The Science of Ghosts and Things That Go Bump In the Night

Joe Nickell is one of my favorite investigative reporters if not debunkers, though I find him too polite and charitable toward flim-flam artists and the obviously deluded. “The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead” by Joe Nickell (Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY 2012) follows his well-worn trail producing works that document the scrutiny of dubious phenomena.

Among his other books of a similar nature are:

* Tracking the Man Beasts: Sasquatch, Vampires, Zombies and More.

* Real or Fake? Studies in Authentication.

* Adventures in Paranormal Investigation.

* Psychic Sleuths.

* Looking for a Miracle and

* Secrets of the Supernatural.

The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead explores a wide range of questions most readers probably don’t pause to ask. A few examples should suffice:

* Are ghosts real?

* Are there truly haunted places?

* How can we know?

One problem with such questions in terms of book sales might be that most people probably don’t ask such questions, that is, they don’t allow for such possibilities. Nor do they ask themselves, “Can pigs fly? Do trolls live under bridges? Does the Blessed Virgin appear in cookies or on storefront windows?

Sure, some people believe these things but does 99 percent of it warrant scientific inquiry? I don’t think so. Nor do I think that an mind need necessarily entails an absence of reason or common sense to deter wasted pursuits, that is, spending time disproving things for which there never has been the slightest evidence. On the other hand, if Mr. Nickell’s methodical, “fair and balanced” scrutiny leads some who believe in foolishness to read this book, then the book will serve a worthy purpose. 

Yes, throughout history and continuing today, many people do pretend they can make contact, channel and otherwise talk with spirits of the dead. As Michael Shermer and others have noted, lots of people can talk to the dead, in fact, anyone can do it. The trick is to get the dead to respond. There is no evidence for ghosts, man beasts, paranormal powers, haunted places or virgins blessed or otherwise that magically self-represent on windows (or on cookies, tacos, etc.). Yet, many poorly uneducated, vulnerable, pious and superstitious people embrace such matters and others equally farfetched. We don’t need Mr. Nickell’s first-rate investigative reports to feel justified in dismissing such jejune foolishness, though he makes reading about such things interesting. It is quite enough to read this book in order to discover in detail how a skilled skeptic objectively examines claims for the unlikely.

In The Science of Ghosts, the author looks for evidence of ghosts and other such matters and assesses what evidence there is (i.e., none) - including eyewitness accounts, “mediumistic productions” (e.g., spirit photographs), ghost-buster detection equipment and so on. He also explains why so many people have such interests in the first place.

The book is organized in four parts, each containing a dozen chapters, give or take a chapter. (There is also an interesting afterword, an extensive appendix, notes, references and an index - Nickell is a scholarly ghost buster.) A sampling of key points emphasized (there are hundreds) and specific phenomena explained include the following:

* Some folks have a 'predisposition' to 'want to believe' in the non-physical, as we know from the continued popularity of religions. Some of this must be due to a need to carry on after death, though I can’t see how being a ghost, witch or vampire forever (barring having a stake driven through your heart) is much of an improvement on hell itself.

* A scientific look at famous (infamous?) spoofs, frauds, pseudoscience claims, folk legends, delusional epics and related case histories - these reward even the skeptics like myself who are not disposed to give so much as the time of day to the whole ghost-related arena. Accounts of human folly are sufficient reasons to spend time with this book, even for those who do not think the whole business deserves the labors of so distinguished an investigator as Joe Nickell. 

* Why Occam was on to something in insisting upon the simplest explanation as the most viable of options to explain nearly everything, though of course simplicity does not always afford the best explanation possible.

* An overview of the role of ghosts et. al. in history and popular culture - there is much entertainment value in all this, especially for movie goers who enjoyed not only 'Ghost Busters' but also 'Ghost' (with Patrick Swayze) and TV dramas (e.g., 'Ghost Hunters') about such apparitions.

* A recognition that a better understanding of the human brain can inform how humans process information and thus believe. Nickell provides ample clues based on modern science and our 'center' of consciousness and interactions with drugs, sensory input and changing bodily functions.

*  The nature of investigative techniques for assessing paranormal claims is shown in the context of  cultural and psychological influences - and the limits of reason and critical thinking are better understood as a result. Readers of this book, while not likely to suffer greater affection for those who follow ghost lore too seriously may, like myself, come away with a little more compassion for them. Placed in their circumstances (having had their DNA, culture, education and so on), any one of us might or surely would be just as taken by illusions and poppycock.

Well, the spirits are telling me this is enough - I don’t want to give much more away else I might spoil the plot, reveal the ending or extend a sense that there’s no need to read the book. If the topic excites you, I do recommend it.

Be well, enjoy life today and try not to frighten anybody - the world is scary enough as it is.  

AMERICA IS DIVIDED INTO TWO CAMPS: THOSE WHO SEEK A KINDER, GENTLER SOCIETY AND THOSE WHO DECIDEDLY DO NOT

The ruling last week by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding nearly all of the Affordable Care Act shocked conservatives and liberals alike. After a decade of odious 5-4 decisions, the majority got one right, thanks to a decisive switch by Chief Justice John Roberts from the predictable majority to the liberal minority. Never mind that the remaining four far-right Republicans voted to overturn the entire Act - it was the Chief Justice who saved the day.

As a consequence of this decision, millions of Americans without access to medical care now have it. No Americans will be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, under-26 years-of-age Americans can remain on their parents health plans, no lifetime caps on coverage will be imposed by insurers and insurance companies must spend 85 cents out of every dollar paying for actual care, not administrative costs. Americans are now much less likely to lose their homes or suffer bankruptcies because of unmanageable medical bills. These are just a few of the ways the Court's action will, as Paul Krugman put it, enable citizens to benefit from a kinder and more decent society.

While what Republicans derisively call Obamacare is a big improvement on the status quo, America still needs universal health care or, if you like, Medicare for all. Despite the name (Affordable Care Act), medical care is anything but affordable - the annual cost amounts to 20% of GDP, or $8000 per person, the highest in the world and a key contributor to our massive deficit. In addition, at least 26 million people remain uninsured, despite the new law and all it entails. Worst of all, the health insurance companies remain in control. In fact, the individual mandate that Republicans hated so much is a jackpot of riches for health insurance companies - they will make additional billions from the millions of new clients the law sends their way.

All this suggests that there is in America what Michael Moore calls a great divide. In a Huffington Post column published the day after the Supreme Court decision affirming the law, he describes it as follows:

It's not blue state vs. red state, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican. The split we have in America can be boiled down in its simplest form to this: On one side are the people who believe Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs 6,000 years ago - and then there's everyone else. On that first side are the people who've been fed a diet of fear and lies and hate. And who is feeding them? The 1%. the richest people in the country, the ones who aren't done with us yet because they still don't have enough wealth, have done their best to dumb down the population through destroying our educational system and using media to provide them with a vastly distorted sense of reality. The rich's only obstacle is that they only hold 1% of the votes in the country. So they have to try to get a slim majority of Americans to vote their way. And fear, plus keeping them stupid, usually works. 

If the easily fooled, manipulated and dumbed down Americans hell-bent on voting against their own interests elect Mitt Romney and a Republican Congress, we will all lose the benefits of the Affordable Health Care Act because Romney and the rest of the Republicans will eliminate the law they loath. There will be no chance of expanding Medicare for all. And there will be more appointees to the Supreme Court the likes of Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The 1% agenda is not about a kinder and more decent society, at least not for most Americans, including the rabble who obtain their take on reality from the likes of Catholic bishops, fundamentalist preachers, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and Rick Perry.

So, where does all this leave us? What can you do if you agree with this  analysis? How about considering two basic strategies, at least for starters: 

1. Do what you can to promote the chances of re-electing the president - and as many Democrats as possible. I urge this position not because I'm fond of Democrats - I'll support Democrats only because I'm so appalled, sickened, horrified and gobsmacked by the evil ways of Republicans. 

2. Look after yourself - reduce your chances of requiring medical care by fine-tuning your current REAL wellness lifestyle. The absence of a decent health or medical system will still be a national disaster, but the impact on you personally will be less if you don't have to use it that much. It's hard to believe that half of America is supportive of the poisonous agenda of the Republican Party; it's even harder to believe, though true, that one in three American adults is obese - 78 million fat Americans.

Kurt Vonnegut was a self-described total pessimist. Maybe he was on to something, though an optimistic outlook has almost always been highlighted as a key element in a healthy profile. But, considering the horror that would follow from a takeover by the Republican half of the American divide, it may be that pessimism deserves a second look.

How pessimistic was Vonnegut? In a remarkable commencement address to the 1970 graduates of Bennington College in Vermont, he described his major achievement in three years of teaching at the University of Iowa:   

As nearly as I am able to determine, not one of my ex-students has seen fit to reproduce. 

Now that's pessimism - and it might be something I'll include in future recommendations if Romney is elected president.

But Vonnegut was not a total pessimist, despite his claim to such an outlook. His sense of humor, however dark, was too well developed for that. While he spent most of that Bennington commencement speech urging the young grads to enjoy themselves and lose the idea of saving the world, at the end he said they might want to give saving the world a try, later in life. I love the sendoff conclusion of the address, as profound today as it was 42 years ago:

When it really is time for you to save the world, when you have some power and know your way around, when people can't mock you for looking so young, I suggest that you work for a socialist form of government. Free Enterprise is much too hard on the old and the sick and the shy and the poor and the stupid, and on people nobody likes. They just can't cut the mustard under Free Enterprise. They lack that certain something that Nelson Rockefeller, for instance, so abundantly has. 

So let's divide up the wealth more fairly than we have divided it up so far. Let's make sure that everybody has enough to eat, and a decent place to live, and medical help when he needs it. Let's stop spending money on weapons, which don't work anyway, thank God, and spend money on each other. It isn't moonbeams to talk of modest plenty for all. They have it in Sweden. We can have it here. Dwight David Eisenhower once pointed out that Sweden, with its many Utopian programs, had a high rate of alcoholism and suicide and youthful unrest. Even so, I would like to see America try socialism. If we start drinking heavily and killing ourselves, and if our children start acting crazy, we can go back to good old Free Enterprise again.

Until Taxpayer-Funded Vouchers for Religious Schools Are Ruled Unconstitutional, State-Wide Freethinker Organizations Should Consider Voucher Funds to Establish and Run Atheist Schools for Science and Reason

INTRODUCTION

Universal public education is one of this country’s most successful taxpayer investments. A literate, educated citizenry provides a foundation element of a democracy. For over a century, public education has provided children with quality educations. In addition, public schools have constituted a melting pot of sort exposing young minds to diverse cultures and beliefs. In such schools, students have learned about the world in lessons largely uncontaminated by indoctrination in religious superstitions.

Given the Constitutional separation of church and state, taxpayer funds for education have never been distributed to sectarian schools. That is, until the Bush Administration. Now, under President Obama, these programs have accelerated, particular at the state level with federal (taxpayer) funding. It’s a national disgrace; if voters took the Constitution seriously, it would be stopped at the ballot box as well as in the courtrooms at every level of government.

School choice vouchers consist of federal dollars for private schools. The schools receiving these public monies are overwhelmingly religious schools that energetically promote their dogmas with relentless proselytizing. 

PROBLEMS

Voucher funds to private (religious) schools hasten the decline of public schools. Less funds for public education basically eliminates the prospects for much needed, systemic quality improvements of public school personnel, physical plants and programming.

Unlike public schools, which are accountable to citizen school boards and other public supervision, religious-affiliated schools have little accountability to taxpayers. The school leadership in religious schools answers only to private boards. There is thus little or no accountability for the spending of taxpayer dollars.

Subsidies for religions are always intermixed with voucher funds for education. In one state, Georgia, the subsidy for religion is almost beyond the pale. The state’s so-called “tax credit scholarship” program allows families a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to a religious school. The donations are channeled to a “scholarship fund” in allowable amounts up to $2,500. Guess who gets the “scholarships?” Exactly - the parents who fund them. It’s a tax credit for religious education. This means, of course, that all Georgia taxpayers support religious indoctrination, wherever they want to or not. (See “Romney's divisive play for vouchers,” A Times Editorial - Tampa Bay Times, June 11, 2012.)

EXTENT OF VOUCHERS

Elsewhere in the country, Catholic schools are benefiting disproportionately from vouchers. These programs are in use in 10 states and Washington, D.C. There are voucher variations, from tax credit schemes such as Georgia’s to dollar grants for religious schools. Such funding has, in some locations, “saved” such institutions, particularly Catholic schools. Without this federal funding, many would have gone out of business. C’est dommage - what a lost opportunity for a modest advance of rationality.

The State of Indiana provides a case in point. Here the dramatic decline of Catholic schools was reversed by state funding. Since 2000, U.S. Catholic school enrollment had plummeted by 23%, and 1,900 schools closed, driven by demographic changes and fallout from priest sexual-abuse scandals. Now, for the first time in decades thanks to vouchers, Catholic education is showing signs of life. In a recent analysis of this trend, a Catholic education official was quoted as follows: "God has been good to us."  (See: Stephanie Banchero, “Vouchers Breathe New Life Into Shrinking Catholic Schools,” Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2012.)

In fact, God did not have to do anything. Even if you assume there is a God, and that he, she or it intervenes in support of school funding in Indiana (not to mention extra points, jump shorts and the like), the job in Indiana was done by religious politicians. They are the ones who pushed through the voucher programs. Lest anyone think the religionists are promoting Catholic schools for educational advantages, the Wall Street Journal report put that canard to rest. Mark Gray, an official at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, put it thusly: “Growing parochial schools could also help the U.S. Catholic Church boost the percentage of Catholics who attend church.” The goal is to get more faithful back into the pews. Catholic schools are less focused on knowledge about this world, more about inculcating dogma they believe will lead to a happy place in the next.

At one publicly-funded Catholic school in Chicago, classrooms are adorned with religious symbols that integrate religion, patriotism and academics. For example, at St. Stans in Chicago, “a statue of the Virgin Mary gripping an American flag stands sentry in the corner of each classroom.” An outsider might wonder, “What exactly does that represent?” The mind boggles at the bizarre possibilities. Classrooms are decorated with religious symbology, including crucifixes, Ten Commandments and red heart-shaped "Jesus Loves Me" signs.

All students, Catholic or not, are subjected to a daily class of supernatural folklore about miracles, sacraments, Catholic morality (e.g., abstinence is the way and contraceptives are tools of Satan) and a whitewashed overview of the history of the Catholic Church (never mind those Crusades, Inquisitions or sex scandals). While only 87% of voucher students in the Chicago schools are Catholic (nationally, the percentage on non-Catholics is 17%), everyone must attend these 45-minute classes in addition to required Sunday Masses.

AN ATHEIST ALTERNATIVE

Atheist charters schools focused on science and reason would promote a secular understanding of the natural world. They would teach humanist values, promote environmental awareness and a global perspective. The curriculum would include the traditional skills of reading, writing, math, social studies and so on. However, learning would be made enjoyable, foods would be nutritious and there would be ample time for games, singing, arts and crafts and exercise. No time whatsoever would be wasted on superstition classes, mindless rituals and empty devotionals.

Unlike religious schools, the format of atheist charter schools would favor open discussions with questions taking precedence over absolutist answers supported by nothing more than alleged revelations and ancient myths. Children would learn the nature of secular humanism and the challenges of freethinking in a religious world. In atheist schools devoted to science and reason, children would be encouraged to ponder and talk about existential matters such as life and death, gods, religions and atheism, as well as nature, science and the cosmos.

While the simplest strategy during this time of forced taxpayer funding of Christian schools might seem to be legal challenges to vouchers and support for public education reforms, these worthy goals will take years of effort. Unless the drift of this country toward theocracy is arrested, public schools may never recover. In any event, a two-pronged approach is not out of the question: secularists can seek vouchers for their own atheist schools (open to all) of science and reason while seeking to have school vouchers ruled unconstitutional and promoting public school reforms.

EDUCATIONAL IDEALS

Let’s put forward, through such organizations as the Freedom from Religion Foundation, The Secular Coalition, The Center for Inquiry and other such groups a dramatic alternative to religious education. Perhaps atheist schools founded on science and reason would follow the path suggested by the great freethinker Joseph Lewis: 

"Atheism rises above creeds and puts humanity upon one plane.

There can be no 'chosen people' in the atheist philosophy.

There are no bended knees in atheism;

No supplications, no prayers;

No sacrificial redemptions;

No 'divine' revelations;

No washing in the blood of the lamb;

No crusades, no massacres, no holy wars;

No heaven, no hell, no purgatory;

No silly rewards and no vindictive punishments;

No christs, and no saviors;

No devils, no ghosts and no gods."

Source: Joseph Lewis, "Atheist Rises Above Creeds," part of an address on atheism delivered at a symposium at Community Church, New York City, April 20, 1930. Atheism and Other Addresses by Joseph Lewis (1941)

Now that would be a voucher option I would support. If freethinkers got together and created such an option, it might be the end of voucher programs around the country: Christian politicians would no more tolerate taxpayer-funded “in science and reason we trust” godless schools than they would schools for jihadists, devil worshippers or socialists.

Be well, look on the bright side and fight back.  

How I Evolved from a Mild Mannered Freethinkerist to a Militantly Zealous Devangelist

There is no such word as devangelist but everyone's entitled to put forward a neologism. Houghton-Mifflin offers two closely related definitional statements for evangelism:

1. The zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel, as through missionary work.
2. Militant zeal for a cause.

I offer devangelist to describe an infidel/freethinker/atheist or non-believer by any name zealous in disseminating information at odds with gospels and dogmas, faiths and superstitions. A devangelist is a person wholly devoted to science, reason and evidence who exhibits a militant zeal for debunking religion of all kinds and safeguarding the absolute separation of church and state. I hope you like my new word.

The pace of my evolution from mild-mannered freethinker to militantly zealous devangelist has been increased dramatically by the political activism of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops. However, there is much else that really and truly vexes me about religion in this country and around the world. The bishops, however, have sent me over the edge.  

Like the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) and many secular organizations, I don't believe Catholic Bishops have any business politicking for veto power over women's contraceptive health insurance coverage. I don't think they should be serving as campaign allies for the Republican Party. Nor do I think bishops have any right to foist their religious doctrines on American workers, most of whom do not belong to the Catholic Church or subscribe to the medieval tenets of this faith. And I don't think Catholic or any other religious groups are entitled to federal funds for the delivery of health and other services if unwilling to provide services for which said funds are designated.

If Catholic bishops do not want to abide by guidelines for impartial delivery of medical and other services funded by taxpayers, they're free to decline such involvement. No one is holding a proverbial gun to Catholic heads saying, you must participate in these programs. Catholic service program leaders can use their own funds to provide whatever medical or other services they choose to offer, and not offer whatever they choose to withhold.

The bishops' lament about loss of religious freedom is a huge pile of horse dung.

A few details about the bishops egregious sins against church/state separation seem in order. After noting a few such transgressions, I'll suggest a strategy for others who may find themselves on the evolutionary track leading to militantly zealous devangelism.

• The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops pledged a multimillion-dollar attack against the contraceptive mandate. They are using tax-free church pulpits to promote dogma-based politics.
• About 40 Roman Catholic dioceses have sued to block the contraceptive mandate in the new Affordable Health Act.
• The bishops' lawsuits are an attempt to compel the government to pay religions to do less than other, secular recipients of grant funds for health care services. The bishops, in effect, seek to make the government complicit in dogma-driven denial of birth control to non-Catholics as well as Catholics, whether or not these people desire such assistance.
• In decrying what they claim is an assault against religious freedom, the bishops impose their faith-based idea that contraception is sinful on everyone else, which is in fact the true threat to religious and other forms of liberty.
• The Church has initiated a multi-million dollar anti-contraceptive PR campaign featuring pulpit-driven lobbying drives. Fortunately, these funds may well be wasted, since 98 percent of Catholic don't agree with or ignore the church’s injunction against contraception.

Mild mannered freethinkers are too polite and diplomatic to do so, but militantly zealous devangelists will not hesitate to call out these pompous emperors as naked enemies of intellectual liberty and personal freedom. The Catholic bishops are leaders of the world's largest, most powerful cult of unreason. Those like myself who are evolving into MZDs - militantly zealous devangelists, will not stop at simply opposing the campaign of the bishops to restrict contraceptive services. We can and will do more - we will respond in a fashion that makes a difference. This requires efforts to persuade church followers to reassess the nature of the religion imposed upon them as children.

We can in varied ways help Catholics do what I did - escape to freedom and a rational life, shorn of dogma, liberated from pie-in-the-sky heaven and free of the hellish dungeon of eternal darkness, fear and pain.

Such efforts are already underway.

The most notable of such counter-offensives is led by FFRF. The campaign is called It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church. Ads to this effect have appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today and elsewhere. One typically attention-grabbing ad asks, "Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs? Another is just as bold: As a member of the ‘flock’ of an avowedly antidemocratic Old Boys Club, isn’t it time you vote with your feet? Please, exit en Mass.

This campaign was, like my neologism, inspired by the church's war against contraception. FFRF is spot on in its criticisms of the Catholic cult. The organization is advising Catholics that their church has launched a legal assault against personal secular freedoms that amount to a ruthless political Inquisition. I love it.

We devangelists agree with FFRF that Catholics should be given a chance to consider the idea that maybe life begins after excommunication and that the time might well have come to join the millions who, like me, have put humanity above dogma and resigned from the church.

Let's do what we can to oppose the bishops and in every way possible prevent these autocrats from allowing their dogma to trump our civil liberties.

Questions I'd Like to See Put to Mitt Romney Concerning the Supernatural World

In 1898, Robert Green Ingersoll wrote an essay entitled, What Is Superstition? It contained this excerpt:

The belief in gods and devils has been substantially universal. Back of the good, man placed a god; back of the evil, a devil; back of health, sunshine and harvest was a good deity; back of disease, misfortune and death he placed a malicious fiend.

Mormon candidate for president Mitt Romney, a Republican as was Ingersoll, would agree with the Great Agnostic, at least on this point. Anyone familiar with Mr. Romney’s strong religious beliefs knows that the former Massachusetts governor believes in gods and devils, and credits the former for bringing sunshine and harvest while blaming the latter (a malicious fiend) for disease, misfortune and death. 

Should voters care about a candidate’s beliefs about gods and devils? Yes, I think voters should care and would care, if the issues were addressed in very specific ways in public forums.

Do you believe in God? Do you pray? Do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Americans expect their politicians to respond yes to these kinds of general questions.

But, what if the questions went deeper? The above questions are almost cliches with the faithful, that is, the nominally faith-based majority. Such questions are too broad to get at what a candidate really thinks – and in Romney’s case, as would have been true of candidates Bachmann or Santorum, what the candidate really believes just might give even otherwise favorably inclined conservatives more than a little pause.

While most Americans claim to be religious and say they believe in God and rarely challenge established norms of supernatural beliefs, I think most would be startled if reporters and others could get Romney to be more specific about his supernatural convictions. If he were just a citizen or a candidate for a lesser office, maybe this would not be such a big deal. But president? 

Consider a few other sentences in Ingersoll’s take on superstition:

Is there any evidence that gods and devils exist? The evidence of the existence of a god and of a devil is substantially the same. Both of these deities are inferences; each one is a perhaps. They have not been seen — they are invisible — and they have not ventured within the horizon of the senses. The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian — like a doctor of divinity. Now no intelligent man believes in the existence of a devil — no longer fears the leering fiend. Most people who think have given up a personal God, a creative deity. They now talk about the ‘Unknown,’ the ‘Infinite Energy,’ but they put Jehovah with Jupiter. They regard them both as broken dolls from the nursery of the past.

Most adults reason like trained theologians. There is plenty of skepticism but a shortage of nerve to talk about doubts. Most adults have embraced religions and all that came with them during the long years of socialization. They were fed a diet of god-talk, bible fables, angels, ghosts, prayers, magical miracles, told about heaven and hell, the authority of priests and so on.  All this Twilight Zone indoctrination arrived unaccompanied by alternate explanations.

This kind of faith only goes so deep. When the ludicrous nature of religion is brought into conscious awareness under certain conditions suitable for rational reassessment, many adults have second thoughts. A pause in consent that is only habitual can lead some to revisit the intellectual appeal of faith contrasted with less familiar explanations from science concerning the natural world.

No better opportunity exists at the moment for sparking this kind of reassessment than the 2012 presidential presidential election. For that, we can thank Mitt Romney.

Here’s a radical idea: Get Romney to be specific about his supernatural beliefs. If non-Romney enthusiasts can do that, enough citizens might take a closer look at the implications of this particular Mormon in the White House. A fuller recognition of his supernatural convictions could swing the election to President Obama. While Obama himself is no Ingersoll, or a even a secularist, compared with Romney he’s Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

I find it hard to believe that even religion-besotted Americans want a commander-in-chief, a leader who will have the power to blow up a good chunk of the planet that embraces the supernatural insanities that animate Mitt Romney.

Let me offer a few questions I’d like to see put to the candidate, the better to prompt Americans to look more closely at Romney’s mental state. The attributions about his beliefs are all found in a speech given at the George Bush Presidential Library – see Michael Luo’s article entitled, Romney, Eye on Evangelicals, Defends His Faith, New York Times, December 7, 2007.

   ▪    You have called for a robust role for religion in public life. What would you like to see as part of that role that does not exist at present?

   ▪    You have declared your intention not (to) separate us from the God who gave us liberty. What is the nature of the separation you have in mind and how will you prevent it using the powers of the presidency?

   ▪    What is the evidence that God gave us liberty, versus the liberties provided by our secular Constitution, as written by the Founders after we gained our independent from Great Britain?

   ▪    You say you would not separate us from our religious heritage. Is this a role for the president and, if so, what does it entail and how will you prevent such a separation?

   ▪    What is the evidence for your assertion that the nation’s founders envisioned a prominent place for faith in the public square?

   ▪    You have criticized those who seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God, claiming that some are intent on establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism. To what extent would you, as president, work to have God acknowledged in the public domain beyond any such acknowledgement than is now the case?

   ▪    What would you say to those who affirm that secularism, which you have termed a new religion, is simply the non-presence of deities in government, and thus no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

   ▪    You have often stated that a president will need the prayers of the people of all faiths. How do you know this? How does that work? Can a president not succeed if some faiths don’t come through with prayers? Are some prayers more helpful to a president than others? Which ones are best and how do we know that?

   ▪    You declared: We do not insist on a single strain of religion—rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith. Who is we? Besides welcoming a symphony of faith, how do you feel about a symphony of reason, a quintet of doubt or other combinations from citizen players who prefer no faith at all but rather reliance on critical thinking, evidence and empiricism? Is there an equal place for them in America if you are elected president?

   ▪    You have stated that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. Billions of people around the world would not agree with that statement, tens of millions of Americans would not, either and, what’s more, it’s doubtful that anyone has any idea what it even means. Why does mankind need to be saved, and how will Jesus do that?

No doubt many Americans will have others such questions, and as the campaign gets going more will be suggested. It would, for instance, be helpful to hear from the candidate about religious ideas that he has not volunteered in his frequent appearances in churches, at religious universities and in forums composed primarily of evangelicals. Here are just a few that would most interest secularists like myself:

   ▪    Is the God you believe in male, female or something else?

   ▪    Does “God” speak English? If so, does he/she/it have an accent?

   ▪    Do you believe every word the Mormon religion professes about how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from Egyptian texts? Can you understand why most Americans find this story difficult to believe? 

   ▪    You have talked about having conversations with God. Could you tell us a bit more about these chats? What is the nature of the conversations, how often do they occur, how frequently are you influenced by God’s answers and what does God think about separation of church and state?

For now, answers to these questions will surely encourage original thinking amongst the faithful. If Mitt Romney’s could be induced to be more specific about his superstitions, I believe his prospects for election as president would soon fall in the category Ingersoll described as the broken dolls from the nursery of the past.

Be Honest, Republicans: Admit the Goal Is Nothing Short of a Theocracy

The Republican Party initials GOP that once stood for Grand Old Party now mean God’s Own Party. The Republican Party primaries featured Christian fundamentalists (Santorum, Bachmann, Perry and Cain) and another willing to act like one to get elected (Gingrich). The winning nominee (Romney) might be as much a zealot as the others, depending upon what position he takes at any given time. His remarks to date show little tolerance for secularism.

It’s sad that the agenda of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Robert Green Ingersoll and so many notable Americans has become such a Right-Wing force for dogmatism. Republicans want us to view this country as a Christian nation; there is little tolerance for church/state separation in the Republican version of a nation under God.

I believe that Romney and the Republican Congress would be only too happy to make a few key changes in the Constitution and have the United States of America dedicated as a theocracy in the service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Chist. Holy shit.

Lillian Hellman famously remarked that people change and forget to tell each other. Well, it seems political parties change, too, as today’s Party of God amply demonstrates. I wonder if the majority of those who call themselves Republicans or worse, actually vote Republican, really want an American theocracy? Do they appreciate the nature of the beast and recognize that this is where the GOP wants to take us? Do most want such qualities of government policy as the following:

            ▪          A constitutional office of chief priest or minister?

            ▪          Exemptions from military service for self-described devout Christians? This provision would enable the faithful to exercise a peculiar option regarding military service, even if we someday go back to conscription: take up bibles (i.e., study religion in-depth) or take up arms (i.e., enter military service).

            ▪          Welfare payments to support the most devout Christians who pursue biblical and other religious studies?

            ▪          Public school mandatory prayers and religious studies at the expense of course reductions for secular subjects, such as math, English and science.

The above examples are not hypothetical or speculative. These are conditions in a somewhat democratic, theocratic state – Israel.

In addition to the obvious burdens such subsidies impose on the non-zealot population, favoritism laws for the orthodox create divisions in society. An article in the New York Times describes the consequences. In Israel, the privileged ultra-Orthodox Haredim have grown so influential, costly and arrogant that they are commonly perceived as the enemy in the Jewish state, hated by most of the people. (See The Fight Over Who Fights in Israel by Jodi Rudoren, published on May 19, 2012.) The author cites influential observers who consider the situation bad for Israel, bad for the Jewish people, bad for the government and simply bizarre and abnormal. A cautionary tale? I think so.

While not a theocracy yet, we in the U.S.A. have our conflicts over special favors for religion and especially over the intrusion of religion in ways that are seen by secularists as unconstitutional. A few examples:

            ▪          In God we trust on the coins of the realm.

            ▪          Under God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

            ▪          Subsidies for chaplains in the military, ministerial parsonages and tax-exempt churches.

God’s Own Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently accused the president of having a secular agenda. Really? Were it so! The president who ends every speech with God bless you and God bless the United States of America and who has continued funding for the faith-based agenda of the previous Administration and who participates in and defends a day of prayer? Wow. Mr. President surely is keeping that secular agenda under wraps. I wonder how Mitt made this amazing discovery.

If we are so unfortunate to descend into a theocracy in the future, there will be hell to pay concerning certain values that the founders envisioned as uniquely American at the time, including religious tolerance and freedom for all faiths – and for those who prefer no faiths, no religions, no gods, no masters.

One of the most divisive moves toward theocracy remains the clearly unconstitutional National Day of Prayer, a grotesque aberration of church/state separation. By Congressional decree, this infamous event, like the religious Pledge, was instituted by Christian-nation bullies. God and government, however, are a dangerous mix. Secularists across the country want to put a stop to all this before we find ourselves as divided as Israel. Our Christian version of the Israeli Haredim want a theocracy. Let’s all do our part, in whatever modest ways might be available. Besides personal action, we can participate in and financially back organized resistance. In this way, we can do our part in the effort to prevent Christian evangelicals from hijacking our secular Constitution more than they already have.

My own favorite sources of organized resistance include these four organizations:

            ▪          The Council for Secular Humanism

            ▪          The Secular Coalition for America

            ▪          The Freedom from Religion Foundation

            ▪          Americans United for Separation of Church and State

As Thomas Paine advised: Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must undergo the fatigue . . . of supporting it. In a recent (2/24/2012) blog, Nathan Cox explained why Secular Values Are American Values. Quite clearly, religious values are not. If you doubt it, have a look at the first four commandments or just about any section in the Christian bibles. What you will find there are not American values, at least not any of the American values we associate with liberty and freedom – as embodied in the Bill of Rights. Theocracies are not founded on values that guarantee life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness; rather they specialize in dogmatic, totalitarian commandments and biblical fables.

Theocracy anyone? I hope not even Republicans really want to go there but if they do, they should at least be honest and forthright about it.