badstar

The only way to truly believe in the equality of all people is to believe in God.

An atheist doesn't follow the command of some book, therefore cannot have any basis for believing in human equality. Because it's just not possible to have such a belief without being commanded by some supposedly omnipotent supernatural dude in the sky.

Emphasis and whitespacing mine.

This post is not quite coming out of the blue.

Some of Gil Smart’s columns have nearly prompted me to write this and now a response on TalkBack to one of my recent posts here has pushed me to do it.

I would not vote for a candidate for governor or president, and probably not Congress or the state Legislature either, who does not believe in God.

Would I press a candidate for the state House or state Senate on the point? Probably not but an espoused atheist or agnostic would probably have no hope of getting my vote.

Is this because I want a theocracy? No.

Is this because I believe non-believers can’t be moral, ethical people? No. (From all that I have heard about him and what I have witnessed in my limited dealings with him, I believe Gil Smart, for instance, is a wholly decent fellow — moral, ethical and all the rest.)

The reason I want a God-believing candidate for executive office goes back to the belief at the core of this nation’s founding: “That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights …”

I would submit that this belief is key to the humility I’d like to see in elected officials, particularly presidents and governors, because they wield much of the life-and-death power of the state.

And I would suggest that a belief in God is the only way to believe in equality of human beings.

Let’s face it: Some people are smarter, better-looking and more physically capable than others. We can even objectively measure some of these things with IQ tests, physical fitness tests and games played by the rules.

The only logic that makes human equality work is a God-based logic that goes something like this: We are all created in God’s image and the differences in ability, beauty and intelligence between us are stunningly insignificant when compared to the gap between all of humanity and God.

And, so if God tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves (in effect, to acknowledge them equal rights), then we have no business doing otherwise.

I do not see on what basis an atheist believes in human equality and the granting of equal rights that flows from that.

Now, has every president who believed in God acted in a way that made his belief in God evident at all times? No, but at least a belief in God offers a chance for the humility I want in every president when making important decisions for our nation.

Ronald Reagan, who I believe exhibited humility, said it best:

We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

Amen.


http://blogs.lancasteronline.com/alwaysright/2008/06/03/why-my-candidate-must-believe


(For anyone who may wonder, Gil Smart is a columnist for the Lancaster newspapers, whose website on which this blog post appears. Gil isn't so popular with the more conservative set. Don't actually know if he's atheist as insinuated in this post though I could swear I've seen writings of his before that mentioned going to church and/or believing in God. Not sure anymore though, and I don't really care if he's atheist or not.)

just a note to self before I forget, lose the bookmark or...something....

Burkert, page 224-225

Dammit, I'm really not in a good mood right now. I feel like I need to sleep. Or cry. Or...I dunno. Scream? Kick something? Pick a fight?

I've no idea where this came from, but today when I woke up (earlier in the day, not in the afternoon after that dream) I laid there on my bed, staring up at the ceiling and I found myself very seriously contemplating dropping the clergy training program.

I don't know why. but for a moment, the thought was so clear in my mind, and I remember thinking how it would be fine, the gods would be okay with it, and how whatever else is to come in the future would fulfill this damned inexplicable need that I had to pursue clergy training.

After about a minute, I shook myself out of it. It wouldn't be okay. Whatever happens, one thing is not a substitute for another and I endured too much headache and stupidity and time shaking my fist in the general direction of California as Raven asked me for more essay rewrites without being specific as to what the problem was.

I didn't start this to give up before I even got into it. What the hell, where did the idea that I should drop it even come from? I AM doing this the right way. Aren't I? Aren't I?

Dammit, I want to be home right now. If I were home, I could go to my room and turn off the lights and put a pillow over my head and go to sleep and hope that this passed in the night.

Dammit, this hurts. Badly. It'll pass. But I'm scared that it won't. What if I am doing this the wrong way? How much time will I have wasted? Am I wasting time?

My stomach feels like it's tied up in knots. I don't want to be here. On top of everything else, this office is sweltering. If I turn down the heat at all, it will freeze. I'm in a bad mood, and I don't feel like having earphones jammed into my ears, but if I take them out, I'm afraid that Tiffany will start yapping again (Brian left at midnight, so there's only me if she starts talking) and then I might actually make good on that desire to pick a fight. Which is a bad idea.

I'm going to find myself a cold caffeinated beverage.

When I was in PA, I made the mistake of getting into a discussion on religion with my mother. She's been saying for a while now that she is so proud of what I'm doing, even though she doesn't agree with it. But I could never get at what exactly she doesn't agree with, it just always seemed like she disagreed with whatever her idea of what I'm doing and what I believe is, as opposed to what I really do and believe.

I've told her on several occasions that I've no intention of trying to change her mind, however if she's going to disagree with me, I really would prefer that she disagree with what actually is, as opposed to whatever mal-conceived ideas she's got.

So we started getting into it and the first thing she said was that she doesn't agree with the idea of many gods because there is only one god. Okay, I can respect that. Her reason is rather insulting- that polytheism came about because ancient folks were too ignorant to grok the concept of a single god holding reign over everything.

But, ya know whatever.

I got a little irritated when she want on to say that every single major religion in the world has had some prophet who came along to tell people that there's only one god. Ummm....Buddhism? Hinduism?

*sigh* It would be so easy if she would just tell me I'm gonna die and burn in hell. But no...she doesn't believe that. She believes in reincarnation. She thinks that I'm attracted to the Greek gods because I had a past life in ancient Greece. But she thinks I have it all wrong, and that I have to keep "looking for the truth".

She says that she once asked to see the truth and is sorry that she did. Then she starts going on about how there's a war going on all around us at all time between angels and demons for people's souls, and how I needed to understand this, and to keep seeking the truth. (And by "truth", she meant what she was telling me.) she was also going on about how she knows it must be true because she could never make it up in her own mind. As if I would so easily make up my own expereinces...especially some of the more recent ones.

She also reminded me that she knows when she's telling someone the right thing because she gets chills (she used to say this a lot) I have a hard time taking that one seriously in the context of sitting outside in 30-degree weather for the last fifteen minutes with an open coat over a light shirt. I told her that I had chills too and could just as easily use that to say I was telling her the right thign too. Of course the response was "You know that's not the kind of chill I'm talking about."

It didn't really last very long, my stepfather came out to smoke (we were sitting outside) and I was NOT going to continue that discussion with Mike present because...it would have gotten REALLY ugly.

So...on one hand, I have to say that I find her angel/demon war for souls to be utterly ridiculous. At the same time, I know that I've had my share of plenty ridiculous-sounding experiences.

I don't believe in one single truth...and if there is one, I think that the odds of ANYONE actually having it right are practically nonexistent. I've said it a hundred times before...there's only one way to know that for sure, and I've no plans to do that anytime soon. She seemed to find it rather troublesome that I could be so convinced of my beliefs and still acknowledge that I could be wrong. I dunno what to tell you, I'm human, I'm imperfect. It's not logical, but...well, it makes sense to me.

I made no attempt to explain my own experience. I often have enough trouble reasonably speaking of things to people who do understand where I'm coming from. I wasn't going to waste my breath fumbling to explain the light of Apollo to someone who takes stumbling over words and the inability to immediately deliver just the right words as a sign of doubt or lack of knowledge and fumbling for words or not, I wouldn't even mention what I've experienced with Dionysus. I could see that going over well..."Oh yah, Mom so I had this dream that this god came along and got someone to tie me to a tree with grapevines, and then the god that I'm particularly devoted to shot me with an arrow. Oh and after that, the skin all over my arms and legs got all slived up...but it's ok because they said it was and that I would be better in the end."

Yaaaah. Like so many lead balloons. I wasn't even going to try. Oh well, I know where I've been. Not always entirely sure where I'm going, it seems to shift and morph from time to time. But I've no doubt I'm going the right way, this is the truth as I know it.

Wrote this a few days ago as a response to the thread on the Neokoroi list on people feeling sadness due to Apollo departing for his winter in the north with the Hyporboreans...

Hmmm....this is interesting. For some weeks now, I've been expecting to wake up and feel like something was different, or amiss. Ever since the dream I had of Dionysus a few weeks ago, the Delphic split has been on my mind to one extent or another on a near constant basis, and it made sense that perhaps Dionysus was coming to take a more predominant part of my life for the moment, while Apollo would step back but that's not happened.

Dionysus hovers close, I am frequently reminded of his presence, though I don't actually need reminders. However, it seems that Apollo has drawn even closer. I sometimes wake up in the morning feeling a similar semi-delirious languor as I did when he stepped from the shadows during the Dionysus dream and pulled the arrow that he had just shot at me from my chest. When I'm awake, I feel a nearly-constant, almost tangible-presence.

I find it fascinating that each has been appearing in a manner more obviously appropriate to the other. In my mind, the ideas of balance and binary opposition- two opposites, without the other, one cannot exist- which have always been interesting to me have jumped much more to the forefront of my mind.

And then there is this theory which I recently ran across, I think while reading William Broad's book The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets, mentioned only very briefly but still churning around in my mind since then, that some scholars have had the idea that Apollo and Dionysus are two halves of the same god. To be clear, I do not believe this but it is a fascinating idea and I can see where it could come from. The related idea that I have settled on for the moment as my understanding is not two halves of one whole...but more like two atoms sharing a covalent bond, connected by common threads, very difficult to separate one from the other.

I don't know. Maybe I'm experiencing some sort of between-time overlap. I'm working on a ritual to celebrate Lampteria next weekend. Maybe that will trigger a more seasonally-appropriate shift in my perception. Or another possible cause is that it's all connected to some things that have been going on with me that I'll not go into now (though I can suddenly see inspiring an interesting work of short fiction...) in that I need to be seeing this intricate connection of one and the other, two separate entities that cannot be wholly bisected- seasonal events be damned. Part of me is hoping that the first is true, part of me is hoping the second. In any event, the gods will do as they will, I will (hopefully) see what they want me to see.

Do I sound like a raving lunatic here? At the same time, it's making perfect sense to me...but sounding somewhat ludicrous as I reread the words.


And after someone suggested the idea of twins, without a whole lot of elaboration as to what was meant:

I hadn't thought of this in the sense of twins...and I don't actually think that that's what I'm thinking of here, but I'm not sure.

It's like....ummmm...different evolutions of the same little slice of the divine? In one way, they're so different, but if you go 359 degrees from one, you come to the other. All the difference is contained in that 360th degree. Small, but still there and if you look closely enough, you can see the same inner core...

So one day last week, I was engaged in a discussion on a forum where one of the other folks participating was, or at least seemed to be, insisting that if I worship Apollo that I just couldn't grasp "irrational" things, and that I shouldn't even bother to try. Needless to say, I was fairly irked, on top of being frustrated by some other aspects of the discussion that have no bearing here.

What follows is some of one of my responses (it might seem a little disjointed because it's taken out of the context of the conversation) Some of this I've actually thought about before, obviously. The part that I've bolded though, I find most interesting and I remember typing it, it was one of those moments where my fingers seemed to be acting somewhat independently of or perhaps just well ahead of my brain and while I was somewhat surprised at what had come out, it makes perfect sense to me. As far as I recall, I've never really considered the idea of rationality versus irrationality and the Delphic maxim of "Nothing in excess" before. Others may disagree with me. (And just a minor note of vanity...for raw typing in a moment when I was rather pissed off at the offending individual, I really like how the last paragraph came out. I didn't change anything before I posted it. Usually when I'm typing mad, I have to go back and correct mistakes, grammar, fix wording etc.)

It is my experience (and that of others I've talked to) that to be Apollonian is in fact, not to be to be strictly rational. Apollo has his irrational side, though it is not the face that is most often portrayed, it is there.

You've heard, I'm sure, of the Oracle at Delphi? All modern scientific knowledge aside, she was thought back in the day to have been possessed by Apollo, or to be breathing in his spirit.



You know...I understand what "Apollonian" most commonly indicates. I understand that you don't really know me to know otherwise. I understand that you're not intending to be argumentative, but it feels to me like you're trying to paint me into this uber-narrow-minded, can't-even-fathon-anything-less-than-completely-rational corner.

A majority of my religious experience occurred before I came to be a follower of Apollo. From him, I have gained not strict rationality, but a balance between rational and irrational- I actually tend somewhat towards the irrational and for a long time was afraid of forgoing all emotion in favor of logic by his influence, but once again, what I have gained is not one over the other but how to balance the two. To forgo all irrationality would be to go against the wisdom of Apollo himself, one of the Delphic maxims reminds us "nothing in excess"...to adhere to one and not the other would be a bit excessive, no? It is my personal feeling that a true Apollonian must be able to acknowledge this and have a grip on both the rational and irrational.

I am happy to know that I am not the only one who is not feeling like she can rightly be present for the grove's Samhain ritual this year.

I had a "Duh, why did I never think of that before??????" moment a bit ago.

All this time I've been feeling that the gods of my ancestors have rejected me. I'm of Sicillian, English, Polish and Lithuanian descent and have nnver felt any interest whatsoever to the gods of the Romans, the Etruscans, the Slavs or the Angles, Saxons or Celts, and never felt that they had any interest in me either. All this time I thought I was "looking elsewhere" when I looked to the Hellenic gods. The only part of my ancestry that I've really had a strong interest for has been the Sicilian side of my mother's family. And I chalked it up to bring intrigued by the big mystery surrounding one of my maternal great-great-great grandmothers, the one that first came to the US (yeah, that's still part of it...)

I knew before, but it never really clicked in my mind...Sicily was once a Greek stronghold.

There was a temple of Apollo at Sarausa, an altar to Apollo Archegetes outside of Naxos,

Also worshiped as Apollo Libystinus all over the island, and Apollo Temenites at Sarausa...

I haven't been rejected by the gods of the lands of all of my ancestors...I just never looked far back enough to realize that some of them were the same as the ones I worship now....

At the grove, we have Walk With The Old Ones every Sunday during Rites Of Caffeina. For anyone not familiar, this is essentially our church service. It's a stripped-down version of ADF ritual, we don't usually open the gates, we don't invoke any deities, we make offerings, meditate and pray. Anyone can lead this, though it's usually Caryn, sometimes Deirdre or Kat.

For reasons that I can't figure out, I haven't been able to get myself to do this. I should, really. But I haven't. Yes, I'm convinced that I'll sound like an idiot.

General fear of speaking in public? No. And I have no problems getting up and leading a full ritual.

No wait, I lie. I did once. I kinda got put on the spot once last summer by Caryn. I think I sounded like an idiot.

I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that for me, religion is focused on the gods (and mostly on a few specific ones at that), and WWTOO drastically decentralizes that...I still feel very awkward making offerings to ancestors and nature spirits....actually, making offerings- feels kinda weird but not such a big deal. Speaking of it though, awkward.

Also, the Earth Mother part at the beginning....I do not see the Earth as "Mother". I can see where others might, but I just can't quite get it into my own beliefs. I've stopped trying because if I can't believe something, trying to make myself do so gets me nowhere.

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=9077&JServSessionIdr007=2tvm1x6wc4.app5b

Settlement In Americans United Lawsuit Comes After Discovery Of A Pattern Of Bias Against Minority Faith

The Bush administration has conceded that Wiccans are entitled to have the pentacle, the symbol of their faith, inscribed on government-issued memorial markers for deceased veterans, Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced today.

The settlement agreement, filed today with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, brings to a successful conclusion a lawsuit Americans United brought against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in November.

The litigation charged that denying a pentacle to deceased Wiccan service personnel, while granting religious symbols to those of other traditions, violated the U.S. Constitution.

(The article is a good bit longer than that.)