Monthly Archives: March 2020

Ive had the pleasure of connecting with tons of secular parents here on the intertubes since starting the Godless Mom blog. Ihear lots of stories some are sad, some are triumphant, some just gutting. There are a few things I hear though, that just strike me as strange. These thingsfeel counterproductive to me and could have the opposite effect you are hoping them to.

Heres a handful of the most frequent actions taken by atheist parents who contact me, that in my mind are complete no-nos:

1. Dont refuse to attend family functions in religious buildings.If youve been invited to a family wedding at a church, or a Bar Mitzvah at a synagogue just go. Refusal to do so, based solely on the grounds that you are an atheist, is petty. By refusing to go, youre assigning power tothe religious venue and dont think for two seconds your kids wont pick up on this. If you want your children to see a church or a synagogueas just another building like any other, then dont give it the power to keep you out.

2. Dont shield your children from religion or religious people. If there are religious people in your childs life, be okay with them talking to your children about their religion. Just insist that you are either present or told what has been said. Youre never going to be able to stop them from being exposed to religion completely, so you might as well be in control of it. As well, many atheists will attest, the more you know about religion, the less likely you are to believe it.

3. Donttell your kids what to think about religion. Instead, tell them what you believe and what others believe and ask them what they think of it. Prompt their little minds to think critically by asking things like, Does that make sense to you? Why or why not? Putting them in a position to have to explain their thought process will trigger critical thought like nothing else.

4. Dont push your kids into learning about religion. Let them guide you. If and when they show interest or ask, Mommy, what is God?, thats when you begin to explore the topic together. If your child appears to lose interest, then let it go. Forcing your kids to hear about religion is only going to make the topic stand out to them. It gives it a power that other topics simply do not have.Youre saying to them, in not so many words, that religion holds no power over you, but they are seeing the opposite. When you cant drop the subject or let it go, it clearly does have power over you. Kids tend to see the examples you set far sooner than they hear the words you are saying.

5. Dont neglect other topics. I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but I have had a few parents email me telling me that they try and try to explain religion to their kids and it sounds almost as though thats all they talk about with them. Forcing your children to be lectured about things they have no interest in will only cause resentment and sometimes even rebellion against the very sentiments you are trying to teach. Just relaxteaching your kids about a large variety of things will help keep their curiosity sparked and that is all thats needed to grow into adults who value critical thought.

7.Dont take away religious holidays they might be used to. If all of their friends celebrate Christmas, and they look forward to it and it makes them happy, then why would you deprive them of that? This will cause resentment and also applies power to the religious aspect of the holiday: it has the power to stop you from celebrating it.

Being an atheist does not come with a dogma. We are not, in absence of belief in God, now forced to reject everything associated with a God claim. This is unreasonable and implies that atheism prescribes a certain way of life. We all know it doesnt. Dont let your disbelief rule your world, because your children will see that. They will take note and it could work in the exact opposite way you meant it to. You could endup with your very own Ken Ham living in your basement at 43 collecting pop cans to pay for his model of the ark.

Just relax. As an atheist, religion should not be a serious thing one way or the other. Dont let it have power. Celebrate your kids natural curiosity, be honest with them and I think youll find that they grow into critical thinking, rational adults.

Im writing a book addressing the many reasons believers distrust atheists. Im around 40,000 words in! If you want to help me get it done, you can support me by donatinghereor becoming a patronhere.

Image: Creative Commons/Pixabay

The rest is here:
7 Atheist Parenting Don'ts | Courtney Heard - Patheos

Sen. Bernie Sanders rallies with supporters in St. Paul, Minn., March 2, 2020.(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)And his own religious faith is indistinguishable from belief in socialism.

Once upon a time, Bernie Sanders would have had another political vulnerability besides his socialism namely, his atheism.

In 2016, a DNC staffer had to apologize after the WikiLeaks hack exposed an email he wrote that suggested using Bernies atheism against him in the primary.

This year, Bernies religion or lack of it has barely made a ripple or even occasioned any comment. It used to be expected that serious presidential candidates would have religious faith and discuss it, in keeping with the religious coloration of the country they sought to govern. Just as the taboo against openly socialist candidates has given way, so has the old norm about religiosity eroded nearly to the vanishing point.

Sanders, a secular Jew, doesnt call himself an atheist. The way he puts it is that hes not actively involved in organized religion, and that he believes in God, just not in a traditional matter. To me, he has said of his religion, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together.

Asked by Jimmy Kimmel whether he believes in God, he said, I am what I am. And what I believe in, and what my spirituality is about, is that were all in this together.

Functionally, this means his religion is indistinguishable from the vision of solidarity undergirding his socialist politics.

Indeed, the connection to Israel that Sanders touts to prove that he is not anti-Israel had much more to do with a political commitment rather than a religious one.

He lived for a time on a kibbutz in 1963 as a guest of a secular, socialist youth movement. According to the New York Times, the kibbutz saw the Soviet Union as a model, and often flew the red flag at outdoor events. Sanders told a publication called Jewish Currents that it was there that I saw and experienced for myself many of the progressive values upon which Israel was founded.

His brother said of Bernie in a 2016 Washington Post interview that he is quite substantially not religious.

This makes Sanders an outlier in American life, but less of one than he used to be. According to the Pew Research Center, 26 percent of Americans says that they are atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular, up from 17 percent in 2009. The growth of the religiously unaffiliated can be seen across all demographic groups and regions but is especially pronounced among young people who are, of course, disproportionately Bernie supporters. Only 35 percent of Millennials attend religious services weekly or once or twice a month, while 64 percent attend a few times a year, seldom, or never.

The non-religious are Bernies base. A Pew survey in January found that Joe Bidens most supportive religious group was black Protestants, at 44 percent, followed by white Catholics and white evangelicals, at 37 percent each. Bernies best groups were agnostics (36 percent), atheists (30), and the unaffiliated (28).

In New Hampshire, Sanders lost to Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg among voters who attend religious services once a week or more and won among voters who never attend. A rare bright spot for Bernie in South Carolina was beating Biden among voters who never attend church, 36 to 24 percent.

Theres no rule that presidents have to be believers, or Thomas Jefferson never would have occupied the office. But presidential religiosity has advantages. Bill Clinton used it to signal to otherwise politically hostile parts of the county that he understood their values. It fortified George W. Bush under incredible pressure during the War on Terror. Barack Obama tapped the rhetorical power of church oratory.

The Sanders phenomenon is another indication of the weakening of American exceptionalism. When the social scientist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote about it decades ago, he underlined American religiosity and resistance to socialism. If he captures the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders will test how much either still matters or applies.

2020 by King Features Syndicate

See original here:
Bernie Sanders Is the Candidate of Nonbelievers - National Review

Once upon a time, Bernie Sanders would have had another political vulnerability besides his socialism - namely, his atheism.

In 2016, a Democratic National Committee staffer had to apologize after the WikiLeaks hack exposed an email he wrote that suggested using Bernie's atheism against him in the primary.

This year, Bernie's religion, or lack of it, has barely made a ripple or even occasioned any comment. It used to be expected that serious presidential candidates would have religious faith and discuss it, in keeping with the religious coloration of the country they sought to govern. Just as the taboo against openly socialist candidates has given way, so has the old norm about religiosity eroded nearly to the vanishing point.

Sanders, a secular Jew, doesn't call himself an atheist. The way he puts it is that he's "not actively involved with organized religion," and that he believes in God, just not in a traditional matter. "To me," he has said of his religion, "it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together."

Asked by Jimmy Kimmel whether he believes in God, he said, "I am what I am. And what I believe in, and what my spirituality is about, is that we're all in this together."

Functionally, this means his religion is indistinguishable from the vision of solidarity undergirding his socialist politics.

Indeed, the connection to Israel that Sanders touts to prove that he is not anti-Israel had much more to do with a political commitment rather than a religious one.

He lived for a time on a kibbutz in 1963 as a guest of a secular, socialist youth movement. According to The New York Times, the kibbutz "saw the Soviet Union as a model, and often flew the red flag at outdoor events." Sanders told a publication called Jewish Currents that "it was there that I saw and experienced for myself many of the progressive values upon which Israel was founded."

His brother said of Bernie in a 2016 Washington Post interview that "he is quite substantially not religious."

This makes Sanders an outlier in American life, but less of one than he used to be. According to the Pew Research Center, 26% of Americans say that they are atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular," up from 17% in 2009. The growth of the religiously unaffiliated can be seen across all demographic groups and regions, but is especially pronounced among young people who are, of course, disproportionately Bernie supporters. Only 35% of millennials attend religious services weekly or once or twice a month, while 64% attend a few times a year, seldom or never.

The nonreligious are Bernie's base. A Pew survey in January found that Joe Biden's most supportive religious group was black Protestants at 44%, followed by white Catholics and white evangelicals at 37% each. Bernie's best groups were agnostics (36%), atheists (30%) and the unaffiliated (28%).

In New Hampshire, Sanders lost to Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg among voters who attend religious services once a week or more and won among voters who never attend. A rare bright spot for Bernie in South Carolina was beating Biden among voters who never attend church, 36% to 24%.

There's no rule that presidents have to be believers, or Thomas Jefferson never would have occupied the office. But presidential religiosity has advantages. Bill Clinton used it to signal to otherwise politically hostile parts of the county that he understood their values. It fortified George W. Bush under incredible pressure during the war on terror. Barack Obama tapped the rhetorical power of church oratory.

The Sanders phenomenon is another indication of the weakening of American exceptionalism. When the social scientist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote about it decades ago, he underlined American religiosity and resistance to socialism. If he captures the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders will test how much either still matters or applies.

Rich Lowry is on Twitter @RichLowry

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The candidate of the nonbelievers | Local News - timessentinel.com

There is a frightening word to which many people in the Church have closed their minds, which is gaining support at a rapid rate of knots and threatens to leave practising Catholics behind in its wake. That word is "humanist".

With that word, humanist, many people now describe not just themselves, but also the things they respect. Often Catholics do not approve of the word. Disapproving, they ignore the change; ignoring it, they drop out of the culture.

Last year the number of humanist funerals soared in Scotland and humanist weddings did so in England and Wales. English couples rushed to use Scotlands more post-Christian arrangements. This Christmas, humanist pastors started work in Northern Ireland.

Christians usually see these trends as events impinging on Christianity, when in fact they are occurring without it and have positive content themselves. Perhaps the feeling of being on the back foot in these culture wars has again made it congenial to Catholics to think institutionally and defensively. But thats no good.

A missionary Church cannot fall behind the things which its audience cares about, especially if it does not want to fall in with them. Yet how many Catholics inquire to see what makes humanism so attractive a term or to wonder if anything in that attraction is Christian?

What is happening is that humanist has become the main way to describe and defend that which is spiritual.

In the Observer, Mark Kermode praised 1917 and The Shawshank Redemption as humanist films because they speak about hope. The website Spiked! defends humanism, and by that means that Spiked! champions agency, the new term for free will and emancipation, and free speech, the sphere of conscience.

The album Humanist has just been released by a songwriter who says he is not religious but does "recognise the need for deities. Humanism is often associated with real feelings rather than formality: its what likeable in Hockney; its how Vox praises the new film Emma.

Not speaking this lingo means tacitly neglecting any defence of conscience, free will, and spirituality, made in terms that todays society can accept: the very concepts at the heart of Gaudium et spes. The very things in papers and websites which Christians should be latching onto as seeds of the Gospel are not being shared or said by them at all. Around us is a renewed culture, and Christians need to appropriate it.

In his book True Humanism (1936), Jacques Maritain argued that philosophers taking the human being as their starting point did not need to reduce reality to the human, or reduce what is human to the simply material.

Maritains thought was that when Christine de Pizan and Pico della Mirandola were flourishing, humanism was Christian humanism, but that by 1936, humanism became short for secular humanism.

If the Church engages at all, it opposes secular humanism with its Christian humanism as though 1936 were the present day. But often, in 2020, humanists recognise the need for the spiritual. The way people use humanism as a term of approval shows that New Atheism (Dawkins neo-Darwinism and so forth) is not now the problem.

Humanism now is not anti-Christian in tone. This is actually worse for the Church. The urgent problem is the currency of strong alternative language for good that the Church cannot hear and will not speak.

Nietzsche is somewhere in this story, too, Maritain was right about that; with the Nietzschean idea that Christianity encourages weakness. Every human sin confirms that bias. Marxism features too, because the Soviet version of the texts was published for a generation before Marx-before-Engels (what Maritain calls the young Marx) was rediscovered. Before long it looked like two forms of un-freedom: religion and politics, church and state.

When students grow up, it is more the questions that have been closed down for them that come to define their choices, than the skills which they are meant to have acquired. There is great danger now that atheists are defending agency, free expression and the human spirit, while the Church comes to be associated with cruelty, cover-up and grief.

Look no further than Philip Pullmans celebrity to see that the tables have been turned. Atheists who reject an idea of God that was never worthy of acceptance will defend humanity, they will be the humanists; and Catholics will fail to put across their trust in the God-made-man.

The century now underway is not unlike the fourth century in this respect. Then as well there was a more sympathetic hearing for Christians who presented Christ as divine but human than for Christians who emphasised divinity at the expense of humanity. The successful proselytisers were the Arians.

The fallacies promulgated in schools should be lanced. Before modern science, no one was trying (and failing) to do science. Before natural science existed, people engaged with the same real world, just in different terms. Their sacramental idea of nature, with God as the first, final and primary cause, can co-exist with our success in mastering secondary causes.

What is more important? When you meet someone whom Karl Rahner considers an anonymous Christian, who considers himself not religious; what matters first? To win an argument which to him is theoretical? To speak in your own institutions language? Or to relate to him in what Escriva calls the one same language of the heart? If you thought the natural virtues can be built on by the theological ones, why would you start with theology, bowdlerising theology in the process?

Why would the Church start with that bureaucratic aridity the Pope has rejected when we could achieve dialogue with the mercy Francis commends?

At a time when public discourse is being cut up into echo chambers and silos, when people seek actively to confirm their bias, the Church is another silo: one which does not communicate what it means and seems to say the opposite. So we need to start with the word that means something to others.

The integral humanism Maritain advocated means seeing the transcendent and the individual together, but it is with individuals that all individuals must begin. Catholics and the Catholic clergy should stand up for humanism, and use exactly that word.

Only by using an intelligible language can the Church gain a hearing for its claim to have a longer and deeper view. The Church has "baptised" natural theology before. Christ is the true human being. Humanism is the beginning of a faith that works.

Andrew Macdonald Powney works in publishing but used to teach RS in schools.

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Have atheists become defenders of the good? - The Tablet

Worried about COVID-19? Have no fear! A multi-denominational coalition of Christians is uniting today March 3rd, at 7:14 p.m. CST precisely for a global day of prayer to end the virus and you know it has to work, because God called for it.

The vessel through which he has spoken to the Christian community is Cindy Jacobs, co-founder of Generals International. Jacobs says God has spoken to her, telling her in true Old Testament fashion to organize the event. She says the Holy Spirit verbally granted her the authority to decree, albeit only in the event of a global convergence.

Jacobs has quite the track record with the Holy Spirit: They go way back. In her career as a faith healer, shes been able to turn metal into bone, make a grown woman grow taller, control the weather, and even magically inflate her ministrys bank account.

She also thinks that God wants Christians to be rich so the Jews will convert out of jealousy, and that He killed a bunch of blackbirds to condemn the repeal of Dont Ask, Dont Tell. She and her husband also co-signed an open letter slamming Christianity Todays anti-Trump op-ed, in case youre wondering where her politics lie.

We along with other global leaders are calling for a national day of prayer to end the Coronavirus. After seeking wisdom and prophetic counsel from prophets across the nation and world, we believe strongly that since this is a worldwide issue, its going to take the whole church to cry out together for the mercy and healing power of God to contain it.

Jacobs goes on to discuss the importance of a nation aligned with Gods will, invoking Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War to make some sort of flag-waving point about national unity, despite the event being billed as a global day of prayer.

At least shes willing to add that the promise remains the same for each nation enduring the coronavirus. God will heal all of us but only if we ask nicely enough.

Which begs the question: If God knows that we want the coronavirus gone, why does He need all the pageantry of a day of prayer where the whole world begs Him to take it away? Couldnt He just get rid of it?

Is God basically a bank robber, killing hostages until we pay him in the currency of prayers and appeasement?

And to think: Christians call atheism a belief system without hope.

See more here:
Cindy Jacobs: God Told Me to Hold a Global Day of Prayer Against Coronavirus - Friendly Atheist - Patheos