Right-Wingers Threaten to Beat Health Teacher over "Bless You!" Ban

A health teacher wants his kids to stop saying "Bless you!" after someone sneezes. He reminds the kids that we actually learned about germs and stuff a century or two ago. A sneeze, it turns out, isn't your body's attempt to expel demons! To drive the point home, teacher Steve Cuckovich is deducting points from a student's score when the student says "Bless you!" in response to a sneeze.

Cuckovich sounds like a great teacher to me, one with a sense of humor and a way to drive a point home to the students. Maybe a bit idealistic, but his heart is in the right place. But the reader comments at the end article ... well ... I'm speechless. This has to go into the "quoted without comment" category. It speaks for itself.

redwhiteandblueuniverse: "Steve Cuckovich, Mind your own business and stop acting as though you have any authority ... Try pushing your personal beliefs on my child and I will beat your ass. Period, end of story."

rogers1756: "Amen. This teacher needs to be slapped off his mock pedestal of intellectual superiority. This is what the progressives would have if they had their way ... Typical Hillary fascist mind control ..."

Bachmann's Faith Would Destroy America

Remember the "no religious test" clause of the United States Constitution that guarantees everyone the right to hold government office regardless of faith? I'm beginning to wonder if it's time to repeal it. Maybe it's time to ban people who are religious extremists from holding federal office! Michelle Bachmann comes to mind...

A couple days ago while driving down the road enjoying a bright, sunny Southern California morning, I spotted a beautiful old classic 1958 Pontiac. "What a beautiful machine!" I thought. "Back in those days, you could actually tune the car yourself. No computers, hand-crank windows that always worked, and if it had seat belts, it was your choice to use them or not. Those were the days!"

It almost made me have some compassion for Michelle Bachmann's desire to turn back the clock to a simpler time.

Then I pulled in behind it to get a better look at it ... and was assaulted by a terrible stink, something I hadn't smelled in quite a while. It was unburned gasoline, partially burned motor oil, nitrous oxide, thousands of different carcinogenic hydrocarbons, and no doubt a good dose of odorless carbon monoxide. If this had been 1958 when

Good News for Atheists: We're Worse than Muslims

Is this a milestone for secularism? A new Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey asked evangelical leaders what worried them the most. If you guessed Islam, you guessed wrong. It's secularism!

When asked about major threats to Evangelical Christianity, secularism topped the list at 71%, followed by consumerism (67%), and sex and violence in pop culture (59%). Islam came in a distant fourth at 47%.

(I was amused that the "influence of Catholicism" is also on the list at 10%. I guess these evangelical Christians don't count Catholics among their brethren.)

This is really good news. It means secularism and atheism are making genuine progress around the world. You know you're making a difference when the opposition can't ignore you any more. And when you're their top concern worldwide, it means whatever you're doing is working.

The Pew survey had a few other fascinating

Evangelical Idiocy: The Death of America?

I've mentioned before that the question I get the most from family and friends is, "Why do you care so much about religion? Can't we just live and let live?"

Well, here's one of the reasons why I care: almost two thirds of Evangelical Christians are dangerously ignorant. (I want to call them dangerously stupid, but that would be too nice since it would relieve them of blame.)

A new poll about God and natural disasters revealed what I should have known already: Evangelical Christians are ignorant of science and technology. They believe things that can't possibly be true, and they vote. Not only do they vote, but some of them even get elected to positions with considerable power and responsibility.

Here is a sampling of this idiocy:

• Six in ten white Evangelicals believe that hurricanes, floods and earthquakes are signs from God that the End of Times is almost here. They don't believe in global warming. They don't believe earthquakes are just normal geology.
• A majority (53%) of white evangelicals believe that God punishes whole nations for the sins of some citizens.
• Evangelicals believe that God is actively controlling the world, and that everything that happens is because God deliberately made it happen.

What does this really mean? These might seem like harmless beliefs to

Tea Party: Just a Christian Sock Puppet? New Pew Report Reveals Truth

Would you be surprised to learn that the Tea Party isn't actually a good cross section of America? That in fact they're mostly a sock puppet for Evangelical Christian politicians?

The Tea Party likes to pretend that it's a grass roots salt-of-the-earth organization made up of average Americans who are sick of big government and taxes. They want to pretend that they represent black, white and brown, male and female, young and old.

But the facts are otherwise. The Tea Party is actually a stronghold

Christian Memes on the Battlefield: Is Gandhi Going to Hell?

Pastor Rob Bell, a leading liberal Christian, dropped a bomb on the Evangelical right-wing faction of Christianity. Bell is calling the right-wing evalgelical ideas of Heaven, Hell, redemption and torture misguided and toxic. He is calling out the Evangelical right for their preposterous and indefensible concept of the afterlife.

Bell is saying that there are (*gasp*) other ways to Heaven than Evangelical Christianity! The blasphemy!

The Evangelical right's vision of Hell is one of the best tools in their toolbox, and it's no wonder they're upset about Bell's challenge. Of all the tricks that keep people going to church, the idea of eternal damnation and torture is

Christian Fundamentalism linked to Domestic Violence

Here's something disturbing, but not exactly surprising. It seems that the most "evangelical" Christians are also the most likely to beat their wives and children.

In an interesting new study (PDF) by Jerome R. Koch and Ignacio Luis Ramirez of Texas Tech University, they discovered that domestic violence and evangelical beliefs are strongly linked.

It's interesting that religiosity (the strength of one's beliefs) in general is not part of this equation. People with very strong faith are no more (or less) likely to be violent than people with mild faith or no faith at all. It's quite specifically the degree of evangelicalism – the belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and contains no errors whatsoever – that predicts domestic violence.

I guess I'm not surprised by this. To believe that the Bible has no errors you have to completely shut your mind off.

Is it OK for your Doctor to Proselytize?

When is it ok to use business to spread your religion? Is it OK for your butcher to recommend chapters of the Bible? For your mechanic to leave Jehovah's Witness literature around the waiting room and press one into your hands as you leave? Is it OK for your doctor to tell you that accepting Christ as your savior would help you heal?

This is not an academic question to a friend of mine. We were on the topic of religion and my upcoming book, and got to the Proselyzation Meme, which brought forth a story. She faced a series of reconstructive surgeries after an illness, and her HMO offered just one surgeon in that specialty. The good news was that her surgeon was one of the best, and did an excellent job. But ... the surgeon's waiting room was filled with religious books and magazines, she sold childrens' Bible stories in her lobby, and the same literature graced the examining rooms and the doctor's own office. Every time my friend was going through particularly difficult times, the doctor would remind her that Jesus could help, if she'd only let him into her heart.

I don't know about you, but in my book it is unethical for any doctor to mix religion and medicine, especially one in an HMO where the patient is "captive" and can't choose.

A butcher or mechanic? Sure. I can easily take my business elsewhere (or more likely, I'd continue to patronize them and offer them my views!), and as private citizens, they have a right to operate their businesses any way they like. But not doctors. Doctors are supposed to offer tolerance, impartiality, and acceptance of all lifestyles to their patients. When we visit, we have to know that we can talk about anything to our doctor without fear of judgement, condescension or disapproval.

What if, for example, a cheating spouse feared he/she had caught a sexually transmitted disease, and was afraid to ask an overtly proselytizing doctor to be tested, for fear of being judged? The consequences could be fatal to his/her marriage partner.

If Christians, or a member of any other faith, feel that saving my soul is so important that they must share and spread their beliefs, fine, that's their right. But, they shouldn't become doctors if they can't put their proselytizing aside during business hours. Being a doctor implies treating all of your patients impartially, sticking to medicine, and keeping your morals and beliefs to yourself. Opinions and advice should be strictly medical and psychological.

Good Riddance to Sarah Palin

It looks like Sarah Palin is destroying her own career, and saving us the trouble. By stepping down as governor of Alaska, in spite of her claims to the contrary, she is breaking her promise to the voters of Alaska, and her commitment to serve in the office of governor for her elected term. Honorable politicians serve out their terms in spite of hardship and adversity; Sarah Palin is nothing more than a quitter.

Her fall once again illustrates what a good friend of mine once said: "We Christians aren't better than everyone else, just forgiven." I really like that philosophy. It's the Evangelical Christians like Sarah Palin, with their holier-than-thou attitudes, their claims to moral superiority, and especially their firm conviction that there is only one side to every question, that make me sick. Their beliefs and actions are anti-American, anti-democracy, and even un-Christian. So, although I rarely take pleasure in another's misfortune, the fall of Sarah Palin makes me happy.

It will be satisfying to see her reduced from a national political figure, a vice-presidential nominee and potential future president, to a talk-show host and political has-been. Even the Republicans are disgusted with her quitter attitude. She's toast, and we're glad to see her gone.

Evangelical Christians: One-Issue Voters

Deciding who to vote for has always been one of my most difficult tasks during elections, because I never agree 100% with any candidate. As a responsible voter, it is my duty to rank the issues by importance, and try to find the candidate who will best represent my views. It's no easy task, and is often an exercise in frustration. Yet I take it seriously, because that's what makes Democracy work.

Apparently, the evangelical Christian community has a much easier solution: Vote for any candidate who is the "most Christian." Never mind the candidate's qualifications, or actual voting record, or inconsistent past ... if the candidate goes to a conservative church, and mouths the correct buzzwords, they're in.

According to this article at alternet.org (a liberal webzine), the selection of Sarah Palin brought more than pigs-and-lipstick jokes to the campaign. It brought money. Lots of it. The Swift-boaters, the ones who successfully besmirched the reputation of an American patriot, poured over 10 million dollars into McCain's campaign immediately after Palin was selected.

What's amazing is the statistics on evangelical Christians. Before McCain selected Palin, white evangelicals favored McCain over Obama by 68% to 24%. Palin's selection pushed it even further, to 71% / 21%, apparently due simply to her religion.

Do these people even think? Could they tell you the detailed positions that the four candidates hold? Or is the abortion / creationism debate all they care about? What about the trade deficit? Global warming? Nuclear proliferation? Overpopulation? AIDS and other international health problems? What about the candidates' experience, credibility, statesmanship?

I find it hard to believe that there is something in Jesus Christ's teachings that makes it clear that McCain/Palin is a better choice than Obama/Biden. All four of these potential presidents are good Christians; to an Atheist, their views about God and the supernatural are virtually indistinguishable. Yet, evangelical Christians apparently believe that being evangelical is the only qualification for the job.

That's irresponsible.