There is NO equivalency between the two major US political parties and their promoters and supporters regarding communication of truth:

• Trump's false or misleading claims totaled 30,573 over 4 years (link)
• Telling lies has become the norm for today's Republican Party (link)
• Lies, conspiracy theories, and the Republican Party (link)
• 27 Donald Trump election lies listed in his Georgia indictment (link)
• The modern GOP is built on lies (link)
• Fact-checkers find that Republicans lie up to 3 times more than Democrats (link)
• Fact-checkers are shown to be unbiased in their findings (link)(link)(link)
• The recent Republican debate was full of lies and misleading statements (link)
• The US Constitution is clear about the separation of religion and government but Republicans lie about such and attempt to force harmful and false religious dogma into our secular laws (link)
• In general, Republicans reject the findings of science if such interfere with their unsupported ideology.

An Antidote Against Religion In Public Schools

In recent years, conservatives in the US have been trying to insert Evangelical Christianity into public schools through "After-School Clubs" within the schools, specifically "Good News Clubs." To combat these harmful, and unconstitutional, gatherings, some secular groups have organized "After School Satan" clubs. These clubs, with the "tongue-in-cheek" title, are actually promoting good character traits and critical thinking skills. Needless to say, since most of the culture is religious in general and Christian in particular, there has been significant push-back to them: (link), (link), (link), (link).

Bastardization Of The 1st Amendment

"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."

The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution's "religion clauses" have traditionally been in tension. With the Trump era and the hijacking of the Republican Party by conservative Christians, there has been a dangerous movement toward religious interference with the rights of us all under the mantra of "Religious Freedom" by abusing the "free exercise" clause:

• "- - -well-funded, right-wing religious legal advocacy groups have promoted a very different and quite false concept of religious freedom. To distinguish it from the idea it traduces, I will call it “religious liberty” here. It has little to do with the traditional idea that all people should be free to worship or not worship without interference or coercion from law or government. It is instead the idea that (certain) religious groups and perspectives have a right to trump those civil laws of which they disapprove on religious grounds. The idea is invariably accompanied with either implicit or explicit favoring of certain religious groups and perspectives over others, and it involves granting special privileges, and indeed public funds, to such favored groups."

Click on the link below for an analysis of the issue by the American Bar Association:

"Religious Liberty" Used to Uphold Conservative Religious Privileges

Science Enlightens The Darkness

The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries with global influences and effects. It included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state (Wikipedia.com). It helped combat the excesses of the church, establish science as a source of knowledge, and defend human rights against tyranny. It also gave us modern schooling, medicine, republics, representative democracy, and much more (Historyhit.com).
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The fruits of the Enlightenment are the main cultural forces in the USA against the Republican Party and conservative Christianity today. THEY HAVE TO WIN!!!

PragerU Rebutted On Church And State

Dennis Prager and his pseudo-university are a major source of disinformation about government and Christianity. Click on the link below for a clear debunking of his thinking regarding the matter:

PragerU Doesn't Like Separation of Church and State

Christianity: Education Or Indoctrination?

"As an apologist, J Warner Wallace uses his background as a former detective to give himself an air of credibility. This causes him to overreach and present on topics he doesn't have the first clue about. He most notably does this by pretending that cold case detectives are qualified to be ancient historians and textual critics - but he also delves into other topics from time to time. In this case, he gives a weird presentation on education (in what looks like a staged classroom to no discernable audience) more or less insinuating that Moses, Jesus, and Christianity are responsible for education as we know it in the world today. He shows an absolute lack of understanding of history and basic educational methodology, but unfortunately, much of what he says can ring true on an intuitive and be appealing to a lot of Christians. Even worse, his message reinforces a terrible fundamentalist misconception of what education should be in the first place." Click on this link for the video. 

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the following 1000 years were controlled by Christianity and were called The Dark Ages for a reason. Things did improve with The Enlightenment, but Christianity still had a cultural grip on education and politics, as can be seen within European Colonialization. The colonialization of the USA reveals the total Christian control of education until just before the Revolutionary War, when my Alma Mater, The University of Pennsylvania, was established as the first non-sectarian college and the first university. Unfortunately, Christian control of education continues to be a troubling fact at all levels of education in the USA.

Healthcare: Individual Rights Vs The General Welfare

Points to ponder:

• Individual rights are not absolute 
• Libertarianism is a marginal idea and not a universal value
• Humans have evolved as social animals and have thrived from such
• The Preamble to the US Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
• The First Amendment to the US Constitution: "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."
• Morality comes from biology and socialization, not from an unevidenced God

Given the above:

• Why Catholic hospitals are bad for the US

The Elephant In The Room Last Night

Joe Biden spoke to Congress last night, outlining his plan for the USA. I thought it was very good, emphasizing progressive policies that have been needed for decades. However, as you can see from the image above, the unconstitutional Motto of "In God We Trust" was literally hanging over his head and the nation as a whole. Also, there’s NO reason to mention God in a speech as a government representative. Stop “officially” marginalizing the non-religious. The USA is officially a constitutional secular democratic republic.

In my opinion, there will be no significant change as long as magical thinking continues to be mainstream. Why? Religion, and all other pseudoscience, poisons the mind to accept claims without evidence. I will never see it, but I believe the Motto needs to be changed to:

The Evil Of Christianity Exposed

Christianity was just one of many religious cults within the Roman Empire that had the fortune of being declared the official religion of such (link). Upon achieving this status, it followed the evil path of all religions that gain total political power. Below is a link to one of the worst examples of what religion can and does do if left unchecked:

Ugly History: The Spanish Inquisition

The Trump Administration’s Assault On Science And Secularism

 "Our timeline recaps four years of executive orders and federal agency policies that have attacked science and eroded the wall of separation between church and state."

Frankly, I can't imagine a worse display of magical thinking by a POTUS. Click on the link below:

Undermining Science and Secularism

Separation Of Church & State: The Truth

 The link below is to an excellent speech presenting the history of separation of religion and government in the USA and its present precarious status:

SCOTUS v. Separation of Church and State

The Catholic Church, Scientists, And Executions

Critics of the Catholic Church, especially atheists, have charged that numerous scientists in history were executed by the Catholic Church for promoting the results of their scientific inquiries. As is the case with all attacks on the Catholic Church, apologists attempt to "set the record straight." Below are examples from one Catholic apologetic website and my responses to such:

1. Hypatia

Hypatia's death was political; Hypatia was not an enemy of Christianity; on the contrary, she was respected by the Christian intellectual circles of the day; she was a victim to the political jealousy which at the time prevailed; she was not killed for being a scientist.

2. Roger Bacon

Details on Bacon's life are thin, but he was certainly not persecuted for his scientific ideas; He also had a reputation as loose cannon theologically because of his promotion of certain wild prophecies then floating around in relation to the Spiritual-Conventual debate, as well as his preference for deterministic astrology.

3. Pietro d' Abano

Medieval science was often bound up with occultic practices and magic; Though Abano was a distinguished physician and scholar, he was also deeply involved in the occult; His arrest by the Inquisition seems to be on the grounds of magic and his astrological theories.

4. Cecco d' Ascoli

Ascoli was a renowned scholar and astronomer who was of favorable enough reputation to work in the service of Pope John XXIII;  He first fell afoul of the Inquisition in 1324, not for any scientific theory, but for some statements he made in a commentary on John de Sacrobosco's book Sphere that concerned wild theories about demonology; He fled the papal court to Florence where he subsequently got in trouble for trying to read Christ's horoscope; Cecco was subsequently condemned and burned. Again, it was not for his scientific theory that Cecci d'Ascoli was put to death, but for his occultic impiety.

5. Michael Servetus

Servetus was not a religious skeptic. Servetus rejected the tenets of both the Catholic and Protestant creeds, but not because he was a religious skeptic per se, but because he was a Unitarian - he rejected the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; It was for his heterodoxy regarding the Trinity that he was condemned by the Inquisition and later burned at the stake by John Calvin. He was certainly not killed for any of his scientific ideas.

6. Girolamo Cardano

Cardano possessed an extremely abrasive personality that brought him into conflict with his professional peers; The Inquisition arrested him in 1570; It seems clear that Cardano's arrest by the Inquisition was a strong-arm tactic employed by his professional rivals; He never seems to have been in danger of his life and there is no indication his scientific theories were ever the reason for his persecution.

7. Giordano Bruno

Bruno's case is difficult because it is unknown to what degree his cosmological theories were behind his condemnation;  It is true that he was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600, but the church authorities guilty of this action were almost certainly more distressed at his denial of Christ's divinity and his other heresies than at his cosmological doctrines.

8. Lucilio Vanini

He also wrote several works in which he denied the immortality of the soul He was commanded by his superiors to report to Naples for discipline, but instead he fled to England; The Parlement of Toulouse found Vanini guilty of blasphemy and atheism and put him to death; His death had nothing to do with the Church. It was not the Church, but the secular authorities who apprehended him and the Parlement of Toulouse that condemned him to death. The Catholic Church literally had no part in his death.

9. Tommaso Campanella

Campanella's questioning of Aristotle did get him in trouble with the Inquisition, but he was released after only a brief confinement. What got Campanella in trouble was not his science, but his politics

10. Kazimierz Lyszczynsk

Like other philosophers of the age, Lyszczynsk found traditional arguments for the existence of God to be unconvincing;  King Jan Sobieksi attempted to rescue Lyszczynsk by having the case transferred to Vilna, but the clergy, led by Brzoska, insisted on his condemnation. Brzoska succeeded in getting Lyszczynsk condemned to death by the royal diet of 1689; Lyszczynsk had his tongue tore out, hands burned, and suffered beheading before having his body and his manuscript committed to the flames.

Conclusion

In none of these cases was a man put to death or imprisoned merely on account of his scientific ideas; in most cases, these people were punished for theological heresies, or for political actions or financial reasons; Speaking of the Church punishing people, it also must be pointed out that in none of these cases did the Church actually kill anybody. It must be remembered that heresy was a civil crime in the secular law books.

http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/historical-apologetics/79-history/596-scientists-executed-by-the-catholic-church.html

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My comments:

• During the period of time that these events occurred, there was functionally no divide between the Catholic Church and secular law.
• Virtually all scientists during this time were under the thumb of the Catholic Church.
• The "crimes" were essentially blasphemy/heresy against the Dogma of the Catholic Church punishable by torturous death. Science during this time was essentially any claim approved by the Catholic Church, and any opinion, scientific or otherwise, not in keeping with the Dogma was blasphemy/heresy.
• In other words: not all who were executed for heresy were scientists; not all scientists were executed for scientific heresy; all who defied the dogma of the Catholic Church were punished if not executed.
• Note that this apologetic didn't address the "Biggie": Galileo. Here is what happened to him and why.

Oh, Cry Me A River, Christians. SMH

It is so ironic to hear Christians, especially the conservative strains, talk about how THEY are discriminated against and need "Religious Liberty" Laws. Really? The only new laws needed regarding religion involve ending the encroachment of Christian dogma into the lives of the rest of us (think abortion, LGBTQ, birth control to start).

Below is a link to a speech presented at the 2019 Freedom from Religion Foundation's Annual Convention. It clarifies the truth of how atheists have been, and still are, the real "religious" category discriminated against:

"Isaac Kramnick and Laurence Moore have combined to write 'Godless Citizens In A Godly Republic: Atheists in American Public Life' and 'The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State.' Kramnick is a historian, social scientist and the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell University. Moore is the Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies, Emeritus at Cornell University, where he has taught since 1972."

Godless Citizens In A Godly Republic

Who Founded The Concept Of The Separation Of Church And State?

Many conservative Christian denominations claim that the concept of the separation of church and state began with Christianity. Let's take an objective look at this claim:

Dinesh D'Souza Thinks Christianity Founded Separation of Church and State

Simple Logic Against The Religious Infringing on the US 1st Amendment

1) The USA Constitutionally is a SECULAR government (link).
2) The SECULAR government MUST make decisions based on reason and science ONLY.
3) The Evangelicals and the Conservative Catholics want to insert their dogma into our SECULAR government.
4) mic drop.

A "CliffsNotes" Version Of The US Bill Of Rights

There are 10 "first amendments" to the US Constitution and all were radified by Congress together and labeled the "Bill of Rights." The FACT that addressing the role of religion in our country was the first SENTENCE in such should cause a pause in the religious fundies. But, you and I know where that goes. Oh, they conveniently overlook the FACT that the question of "establishment of _ religion" vs "establishment of A religion" was, and still is, hotly debated and, yet, we have what we have.

The Establishment Clause 

Bill of Rights