If This Counts as Anti-Religious, I Must Be The Anti-Christ

So, it's been nearly a month since I first heard episode 184 of Real Time with Bill Maher. And let me tell you, this was the episode that made me think, "Maybe I shouldn't be listening to Bill Maher at work". Because I was spitting mad. You wanna know how mad I was? Well, I'll let Madeline Kahn take it away:

That reminds me: I should probably buy Clue at some point.

So, what got me so worked up? Bill Maher's discussion of anti-religious sentiment in the "Liberal Media" with S.E. Cupp. Because nothing makes me more pissed off than the assertion that any media is anti-religion. Because, as an atheist, I can point out to you pretty damn quickly how not anti-religious media, in general, really is. Bill Maher is a somewhat less than stunning example of actual anti-religious sentiment in today's media, less than stunning both due to his anti-religion as well as the application of his anti-religion in his anti-religious arguments. So, first part of the conversation that had me responding to Cupp, out loud, in a cubicle, at my Very Religious place of work. So, hold onto your hats, folks, because this is going to be a doozy of a long post. Aaaaaaaand, start:

BILL MAHER: Let me give you your examples. This is the - I'm reading the - this is the end of your "A Decade of Lowlights From the Liberal Media".

S.E. CUPP: Yeah.

MAHER: These are your first three examples: Here's Joy Behar, she's tal - and this is one of your examples - she's talking about -

[Talking Over Each Other]

CUPP: And she's a friend.

MAHER: evolution. She said -

[Talking Over Each Other Again]

CUPP: I do her show.

MAHER: "You have to teach both. Darwinism is not some kind of religious fervor. Teach both." So she's for teaching both Darw-

CUPP: No. What she said was that teaching Creationism to kids should be akin to child abuse.

MAHER: No. She said you have to teach both.

CUPP: She said that facetiously.

MAHER: Well, that's interest that you can divine that.

CUPP: She said on The View - she said on The View that teaching Creationism should be -

[Talking Over Each Other AGAIN]

MAHER: Darw-

CUPP: child abuse.

MAHER: I have it - yes she did. She said, "Darwinism is not some kind of religious fervor thing. You want your children to go into the world being ignorant? That's child abuse". Yeah, it is.

CUPP: I-I-I don't think that's true. I think and-and-and-

[You Know The Drill, Right?]

MAHER: That's not an anti-religious statement.

CUPP: the majority of the people who teach their kids Creationism because it's a nice Christian allegory I don't think are guilty of child abuse.

I'm going to stop here, for a second. Because Cupp's argument here is bullshit, but what truly makes it crap is that last line: "the majority of people who teach their kids Creationism because it's a nice Christian allegory". She flips the argument on its head. She changes what Creationism is. Creationism, as something that is taught in schools, is not an allegory. It is being taught as fact, or at the very least a theory at least on par with Darwinism. Allegories are what Aesop used. Allegories are fictional stories we can cull wisdom or understanding from. I don't have a problem with allegories. I love allegories. I have a problem with people insisting their religious doctrine be taught in public schools.

Here's my problem with Creationism. It isn't that some people believe it, though I do weep for the state of the world when people can turn that much of a blind eye to scientific fact. It is that a segment of the population wants to insist that their version of the world be codified as scientific truth. It is that a bunch of powerful, bullying people want to push their vision of the world as it was formed onto every child in their community.

If a parent wants their child to believe that the world was created in seven days, that human beings have always been as we are now, and that the earth is significantly younger than any scientific test has led us to believe, they are welcome to teach their child that. Within the comfort of their own home. Or in their church. Or both. But they do not have the right to have that belief imparted within the confines of a public school in the guise of science. That isn't anti-religion. It is pro-education. It is pro-understanding. It is pro- "You can teach your child whatever the fuck you want outside these walls". For S.E. Cupp (who I keep wanting to call "C.E. Cupp", for some reason) to call Joy Behar's remarks anti-religion is either a fundamental misunderstanding of religion (in which case, I think she wasted a lot of money on her Masters in religious studies), or purposefully misconstruing "religion" with "Christian Fundamentalism". And that's because there are plenty of Christians who do offer up Genesis as an allegory, but don't believe in Creationism and do believe in the Theory of Evolution. Some of those Christians, I have even met.

And here's how not anti-religious the media is: whether or not she was being facetious, Joy Behar said "they" should teach both - and I'm assuming the "they" are the schools. No. The schools, and the teachers who have gone to institutions of higher learning in order to teach science at public schools, should teach the theory of evolution. Stop. They should explain what "theory" means in scientific terms. And if parents want their children to hold a differing view, they can either pull their children from those classes when evolution is being taught and teach them whichever theory of life on earth floats their boat, or they can allow their children to be taught evolutionary theory and then also teach them whichever theory of life on earth floats their boat. But that is the parents' responsibility. And, frankly, I find it quite ludicrous that after all the screaming the Right does about parental responsibilities, they want to foist this one off onto public institutions.

And, onward:

MAHER: Okay, the second one you quoted is John Meacham, the editor of the -

CUPP: Newsweek.

MAHER: Newsweek. We have - he's a religious guy.

CUPP: Yes, he is.

MAHER: He doesn't like -

CUPP: The cover of Newsweek declared the death of Christianity - on Easter [laughs disbelievingly].

MAHER: Are you kidding me.

CUPP: It's preposterous.

MAHER: Jesus or Mary is on the cover of Newsweek or Time, like, every other week [TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: I subscribe to Newsweek. This is pretty accurate.]. If Jesus had an office on Sunset Boulevard and you walked down the corridor, he'd have his magazine covers on every wall!

...

CUPP: But Bill - one of those - one of those - one of those stories -

MAHER [Talking Over Her]: You're crazy.

CUPP: was saying that you can actually read - if you read the Bible correctly - it actually supports gay marriage. I mean, it's one thing to show these covers, but come on!

MAHER: Well that's - you're picking out one little raisin in a giant piece of bread, there, lady.

Stopping again, because as much as I now love the phrase "picking out one little raisin in a giant piece of bread", this here highlights Bill Maher's mediocrity in actually winning arguments.

First, declaring the death of Christianity isn't anti-religion. At most, it can be anti-Christian, and only the most arrogant fuck would dare insinuate Christianity=Religion. Secondly, it isn't anti-religious to believe that a religious text can be read in a different way than the dominant view. That'd be like someone being anti-Shakespeare because they wrote an analysis alleging Antonio is gay in The Merchant of Venice. It is profoundly pro-Christianity to look to the Bible for guidance, and find helpful answers within. Lisa Miller's Newsweek article, the one Cupp refers to, makes several salient points, most notably:

Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.

In other words, Newsweek and Lisa Miller aren't anti-religion. They're just arguing against a certain tenet of certain people's religion. Miller's argument is very much rooted in her reading of religion itself (and she's not alone). So, what Cupp is arguing isn't that the media is anti-religion; just that it is anti-the-Right's-religion-of-choice. Because it isn't even anti-Christian. It may argue against the tenets of Fundamentalist Christian belief. But that isn't the long and short of religion.

Once more, into the breach:

[BREAK in the RELIGIOUS TALK]

MAHER: Let me get back to the premise that the liberals and the media are anti-religion. The pre - the things I talk about, are questioning, "Is faith good? Or that prayer doesn't work. That's the things I say. It's just me and a couple of cartoons -

CUPP [Interrupting]: No! You're so wrong!

MAHER: Who are saying that.

CUPP: No!

MAHER: Tell me one other person in the media -

[Talking Over Each Other]

CUPP: I'll tell you! I will go down.

MAHER: who ever questioned whether faith was good or prayer worked. Brian Williams?

CUPP: No.

MAHER: Keith Olbermann?

CUPP: I will go - I will go -

MAHER: Katie Couric?! None of them.

CUPP: Ohmygod! I can give you those examples right now!

MAHER: Tell me -

CUPP: Chris Matthews - Chris Matthews said -

MAHER: Chris Matthews is a devout Catholic!

CUPP: Chris Matthews said that Sarah Palin and Michael Steele praying on big decisions isn't normal. Rachel Maddow said that the National Day of Prayer infringes on her right to religious freedom.

MAHER: It does.

CUPP: Keith Olbermann called pro-lifers religious jihadists. I could go on.

MAHER: That's not - they're not questioning the essence of religion. This is a country that worships religion.

CUPP: Of course they are, Bill. Of course they are.

And there endeth the religion discussion.

And here is where Cupp is oh so very wrong. Well, maybe not about Chris Matthews; but even I, disliker in the extreme of Chris Matthews, is going to assume that what Cupp said and what Matthews stated probably doesn't meet up eye to eye. And I'm not even going to try to argue that Keith Olbermann never compared pro-lifers to jihadists, because I'm pretty sure he did. But there is a difference in criticizing the religious and how they practice their religion - like, by harassing pregnant women seeking abortions and celebrating the deaths of abortion providers or by claiming God has provided you with the answer - and being anti-religion. To equate the two is to wrap the religious in the protection of religion, because criticizing them and possibly how they demonstrate their religiosity is to suddenly become anti all religions, everywhere. And that is a ridiculous standard.

As for Rachel Maddow's position, I am pro-religion, including but not limited to gospel music, religious architecture, and church signs that say things like, "Now Open Between Easter and Christmas", "Our Sundays Are Better than Baskin Robbins", and "A Bible in the Hand is Worth Two on the Shelf". I'm a fan of the screed put by the philosopher Lennon, that being "Whatever gets you through the night, 'salright, 'salright". Unless what gets you through the night is telling me how to get through my night, because I've been getting through my night for 24 straight years fine and dandy. But the National Day of Prayer is something that makes me very uncomfortable, because it does infringe on my right to religious freedom. It is a day encouraging people to pray, and that doesn't just alienate me as an individual; it makes those with my beliefs alien. It makes us other. And for a people who are already pretty thoroughly othered, it is a bit of a blow to have an entire day dedicated to something that does that by my government. The government I voted for. And it comes down to one truth:

The absence of the mention of God is not the same as denying the existence of God. It merely gives those of us who do not believe a bit of breathing room.

Cupp, as an atheist, is choosing to defend the monolith of Christianity, and the section of Christianity that is Evangelical at that, for whatever the reason. But while the proof she pulls out may indicate that there are those on the left who disagree strongly with Evangelicalism, that there are those on the left who are anti-Evangelical, she has no evidence of anti-religious sentiment on the part of the Left or the media - again, aside from Bill Maher. Ironically, due to her constant defense of Christianity's privileged position in media matters, she herself is anti-religious, because she is anti-religious plurality. She is only pro-Evangelicalism. Hopefully, the next lefty she tussles with will point that out to her, and will point out that other sects of Christianity also exist. Because Cupp doesn't seem to recognize that fact.

Friday (Not So) Random Ten

This is a special edition of Friday Random Ten, inspired by a (short) conversation I had with a friend regarding Conor Oberst and how he is depressing. I, in fact, love Conor Oberst. So, here are my ten favorite Conor Oberst songs:

10) "I Don't Want To Die (In A Hospital)" - Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Conor Oberst

Rowdy and slightly raucous, I can bounce around to this one like no one's business. Ironically, this one isn't my favorite based on any sort of lyrics that made my spine tingle. This one is all about the fun. Which is strange, since it is, after all, a song about death and dying. Just to get us started, though, I laugh at these lines every time:

Can you make a sound to distract the nurse

Before I take a ride in that long black hearse

I don’t wanna die in the hospital

You gotta take me back outside

9) "Devil Town" - Bright Eyes, Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998-2005)

This isn't actually a Bright Eyes penned song, but it's an awesome cover (you can listen to a snippet of the original here).

8) "Another Travelin' Song" - Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

There are two subjects above all others where I enjoy Conor Oberst's musings, and those are religion and spirituality, and the very state of writing itself. This one is all about the latter:

Now I'm hunched over a typewriter

I guess you call that paintin' in a cave

And there's a word I can't remember

and a feeling I cannot escape

And now my ashtray's overflowing

I'm still staring at a clean white page

Oh and morning's at my window

she is sending me to bed again

7) "I Must Belong Somewhere" - Bright Eyes, Cassadaga

And, lyrics:

In truth, the forest hears each sound
Each blade of grass as it lies down
The world requires no audience
no witnesses, no witnesses

6) "Waste of Paint" - Bright Eyes, Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground

So now I park my car down by the cathedral,

where the floodlights point up at the steeples.

Choir practice was filling up with people.

I hear the sound escaping as an echo.

Sloping off the ceiling at an angle.

When the voices blend they sound like angels.

5) "From A Balance Beam": - Bright Eyes, Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground

This one's a little more depressing:

It was in a foreign hotel's bathtub

I baptized myself in change

And one by one I drowned all of the people I had been

I emerged to find the parallels were fewer

I was cleansed

I looked in the mirror

And someone new was there

But, I was as helpless as a chess piece

when I was lifted up by someone's hand

And delivered from the corner

my enemies had got me in

But in all of my salvation

I still felt imprisoned inside that holding cell

that is myself

4) "Moab" - Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Conor Oberst

I don't like comparisons between musical artists. I hate it when bands are described as "Bigger than the Beatles" (because, clearly, if we're still comparing them to the Beatles, they weren't/aren't); and I hate it when music critics call Conor Oberst the next Dylan. Because (a) Dylan isn't done being Dylan yet, and (b) there is only one Dylan. And then there are songs like this one that make me think, "Yeah, that's pretty Dylanesque". It's pretty much all in the vocal delivery. Anyway:

You can't break out of a circle

That you never knew you were in

And there's nothing that the road cannot heal

Nothing that the road cannot heal

Washed under the blacktop

Gone beneath my wheels

There's nothing that the road cannot heal

3) "First Day Of My Life" - Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

Songs like this are what make me astounded when people talk about Bright Eyes being incredibly depressing. Because when I hear this song, I hear something full of love, and hope, and optimism. Nothing demonstrates that better than the second verse:

Yours is the first face that I saw

I think I was blind before I met you

Now I don’t know where I am

I don’t know where I’ve been

But I know where I want to go

2) "Four Winds" - Bright Eyes, Cassadaga


Cassadaga is my absolute favorite Bright Eyes album, and I've been knocked out by this song since I first heard it. Some of the lyrics that did it for me:

Well I went back by rented Cadillac and company jet

Like a newly orphaned refugee retracing my steps

All the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead

They said, "You'd better look alive"

1) "Bowl of Oranges" - Bright Eyes, Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground

This is my favorite Bright Eyes song; it has been since the first time I heard it, and that's because I loved all of the lyrics. But if I had to pick my favorite of the song, it would be:

But if the world could remain within a frame like a painting on a wall.

Then I think we would see the beauty.

Then we would stand staring in awe at our still lives posed like a bowl of oranges,

like a story told by the fault lines and the soil

Honorable Mention:
"Classic Cars" - Bright Eyes, Cassadaga


This song has some of my absolute favorite lyrics ever:

And I keep looking for that blindfold faith

Lighting candles to a cynical saint

Who wants the last laugh at the fly trapped in the windowsill tape

You can go right out of your mind trying to escape

From the panicked paradox of day to day

If you can’t understand something then it’s best to be afraid

As an apatheistic atheist, I don't have these sorts of pained moments of religious soul-searching. But I love the way religion moves people; I love the art and books and buildings that come out of it.

Yes, Christmas Observations WILL Survive

I've written about my insane local paper before, and I'll probably do it again before long. This time, it is Lee Garbar's Christmas Observances Will Survive. My favorite part of the opinion piece is:

At one time, television celebrated the Charles Dickens novel "A Christmas Carol" by broadcasting four different versions of the story, the most significant of which was with English actor Alastair Sim playing the part of Scrooge. Last year TV, apparently fearful of overdoing the movie because it deals with Christmas, ran just one of them.

Yes, that must be what is subduing ABC Family in their 25 Days of Christmas programming, the fear of overdoing movies that deal with Christmas. They were going to go with 50 Days of Christmas, but then were fearful going overboard with the festivities and crossing over into an all out extravaganza. Or, it is much more likely that they decided to choose from the wide array of other Christmas films (good and bad) that have been made since.

(Side note: I find it odd that Mr. Garbar is concerned with the lack of diversity in his Christmas Carol tales viewing opportunities, since A Christmas Carol is, by my measure, not exactly brimming with religiosity. Scrooge isn't changed by a visit from saints or angels, but by four ghosts.)

One of most religious of Christmas specials I know of, A Charlie Brown Christmas, generally plays on one of the major television networks during the Christmas season. The only one that is possibly more religious is The Little Drummer Boy, and I seem to remember that horrible bit of stop action animation being on ABC Family as recently as three years ago.

But Garbar goes further:

Mike Johnson, chief attorney for the ADF, remarked, "It's a sad day in America when you have to retain a lawyer to wish someone a merry Christmas."

Lee Garbar, meet Michelle Goldberg, who says:

Despite Johnson's lamentations, one can in fact offer Christmas greetings without legal counsel. Christmas trees are permitted in public schools. (They're considered secular symbols.) Nativity scenes are allowed on public property, although if the government erects one, it has to be part of a larger display that also includes other, secular signs of the holiday season, or displays referring to other religions. (The operative Supreme Court precedent is 1984's Lynch v. Donnelly, where the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a city-sponsored Christmas display including a crèche, reindeer, a Christmas tree, candy-striped poles and a banner that read "Seasons Greetings" was permissible. "The display is sponsored by the city to celebrate the Holiday and to depict the origins of that Holiday," the majority wrote. "These are legitimate secular purposes.") Students are allowed to distribute religious holiday cards and literature in school. If the administration tries to stop them, the ACLU will step in to defend the students' free-speech rights, as they did in 2003 when teenagers in Massachusetts were suspended for passing out candy canes with Christian messages.

Here's the thing: I, personally, love Christmas. I love Christmas music and Christmas television specials. I love Christmas light displays and Christmas plays. I love seeing Santas collecting money for charity on the sidewalk. I love presents, and giving them. I love the feeling of Christmas, of good cheer and good will toward men. But, as an atheist, I can also tell you that there is no war on Christmas. Forget all of the things Goldberg cites. Walk into any mall, any store, from now until December 26th, and you will hear Christmas carols, most of which contain some kind of religious sentiment. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"; "O! Holy Night"; "Little Town of Bethlehem"; "O Come All Ye Faithful"; "Christ Is Born"; "What Child Is This"; etc, etc, etc. They are beautiful songs. They hold a sometimes beautiful sentiment. They are also vibrant reminders that those of us on the outside of these faithful proclamations are still living in a Christian nation, that the Christian celebrations are still national celebrations, and that we are all inculcated with those messages of Christ the Savior is Born! whenever we step outside our house this time of year. And for those of us who do not believe Christ is, actually, the Savior, it is also a reminder that our own ideas about this time of year are less important.

Grabar also writes:

Still, the campaign against Christmas has resulted in diminished observance of the holiday. For example, schools have all but eliminated various practices of the past in observing Christmas and emphasizing the day as recognition of the Savior's birth.

Sure, because "the Savior" isn't, actually, my Savior. He isn't the Savior of a great swath of my friends, and to be taught in the secular public school system that he is would be a bit of muddling of the separation of Church and State thing. There are other people who exist in this country. They deserve to be able to go to school and not be inundated with Christian references, and to not be taught - even during a certain time of year - that the Christian way is the Right Way, with the implicit implication that all other ways are wrong. Lee Grabar can believe that; the teacher can believe that; but to use the public school system, the system paid for with everyone's money and not just Christian funds, is crossing the line. And more than warring against Christianity, it is warring for the recognition of the rest of us.

Defining An Action of Evil

Four days ago, my friend linked an article, with the comment, "David Brooks at his best". It was David Brooks' column The Rush to Therapy, part of which said,

A shroud of political correctness settled over the conversation. Hasan was portrayed as a victim of society, a poor soul who was pushed over the edge by prejudice and unhappiness.

There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.

This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.

Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.

The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.

It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

And I was unsettled and mulling over the specific, but unarticulated, contrary notion that David Brooks was, actually, very wrong. Luckily for me, I've got Jonathan Turley on the same page. While on The Rachel Maddow Show on November 12, Turley said this:

There are plenty of people who act out of rage. If you take away a few of the aspects of this case, you would have a typical disgruntled worker shooting. We have, with these shootings all over the country, where people are disturbed, disgruntled, and isolated, and they come in and they shoot people in their work place. Now, some of them are perfectly unhinged and they will latch onto religious views or political views, but what they're really acting out of is mental illness.

That doesn't deny any action of evil. What it does do is say, "Your war narrative may not be the most salient point. It is just the most convenient one, and the one that will let you sleep most soundly tonight." What it does say is, "Evil does not lurk only in the hearts of men we see as not like ourselves. It can be in any one of us, and so none of us are truly safe." What it does say is, "Religious convictions may not be the ignition of this deadly passion. It may just be the vehicle this particular person chose to take".

What bothers me about David Brooks' article is that assertion the politically and morally immature nation is the nation that stops before stomping in like gangbusters and making assertions and assumptions without gathering all of the facts. For my money, it is the nation that has matured in both its political and moral arenas that disallows the presumption of one metanarrative over the perhaps more on point micronarratives.

What also bothers me about Brooks' piece is how these discussions of how the metanarratives impact how violence is dispersed are only prevalent when the provocateur is someone other than a white, Christian man. When the perpetrator is a white, Christian man, the assumption is that this case is an isolated incident that has no greater baring on society. That this person is a sport, that his actions have nothing to do with our own metanarratives. We can still see those acts of violence as actions of evil just fine. And by seeing them as actions of evil, we manage to separate them from our person.

As the Historiann notes,

it’s only the occasional story in the print media or on the radio that will note how very much like other American mass-murderers Hasan truly is: a native-born American man, aged 13-60, who has difficult relationships with peers and co-workers, and especially with women. (Not coincidentally, a lot of these killers are strongly invested in traditional gender hierarchies and see themselves as at odds with modern American women, who think they can make their own decisions about whom they’ll date or spend time with.)

I'm all for examining how systemic beliefs parlay into actions, violent or otherwise. I'm all for examining how those systemic beliefs and images and messages influence how we as a people react to actions, violent or otherwise. I'm a big believer in systemic influences, both positive and negative. And yet, we can't lose sight of the individual either, and how the individual's own maladies (or lack thereof) influence how much that message takes hold, and how it is expelled upon the world.

The thing David Brooks seems to be missing is that the idea we should hold off on saying, "Islamic extremist!" in this case isn't simply (or even) to stop the swells of people in Middle America from going on murderous rampages of their own. It is an effort to better ourselves, to look beyond our minute fairy tale beliefs in good and evil and how that good and evil is displayed, and search for deeper and more concrete answers. It is an effort to elevate ourselves, both as individuals and as a society, beyond the prejudices that say "if someone has a funny name and dark skin and reads out of a different book than mine, that book must be the source of the problem". It is in an effort to become a more politically and morally mature nation, a nation that does not see every act of violence perpetrated by someone in the category of Other as stemming from reasons wholly separate from acts of violence perpetrated by someone not in that category. That we can work to reasonably suss out where the act of violence stems from, understand what could have been possible catalysts, recognize those catalysts, and still understand the actions as being evil and the actor of creating evil. Because an action borne out of social maladjustment can exist within the possibility of evil just as much as an action borne out of religious extremism can. To deny that, to deny the want to assess alternate possibilities under the cry of it being a denial of evil is, I think, in itself an act of an immature nation.

Bill O'Reilly Threatens to Come to Kent, CT

An excerpt from the Republican-American (a paper we will probably no longer be getting, as my mother refuses to not read the Opinion section, and then seethes with rage at the opinions expressed there - which is good for the NY Times, or possibly the Hartford Courant) article Fox's O'Reilly chides Kent in 9-11 Tribute Spat:

Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly has taken aim at the town of Kent for refusing to grant a local man's wish that a town memorial to his son, who was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, should read: "Murdered by Muslim Terrorists."

I'm down with Kent's First Selectman Ruth S. Epstein here when she rightly points out, "He can do whatever he wants on his own property".

But what Mr. Gadiel (the local man in question) wants to do is to use the collective's money - and the collective's property - to put forth his own beliefs. If Bill O'Reilly wants to come to Kent and explain to Epstein and others why that is an appropriate use of town funds, all the more power to him. It is his First Amendment right to do so, and it is Mr. Gadiel's First Amendment right to pony up the money for his own memorial, separate from the town's, on his own lawn and with his own message. But it is not within his rights to demand the town spend its money, and donate its land, for that message. And to suggest otherwise, to suggest that the individual has a right to the collective's money, for the individual's own purpose and gain, well, that seems like an idea that runs counter to most Republican philosophy when it comes to taxation.

An Atheist Among Us

Okay, it has been around 10 days on no posts and no real explanation other than I couldn't write anything, didn't want to write anything, was perpetually dizzy, and had the house to myself - which never happens. So, I bought a car and watched Made of Honor 3 times. One of those things is a good and the other is a really, really big bad. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which; but if you fail to discern between the two, there's obviously a problem. I also took a couple of days off from the interweb to do things vitally important, like cut myself off from almost all of my friends and inch a little to the left of the grid. Meaning, I slept a lot. The other thing was that Rebekah suggested an episode of Family Guy for a posting topic, and I had to wait for it to come up on Hulu to really look at it. This is that post.

First things first, though. I'm at best apathetic toward Family Guy, and at worst I really dislike it. At the same time, though, I love Brian and Stewie. I think they are awesome, and if the two of them ever had a television show dedicated solely to them, I would watch every episode with awe. However, the rest of the Griffin clan, along with the rest of the show's characters, are particularly loathsome and I don't really like any of them. When I tell people this, they generally think it is because of one of two reasons: (a) the show has too many pointless segments that lead to no greater understanding of the episode on an individual level or for the show as a whole (a former coworker thought that might be it, which confused me as that never even entered my mind), or (b) it is sexist and racist and a whole lot of other -ists, and as a feminist it would drive me insane. To that I say, "Hey, I watch romantic-comedies and some mainstream television!" Well, I don't really say that, but it would be a good rebuttal. No, the reason I don't like Family Guy is because it contains opposing family dynamics of The Simpsons. Peter doesn't give a damn about any other member of his family, and they don't really seem to give any damns about each other either. If Lois ever left Peter, he probably wouldn't notice until he ran out of socks - or food. Even episodes dedicated to showing how Lois and Peter care about one another (I'm thinking specifically of the one with Jennifer Love Hewitt), what is demonstrated is a weirdly possessive but in no way loving relationship. Contrary to the name, Family Guy mostly centers around a bunch of people who share DNA also living together, but having no common cause or theme or concern for the other members of their household.  Standing in contrast is The Simpsons, which manages to truly be about a cohesive, if dysfunctional, family. And we get plenty of episodes demonstrating that fact (like Bart and Lisa being on different hockey teams *sniffle*). As someone who becomes enamored with television shows precisely because they're about family, biological or otherwise (Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, The West Wing, Sports Night, etc.), Family Guy was never going to make the short list.

That doesn't mean I don't enjoy some individual episodes of Family Guy, and "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven" is one of those. Though, strangely, not for the atheist-Brian moments. The end scene where Stewie deals with the cast of Star Trek: Next Generation is classic, as is when he explains how Picard's choice to embrace the baldness made him a better captain than Kirk. I also almost died at the scene where Peter put on LaVar Burton's visor.

At the same time, there were aspects of the Brian-atheist storyline I truly enjoyed. I loved the town's reaction; I love the Griffins' reaction. Well, 'love' may be the wrong word, but I was particularly gratified by the contrast between Meg's newfound religiosity and Brian's atheism. Meg's religious faith actually imposed upon the Griffin family (even if it was just in the form of a television sermon), but Brian just existing in the same space was what caused the biggest uproar. I also thought it was telling that when Brian was being harassed and assaulted and ostracized for his atheism, Lois responded to it not by wishing others would learn to be tolerant but by hoping "he finds faith of some kind". That same sentiment has been expressed several times to me throughout my life. During a particularly surreal two weeks in 9th grade, when almost everyone I knew stopped talking to me, one of the girls I had previously considered my friend told me that she would be happy to start talking to me again once I found "my path". I was stunned, because I was already on "my path". It was just an entirely different one from her own. I also found it particularly telling that Brian's admission caused not only an uproar but seemed to offend the Griffins, as if Brian had been deceiving them simply by not believing in a god. I also know that feeling well. 

I think that feeling of being deceived is what caused most of the people in my high school to stop talking to me for those two weeks; because I hadn't "come clean" sooner, because their idea of me was built upon a false belief that I was a believer when I wasn't, it seemed to them that I had lied to them. The truth was (and is) somewhat more complicated. In high school, I didn't lie; I just didn't come out and proclaim my atheism, because it honestly has never been a huge part of my own personal identity. In college, I did frequently proclaim my atheism, partially due to the odd reaction that discovery had provoked in high school. Now, though, I'm back to not articulating it, because I work in a very religious office where a majority of my coworkers are practicing Catholics (and conservatives) and because I don't want to be a Brian. It is just easier for me to allow them to believe I'm a Catholic, rather than to deny it or to assert my atheism. And until they ask me outright what I am, I don't really feel like I'm lying; at the same time, I'm sure they would be about as thrilled as the rest of the Griffins were with Brian's pronouncement. I don't want to be pelted with Priuses, and I do have to be able to make my car payments so I'm tacitly accepting that being perceived as religious is sometimes a necessity - kind of like Brian did.

At the same time, I disagree fundamentally with some of Brian's proclaimed reasons for being an atheist, along with his arguments at the end to Meg about why she shouldn't believe in God. I felt Brian hit the nail on the head when he told Meg,

You don't need an outside voice to feel those feelings. They're inside you. What you call God is inside you, all of us.

He lost me when he said:

I just hate to see people hating and killing each other over their own interpretations of what they're not smart enough to understand.

That isn't my atheism. My atheism recognizes that religion is not the reason for violence, but the excuse. My atheism recognizes that the world would still be a place of atrocity and hate and hatred and marginalization even if the thought of a supernatural being had never entered the minds of men. My atheism recognizes that if the reason a person doesn't believe in God is because of the horrors committed in his name, then that same person should also not believe in political parties, in countries, in culture, in race, or in gender. My atheism recognizes that hating and killing isn't a product of religion, but that people who hate and who kill often express that through religion. Human beings are the problem; the institutions we make and the ideologies we follow are flawed because they flow from us, but to become a Bill Maher and declare that the religious are idiots is to miss a huge chunk of the picture. Yes, the guy who truly believes the world was created in six days scares me; but it isn't his belief that scares me. It is what else he comes to understand he can do and should do because of that belief. If a guy (or girl) wants to believe that the world was created in six days and s/he also leaves me the hell alone and accepts that I do not, then I am more than fine with that belief.

Brian is wrong because his argument against God rests firmly on the ills of mankind. It decrees that religion and God is the problem, but that argument can be readily combated by the many times religion and God are part of the solution. For every Pat Robertson, there is a soup kitchen being run by a church. For every incident of violence, there is a commitment to nonviolence. For every cretin who hides behind his or her book while spewing hate, there is another person who uses that same book to promote tolerance, love, and peace. Religion has brought us some incredible things. I happen to be extraordinarily fond of church architecture, and gospel music. But that doesn't mean that there is a God, any more than death and disease and hate is an argument for why there isn't a God.

I'm not an atheist because religion and God are fairy tales; I majored in literature. I know the power of a good story. A fairy tale can still be used to impart some truth; in fact, I am of the belief that stories are one of the best ways to spread truth. Stories are how we frame our world; stories are how I became a politically minded person. Stories are how my personal philosophy was born and how it started to take shape. Belief in God and in a religion and a particular story can be an awesome force for good, just as nonbelief can be channelled into a force of badness.

I'm an atheist; I'm an atheist not because I hate humanity but because I love it. I am an atheist because I believe in people. I am atheist because I am whole without god. I am an atheist because I believe mankind is a powerful force, an inventive force, and I don't believe in granting any credit for humanity's triumphs or shortcomings to a supernatural body. I'm not an atheist out of hate, but out of love. That is what was missing from Brian's atheism.

And yet, I understand his frustration. It is hard to continue to love humanity and to believe in its goodness when you feel demeaned and diminished and bullied, to see some spark of light present in the organizations most directly responsible for that bullying and inhumane treatment. I think Brian's anger stems from a real place of marginalization, and his assertion that being an atheist is smarter than being a believer comes from that same place. In a way, "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven" demonstrates a coping device I see a lot; it is the "well, I may not be cool but at least I'm not dumb enough to want to be" syndrome. But while I understand it, that doesn't mean I endorse it. It could hardly be a Family Guy episode if it wasn't lampooning everything in sight, but I can't help but feel as if Meg's reason for finding religion is a great deal more sympathetic than Brian's reason for rejecting it. After all, I continue to be a proponent for that old adage:

A Review of Dollhouse's "True Believer", Pt 2

This is part 2 of an extremely long post; part 1 is here.

I'm not going to beat around the bush; I had fully expected some sort of attack on religion, or at the very least on groupthink. But Minear was more clever than that, and it seems that Whedon is as well. Instead of simply doing a "cults equal badness and so does religion" thing, Minear explored how others would (and could) manipulate religion as they would manipulate anything else. As Minear said in an interview,

...I wanted the story turns to be rooted in the Dollhouse premise so I used the sci-fi angle to make a scientific miracle.
They could create a real woman who had really experienced a divine vision. And the fact that she was really blind proved that she wasn't lying. That's why she could recognize Sparrow through touch because the vision she experienced was no lie. Granted, Topher put it in her head, and we saw the 3-D model of Sparrow's head and understood how this was accomplished, but to Echo/Esther, all was true. So when Sparrow knocked the cameras loose and her vision was restored, this was also really a miracle... to her.

What was so amazing about the episode was that it wasn't a falsely religious man using religion to control the masses. It was the outside world, the - ostensibly - good guys who used religion to manipulate, to control. It was the ATF and the Dollhouse who created a situation where a cultish religious leader could come to depend on miracles, where such a man could be convinced that he had been featured in a vision and had been witness to a restoration of sight. These were true believers, even Jonas Sparrow. Unlike Scott Tobias of the A.V. Club, who said, "the fundamental problem for me is this: Sparrow knows he's not a prophet. He knows he's every bit the Mitchum-like charlatan. So when Esther talks of visions and recognizing his face from a dream, that should be proof enough that she's an imposter", it seems clear to me that Sparrow really does think he's doing the best for his community. He's not a Jim Jones type; this much is clear from the fact that his flock is both shocked at the fact there is a cache of guns underneath their feet and by the fact that he does believe Esther. He doesn't make his group take up arms. He isn't interested in pulling a Waco and holding a shoot out. He believes, truly and deeply, that there is another way and that God will deliver him and his people. That he is a true believer doesn't make him any less dangerous; he's still willing to condemn his people and himself to death. But it does offer a more nuanced layer to an episode that could have just been a retread of old ground. Whedon and Minear manage to make the cult seem like something other than an egotist's creation for his own validation.  

At the same time, even though it is not a condemnation of religion or even this religious expression, there is an exploration of this idea of purity; of being able to get back to the garden, or to recreate the garden. Such a sentiment has been around for eons, probably since the first tale of lost paradise entered the conscious lexicon. Even Joni Mitchell declares, "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden". Whedon has tackled, though only briefly, this subject before; in one of the coolest feminist moves, Whedon discarded the idea of our world beginning with a lost paradise on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and instead declared that it had been a hell - that the books were wrong. In Serenity, we saw the Operative working toward creating "a world without sin". But the only world without sin we are shown is a dead world. Here, the world without sin is the pinnacle of achievement in two places, the Children of the Temple's compound and Adelle DeWitt's Dollhouse. As DeWitt says at the end, "A place of safety, of untroubled certainty, of purity. This is the world we must maintain. It is imperative that nothing disturb the innocence of life here. Once any temptation is introduced, it will spread... like a cancer, and all will be infected." And yet, Victor's reaction to Sierra is, in its own way, pure and innocent. His attraction to her is a normal, natural part of life, and only when we consider human sexuality something that creates a less than pure being does Victor's "man reaction" cause concern.

What seems clear is that even scrubbed, even erased of any and everything that makes us what we are and what helps shape us, some bit of us remains. There cannot truly be a world without sin, and what's more, we probably should not even want it. The Actives in the Dollhouse come the closest to being without sin, and yet they aren't something I would aspire to be. The world is messy; but it is conflict that helps shape us, and there are things considered 'sinful' - mostly in connection to sexuality - that are a necessary component of life. To bind a sin to something necessary to the very proliferation of a species seems particularly sadistic.

Grade: A-/A

Note: There may be one more post coming; I still have thoughts, but it doesn't really fit with the religious flow of this installment.

A Review of Dollhouse's "True Believer", Pt 1

Once again, my review has gotten way to long, and has been split.

This post could alternatively be titled "Why I love Tim Minear"; which, I do. A lot. Minear is responsible for some of my favorite episodes of Angel - a series that continues to occupy the bottom rung on my "Favorite Joss Whedon Creations" list. But "Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been" and "Epiphany" are two of my favorite Buffyverse episodes, and I've got Minear to thank for that. For anyone who has no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sorry and I'll stop gushing about Tim Minear in a second. Except to say that if you really want to see what the man can do, run - seriously, run - to the nearest Firefly DVD set and pop in "Out of Gas". I will say this: Minear's talent in structuring episodes, as demonstrated in episodes like "Out of Gas", is seemingly in full effect here. I know that Whedon and Eliza Dushku implored fans to wait until after the first six to see what Dollhouse could do, to wait out Fox's interference and witness where Whedon wanted to go, but episode 5 has leapt to the top my list. I think it is the strongest effort so far, and I've liked all of the episodes so far - though I've not been enamored with them all.

The episode makes clear that there are few, if any, less than selfish and small-minded motivations among many of the people we witness, though those motivations range from the seemingly benign to the truly despicable. Mellie brings Ballard his prescription because she has a thing for him. Senator Boxbaum seems to only be open to investigating the Children of the Temple cult because "this is an election year. I got the Family Value voters on the right, the Women's Issues constituency on the left - all coming after me if anything untoward is going on behind those compound walls". Meanwhile, Agent Lilly is interested in Jonas Sparrow less because he may be in violation of Alcohol, Tobacco, or Firearms laws than because Lilly has had run ins with Sparrow before, and "back then he wasn't calling it a church, and they were mostly underage girls. We put him away for what was supposed to be forever. Forever turned out to be just shy of two years". For Boxbaum and Lilly, this is a battle to fight not because they necessarily believe that people within the compound want saving or need it, but because to "save" those people would further their own agendas. They play at presenting their actions as stemming from the motive of "doing the right thing". Boxbaum tells DeWitt, "Happy? No. This is something quite apart from happiness. Call it a kind of bliss, an unquestioning serenity. True happiness requires some measure of self-awareness. We're talking about people here who have their - their very wills taken away". As Adelle replies, "Imagine such a thing". 

Before we see who he is talking to, we could assume he was describing the Dollhouse itself; before we learn that he is a valued and valuable client of the Dollhouse, we could almost assume a sincerity on his part to truly help those who are forced to exist without self-awareness. Before he utilizes someone else trapped within a forced state of bliss to help him with his election year problem, we could believe that he was, in his own way, a 'true believer'. Afterwards, we know exactly what he is; an opportunist. Hell, he may actually even believe the part about happiness being something that indicates self-awareness and reflection. But that doesn't change the fact that the only reason he gives for actually doing a thing about this situation is the fact that there's finally an issue where a whole bunch of people on the Right side of the ideological spectrum and a whole bunch of people on the Left side of the ideological spectrum could find common ground, and to not show some sign of action would be a death knell to his political career. Same song and dance for Agent Lilly; I have no doubt he truly believed that Jonas Sparrow was a bad person. But his reason for going after Sparrow had less to do with Sparrow's actual current crime and more to do with a vendetta. Boyd sums it up the best when he said:

"You knew he sent his people into town once a month. You were waiting. You ginned up tempers. Started rumors in the town. Created a diversion. And then you wrote that note. That's how you got your warrant. Nobody ever asked to be saved. Not by you."

That is the interesting conundrum. Nobody asked to be saved. None of the cult members we saw seemed particularly perturbed or worried or trapped, until the end. We saw no kool-aid moments. We saw no indication that this cult had any sort of sexual component, and it could have just been that Sparrow simply wanted to revisit the heyday of the Shakers (an odd choice, but whatevs). Agent Lilly, in his selfish and myopic view, believed that those on the compound both wanted to be saved and should be saved - from themselves. Because his agenda and his belief about what was best for them trumped their own. At the same time, no one in the Dollhouse can ask to be saved. That is other side of this coin, the question of when is it right to save those who didn't ask for it? When is it right to presume that those being saved did not speak because they didn't want to, but because they couldn't? Ballard is on a mission similar to Lilly's; he is pursuing his singular line of investigation with determination and more than a pinch of obsessiveness. But we see his mission as good, because he is saving the voiceless. We have visions of Waco, of Jonestown in our collective societal memory. Sparrow trapped his followers in a burning building, trapped them with two armed men and a cry that to fear the fire and to desire to leave meant betraying one's faith. Echo-Esther took the opposite route, freeing those trapped within the building by conking Sparrow on the head, persuading the majority to leave with her "God has a message for you, and that message is 'Move your ass!'" bit, and knocking the unwilling out in order to save him when he was unwilling to save himself.

The difference between Ballard and Lilly is mostly present in the motive; Ballard's pursuit seems to be less about him and more about the injustice inherently present in a Dollhouse-type institution. The difference between Sparrow and Echo-Esther isn't; both of them are following what they believe God compels them to do. They both make a majority's decision for them, but one's decision is to condemn people who otherwise would not be interested to death and one's decision is to keep those people alive for another day. But what is also present in the difference between Sparrow and Echo-Esther is their fundamental belief in God; Sparrow created a situation in order to facilitate a miracle. Unlike the biblical passage he took as inspiration, Sparrow was not only depending on God to save him and his flock but also responsible for the situation they needed salvation from. Meanwhile, Echo-Esther refused to depend upon God as her sole savior when she could move to save herself and others. Moving forward with faith in God was life; staying stagnant and waiting for God's intervention was death.

Nonreligious Block Growing

I'm kind of excited about this news story, not because I dislike religion but because I'm for anything that makes not being religious less suspect:

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Also:

"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.

Gendered Sinning

Last week, Feministe had a post about a report by the Vatican saying that men and women sin in different ways, with the most prevalent sin for men being lust, followed by gluttony, sloth, angry, pride, envy and greed, and the most prevalent for women being pride - followed by envy, anger, lust, and then sloth. I rolled my eyes and moved on. Yes, it is horribly gendered, and it reinforces gender norms and beliefs about the differences among the sexes. But, as Cara wrote, "the answer should surprise none of us". I would have been floored had the Vatican actually offered a different explanation for the differences in what men and women confessed than the trite idea that men and women must just sin differently. But then I was actually knocked off of my feet.

Some background. NPR have little programs that focus on a particular topic combine several of the stories they have done on their various programs throughout the week that fall under the umbrella of that topic. I don't know how many there are; I generally listen to the Political Rewind, NPR: Music, and NPR: Religion. On one of the programs making up the NPR: Religion podcast (normally they're news shows like All Things Considered or Morning Edition or Weekend Edition), Jesuit priest Father James Martin first commented on what the survey actually measured, saying, "You read the survey, and you could also interpret it as those are the sins they confess more. Which may not mean that they're actually sinning in that way, but those are the sins they confess most often to confessors". That is an important distinction; I remember talking to some of my friends who actually went to confession after their confirmations and made up some plausible sins because they couldn't remember any of their real ones. Measuring what people confess could be just a measure of what they generally feel expected to confess and not what they actually feel like they've done.

Father Martin also brings up the sociological aspect of who sees what as sinful, remarking, "Women may be more encouraged when they're young not to be proud and be more self-effacing. They actually may be more attentive to the sin of pride than men would be. But that may not mean that they are any more proud than men are but that they may confess it more." That was what almost laid me flat, because it acknowledged societal gender roles as playing a part in how people interpret their actions and how what may be different is not the type of sinning but what men and women consider to be sinful. "That's very similar to my thinking. I wondered if what women would identify as the sin of pride men would identify as just, you know, a bit of swaggering self confidence," agreed host Scott Simon.

Something not really addressed in the conversation but that occurred to me was the philosophical question of sin. I wondered, while listening to the podcast, whether or not men and women may not truly sin differently simply by virtue of experiencing sin differently. Or, are women, by acknowledging their pride, actually sinning where men experiencing the exact same emotions or going through the exact same actions are not, simply because they don't perceive what they're doing as sinful? Not being religious, I can't really see sin as being something existing independently of those sinning. But at the same time, I would imagine for the religious it is. Otherwise, it would simply come down to perception - and if sin is just about perception then the person who inhales a carton of ice cream could not be gluttonous and the person who had that extra piece of bread could be. And if sin is simply about the sinner's perception of sin, then men and women would sin differently - and the question would then become why a particular action or emotional response would be a sin when attributed to women but not when attributed to men. But I don't really think that's how the Vatican and the 94 year old who documented these confessions are approaching the gendered sin question; I think they really just stop short of really getting what this report could actually be saying to them. 

Life as an Atheist Bones Viewer

I'm an avid viewer of Bones. I really, really like it, even when it isn't good and even when it doesn't make sense. I didn't get into it when it first premiered because although I like David Boreanaz from his days on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I've never really felt the need to follow actors from project to project (the lone exception to this rule is Shia LaBeouf, for no actual quantifiable reason). I'm more of a writer girl; I follow my favorite writers and creators from show to show. I always say that I'll watch the shows that actors I've seen before and enjoyed are on, but I rarely end up following through on that promise. Hence, no Brothers & Sisters for me, even though it has Rob Lowe. No How I Met Your Mother, even though it has Alyson Hannigan and Neil Patrick Harris. No Heroes, even though it has Milo Ventimiglia - though I have to admit that I did try on that last one. It just didn't take. I am the kind of viewer responsible for things like "The Seinfeld Curse". But Bones, I could get into. Emily Deschanel is so incredibly engaging, and David Boreanaz has developed some actual skill since "Welcome to the Hellmouth". And everything was going fairly okay between me and my viewing of Bones. Yes, I think the first season was the best; yes, I was upset by the betrayal of Zack Addy, and thought Zack's actions had very little basis in the character; yes, I saw a more slapstick sense going down. But overall, the show was still one on my "must watch" list, a list occupied this season only by Chuck, the now defunct Pushing Daises, and now Dollhouse. But I didn't watch this week, and I'm trying to work up the enthusiasm to watch via Hulu. Why? Well, because in "The Hero in the Hold", one of the things I love best about the series - that being the way the two main characters' different religious beliefs (one being Catholic and one having none) is placed on equal footing as equally valid and plausible - was shot to shit.

I'm well-accustomed to seeing atheists not being presented well in fiction. If there is an atheist on a crime drama, there's 10 to 1 odds that atheist is your man, responsible for the death or mayhem that has occurred. For example, Law & Order: Criminal Intent had an episode that I had hoped would show an actually ethical and intelligent atheist, but instead it turned out he killed the preacher's wife because she outed him as having mentally disabled son. So, not only was he responsible for death, he was also responsible for not being able to love or care for his kid because he thought the boy defective. Even House (whom I love dearly and whose reason for being an atheist mirrors my own), probably the best known atheist on television, isn't really the best in terms of ingratiating atheists with the community at large. And so, one of the joys of Bones was watching a character - in this case a woman - who had a firm moral code, who had friends, who was considered not only a good guy but one of the best of the good guys and who was also an atheist. I even loved her conversations with Booth regarding his Catholicism and her atheism. I loved her reading of certain scripture, like her interpretation of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac and being stopped by God's messenger when she said, "when it comes to your children, your love has to be absolute. The messenger represents goodness, what you know to be right. Ergo, you have to remain open to what you know is true". I liked that Brennan's atheism was absolute, and that she didn't look foolish or wrong for not believing. I liked that Booth's Catholicism was never put into question either, that he never looked foolish or wrong for believing.

But in "Hero in the Hold", the dynamic in the handling of religion changed. Sure, there had been other unsavory examples. "The Man in the Morgue" had an assertion that Brennan really had been under the power of some voodoo; "The Skull in the Desert" had Angela experiencing some kind of vision that led the team to a missing woman in the desert, and Booth and Angela gently mocked Brennan's belief that Angela subconsciously sifted through the logistics and processed "the most likely scenario". However, never before did I feel like the show was showing that Brennan was just out and out wrong in her atheism. Those other times, it was the characters believing in something more and disbelieving that the explanation could be of the mundane. In "Hero in the Hold", though, Brennan comes face to face with a spirit, and doesn't recognize him as such. In "Hero in the Hold", the spirit is actually able to help Booth escape a deadly situation. "Hero in the Hold" validated the belief in some form of afterlife and invalidated the belief that there was none. And what was almost worse than that was the fact that having the mystical and spiritual an actual part of the show made the show over all less. This was a show about science, even when the actual science was somewhat questionable. It was a show about logic, and how science and logic - along with the more slippery elements of human interaction and good old fashioned FBI work, could make cases and solve murders and mysteries. Add in some helpful spirits, and the actual spirit of the show takes a bit of a hiatus.

Take "Aliens in a Spaceship", where Hodgins and Brennan escape from the same serial killer that captures Booth in "Hero in the Hold". They don't have a ghost; they have their knowledge and a bit of luck. They escape because they are the premiere minds in their fields, and have working back at the lab a team that was heads and shoulders above the rest. They created electrical currents to send a short text message to their colleagues, they popped the spare tire, they made oxygen out of lithium scraped from batteries and soda ash, and they used the explosives contained in the air bags to blast their way to freedom - freedom they obtained partially because the people on the other end were able to put together what their text message and were able to narrow down their possible locations from it. Science, and faith in themselves, each other, and their friends pulled them through it. That episode was brilliant because it contained the best of what Bones could offer. It had both the science and the interpersonal relationships; it had both character growth and a meaty mystery. It was a classic. "Hero in the Hold" didn't, and it was the weaker for it. It would have probably been weaker no matter what, because "Aliens in the Spaceship" is one of the best episodes the series has to offer; but contrasting an episode that utilizes Brennan's intellect and skill with one that makes a mockery of one of the core tenets of the show, and that second episode is bound to be at the bottom of the pack. Plus, it had the added benefit of making me feel just a little bit alienated from the show as a whole. And so even though I'm going to watch Thursday's episode via Hulu and I'm going to try to not be sensitive over this gaffe and just throw it into the pile containing that whole Zack-Gormogon plot, at some point that pile is going to be larger than my enjoyment of the show. And that will be too bad.

Can We Talk? I Don't Know.

This week's My Turn in Newsweek is a piece called "Less Shouting, More Talking", a sentiment that I am at most ambivalent about because while I love talking, shouting has its place as well. What makes me more ambivalent about the idea is what its author, Richard Mouw, wants to talk about. He wants to talk about sexuality; he wants to bring the different sides of the gay marriage debate to the table, and converse about it. The issue for me, though, is that it seems like it is going to be a disingenuous argument from the start - potentially from both sides. Talking it over would signify hope for the potential of a greater understanding, possibly some common ground in regard to the issue. I doubt for many of the people Mouw walked by on the way to the polls "carrying signs" that "mostly say 'Hooray for our side" the potential would ever be even there, let alone brought to fruition. And that stems from something rather simple, something Mouw erroneously - possibly ignorantly - states in the very beginning:

"I voted for the ban. As an evangelical, I subscribe to the "traditional" definition of marriage, and I do not want to see the definition changed. Does that mean I want to impose my personal convictions on the broader population? No."

But, in reality, that is exactly what a vote for Prop. 8 meant. It meant that not only did Mouw decide that gay marriage was wrong for him, but that it was wrong for everyone else in the state of California as well. And in reality, this imposition of personal convictions on the broader population is what a no vote meant as well - that the voter not only decided that s/he personally thought that gay marriage was a pretty okay thing, but that the entire population of California should have to recognize it as a legal reality. Hell, when I voted for Barack Obama, I was voting to impose my personal conviction on the broader population as well; I was voting for Obama because I believed in him and his ideas, and also because I didn't want to be imposed upon by the other guy (or more accurately, the other guy's VP... ...who won't go away!). The only way Mouw would not have been imposing his personal convictions on the broader population is if he chose not to vote at all on the proposition. Going to the table with that disingenuous reality married with the possibly authentic belief that false reality was in fact true is no way to start any kind of true discussion. Because there is no way to argue against such a falsehood.

One of the problems for me in the arguments presented by the religious right for the fear that they are being or will be marginalized is that this concern seems to ignore what has been fostered upon those who have been oppressed in the past and those who still make up a marginalized group. I don't know if their fear of marginalization stems from the lurking idea that they have done something wrong, that the privilege they exhibit in their interactions with the world - or rather, certain segments of the world - could very well become inverted with themselves on the bottom of a new hierarchy they recognize as profoundly unjust and shaming. I don't know if they don't recognize the similarities between what they fear and what they perpetuate, and their worries stem from a different source of martyrdom entirely. What I do know is this: the whole thing makes me see red. Like this sentiment:

"For many of us, 'normalizing' same-sex marriage comes down to deep concerns about the raising of our children and grandchildren. What will they be taught about sexual and family values in our schools? How will they be affected by the ways the entertainment media portray people with our kinds of views?"

Does Mouw not recognize that the gay community is living and has lived with the reality of those fears for decades? Does Mouw not recognize that gay youths and children of homosexual parents are being affected - and have been affected - by what they are taught regarding sexual and family values in our schools? Does Mouw not recognize that gays and children of homosexual parents are being affected by the ways the entertainment media portray them and their loved ones? If he doesn't, he is being willfully blind.

The thing about Richard Mouw's article that makes me see red more than any of the lunatic rantings found on my newspaper's opinion page is this: Mouw seems authentically calm, and hurt and interested in a discussion. But that doesn't make him any less immobile than someone like Michelle Malkin or Rush Limbough. He just puts a kinder, sweeter, more literate grandfatherly face on the debate. When he asks, "What is it about people like me that frightens you so much?", I want to ask him why I shouldn't be. Why my gay friends shouldn't be. The fact is that gays are a marginalized group, and people like Mouw - and heck, Mouw himself - are part of why they are marginalized. Why shouldn't a marginalized group, when faced with someone who supports their continued marginalization, be frightened? Why shouldn't they be angry? It doesn't matter that Richard Mouw is an evangelical Christian who believes in racial justice and gender equality and peacemaking and caring for the environment. Well, it does, but not here. Here and now, there's this. In terms of rights for gays, Mouw is still in a position of power and he is working to maintain that position. He is working for his religious belief to be the rule governing all. That is why I fear people like him. Because he can be sweet and kindly and he can fight for gender equality and the environment, but at the end of the day he is still a man who sees nothing wrong with continuing an inequality that - even if he does not condone it, even if he does not consider it, even if he has never even thought it - contributes to not only the marginalization a group of people but systemic violence toward that group of people.

Mouw "refuse[s] to go to the margins". What he doesn't recognize is that he and those who take the same sort of position he has taken have relegated a whole host of others to those margins. And I have very little tolerance for that. What he doesn't recognize is that positioning himself as someone who could one day become potentially marginalized is actually rather insulting - at least to me, as someone who has been marginalized and ostracized by those with his religious beliefs. It is insulting to be presented this potential world where his children and grandchildren may not be portrayed in a flattering light, where the beliefs he considers essential to family values are not included in the school curriculum, when I live in the real world where my loved ones and people of my belief (or lack of it) are not portrayed in a flattering light, and where a book about two daddy penguins starts an uproar. I don't know if it is possible for Mouw to recognize that, to recognize how what he fears is reality for too many. What I do believe is this: until that is recognized, any national conversation with any hope of succeeding is probably an unrealistic expectation.

When I Teared Up

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers."
- President Barack Obama

As an atheistic apatheist (not only do I not believe there's a god but that I honestly don't care), being included in an inaugural address is a pretty big deal for me. I mean, I have had people stop talking to me because of my atheism; I have been mistaken for a Satanist due to my atheism; and more than once people have reacted as if I've betrayed them in some way by being an atheist and not Catholic like they normally assume. To be included in the bigger picture, to have my nonbelief offered up as a strength for our nation, is pretty moving for me. It gives me hope that one day, being an atheist won't be something that elicits a horrified reaction; it gives me hope that one day, being an atheist won't immediately be equated with the opposite of goodness; that being an atheist won't immediately make someone assume that I am not trustworthy, or a liar, or that I am a thing to be pitied; that I am only an atheist because I don't want to own up to my sinful ways, and if I only knew of the glory of God, that I would be saved.

One of the stories on Talk of the Nation on the 15th was about atheism and the advertising of it in a public square, focusing mainly on the bus ads that had been present in D.C. during the Christmas season, proclaiming that we should be good "for goodness' sake". The idea behind this discussion was atheist activism, how others felt about it, and if there were more atheists now than ever before. I don't know if there are; I honestly don't care if there are. It doesn't make any difference to me if we make up 2% of the population or 50% of the population. What I do want is for atheism to be recognized as a perfectly valid belief. I don't know if bus ads or billboards or a mention in an inaugural address is enough to do that, to validate a belief that goes against the core beliefs held by many in the nation. But it is a start, and it does make me feel a bit more accepted.

Striving For The Cool Kid Table

"Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters - feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community - by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead."

- Katha Pollitt

President-Elect Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation is one that stumps me; it puzzles me; and it angers and annoys me. I would like to believe that Obama was trying to get Rick Warren in deep trouble with his evangelical colleagues - which it has - or that he did so in order to say that he is a "fierce advocate for gay and lesbian Americans" with a modicum of cover, or that he hopes to trade this symbolic gesture for a very real concession on gay rights issues like a reversal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as Steven Waldman of Beliefnet (last Thursday's Talk of the Nation guest) suggests. 

But I'm in the pack of the "some people" Neal Conan describes when he says, "Some people see it as a continuation. President Bush at his inauguration had some speakers, some evangelical speakers from the far right". Waldman responded,

"That's what makes this such a bold move by Obama. Bush had Franklin Graham, as conservative evangelical, and the parallel thing for Obama to do, I guess, would have been to have a liberal preacher; and instead he has another conservative evangelical. So he's making a very different statement. Bush had picked someone who agrees with him. Obama is picking someone who disagrees with him on a lot of things. It obviously fits his theme of... ...working across party lines and with people you disagree with to achieve common goals. And I think it is an effort to depoliticize prayer, almost a spiritual bipartisanship."

First, I suppose it is a bold move by Obama; he won promising change and a departure from Bush - and instead he's sticking to the same path of highlighting evangelical preachers who preach intolerance and hate. That's fairly bold, although not the bold and fresh action I was looking for when I voted for the man. But perhaps my biggest problem with Waldman's take on this is that picking Warren is not depoliticizing prayer. Yes, this is a man who has criticized other evangelical pastors of being too political. But he is also a man who joined in the fight to pass Prop. 8 in California and who reiterated untruths like the idea that if Prop. 8 failed, preachers could be charged with hate crimes. That is a political stance, and it isn't one far enough in the past that picking Warren to speak as a definitive speaker comes across as depoliticizing spirituality. You know what could have done that? Picking a preacher who wasn't involved in politics for a while. 

Mostly though, I feel as if Keith Olbermann has got my mood right:

"The idea of compromise, though, from the people who got Obama elected; for eight years under the current president, compromise has meant, in essence, everybody who is not on the far right needs to concede something to the far right and then they'll call it a compromise. So now the first compromise for president-elect Obama, and at least in this case, it is everybody who is not on the far right still needs to concede something to the far right and that's compromise. Setting aside the issue here, just focusing on the politics of this occasion, why shouldn't the left and much of the center be upset about this?"

This idea is echoed by Mike from Salem, Oregon, calling into Talk of the Nation on the 18th, when he said,

"I think I understand why Mr. Obama is doing this; he wants people to reconcile and reach toward the middle, and that's fine. But so far with his appointments, he's appointing people and he's asking the Left or the progressives to reach to the right and I'm looking for an appointment or some statement or something that'll ask the right to reach toward the middle - toward the left. And this certainly doesn't do that."

It certainly doesn't. I'm actually fairly happy with Obama's appointments so far. I know that there has been some contention about his appointing many Clintonites to posts instead of innovative and really progressive newcomers as both a way to infuse new ideas into the White House and to revolutionize Washington DC politics; but I feel like if you've got good, experienced Dems who can help you avoid the pitfalls they themselves stumbled over and into then that is who you appoint. I also understand that going too far to the left has been a problem for Democrats in the past and helped Dems lose seats in the Congress to Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution in 1996, and that one could say going too far to the Right helped cost Bush and the Republicans as well - though I would chalk some of that up to out and out stupidity. I understand the need for incremental movement in many areas, saving the seismic shifts for rare issues of importance; incremental movement is one of the reasons I like the electoral college. I even think that Keith Olbermann is not describing the true political climate but the overall feeling liberals have been experiencing for the past eight years - and I would say he would concede that as well. But it is the second of Mike from Salem Oregon's point that really gets me:

Mike from Salem, Oregon: If he's looking for reconciliation in more of a progressive approach toward religion, there are much better ministers and religious people who could be giving this invocation other than Rick Warren.

Neal Conan: But not those who invited him to speak at his very politically powerful church in California.

Mike from Salem, Oregon: That may be the case, but Obama is a very intelligent man... ... the presiding bishop if the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, she's very inclusive; and that's what we're looking for here, I think, is inclusiveness.

For too long a time now, I've felt like the Democratic Party was that pathetic not-cool kid in high school desperate to sit at the cool kids' table - the one who would abandon his long-time friends on a moment's notice after receiving a scrap of good will from one of the popular students, the kid who would slink back to his table and to his deserted friends after the popular kids tripped him down a flight of stairs. The Evangelicals are not going to like the Democrats; and inviting someone like Rick Warren, a man who has compared homosexuals to perpetrators of incest and pedophiles, a man whose church perpetuates the idea that a woman should be subject to her husband instead of equal to him, a man who believes that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, to speak at Obama's inauguration is going to do nothing to change that. What it does do is spit in the face of those who voted for Obama - the gays, the women, those who respect scientific thought, etc.

Rick Warren may not be the worst evangelical; Warren has, as Steven Waldman writes in his defense of the man, reverse-tithed 90% of his income, living off of 10%. He cares about fighting poverty, and AIDs, and he is adamantly against torture. And I can see emphasizing that and reaching out to him through the White House on those issues; I can see meeting with him and working with him on issues of shared concern. I even think Rick Warren could do some good in those areas amongst his conservative crew. But just because the man isn't as far to the right on every issue as Pat Robertson or as odious as Rush Limbaugh does not mean inviting him to speak on a day that celebrates the signing in of a new President for all Americans since Rick Warren doesn't represent all Americans and is decidedly and vocally opposed to many of those Americans who helped carry Obama to victory in the first place. Compromise of this sort seems to be a compromise of principles instead of representing a rise above the political fray or politics as usual. Because unfortunately, the swill Warren has been spewing is politics as usual.