The Pledge Project: Three Related News Stories

We are now between 1 and 30 days away from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision on 'under God' and 'In God We Trust'. Today, I am looking at three stories related to the Pledge Project.

The goal of the Pledge Project is to introduce moral arguments into discussing issues like the Pledge of Allegiance in addition to the legal arguments that (at least on the part of secularists) have been about the only arguments used to date.

Story #1: Philidelphia vs. the Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts have been leasing land from the city of Philadelphia at a rate of $1 per year for a building that they constructed. However, because of the Boy Scouts' discriminatory policies towards homosexuals and atheists, in 2003 Philadelpha's mayor, John Street, decided that the Boy Scouts can no longer use public lands unless it agrees not to discriminate. The Boy Scouts could continue to use the property, but only at a market rate for the rent (about $200,000 per year).

The Scouts have filed a lawsuit in federal court that the city's decision violates their Constitutional right to freedom of assembly.

The issue of discrimination is a moral issue, but it is vague and ill-formed. For example, the Boy Scouts do not only discriminate against homosexuals and atheists. It discriminates against girls. Yet, there seems to be little complaint about this discrimination. If discrimination against girls is permissible, then it seems there is little reason to complain about discrimination against homosexuals and atheists. If discrimination against homosexuals and atheists is a problem, then those who speak about discrimination need to explain why discrimination against girls is not an issue.

The moral issue that I have not seen raised in this debate – that very much deserves to be raised – is the fact that the Boy Scouts teach children that atheists are incapable of being the best sort of citizen. I wrote about this aspect of the Scouts earlier in the post, "The Pledge Project: House Resolution 5872”. http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2008/05/pledge-project-house-resolution-5872.html This Resolution involves raising up to $3.5 million for the Boy Scouts with a commemorative coin.

The objection then, and the objection in Philadelphia, is that the government support of the Boy Scouts is similar to the Government putting up billboards – or organizing classes – to teach children that "atheists are incapable of the best form of citizenship.” Since atheists are peaceful and law-abiding citizens (and taxpayers) with no history of violence against the government, the government has no right to be involved in a campaign that atheists are incapable of the best type of citizenship.

This goes beyond the simple claim that "the Boy Scouts do not allow atheists to become members.” We are now talking about, "The government is participating in a program to teach children that peaceful and law-abiding neighbors are incapable of the best form of citizenship.” It is one thing for an organization like the Boy Scouts to exclude people as members.

The Boy Scouts can exclude girls, for example, without declaring that women are "incapable of the best type of citizenship”. If the Boy Scouts were to violate this principle – if the Boy Scouts were to include among its messages that women are morally or psychologically required to stay home and make babies – we can be assured that they would get no government support in spreading its message.

I would like to see this moral argument included in the debate on this issue. However, I have not seen this argument yet.

Story 2: New Zoning Board Member Refuses to Say the Pledge

Newly appointed Zoning Board of Adjustment member Robert Field Jr. sat during the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of Tuesday's meeting. Field said he did so because he doesn't feel reciting the pledge is appropriate for the ZBA, which sits in judgment of other people's business, as in a courtroom.

Field does not object to the Pledge of Allegiance. He says it at Rotory Club meetings. He does not want to say the Pledge when serving on the Zoning Board because of the trial-like nature of its business. He does not want to give those who come to the Court an appearance of bias.

The merits of his argument against the Pledge in his zoning board meetings is not relevant to this post. The relevant fact is that his refusal to say the Pledge is news, and some consider it good enough reason to object to Field holding his position.

Reading the news, we see another instance in which the argument in favor of saying the pledge is that it shows respect for those people who fought for our freedoms (where failing to do so in an insult to them). The argument against saying the pledge is that those who refuse to do so have a right to freedom of speech – a right to the freedom to refuse.

Effectively, the argument is that Field has a right to insult America and those who fought for our freedoms if he wants to.

When [Rep. Laura Pantelakos, D-Portsmouth was] told of Field's refusal to participate in the pledge, Pantelakos was incensed. "I'm very upset that anyone would not want to do the pledge. If you live in this country you should do the pledge."

Nobody, as far as I can tell, has pointed out to Representative Pantelakos (who, I want to point out, is a Democrat) that this is the same as saying, "If you live in this country, you should believe in God,” or, "If you do not believe in God, you should not live in this country.”

Until we insert some moral arguments into this debate, the debate in the eyes of the public will be built on the assumption that anybody who refuses to say the Pledge seeks to dishonor those who fought for our freedom and stands against American values. Until we insert some moral arguments people will continue to believe that the dominant issue regarding the Pledge is whether everybody should show respect for the flag, the country, and those who served this country. Or whether some people have a right to disrespect the flag, the country, and those who fought for our freedoms.

Story 3: Beloit Wisconsin city councilor refuses to recite the Pledge.

Rookie Beloit city councilor Sheila De Forest stands mute with her hands clasped in front of her while her colleagues recite the Pledge of Allegiance for each council meeting. Adding fuel to the fire, she responded when asked by the Daily News to explain her, well, inactions: "There are some things I am certainly willing to pledge my allegiance and life to. A piece of fabric is not one of them.”

This case has generated comments such as the following:

. . . if [de Forest] has no allegiance to this country, then which one is she allied with? Doesn't matter, I won't be voting for her again. Mark Blakeman

Ms. De Forest has alienated virtually every veteran who proudly fought for our country and that same flag. . . . The proper thing for her to do is resign immediately, and if not, the council should investigate means to remove her from office. Darryl Peach

Here, as in the other cases, the debate is being carried out among the same terms. The claim is that those who do not say the Pledge insult anybody who has fought for the country, while the defense for those who do not say the Pledge amounts to, "People have a right to insult those who do not serve the country if they want to.”

Yes, they do have a right. But the unquestioned assumption in this case, as with the others, that a person who does not say the Pledge is insulting America, has no loyalty to America, and is insulting anybody who has fought for the country needs to start being questioned. Otherwise, we have a situation where no person can get elected (or can expect to hold onto their seat if they are elected) unless they are willing to support 'one nation under God'.

In other words, the Pledge becomes a virtually insurmountable barrier between secularists and atheists on the one side, and elected office and positions of public trust on the other.

The Pledge Project: Apologies and Excuses

There was some news that Kieffe & Sons had apologized for their advertisement in which they told people like me who object to "under God" in the Pledge and "In God We Trust" as the national motto to "sit down and shut up." This caused some bloggers (e.g., PZ Myers of Pharyngula) to prematurely declare victory and to start gloating about our great success.

In fact, there was no apology and, even if there had been, a proper understanding of the moral concepts of apology, excuse, and proportionality would have demonstrated that it was almost as morally outrageous to accept a mere apology in this case.

I want to make some comments on the difference between an apology and an excuse.

An apology says, "What I did was wrong. I recognize this wrong and I recognize that you have good reason to condemn people who do what I did. I deserve your condemnation. Please know that I recognize this fact and will resolve not to be worthy of your condemnation in the future."

An excuse says, "I know that it looks like I did something wrong but, really, it wasn’t my fault. The fates conspired against me. The conclusion, however bad they seem to be, do not justify calling me a bad person. I am really a good person – in spite of appearances."

An example of an excuse is that of a person who runs his car through a crowd of pedestrians. He asserts, "I know this looks bad for me. However, the accident was not my fault. In spite of my efforts to maintain my car, the brakes failed, and that is the reason I hit the pedestrians." This is an excuse. It does not allow us to draw any negative conclusions about the agent.

One of the main properties that distinguish an apology from an excuse is that the admission of wrongdoing implies an obligation to compensate those who were wronged in some way. The person who intentionally (or even negligently) runs his car through a crowd of pedestrians deserves to be punished, and deserves to pay a lot of medical bills (or to have his insurance company do so).

Kieffe & Sons are offering no apology until they admit that they have wronged others and have an obligation to compensate those others for the wrongs done. The wrong in this case is running an advertisement for 90 days that sought to sell hostility towards secularists and atheists.

The proper compensation, in this case, would be to take some action to reverse the harm done. Kieffe & Sons could, perhaps, run another advertisement that explained how many of the truths that we take for granted today were once held by less than 14% percent of the population – from the value of democracy to the right to vote to the wrongness of slavery. In fact, if they want, they can even point out that Christianity itself was once believed by only a handful of people. Clearly it is a bad idea for the majority – simply because they are the majority – to sit down and shut up.

This would demonstrate that Kieffe & Sons are truly sorry for what they have done. However, insofar as they are unwilling to offer any compensation, this is the same as saying that they have done nothing wrong. They may use the word 'apology' – but they are not admitting to any wrongdoing. They are simply using the word as a shield to disarm critics while continuing to insist on the legitimacy of their behavior.

Here is what Rick Kieffe wrote about the advertisement:

Regrettably, the commercial that has prompted the current objection to religious sentiment ("Under God", "In We Trust") was not closely reviewed by our dealership before it went live. The commercial has been replaced.

This is what Kieffe said in a news story about the advertisement:

Rick Kieffe, owner of Kieffe and Sons Ford, said he doesn't regret running the ad, which aired on radio stations in eastern Kern County and the Antelope Valley, but he does apologize for offending anyone.

There is no apology here. Instead, Kieffe has only said, "I am sorry that you overreacted to what I wrote and were therefore offended by something that you had absolutely no right or legitimate reason to be offended by."

Just because an insult contains the words "I am sorry", this does not imply that it is less than anything less than an insult. For world-class bloggers to take this slap in the face and declare victory is embarrassing at best. At worst, it provides people like these with a license to continue to do the same thing.

It certainly is convenient for people like Kieffe that they can market hostility on the airwaves for 90 days, then end it all with a backhanded insult that draws a cheerful "Thank you," from the likes of PZ Myers.

This is actually a repeat of the embarrassing behavior that atheists exhibited when Illinois representative Monique Davis insulted atheists (declaring atheism a philosophy of destruction while executing the duties of her office). She ended by calling up the witness she had shouted at and said, "I am sorry I raised my voice. I was in a bad mood." But she said nothing that admitted to the bigoted nature of her comments. Yet, here, too, the atheist community responded by cheerfully saying, "Thank you."

I felt embarrassed for the atheist community as I watched this – as I watched them suffer the insults of a legislator from her chair in the legislature, watch her give such a feeble apology that left her accusation that atheism is a philosophy of destruction entirely intact, and watch the atheist community cheerfully wag its collective tail as if they had somehow been rewarded by this behavior.

In this type of situation, a sincere apology requires a genuine and explicit admission of wrongdoing – a refutation of the claims for which one is being criticized. "I am sorry I raised my voice" and "I am sorry that you had an unjustified overreaction to the truth" does not count as an apology.

An apology will come with an offer to do something to make up for the wrong that was done. The compensation must be proportional to that harm.

If a legislator condemns atheism as a philosophy of destruction while she is sitting in legislative session, then she must at the very least be willing to go onto the floor of the legislature and repudiate her statements saying that they were wrong, that no good person would make such statements, that she deserves our condemnation, and that she will put extra effort into fighting this type of bigotry in the future (preferably announcing some plan to do just that).

If a business spends 90 days promoting hostility towards atheists then he owes 90 days explaining to those same people why his earlier statements were wrong and why no good person would do what he had done.

Anything less than this is not an apology. Anything less than this should be treated as adding one insult onto another.

When (if) we do get a sincere apology that meets these conditions, then at that point it would be appropriate to respond with forgiveness and not to hold grudges. This posting is not a call to establish a permanent blood feud against those who insult atheists and to never find any sort of apology sufficient. This posting says that there are too vices – the vice of too much forgiveness and the vice of too little, and justice requires something that morality requires an apology that is proportional to the wrongs one is apologizing for.

In fact, we can simply assume that the size of the apology is proportional to the size of the wrong that the agent thinks she has inflicted, such that the back-handed insults the atheist community has received in recent events are just another way of saying, "We did no wrong to start with, so we owe you no compensation."

The Pledge Project: Freedom of Speech

When the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals releases its decision on 'under God' and 'In God We Trust' (somewhere between 0 and 32 days from now), one of the phrases that will certainly be thrown about is “Freedom of Speech”

This phrase is constantly misused. Sometimes it is out of ignorance, but there are those who love to exploit ignorance for rhetorical purposes. Its effect is to muddy the waters of public discourse to either conceal or distract people from the facts of come issue they are interested in promoting.

The type of problem that I am talking about surfaced in the recent blowup over the Kieffe & Sons Ford radio advertisement. The concept of 'a right to freedom of speech' was misused in the advertisement itself, and by those who criticized the advertisement. It was used in a way that suggests that mere criticism or condemnation of a person's position is a violation of freedom of speech.

Point: The right of freedom of speech is not violated until somebody threatens or uses violence against those who make certain claims. Unless and until a threat or actual use of violence occurs, the 'right to freedom of speech' is being respected.

In other words, Do not assert that somebody is violating your right to freedom of speech, and do not allow them to claim that you are violating their freedom of speech, until violence has been threatened or used against those who make particular claims.

Let’s look at how the right to freedom of speech was used within the advertisement itself. The advertisement said (after telling 14% of the population who do not believe in God to sit down and shut up):

I guess I just offended 14 per cent of the people who are listening to this message. Well, if that is the case then I say that's tough, this is America folks, it's called free speech.

Here, the right to freedom of speech is being used to deflect criticism. It is being used as if to say, 'Because we have a right to freedom of speech, we can ignore any and all criticism that might be made against what we say'.

However, even the Neo-Nazi and the KKK member has a right to freedom of speech. Their right to freedom of speech does not imply a right to immunity from criticism. If it did . . . well, I would like to hear Kieffe & Sons declare that because the KKK has a right to freedom of speech, it would be wrong to criticize them.

This fact tells us how we should be answering the person who says, "You might be offended by what I said. However, that’s tough. I have a right to freedom of speech."

The response should be something like,

This is, in fact, the response that one should be given when they make a bigoted statement and then assert the right to freedom of speech. "The Nazi and the KKK members also have a right to freedom of speech. This doesn’t mean that everything they say is right."

In other words, "You can't use your right to freedom of speech to hide from criticism."

I want to note that the right to freedom of religion is also misused in this way. People who claim a 'right to freedom of religion' often assert that this means a 'right to immunity from criticism'. It is now commonplace for the followers of any religion to assert, "If you say anything bad about my religion, my holy text, my prophet, my practices, or my positions on any social issue insofar as they are derived from scripture, you are violating my right to freedom of religion."

That’s not true. Here, too, the right to freedom of religion does not translate into a right to freedom from criticism. It implies only a right to freedom from violence. It would be wrong to padlock the doors of the church shut, to outlaw the scripture, and to arrest people who performed the (peaceful) practices of their religion. But it does not violate freedom of religion to condemn the person who holds absurd religious beliefs.

As long as the critic limits himself to the use of words and expressive language to condemn the followers of any given religion, no violation of the freedom of religion has taken place. The right to freedom of religion/speech does not imply a right to immunity from criticism.

The other example of a misuse of the freedom of speech comes from criticisms of the advertisement. The advertisement tells the 14% who do not believe in God to "sit down and shut up." Critics then responded that Kieffe & Sons is not showing respect for the right to freedom of speech.

However, telling people to 'sit down and shut up' does not violate anybody’s freedom of speech. They are not backing up their statement with any violence or any threat of violence. We are all still free to ignore their suggestion.

Many of us did ignore the suggestion – and we did so without reading the slightest hint of a call to violence in the advertisement against those who ignored the suggestion. I know, at least, that I could not find a call to violence within the advertisement. So, any claim that the advertisement displayed a lack of respect for freedom of speech is simply false. It is a misuse of the term.

One of the major problems with misusing the right to freedom of speech in criticizing the advertisement is that it promotes confusion. To the degree that people fail to appreciate that the right to freedom of speech is a right to immunity from violence (not a right to immunity from criticism), it makes it possible for people to misuse the phrase for rhetorical purposes. It makes it possible for people to exploit this confusion to defend things (like the Kieffe & Sons advertisement, and some extremely absurd belief systems) that are indefensible. It makes it possible for people to exploit the confusion to condemn others who have done nothing wrong.

Another problem with misusing the right to freedom of speech is that it serves as a distraction. Debate then gets side tracked on some worthless discussion rather than focusing on the real meat of the issue. In the case of the Kieffe & Sons advertisement, charges were thrown back and forth about freedom of speech being violated when it was not being violated. This took attention away from the issue that should have been discussed – whether we should assume that the majority position is always right and the minority position is always wrong.

The real point:

Kieffe & Sons was debating bigotry and defending in on the bases that the bigots are in the majority. However, imagine a Nazi saying, "86% of us believe that the Jews should die. We should tell the other 14% to sit down and shut up." We see this as a very poor argument. Kieffe & Sons needs to come up with something to defend their bigotry other than the fact that bigots outnumber their victims.

All of this talk of freedom of speech on both sides of the debate, other than to recognize that "no threat of violence has been made to no right to freedom of speech has been violated," was a distraction.

When the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals renders its decision, there will be a lot of talk about "freedom of speech" and "freedom of religion" then as well. It would be useful to point out that unless and until somebody starts advocating violence, nobody’s rights are being violated.

"Your right to freedom of speech and your right to freedom of religion is not a right to immunity from criticism. So get over it. Here comes the criticism."

P.S. If any of you might have heard that Kieffe & Sons apologized for their ad, you might want to consider reading their comments to the local news.

Rick Kieffe, owner of Kieffe and Sons Ford, said he doesn't regret running the ad, which aired on radio stations in eastern Kern County and the Antelope Valley, but he does apologize for offending anyone.

Which is about the same as saying, "I apologize for your irrational overreaction to something you were entirely unjustified in being offended by."

The Pledge Project: Respect in Minnesota

There was a meeting yesterday (May 27) in Minnesota to discuss a change in the student handbook. (See Vote Split on Rule for Pledge) The current handbook requires that students stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. The Principal of the school suspended three students for not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance. After these suspensions, a fourth student refused to stand during the pledge (in protest) and was suspended in turn.

After this, the school was informed that the law prohibits the school from requiring students to stand during the Pledge. As a result, the school board met to discuss changing the handbook. Six of the seven trustees met yesterday.

The motion to change the school handbook to conform to the law failed. The vote resulted in a tie, so the motion to change the rule did not pass. The board will try again in June with all seven members present.

Even the three members who voted to change the rulebook have expressed displeasure at having to do so. They do not like the law, but feel compelled to obey it. The remaining three do not like the law either, and feel compelled to ignore it.

It has been my argument that this is the result of years of debate in which people have relied solely on legal arguments to challenge the Pledge of Allegiance and other church-state separation issues. It has generated hostility towards the law that is now strong enough that the law might simply be ignored, or re-interpreted.

The article that I referenced above has a comments section. If you read the comments, almost all of them fall into one of two groups.

Group 1: “Children should be required to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance because they owe respect to all of those who fought for our freedoms.”

Group 2: “Children should not be required to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance because they have a right to freedom of speech.”

Notice that Option 2 does not even question the claim that refusing to stand during the Pledge shows disrespect to others who fought for our freedoms. In effect, Option 2 can easily be taken as saying, “Children have a right to show disrespect for those who fought to protect our freedoms if they want to.” It is consistent with talking about those who sit through the Pledge as one would talk about the Nazi Party. “Yes, I agree with you, what they are saying is despicable and I absolutely condemn what they say. I am merely defending their right to say it.”

But, if sitting through the Pledge is contemptible, then what about those atheists who sit through the Pledge because no honest atheist can pledge allegiance to “one nation under God”?

Furthermore, the purely legal line of reasoning suggests a powerful response. “What is this country coming to if we not only teach our children not to respect the flag and our nation’s values but we protect those who treat our values with contempt?”

It’s time to start a new group.

Group 3: “You can show more respect by refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance than you can by standing it or saying it.”

I added my comment to the comment section attached to this article. However, people need to start going to these meetings and telling not only the school board but the other attendees about the moral objections to having a pledge of allegiance to ‘one nation under God’ to start with.

I would like the news reports of this next meeting to report on somebody who said something like the following:

I would like to thank you for allowing me to have a few minutes of your time.

A citizen can show more respect for those who fought for our freedoms by refusing to stand during this Pledge, with the words ‘under God’, than they can be saying it.

When we teach children to pledge allegiance to ‘liberty and justice for all’ we are trying to teach them that a person who does not support liberty and justice for all is a bad person. He is certainly a bad American.

When we teach children to pledge allegiance to ‘one nation indivisible’ we are teaching them that it is important to support the union. We certainly have good reason to avoid another civil war.

When we teach children to pledge allegiance to ‘one nation under God’ we are teaching them that all good Americans believe in God, and that everybody who does not believe in God are bad Americans.

That last part, when ‘under God’ was added to the Pledge, crosses a line that the government has no right to cross. You have no right to be teaching students that Americans who do not believe in God are bad Americans. You have no right to be teaching children that they should look at their classmates and their neighbors who happen to be atheists with the same contempt that you want them to have for those who do not support liberty and justice for all.

You talk about ‘respect’, but you teach them contempt for neighbors who do not share your religious beliefs.

One of these people who fought for our rights was my father, Technical Sergeant William L. Fyfe. My father joined the army when he was 18 years old. He enlisted, with the intention of making the military his career. He served through the end of World War II through the Korean War, and into the Cold War. He worked for military intelligence, which involved a few missions behind enemy lines.

My father was an atheist.

You owe him your respect. Yet, you insist on starting each day telling the children in your school that an American who does not support ‘one nation under God’ – an American like my father – is as bad as an American who does not support liberty and justice for all. You teach them that my father was a bad American. The claim that in the name of respect everybody else has to stand while you call my father a bad American simply piles one insult onto another.

You want to deny that you are teaching children that my father was a bad American? Tell me that the Pledge is not used to teach children that people who do not support liberty and justice for all are not good Americans. Tell me that the Pledge is not used to teach children that people who do not support the union are not good Americans. Then tell me that you are not teaching them that people who do not believe in God are not good Americans.

I cannot stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I cannot for the life of me stand and join others in saying that my father was a bad American because he did not believe in God. Do you think that those who fought for our freedom deserve our respect. Then show them your respect, then quit saying and quit teaching these children that those who fought without believing in God are bad Americans.

Of course, I am a special position to speak about my father in this way. However, the fact that he was not your father in no way detracts from your right to demand that a local school board, city council, or legislature stop treating people like him with disrespect.

Teach the nation that an American shows more respect for those who fought for our freedoms by refusing to join in the Pledge with the words ‘under God’ than by spitting on Americans who fought for freedom without a belief in God. Teach them that an American who respects all military servicemen will not allow anybody – in particular their own government – to say that servicemen who do not support ‘one nation under God” are as bad as those who do not support “liberty and justice for all”.

Do not let the claim that standing and saying the Pledge means respect for those who fought and respect for America, while refusing to stand implies disrespect for those who fought and for American values. If you allow them to get away with this message, you are simply helping them to teach others (and particularly children), that good Americans say the Pledge and bad Americans do not.

It is absolutely absurd for us to continue to help teach this lesson.

The Pledge Project: Sit Down and Shut Up

Kieffe and Sons, a Ford dealership in Mojave, California thinks that I should sit down and shut up. They are running a radio ad that says:

Did you know that there are people in this country who want prayer out of schools, "Under God" out of the Pledge, and "In God We Trust" to be taken off our money? But did you know that 86% of Americans say they believe in God? Now, since we all know that 86 out of every 100 of us are Christians who believe in God, we at Kieffe & Sons Ford wonder why we don't just tell the other 14% to sit down and shut up. I guess maybe I just offended 14% of the people who are listening to this message. Well, if that is the case, then I say that's tough, this is America folks, it's called free speech. And none of us at Kieffe & Sons Ford are afraid to speak up. Kieffe & Sons Ford on Sierra Highway in Mojave and Rosamond: if we don't see you today, by the grace of God, we'll be here tomorrow.

Yes, I do know that there are people who want “under God” out of the Pledge. I want the government to quit telling people that it regards a peaceful law-abiding citizen who does not support “one nation under God” to be the unpatriotic equivalent of an American who does not support ‘liberty and justice for all’.

There are people who want “In God We Trust” taken off the money, because the government should not be handing out political leaflets that tell the people, “You are not to think of those who lack trust in God as being one of us.”

As for prayer in schools – I know of nobody who wants the government to ban prayer in schools. I have only heard objections to schools telling students when to pray, how to pray, and to whom to pray. Nobody I know would advocate punishing a student who whispers a prayer before a test or says grace before eating lunch.

But, it is customary for people like those responsible for this add to bear false witness against others. It is often easier to promote hostility towards others by lying about them than by telling the truth.

The reason why Kieffe & Sons think I should sit down and shut up is because 86% of the country are Christians. This leap between 86% believe in God to 86% are Christians is another example of lying for effect. Unless Kieffe & Sons have never heard of people who believe in one or more gods but who are not Christians.

Some people commenting on this advertisement have already pointed out the flaw in that reasoning. It is the same flaw that I used in the book Perspective on the Pledge. Assume that a nation was 86% white, and they voted to support a pledge of allegiance to “one white nation”. Would the fact that 86% are white imply that they are morally permitted to tell the 14% who are not white to ‘sit down and shut up’?

I want to draw another lesson out of this rebuttal. Please note that, in the counter-example above, a person does not have to be black to object to a Pledge of Allegiance to ‘one white nation’. A person can be white and still recognize that it is fundamentally unjust for the government to have children pledge allegiance to a white nation.

Similarly, even if 86% of the nation believes in a God, a person can still believe in God and know that it is fundamentally unjust for the government to teach children to be prejudiced against those who do not support ‘one nation under God’. Any attempt to portray this issue as being one in which only the 14% who do not believe in God can be in favor of removing ‘under God’ from the Pledge and ‘In God We Trust’ from the money is fundamentally dishonest.

A person only needs to consider whether the government has the right to tell people, “We do not want you to think of those who do not believe in Jesus as being one of us,” or “We do not want you to think of those who are Catholic as being one of us,” to see the moral problem with a government statement that, “We do not want you to think of those who do not trust in God as being one us.”

A person only needs to consider the immorality of a government that says, “Those who do not support one white nation are, in our eyes, as bad as those who do not support ‘liberty and justice for all’ to see the immorality in the government’s pledge to view people who do not support ‘one nation under God’ to be the same as those who do not support ‘liberty and justice or all’.

Certainly, there is no law of nature that prohibits a person from believing in God from also believing that these types of government claims are unjust and immoral. Kieffe & Sons has insulted a great many people who believe in God by claiming, in effect, that everybody who believes in God endorses the bigotry expressed in their advertisement.

Yet, this is only the third dishonesty found in this advertisement so far.

Though it does cause me to wonder whether it would be a good idea to buy a car from a group of people have proved in their advertisement that they are more than happy to bear false witness and make other dishonest statements and inferences when it pleases them to do so.

I also want to note the misplaced appeal to “free speech” in this advertisement (as well as in some responses to it). Free speech, as I have written in the past, is not a freedom from condemnation for what one says. It is a freedom from violanece. Unless and until people start talking about a violent action (including the violence of government prohibitions backed by people with guns), no violation of free speech has taken place.

In a free society, a car dealership has the right to produce an advertisement quoting from Mein Kampf if he believes it will help to sell cars. It is equally within the realm of free speech for others to condemn the advertisement.

Similarly, as a free country, Kieffe & Sons are free to produce their bigoted hate-mongering advertisement, and it would be wrong for anybody to respond to it with violence. Yet, it is not a violation of free speech to condemn the advertisement. In act, the right to freedom of speech includes the right to condemn other peoples’ bigotry. Not to react with violence, but to react by pointing out that no decent, moral, and just person would ever produce or support the injustice and bigotry that Kieffe & Sons ha endorsed in its advertisement.

Telling somebody that they should sit down and shut up (that no moral and just person would make those types of claims) is not the same as forcing them to sit down and shut up. It is only the latter that violates freedom of speech. Condemning bigoted speech is not the same as banning it.

Here, again, it may be useful to point out that there could be problems with buying a car from a dealership whose management has such difficulty telling the difference between right and wrong as those who run Kieffe & Sons.

Finally, I want to point out that the attitudes expressed in this advertisement (that so many atheists and secularists have gotten worked up about) are the same attitudes found in the national motto and the Pledge of Allegiance themselves.

When the national motto says, “You should not consider a person who lacks trust in God to be one of us,” it is easy to see how the owners of a car dealership might come to believe that it is permissible to tell their customers, “We do not consider a person who lacks trust in God to be worthy of our respect.”

When the Pledge of Allegiance equates those who do not support ‘one nation under God’ with those who do not support ‘liberty and justice for all’, it is not unreasonable to believe that they are teaching citizens to treat those who do not value ‘one nation under God’ the way they would treat those who do not value ‘liberty and justice for all’.

It is even interesting to note that, in the eyes of some, it is sufficient ‘protection’ against the charge of discrimination that atheists are not required to actually say the Pledge of Allegiance. What are atheists supposed to do while the rest of the class or the civic group stands and gives the pledge of allegiance?

According to the doctrine endorsed by many people (including many justices), the proper behavior for atheists during the Pledge of Allegiance itself is to sit down and shut up.

I am not inclined to follow this particular advice. As far as I can tell, there is little difference between the Kieffe & Sons advertisement, and a statement by a bus driver in Alabama saying, "Shut up and get to the back of the bus."

The Pledge Project: The Case of David Habecker

As a clear example of the Pledge of Allegiance (with 'under God') being used to bar atheist from elected positions and positions of public trust, we have the case of David Habecker.

Habecker was a trustee for the city of Estes Park, Colorado, who was removed from office for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance. He was elected to his position. Then the Mayor announced a new policy of opening each session with the Pledge of Allegiance. At first, Habecker (an atheist) went along with this. However, his conscience got the better of him, and he quit joining this ritual. As a result, the people of Estes Park held a special election (paying tax money to do so) to remove Habecker from public office.

I could not write up the details any better than they appear in the ruling of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals for case of David Habecker vs. the Town of Estes Park.

Habecker was elected in 2000 to fill the seat of a deceased Trustee of the Town Board and was reelected to a full four-year term in 2002. As a Trustee, Habecker voted on routine matters such as budgets, appropriations, and hiring and firing of the Town Manager and Town Attorney. The Board consists of six Trustees and the Mayor of Estes Park, who sits as an ex officio member with a tiebreaking vote. Formal Board meetings are held twice a month and are open to the public.

Events giving rise to this litigation commenced on May 11, 2004, at the Estes Park Board meeting, when Mayor John Baudeck announced a new “policy” of opening meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance and asked that all present stand and recite the Pledge. Mayor Baudeck led the Pledge at the beginning of each Board meeting thereafter, and was continuing to do so at the time this litigation began.

Habecker joined in standing and reciting the Pledge at the May 11 meeting and several meetings thereafter, but declined to say the words “under God.” By September, according to his deposition testimony, Habecker felt hypocritical reciting even this redacted version of the Pledge, considering that others were unlikely to see that he was omitting the words “under God.” Thus, at the September 14, 2004, Board meeting, Habecker sat silently during the recitation of the Pledge. He explained at the meeting that he did so because of his objection to the use of the words “under God.” Habecker continued to sit silently through the Pledge for the remainder of his service as a Trustee.

Upon learning of Habecker’s refusal to recite the Pledge, three citizens of Estes Park, Dewey Shanks, Norman Pritchard, and Richard Clark formed a committee to recall Habecker from office. Pursuant to Colo. Rev. Stat. § 31-4- 501 et seq. the Colorado recall statute, the group collected signatures and filed a petition for Habecker’s recall with the Town Clerk, Vickie O’Connor. As required by § 31-4-502(1)(a)(I), the petition included a statement of grounds for the recall, which read:

Electors suffer a loss of confidence in Mr. Habecker’s ability to represent citizen’s [sic] pride, patriotism, and common decency. Prior to Town Board of Trustees meetings, he purposefully and irreverently chooses to publicly sit, facing away from the flag of the United States, during recital of the Pledge of Allegiance. His defiant behavior occurs because the phrase “. . . under God . . .” offends him. He states he intends to continue until the United States Congress strikes the phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Habecker failed to reveal this violation of his principles during campaigns for election. We consider this omission a deliberate tactic to assure voter ballots towards his election. We consider this tactic unethical and unacceptable.

We respect Mr. Habecker’s right to free speech under the Constitution of the United States, but insist on maintenance of responsibility, accountability, leadership, respect for others, and high standards of public conduct. His vital beliefs regarding church/state personal conflicts were not revealed at the critical time of election.

We do not regard these actions, omissions or motivations honorable [sic], and demand his removal from his elected position. . . .

By a vote of 903 in favor of recall to 605 against, Habecker was recalled as a Trustee. Habecker claims that his stance on the Pledge was the predominant reason for his electoral defeat.

If the Pledge of Allegiance can be used to get an elected official removed from public office, it is not a stretch at all to argue that it is being used to keep atheists and secularists – at least honest atheists and secularists – from getting elected in the first place.

Those who say that the Pledge of Allegiance is not important (that it is just words, that it represents ‘ceremonial deism, and nobody pays attention to it), needs to square their thesis with the fact that a group of citizens were motivated to remove Habecker from office – without even waiting for the next election – for refusal to say the Pledge of Allegiance. It motivated them to research the rules for a recall, circulate their petition, get the signatures they needed, sign the petition in sufficient numbers, and vote to recall Habecker in sufficient numbers to remove him from office.

This hardly seems consistent with the thesis that 'under God' is of no political significance.

The Pledge Project: A Memorial Day Dilemma

Memorial day presents something of a dilemma for me.

My father was in the military. He joined the army at the age of 18 with the intention of making the military his career. He served through the closing days of World War II, the Korean war, and on into the Cold War. For most of his career, he worked in the military in intelligence. During the Korean war, this meant a few trips behind enemy lines.

My father was an atheist. He joined the military before the Pledge of Allegiance had the words 'under God' in it, and when our national motto was e pluribus unum rather than 'In God We Trust'. He felt that a soldier’s duty was to protect his country – which, in the case of the United States, meant protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.

He did not approve of adding 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance. A soldier's duty was to his country, not to his church. What was a soldier supposed to do, after pledging allegiance to 'one nation under God', if his church demanded one thing of him but his country demanded something else? No soldier, in his mind, should have his loyalties divided in this way.

My father served in the military, as he intended, until the military transport he was riding in crashed in Japan. He was quite severely injured, and was given a military discharge and listed as 100% disabled as a result. Over time, scar tissue became brittle and internal injuries reopened.

My father died three years ago.

Now, Memorial Day comes along. Several organizations plan Memorial Day events to honor those soldiers who have served their country. However, as I read the announcements, most of those events involve saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Assuming that I went to one of those events, what am I supposed to do?

When they get to the part of the ceremony when they say the Pledge of Allegiance, I could sit while everybody else stands and goes through the ritual. We know how that would look. To everybody else attending (including many of the service personnel), it would look as if I have no respect for those who served this country. It would be taken as an act of contempt.

On the other hand, I could stand and go along with a ritual of pledging allegiance to God. Let's set aside my own objections – that I can make no sense of pledging allegiance to something that is not real. In this case, the relevant issue is the fact that I would be promoting something that my father was against - the idea of military personnel pledging allegiance to something other than their country. I would not be honoring my father any by doing this, I would only be appeasing others.

A third option would be that of standing and pretending to participate in the ritual (rather than actually participating), pretending to pledge allegiance to God while I secretly crossed my fingers or mumbled past the words that I found offensive or spoke only of that which I actually believed. However, these gestures are absurd to the point of being childish. If I behave as if I support these rituals then, in the eyes of everybody else there, I do support these rituals.

To see this, assume that an officer should swear in a room full of people such that he could not tell that one person is simply mouthing the words, he would still be justified in saying that each person took the oath given to him as stated. If his intention was not to take that oath, he can only discharge his obligation by making his refusal obvious and unambiguous. Anything else (like taking the oath and changing a few words while hoping that nobody notices) is to be understood as taking the oath as written.

Another option that I have available is not to go – to leave the ceremonies honoring our soldiers to those who are willing to pledge allegiance to God while doing so. Unfortunately, this has the effect of generating the illusion that only those who believe in God honor our soldiers and their sacrifice. Those who do not believe in God stay home and refuse to show respect. In other words, this is not going to be seen as being much different than going to the ceremony and sitting out the Pledge.

The latter option, where these rituals are left to be the exclusive domain of the theists, compounds the wrongness.

My father wrote to me about one of the Memorial Day celebrations he attended when he was still alive - a ceremony involving an air show (an activity that my father, who had served in the air force, very much enjoyed) that was set up to honor those who served their country – people like my father.

However, with my father in the audience, those running the event decided to read the following (or something very much like it) over the loud speaker:

"In God We Trust" is our national motto.

This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan.

We adopted this motto because men and women, on principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.

If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

If Stars and Stripes offend you, or you don't like Uncle Sam, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came from.

This is OUR COUNTRY, our land, and our lifestyle.

Our First Amendment gives every citizen the right to express his opinion and we will allow you every opportunity to do so. But, once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about our flag, our pledge, our national motto, or our way of life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other great American freedoms, the right to leave.

They read this to an audience that included my father. My father made service to this country his career, swearing to uphold and defend the Constitution, and willing to do so with his life even though he knew he would not get any heavenly rewards for doing so if he should die. Some things are simply worth the risk. To my father, the Constitution was worth protecting. Yet, a group of people at a government run Memorial day ceremony decided to tell the audience that those Americans who had ideas like my father, who were willing to defend and protect the Constitution with the one and only life they would ever have, should leave the country, because they were not good enough to be here.

This is how these people decided to thank my father for his service to this country - his decision to make a career out of protecting the Constitution of the United States.

It was a sickening display. Yet, it was what can be expected when Memorial Day celebrations become the exclusive domain of those who 'trust in God' and pledge allegiance, not to the Constitution, but to their particular diety.

A pledge of allegiance to 'one nation under God', combined with false but nearly universal assumption (supported by the government) that a person who does not support 'one nation under God' dishonors those who fought to defend this country, creates this type of situation. The government, in supporting this practice, supports a situation where people like my father cannot be honored. Memorial day honors are reserved exclusively for Americans who support 'one nation under God'.

Memorial Day will continue to look like this into the future, until people realize that there are people in the military who do not give any allegiance to 'one nation under God'. Yet, they are as willing to defend this country and the Constitution of the United States as any other citizen. These people too deserve our respect.

It is disgraceful that, when it comes to honoring those who defend the Constitution, our government allows only three options - to show no respect, or to respect only a subset of those who serve this country (a subset that serves 'one nation under God'). But the government will not honor those who defend the Constitution without pledging allegiance to God.

So, where do you go to pay respects to the atheist soldier who gave his allegiance, not to God, but to the Constitution?

The Pledge Project: Resolution Respecting Atheists

The Pledge Project: Respect for Atheists Resolution

Be it resolved that (insert name of Civic or Government Organization here) condemns any statement that explicitly or implicitly denigrates the moral character or patriotism of any citizen based solely on the fact that the citizen lacks trust in God or lacks a belief in God necessary to honestly pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God'.

I came up with this resolution from hearing a number of people say that the national motto, "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance with "under God" does not denigrate those who do not believe in God.

If this is the case, then let those politicians and civic organizations explicitly give their vote to this proposition. Let them go onto the record as saying that any statement that condemns the moral character or patriotism of a citizen based solely on a lack of a belief in God.

This resolution is particularly fitting for an organization that either has voted or is considering a vote to post the national motto in any public building, or the 10 Commandments, or any other religious display.

I would actually expect the resolution to fail (or to never come to a vote). This is because ‘In God We Trust” and “under God” are meant to deliver the opposite message – that those who do not trust in God are not patriots, and that a requirement to being a good citizen is to support 'one nation under God'. These practices exist to teach the people that those who do trust in God are not to be thought of as 'one of us', and a person who does not support 'one nation under God' has a moral character like that of a person who does not support 'liberty and justice for all'.

But let's not play with words any longer. Let's put the proposition before the legislators (at whatever level of government) and have them state explicitly whether they endorse or reject such a statement.

This should be something that even those who say that I am being too harsh on the issue of the national motto and national pledge should be willing to support. What reason can there possibly be against putting legislators on the spot and having them tell us whether or not they view law-abiding and peaceful atheists citizens as the equal to other citizens in terms of moral character and patriotism.

There are two ways that a legislator can vote on the issue. She can vote to condemn anybody who explicitly or implicitly questions the moral character or patriotism of a citizen based solely on a lack of belief in God. Doing so will make it the official position of the governing body that passes the resolution that they stand opposed to anti-atheist bigotry – the type of bigotry that we find quite common in this society.

It would be useful, wherever this resolution can be passed, to say, "This is the government's official position with respect to those who say that an atheist, insofar as he lacks a belief in God, lacks a moral foundation and cannot be trusted." It would be useful, wherever this resolution can be passed, to say that, "The government’s official position is to condemn anybody who takes the fact that a person (student or adult) who does not say the Pledge of Allegiance allows us to imply anything about his moral character or his patriotism."

On the other hand, the representative can vote "No" on such a resolution. This at least puts anti-atheist bigotry out there in the open for all to see. There will be no more hiding the fact that a particular politician views the atheist as inferior to other citizens in terms of moral character or patriotism. Once it is out in the open, we can start to deal with it. Dealing with anti-atheist bigotry is a lot harder as long as the anti-atheist bigot is allowed to keep his bigotry behind a thin veil. That thin veil allows those who do not want to see this bigotry (those who would condemn bigotry if they were forced to confront it, but who are not being forced to confront it) to pretend it is not there.

So, let's put it out in the open where they no longer have the luxury of pretending.

There is a third option – the option of abstaining. This is where a legislator refuses to cast a vote on an issue. Yet, one can still make political hay about the fact that a legislator or civil leader is unwilling even to say that atheists are the moral and patriotic equal of other citizens. After the politician abstains, he can be hounded, and asked repeatedly, “Do you believe that a person who does not trust in God or who does not pledge allegiance to God can be the moral and patriotic equal of one who does?”

A fourth option – an option that I would expect many civic bodies to take – would be to try to put off the issue and simply never bring it before the body to be voted on. This is where one needs to make a fuss. This is where one starts to collect petition signatures (particularly in and around college campuses), and where one goes to the press saying, “We merely want this body to acknowledge that they consider atheists to be the moral and political equal of other citizens. Why won’t they do that?”

Even if the resolution never gets voted on, the act of gathering signatures and of pressing the issue in the newspaper will still bring the issue out in the open. It will still spark discussion and cause people to confront anti-atheist bigotry and make it harder to deny or hide from the fact that it exists.

This resolution is not just fit for city, county, state, and federal governments. It is a fit resolution for a large number of civic bodies. It is a fit resolution to be considered by a school board, or the local Parent-Teacher Association. It is a fit resolution for any organization that might host an event that might include the Pledge of Allegiance. It involves any number of political and social campus organizations, from free thought organizations to those organized around civil rights or similar political themes.

If you, the reader, should decide to pursue this option before some legislative or civic body, I would like to recommend that you bring some recording device. In most cases, I would assume that you would come home with a set of bigoted remarks that can keep the atheist and secular blogs buzzing for days.

I would like to advise the reader who pursues this option to be ready for the press regardless of the outcome. If the resolution fails, then the message is simple. “Every legislator who voted against this resolution is a bigot who denies the political equality of citizens who do not believe in God.”

On the other hand, if the resolution passes, be ready praise the legislators for their vote on this issue. However, be ready to ask, "Why does the legislature then insist on hanging a sign in their building that denigrates the moral character and patriotism of somebody who does not trust in God. They say that this is a patriotic message. However, it cannot be a patriotic message unless one believes that a person who trusts in God is more patriotic than one who does not?"

Or, after the body passes such a resolution, be ready to ask, "Why does this body then insist on starting its sessions with the Pledge of Allegiance. After all, this cannot be thought of as a patriotic exercise unless one believes that a person who pledges allegiance to 'one nation under God' is more patriotic than one who does not. Yet, this body has just said that it is wrong to question the patriotism of a person who does not pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God'. So, which is it?”

I would like to warn you that one of the ways that legislators will try to avoid making a clear statement on this issue is by changing the language. They may seek a resolution that states that it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of religion – which is ambiguous as to whether or not it is fair to discriminate against those who have no religion.

The issue must be kept focused on the question of whether the legislator holds prejudices against citizens who do not have a trust in God, or who would not pledge allegiance to ‘one nation under God’.

The Pledge Project: In God We Trust - America

An article in the Orange County Register recently, Westminster Cyprus Express Their Faith in God, told of the successes of an organization called "In God We Trust – America" in getting city governments to prominently display the national motto in their city halls. Their goal is to get every city government to display this motto.

"A strong belief in God is important because it's intended to give hope. It's the only thing that can give hope to the citizens in this country. And American patriotism is founded on love of God and country" said Bakersfield councilwoman Jaquie Sullivan, who launched the nationwide campaign to have the national motto mounted at public buildings.

This is another example of the type of bigotry that I talked about in yesterday’s post coming from Ron Lowe in Idaho. Those arguments apply here as well. If she truly believes that patriotism is founded on a love of God, she must then believe that no atheist can be patriotic. As such, she is making judgments about people – prejudgments (or prejudices) about people she does not know. We also have reason to suspect that she will use a religious test for government appointments and in judgments about how to spend government moneys, denying political and economic opportunities to people she is supposed to represent based on her religious prejudices.

Yesterday, I asked hypothetically to consider how well an atheist would fare when dealing with a man like Ron Lowe, who holds that the word of an atheist means nothing, if Lowe were in a position to make appointments or recommendations to fill private jobs and public appointments.

Here, where we have a majority of a city council voting to put "In God We Trust" on the wall of a civics building or, better yet, to display it prominently behind the seats of the council itself so that a person giving testimony cannot help but see the words each time she looks up.

So, I ask, for appointees to government positions – people to sit on committees and people to fulfill government contracts? If we were to do a study of what types of people get these economic and political opportunities, it is at least legitimate to wonder whether, and to what degree, these type of people award those opportunities first to people 'of faith' – effectively limiting the opportunities of those who do not trust in God accordingly.

The lock on political power that theists are seeking to perpetuate for their own people, and the lock-out that is perpetuated against who do not 'trust in God' – goes beyond the mere fact that atheists are effectively blocked from winning public office. Atheists are also blocked from the economic and political opportunities made available by having friends in public office – at least to the degree that those who hold public office sincerely believe that 'we' (those of us who should hold public office and serve in positions of public trust) must trust in God, and that these awards are only fittingly assigned to people willing to support ‘one nation under God’.

In the case of anti-atheist discrimination, there happens to be a field where atheists tend to dominate – a field which do such a good job at making money for theists and protecting their lives (and the lives of their loved ones) from disease and natural disasters, that there are opportunities for success in that field.

This is the field of science and technical research – the field that comes up with the technological breakthroughs that allow businesses to make billions of dollars and provides the medical breakthroughs that keep the billionaires (and their friends) alive. For this reason, the atheist scientist is capable of doing quite well. However, the success of atheist in some social niche should not be taken as the same as saying that anti-atheist bigotry does not exist in other niches – in the political back room, in the awarding of government appointments, in the military regarding promotions and assignments.

Nor is it legitimate to remark that since the absence of anti-atheist discrimination pulls up the average income levels for all atheists when taken as a whole, that there is no reason to be concerned with the harm done to those atheists who might want to consider a profession other than science such as politics (or some form of public service) or military service.

There is another item in this article that concerns me. In it, I found the following:

Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, said her group is considering legal action against expansion of the slogan “In God We Trust”. But she doesn’t see her group taking on city councils across America. "How can you tell someone they can’t put that on a city seal when it's the national motto?" Johnson asked.

Note: Ellen Johnson is no longer the president of American Atheists, but was at the time this article was researched.

Here, I see a repeat what the tendency for atheists in specific and secularists in general to look at all issues in terms of legal arguments. Johnson, here, does not even pay homage to the fact that their might be a moral dimension to the question of whether a government should post a sign that says, “A person who does not trust in God is not one of us.”

This is in spite of the fact that Johnson sees a clear problem with pursuing the issue of "In God We Trust" being posted in public buildings as a legal issue. The law is whatever the people want the law to be. Slavery, up until 1860, was legal, and even Constitutionally protected. Anybody who tried to fight slavery beore 1860 on legal grounds – by arguing that it was unconstitutional to own slaves – would have been out of luck. The argument against slavery had to be fought on moral grounds first, and legal grounds second.

"In God We Trust" (and other issues of church-state separation in this country) continue to be fought on legal grounds alone – so much so that the leaders of the movement (including Michael Newdow, the ACLU, Americans for the Separation of Church and State, and Ellen Johnson and the American Atheists) seem incapable of even conceiving of a moral argument against this practice.

I would like to take these leaders of the atheist and secular movements and ask them, "Assume that there was no First Amendment – no bill of rights calling for the separation of church and state. Let's assume that the theocrats were right and the founding fathers made the same mistake regarding religious bigotry that they made with respect to slavery and permitted these practices. If that were the case, how would go about fighting a pledge of allegiance to 'one nation under God' or 'In God We Trust' as the national motto? Would it even be possible, as you understand things, to raise an objection against these practices in the absence of the First Amendment?"

Think of the people who debated the First Amendment over 200 years ago. Clearly, they were not debating the issue of the separation of church and state based on a legal argument that such a prohibition has already been written into the law. They were debating whether such a prohibition should be written into the law. That is the question that we, 200 years later, seem to have completely forgotten about in our tunnel-vision view of the question of what has already been written into the law.

When the Pledge of Allegiance last came before the Supreme Court, I saw an C-Span segment involving Michael Newdow and someone defending 'under God' ask this question to Newdow. The other speaker (whose name escaped me) was actually making the point that atheists have no foundation for their morality – and making the argument based on the fact that, outside of a legal objection to 'under God', Newdow and other atheists could not come up with a moral objection to the practice. Thus, it was argued, morality comes from God and Newdow should respect the moral need to have a pledge of allegiance to 'one nation under God'.

This is my challenge to anybody who wishes to speak on this subject. "What would you say in defense of such a prohibition if there were no First Amendment?"

In addition to having somebody go before a council that is posting such a sign and saying, "This violates the First Amendment to the Constitution," it would be refreshing and useful if somebody else were to go before the council or school board debating such a proposal and say, “No fair and just representative would vote to put up a sign that says, "We do not consider a person who fails to trust in God to be one of us."

I find it quite easy to tell them that.

"When you put 'In God We Trust' on the city seal (or display it in city hall), you are telling the people, ‘Do not think of those who fail to trust in God as being one of us’. No government has any right to make this type of statement about peaceful law-abiding citizens. Doing so is nothing that a just representative of the people could ever support."

Any protest that this is the national motto is effectively muted. It is still the case that no just representative would support such a slogan, and the claim that it is our national motto simply falls victim to the response that those who made this the national motto were not just representatives of the people.

The claim also disarms any arguments that appeal to distorted Constitutional claims or quote-mining the founding fathers. Regardless of what the defender of this policy might say about these facts, it is still the case that no just representative of the people will post a sign that says, "You are not to consider a person who fails to trust in God as being one of us."

Ultimately, this is a moral issue. If no moral objection can be raised against posting "In God We Trust" in public buildings and on the money, then the claim that it ought not to be done is arbitrary and unfounded. Even if the Constitution does prohibit such an act, if there is no argument that the Constitution should prohibit such an act then that makes this a part of the Constitution that we could easily do without.

If there is a moral argument to be made against it, then this argument does not depend on what the Constitution says. In fact, this moral argument would be an argument that told us, "If such a constitutional prohibition did not exist, a fair and just people would create one." Any argument to the effect that the Constitution allows governments to make unfair derogatory statements about peaceful citizens based on religious belief is an argument that the Constitution permits something that should not be permitted – as when the Constitution permitted slavery and counted each black slave as three-fifth of a free person (for purposes of representation).

There is a moral argument to be made in addition to the legal argument, and this argument needs to be put before the people. It is on the basis of this moral argument that we judge whether a law is just or unjust - or just some arbitrary but groundless limit on what others may or may not do.

The Pledge Project: Atheists are Untrustworthy

If you're an atheist, that means nothing. So therefore, your word means nothing, so you have someone whose work cannot be trusted.

Yesterday I wrote a post in defense of the proposition that a pledge of allegiance that compares those who do not support ‘one nation under God’ with those who do not support ‘liberty and justice for all’ actually contributes to a state where the majority of people say that atheists definitely ‘do not share our views of society as Americans.’ I argued that the sentiment that atheists are outsiders and are not truly ‘one of us’ can be traced at least in part to a national motto that says, “Do not consider a person who does not trust in God to be one of us.”

In that posting, I referenced an article written by on eof the authors of a survey that quantified some of the hostility against atheists in this country. That author provided his own explanation for this hostility.

In my opinion, it is likely that a lot of this hatred can be attributed to the specious link between morality and religion. Many religious people believe that atheism and immorality are synonymous, and a scientific world view often is associated with criminality.

This theory is not incompatible with my claim that a Pledge of Allegiance to ‘one nation under God’ and a national motto that excludes those who do not trust in God are also not a part of this problem. This is not an ‘either/or’ proposal. There is, of course, a strong sentiment that equates atheism with immorality and this, in turn, can explain why the nation originally thought it necessary to have children pledge allegiance to God and to tell children (by putting it on the money and in classrooms) that those who do not trust in God are not to be thought of as ‘one of us’.

We certainly hear evidence of this view every time somebody argues that prayer in school is necessary to teach morality to children, and the abolition of prayer in school is the leading cause of immorality. Ben Stein's movie "Expelled" was, for the most part, a proclamation that the immorality inherent in atheism and 'Darwinism' are what made the Nazi holocaust and the Soviet gulags possible.

We see an example of this in the words of Ron Lowe, grand historian for the Grand Lodge of Idaho explaining why atheists are not permitted to be Masons.

While one of the few absolute requirements to membership is a belief in one god, religion and politics are not to be discussed within the Lodge. Ron Lowe, grand historian for the Grand Lodge of Idaho, tells why they insist that only deists need apply: "The reason you cannot be a Mason and an atheist is because, in our degree work, we ask that you swear allegiance in the presence of God. The feeling is that if you swear before God, that means something. If you're an atheist, that means nothing. So therefore, your word means nothing, so you have someone whose work cannot be trusted.

This type of statement is simple, naked bigotry. Lowe has just said that I cannot be trusted. He does not know me. He has not worked with me in any way. Yet, he has decided to prejudge me – the very definition of prejudice - by literally accusing me of being untrustworthy while having no information at all about how I live my life.

Furthermore, Lowe has been driven to this attitude by his religion. This is not only a clear instance of bigotry, it is an instance in which religion has been a driving force towards prejudice. In this case, religion has been a cause, not of virtue, but of vice.

In fact, this is an example of religion doing something that religions have been infamous for doing for thousands of years – turning people against their neighbors for no reason other than "you do not share our beliefs."

A just person . . . a moral person . . . will judge others innocent until proven guilty. If Lowe was a moral and just person, then his attitude towards me would be that he would not judge me (or, more accurately prejudge me or be prejudiced against me) without having evidence of something that I did or did not do. He would have wait until he had evidence that I was untrustworthy before he said that I could not be trusted. And he would not bear false witness against me by testifying to others that I am untrustworthy when there is no evidence to support such a claim.

For my part, I have evidence that Lowe is a bigot. I have evidence from his own words, quoted above. Furthermore, Lowe testified in his own words that his bigotry is grounded on his religion – that his religious beliefs are the foundation for his immorality.

Still, I will not go from this to accuse all religious people of bigotry. I would be a hypocrite if I were to do so, and I would be making prejudicial claims against those people who are religious and yet still avoid this type of bigotry. I will judge each religious person on his or her own actions.

There are a lot of different religions in the world and, while Lowe's religion (or at least his understanding of that religion) obviously preaches prejudice and injustice, this does not imply that all religions preach prejudice and injustice, or that even all who follow Lowe’s religion read into it an endorsement of bigotry and injustice.

I will withhold judgment of Ms. Smith’s moral character (whoever Ms. Smith happens to be) until I have been given evidence of something that Ms. Smith has said or done that I can judge her on. If Ms. Smith also says that all atheists are untrustworthy, then I will judge Ms. Smith to be a bigot in the same way that Lowe is a bigot. But I will not judge Ms. Smith to be a bigot because Lowe is a bigot, Lowe is religious, and Smith is also religious.

I will not even judge all Masons to be guilty of sharing Lowe’s moral failings, even though Lowe claims to be speaking about all Masons. His own testimony to the effect that all Masons are bigots is not enough to actually justify the conclusion that all Masons are bigots. It does not override the moral requirement to judge each person by his or her own actions.

However, if bigotry is the official standard of the Mason organization – if statements to the effect that the Mason organization prejudges all atheists to be untrustworthy (and thus is an organization dedicated to bigotry), then objections can be raised against any people who decides to belong to such an organization – or at least who belongs to the organization without protesting its dedication to immoral prejudgment (prejudice towards) others.

Another point that I want to make, that is relevant to previous discussion, is to ask whether it is at all reasonable to believe that Lowe, as an employer, would be willing to hire an atheist into a position of trust within his company (assuming he was in a position to hire others), or whether he would recommend an atheist for a position in another company or to an appointment for a position of trust.

If he were in a position to recommend appointees to a government committee, to recommend a student to a military academy, or (if he were in the military) to recommend a subordinate for promotion or an accommodation, is it reasonable to expect that he can believe that atheists are untrustworthy and that will NOT affect the opportunities that atheists have for appointments and promotions where people like Lowe are in positions of authority?

A belief is a disposition to act. It would be virtually impossible for Lowe to believe that atheists are inherently untrustworthy without him being disposed to keep atheists out of any position that required trust – such as the Masons itself. To allow an atheist into any position that required moral integrity – to vote for an atheist candidate, or to recommend an atheist to a friend as somebody who can be trusted to carry out a particular task – must confront his prejudice that no atheist is fit for such a position.

The claim that atheists are not losing out of opportunities because of the presence of anti-atheist bigotry is a truly remarkable statement. The claim that atheists do not have reason to hide their atheism for fear of suffering a loss of income and opportunities is equally absurd. The fact that atheists can and do deny their atheism for the sake of obtaining opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable is hardly an argument that anti-atheist bigotry does not exist, does not represent an injustice, or is not worthy of our moral concern.

Insofar as fair and just people would remove this bigotry, one place to start is to end the government endorsement of these attitudes. When the government puts up a plaque that says "In God We Trust" on government buildings and, in particular, in classroom walls where young children are exposed to it every day, they are reinforcing Lowe’s prejudice.

When the government promotes a Pledge of Allegiance that equates people who do not support 'one nation under God' with those who do not support 'liberty and justice for all', people like Lowe can feel vindicated that their prejudice against atheists is justified.

The way to fight this type of prejudice is to explicitly deny that this sort of bigotry is justified – to assert that America is a nation dedicated to 'justice for all,' and that justice prohibits the type of prejudice that is written into statements such as, "If you're an atheist, that means nothing. So therefore, your word means nothing, so you have someone whose work cannot be trusted."

The Pledge Project: Explaining Bigotry

Today’s post is meant for the rationally minded in that I am going to attempt to draw relationships between observations and propositions meant to explain those observations.

Actually, I try to do this in all of my posts, but today I want to make the objective explicit. The reason is because I have received some comments to earlier post that, as far as I can tell, only make sense in the context in which atheists face no discrimination in this country, are not denied access to public office or positions of public trust, and are as well accepted and trusted as any other people.

As a result, these objections at least seem to imply it is false to assert that ‘under God’ in the Pledge and ‘In God We Trust’ in the money might be related to some sort of anti-atheist discrimination. The argument being that they cannot be related to a discrimination that does not exist.

So, I want to begin by calling forth a post at Atheist Revolution that I referenced in the first essay in this series. That post, in turn referenced an article about public hatred of atheists that appeared in the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

We are talking here about a set of documented observations. Once we have these observations in hand, the next step will be to look at ways of perhaps explaining and predicting those observations.

The observations go back to a University of Minnesota Department of Sociology Survey in which people were asked to identify a group that “does not agree at all with my vision o f American society.” 39.6% of the respondents listed Atheists – nearly twice as many as those who identified the second group in the category (Muslims – 22.6%).

I am offering a theory that I suggest will help to explain this observation. I look at the national motto an see that it says that, “A person who does not trust in God is not one of us.” I look at the Pledge of Allegiance and see that it teaches a vision of American society that includes being ‘one nation under God’.

I suggest that there may be a link here. I suggest that when people (particularly children) see the motto “In God We Trust” on the money or on the schoolroom wall, they are inclined to believe that trust in God is a part of our ‘vision for American society’. From which it follows that a person who does not share a vision of a nation that trusts in God does not share our vision of American society.

I suggest that when people (particularly children) are taught to pledge allegiance to ‘one nation under God’ that a substantial portion of those children see this as suggesting that a person who does not support ‘one nation under God’ is like a person who does not support ‘liberty and justice for all’. They take a poll that asks them their attitude towards atheists and, quite naturally, they report that their attitude towards atheists is, in fact, very much consistent with their attitude towards people who do not support ‘liberty and justice for all’. That is to say, both groups ‘do not agree at all with my vision of American society’.

We can enter into a chicken-and-egg question here to ask which came first. Do people have an attitude that atheists do not share their vision of American society because the Pledge of Allegiance and the national motto (which they are exposed to as very young children) teach them to adopt that attitude? Or is it the case that an attitude that atheists do not share their vision is what causes them to support a Pledge to ‘one nation under God’ and a national motto of ‘In God We Trust’?

Or is this a vicious spiral, where the ‘vision of American society’ as ‘one nation under God’ supports the Pledge, and the Pledge in turn passes along to the next generation a vision of American society as ‘one nation under God’?

I would be inclined to the latter.

However, one view that I find to make absolutely no sense is the view that says that a Pledge of Allegiance to ‘one nation under God’ and a national motto of ‘In God We Trust’, but before the eyes of young children at every opportunity, is unrelated to the fact that people have a vision of American society that excludes atheists. This ‘theory’, which I see at the root of a large portion of the comments that I have so far received to this post makes absolutely no sense to me.

The arguments that I have read tend to suggest that there is no relation between the current Pledge and Motto and widespread hostility towards atheists tend to be of a type that says, “When I was a child me and my friends did not pay attention to the Pledge of Allegiance. We would even make fun of it.”

This is the type of anecdotal evidence that researchers will tell you have absolutely nothing useful to contribute. It is like the anecdotal evidence that one looked at a waterfall and instantly knew that there was a God and Jesus was his son, or anecdotal evidence on the effectiveness of magnets in relieving pain, or ghosts, or alien abductions, or the amazingly predictive power of a Tarot card reading.

When I dismiss anecdotal evidence of this type offered by those who declare no relationship between the Pledge, the national motto, and widespread hostility towards atheists, I am following a principle that even my critics accept when they hear anecdotal evidence of ghosts and religious miracles.

Ultimately, two things are needed to support the thesis that ‘under God’ and ‘In God We Trust’ are socially impotent in promoting hostile attitudes towards atheists – particularly in the light of strong evidence that such an attitude exists. One is to provide some other explanation for these observations – an explanation that is incompatible with the thesis that ‘under God’ and ‘In God We Trust’ can have an effect on how children think. The other is to provide some reason to think that ‘under God’ and ‘In God We Trust’ cannot also have an effect – that they must be socially impotent.

I, of course, do not think that such a challenge can be met.

The Pledge Project: House Resolution 5872

The moral principles that I am applying to 'under God' in the Pledge and 'In God We Trust' as the national motto in this series of posts are meant to be applicable to a range of similar behavior. In fact, a moral principle is not a moral principle if it is not applicable to a range of behavior.

One example of similar behavior is the passage in the House of Representatives yesterday of HR5872, "To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America, and for other purposes." It passed by a vote of 403 in favor to 8 against. (See, Congress's $3.5 million "bake sale" for the Boy Scouts By Chris Rodda)

Effectively, this is an act by Congress that will provide the Boy Scouts of America with about $3.5 million in funding from the proceeds of a commemorative coin.

Two Types of Wrong

There are two types of wrong associated with this act. The first is a traditional violation of the separation of church and state. The government is promoting religion by acting in such a way that will provide a religious organization with $3.5 million. In this project the government will put up taxpayer dollars to fund the commemorative coins. However, the project is geared to see that the government is paid back before the Boy Scouts see any revenue.

This is the level at which most people who would raise objections to this law will speak against it. It is a government entanglement with a religious organization and, they will declare, we do not want the government supporting religious organizations. Can we expect the government, in a few years time, to provide the same type of support for Camp Quest – an organization that sends children to a summer camp that is founded on reason rather than myth?

However, I consider this wrong to be rather trivial. It may count as a legal violation, but I do not even know that I can make the case that it is a moral violation outside of the moral obligation to obey the law.

Yet, there is a second level of wrong that is clearly a moral violation independent of any Constitutional or other legal provisions.

The Boy Scouts has as their statement of religious principles:

The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. . . His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship

So now imagine a House Resolution that supports raising $3.5 million to put a series of signs in American schools (because these signs are meant to target young children) that say, "Nobody who doubts the existence of God can be the best kind of citizen. Good citizenship is only possible for those who believe in God."

It is one thing for a religious organization to assert its beliefs that a God exists and that morality requires that followers perform certain types of acts and are prohibited from performing other acts. It is one thing to question the government's sponsorship (or attempts to raise money for) an organization that promotes a particular religious view.

It is quite another for the government to help raise $3.5 million dollars (or any amount of money for that matter) to give to an organization that is actively involved in a campaign to impugns the quality of my citizenship and denigrates and belittles the quality of my contribution to this country. When the federal (or state or local) government involves itself in this type of campaign, it has gone beyond a simple violation of a legal principle separating church and state. It has become an agent of bigotry that is immoral for any government to involve itself in regardless of what anybody might have thought to have actually written into a constitution and bill of rights.

Even if there is nothing special about my own citizenship that allows me to raise objections against organizations that call it into question, or against legislators who fund teaching children that my citizenship is suspect, the legislature is also paying this organization to question the citizenship of my father. William Fyfe volunteered to join the army in 1946 with the intention of making a career out of serving his country. He served through the Korean War and beyond until an airplane crash ended his military career and sent him home with a medical discharge (100% disabled).

Four hundred and eight representatives voted yesterday to support an organization that says that my father (an atheist) was incapable of "the best kind of citizenship".

Gee, thanks.

The principles that I am applying here to House Resolution 5872 are the same principles that I have been applying this week to 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance and 'In God We Trust' as the national motto. 'Under God' in the Pledge also says that those Americans who do not favor 'one nation under God' are incapable of the best kind of citizenship. "In God We Trust" as the national motto says that the best kinds of citizens are those who trust in God, and those who do not trust in God fall short of this idea.

One thing we can say about this resolution to fund the advertisement to children that atheists are incapable of the best kind of citizenship is that it is consistent with government policies regarding 'under God' in the Pledge and 'In God We Trust' on the money. These practices are also meant to advertise to children that atheists are incapable of the best kind of citizenship. However, consistent immorality is no virtue.

The moral case does not depend on the sentiments of the founding fathers and is fully independent of the beliefs that might be attributed to them. Their sentiments on this matter are as relevant as their sentiments about slavery. To the degree that the founding fathers might have sanctioned a government that denigrated and belittled the citizenship of peaceful law-abiding atheists, this does not demonstrate the moral legitimacy of the practice. Instead, it would demonstrate (if true) another area (like slavery) where the founding fathers would have been in need of further moral advance.

By what moral right does the Federal Government agree to help raise $3.5 million to advertise to young children the view that you and I are incapable of the best sort of citizenship? That is the question at issue here, and that is way in which this issue should be presented to and debated in public forums. The legal question of the separation of church and state is still relevant. However, that question should not be discussed to the exclusion of the moral question of the government raising $3.5 million to advertise to children that we are incapable of being the best sort of citizen.

The Pledge Project: Offense

When the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals releases its decision on the constitutionality of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on the currency and posted in public buildings (particularly in classrooms), we will undoubtedly hear comments about 'atheists' and 'secularists' who are offended by every mention of God in the public square.

My answer:

Mentioning God in the public square does not offend me. Having the government teach children that a person who does not support 'one nation under God' is as anti-American as one who does not support 'liberty and justice for all' offends me.

Even here, I do not consider offense to be a morally relevant factor. We have to ask a further question. Is the offensive statement true or false? If it is true, then the offended party has to suck it up and live with the fact. Whereas if the offensive statement is false, then the problem with the statement is not that it is offensive, but that it is false.

Even false statements have to be divided into distinct moral categories. There is the innocent mistake – one that even a good moral character could make. There is the negligent falsehood – a falsehood acquired out of a lack of concern for the truth or the effects of a falsehood on others. Finally, there is the malicious falsehood – a falsehood adopted and spread out of a desire to do harm.

The claim that, "The American who does not favor 'one nation under God' is as bad as a person who does not favor 'liberty and justice for all'" is offensive. However, the moral problem with this statement is that it is a malicious falsehood. It was adopted out of a desire to do harm to the interests of those who do not believe in God. It does so by promoting the falsehood that atheists (e.g,, people like Pat Tillman and my father) are as bad as those who do not support liberty and justice for all.

This problem is compounded by the fact that the government has written this malicious falsehood into its Pledge of Allegiance and that the government takes such great pains to teach this malicious falsehood to very young children starting on the first day they enter public school.

Attempts to characterize objections to 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance as 'offense at the mere mention of God in the public square' is a bit like characterizing objections to slavery in the 1850 as 'objections to doing an honest day’s work'.

It compounds one malicious lie (the malicious lie written into the Pledge of Allegiance that an American who does not support 'one nation under God' is as bad as an American who does not support 'liberty and justice for all') with another malicious lie (that atheists are offended by any mention of God in the public square).

Both statements are also bigoted.

There are a lot of atheists in the world, and some of them hold to some pretty stupid ideas. I have no doubt that there are atheists who are offended by any mention of God in the public square and who are willing to insist that this never be permitted. However, the claim that this characterizes all atheists is a lot like saying that because some Muslims perform terrorist actions, all Muslims are terrorists. It is simple bigotry – motivated by the same malicious disregard for interests of others that got 'under God' inserted into the Pledge to start with.

This brings up another problem – the idea that theists are morally superior to atheists because theists have a foundation for their morality and an incentive to do what is right.

Yet, if this is the case, then why are so many of them doing such a poor job at determining right from wrong and doing such a good job of doing that which is wrong?

A good person would not accept a government program to promote malicious falsehoods about decent law-abiding citizens. He would say that this is wrong and, as a good person, he would refuse to participate or endorse the use of malicious falsehoods against innocent people. He certainly would object to teaching bigoted malicious falsehoods to children in a public school. He would never tolerate any attempt to elevate malicious falsehoods to the level of a national motto or a national pledge.

The fact that many Christians and other theists in this society are in favor of these practices is proof that their religion either is not helping them to understand their moral duties or not giving them much of an incentive to do what is right. Or both.

People who are driven to promote the teaching of malicious falsehoods to young children out of a desire to do harm to the interests of peaceful law-abiding neighbors by religious dogma represent that subset of religion that is motivated to do evil, rather than good, by their religious teachings.

I explicitly deny that this is true of all religion. There are, in fact, a great many religious people who realize that having the government teach malicious falsehoods to children as a way of harming the interests of peaceful citizen is wrong. The fact that there are some religious people motivated to do evil by their religious beliefs does not imply that all religious people are motivated to do evil by their beliefs.

However, it is just as true that the fact that some religious people do good that no religious person may be condemned. There are those who argue this way - using the good deeds that some religious people perform to condemn all criticism of religion.

That inference does not hold up. If it did, then it would be wrong to condemn the 9/11 hijackers or suicide bombers so long as we can find a single Muslim who has done good.

As a matter of fact, we must recognize that some religious people are good, and others are evil, and those who advocate government-sponsored malicious falsehoods against those who do not share their beliefs are closer to the second category.

We have good reason to morally condemn a religious practice that motivates its followers to do evil. We have good reason to morally condemn a religious practice that motivates agents to support a government teaching malicious falsehoods to young children, such as the malicious falsehood that a person who does not support 'one nation under God' is as bad as a person who does not support 'liberty and justice for all'.

We have good reason to morally condemn a religious practice that hides one malicious falsehood behind another as when those who defend the first practice 'bear false witness' against atheists – claiming that all atheists are (merely) offended by all mention of God in the public square.

Sometimes, religion motivates people to take political action harmful to the interest of others for no reason other than, "They do not share our religion." Sometimes it motivates people to lie and distort the objections of those they harm to the harm they do by saying that, "They are merely offended by the mention of God in public."

Sometimes, religion motivates people to do things that no good person would do.

Sometimes.

The Pledge Project: What to Do?

I have been writing in recent days about the importance of objecting to 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance and 'In God We Trust' as the national motto.

What are we going to do about it?

Here is what I want you to do.

I want you to go to some public forum somewhere – write a letter to the editor, post a comment to a relevant blog, enter a relevant online discussion, stand up on a soap box in a shopping mall, address your local city council or school board – and make a statement like the following:

'Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance has never been about allowing God in the public square. It has always been about excluding non-religious people from public office and all aspects of civic life.

Perhaps adding the phrase:

And I can prove it.

I will get to that proof in a moment. I first want to make some preliminary remarks by answering the question, "Why should I do this?"

For the past 50 years, while secularists have been hiding behind judicial robes, sectarians have been out in the public concealing the real nature of these policies in a fog of rhetoric and misconceptions. They have been so successful that even secularists are having trouble seeing the real nature of these policies.

They have framed the debate in terms of allowing God on the public square, and portrayed their opponents as being enemies of freedom of speech, enemies of freedom of religious practice, and enemies of freedom of conscience.

Secularists, in the mean time, have been using legal (not the moral) principle of separation of church and state as if it is some sort of trump card. They have acted as if merely putting this card on the table will convince everybody (or at least a substantial majority) that these policies must be rejected. They have not noticed how 40 years of unanswered sectarian propaganda have turned 'separation of church and state' into something so distasteful in the eyes of the majority of Americans that it has no power anymore.

There are a lot of ways to change a law, other than by passing legislation or Constitutional amendments. One way is to simply change what the words mean. "Separation of church and state" is on its last legs in this country. People have been throwing it into battle after battle without taking even a moment to tend to the wounds it has received. When it falls, every principle of government that has been thrown onto its shoulders will fall with it.

We can see the death blow coming. I wrote about it last month in the post, A New Constitutional Test for Religious Liberty, where I reported that the Supreme Court may be near to adopting a new test for First Amendment cases. Called the Coercion Test, this test renders everything permissible except direct coercion - fines and imprisonment for failure to participate in a religious ritual.

It is time to quit hiding behind the judicial robes (because they will not be there for us to hide behind much longer) and to take the debate to the people themselves in moral terms, not just legal terms.

The moral issue is that 'under God' in the Pledge and 'In God We Trust' as the national motto posted on the money, in government buildings, and (particularly) in school classrooms are part of an attempt to use the government to promote hostility against peaceful citizens based on their religious beliefs and to put nearly insurmountable barriers between those 'infidels' and elected public offices and positions of public trust.

The Proof . . .

I can prove that 'under God' is not motivated by the simple desire to mention God in the public square or to honor the values of the founding fathers. It is actually easy to do.

When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they wrote an oath for public office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

There is no mention of God in this official oath. In fact, the Constitution explicitly prohibits a religious test for public office.

. . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

However, they left officials free to add any religious addendum to their oath of office that they would be comfortable with. When George Washington took the oath of office for the first time it is reported that he voluntarily appended the phrase "so help me God" to the end.

An option that both honors and respects the intention of the founding fathers, and that allows for a mention of God in the public square, is one in which the Pledge itself does not mention God or make any religious reference, but one in which citizens are free to tack onto the end the phrase "so help me God" or any other phrase that suits their particular, individual, beliefs. Or to add nothing at all.

Since this both allow the mention of God in the public square and honors the founding fathers, it should be suitable to anybody who has these goals. If somebody does not find this option suitable, we may assume that she has something else in mind - some other value that 'under God' fulfills, but 'so help me God' does not.

That value can be found in the fact that 'under God' written into the pledge equates those who do not support 'one nation under God' with those who do not support 'with liberty and justice for all'. It puts a barrier between those who do not believe in God and public office by equating belief in God with patriotism and patriotism with fitness for public office. These are the values that keep 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance - not 'honoring the founding fathers' or 'allowing God into the public square'.

Unfortunately, we have allowed sectarians to use these smoke screens without the slightest challenge so, now, the vast majority of the population have come to think of their claims as unquestionably true. Certainly they must be true if nobody has questioned them.

The facts that we need to establish are that "Under God" and "In God We Trust" were passed 50+ years ago to promote public hostility against atheists and to put a nearly insurmountable barrier between them and public office and positions of public trust. They were made a part of school rituals and civic life to encourage children to look down on anybody who did not favor 'one nation under God' - Soviet Communists in specific, but all atheists in practice.

These are morally objectionable practices quite independent of any legal arguments. These practices will remain immoral regardless of any changes made in the law. The law, in this case, can only be made more or less just.

It is time to remind the secular community of these facts so that, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals releases its decision, the secular community can take advantage of the opportunity to make the rest of the country of these facts.

The ultimate goal is that, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals releases its decision, there are people out there asking a new question that exposes aspects of this case that have long been buried. "What business does the government have teaching children that those who do not support 'one nation under God' are as bad as those who do not support 'liberty and justice for all', and using this to put political barriers between law-abiding citizens and public office and positions of public trust?"

The Pledge Project: Priorities

If we look at all of the issues that we could devote time and energy to – child abuse, global warming, AIDS, malaria, Iraq, illegal drugs, national deficit, medical costs, Bird Flu, stem cell research, and countless other issues – is the issue of 'under God' in the Pledge really that important?

First, I want to point out how many things we do with our time that are even less important - like watching Survivor or some sporting event, playing computer games, or going out to dinner. There are certainly some things for which this issue is more important.

Yet, compared to many of the things listed in the irst paragraph, this issue is not important – except to the atheist child who might want to grow up to become President or a legislator, become a judge, or join the military and be promoted for the quality of his service. It is not important, except for the child whose classmates are being taught by the school to look down on children who do not support 'one nation under God'.

However, this issue gains some importance because it has effects on many of the other issues that are more important. This issue has instrumental value.

Atheists as Decision Makers

When we look at these other, greater concerns, one question we should ask is, "How are we going to address those other concerns, and who gets to decide?" One of the effect of 'under God' in the pledge is that, before a person is allowed to sit among the decision makers, that person has to pass a test. He must first prove that he is willing to pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God'. Those not willing to offer such a pledge can only sit in the sidelines and, perhaps, offer suggestions to the decision makers. He will never be a decision maker himself.

I reject the proposition that atheism is a virtue. Being an atheist does not automatically make one a better person. However, this does not imply that there is no injustice in excluding atheists from the set of decision makers. There is nothing about being black that implies that blacks are better decision makers. Yet, this does not imply that there is no injustice in excluding blacks from the table of decision makers.

Even when it comes to testimony delivered from the sidelines, 'under God' and 'In God We Trust' tells people that testimony from those who pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God' deserves more weight than testimony from those who do not share this view.

Recall Illinois representatives Monica Davis' rant against atheists from her seat in the Illinois legislature.

It's dangerous to the progression of this state. And it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

Do you think that somebody like that cares at all about what any atheist tells her on any issue (so long as she knows that the person speaking is an atheist)? Let's not pretend that her attitude is in any way rare. Though some in the atheist community (and a few outside of it) expressed outrage, they were not so outraged that they forced her to apologize to the atheist community or to retract her statements.

The message that atheism is intrinsically unpatriotic - that patriotism requires a level of support for 'one nation under God' that no atheist can give - implies that atheists are not only unqualified for public office, but are unqualified to offer advice to those who hold public office.

The truth of the matter is that some atheists are able to give well informed and wise advice on some of these issues. The nation puts them in the category of unpatriotic citizens worthy only of being ignored at its peril. Banning a person from the decision-making table and ignoring her advice from the sidelines merely because she is an atheist puts everybody at a disadvantage. It costs the society the opportunity to adopt some very good solutions to some very important problems.

Defending Justice

The second way the Pledge problem relates to some of these other problems is that several of these issues have to do with questions of justice and injustice - the same question that applies to the practice of putting 'under God' in the Pledge and of adopting 'In God We Trust' as the national motto.

"Is it morally permissible for a government to adopt a national pledge that denigrates a set of peaceful and law-abiding citizens by equating them to those who oppose liberty and justice for all?" Allowing the Pledge of Allegiance to stand as it is implies saying that these types of acts are permissible - that they are not to be opposed. Saying that these types of acts are permissible implies that all other countries have the option of adopting practices that aim to promote public hostility against a peaceful and law-abiding group of its citizens. This will not make the world a better place.

America cannot honestly expect to promote a global culture in which religious minorities are treated with respect when it has risen religious bigotry to the status of a national pledge and a national motto. Around the world, conflicts between groups are made worse - not better - by the doctrine that nations can adopt injustice and bigotry as its greatest principles and highest standards.

America cannot condemn a country that demands a pledge of allegiance to Sharia law, for example, without making itself into a nation of hypocrites, if it demands allegiance to 'one nation under God'.

Lessons from History

Some argue that atheists are not treated all that badly in America today (in spite of these injustices), and so nothing needs to be done about it. However, we could also argue that women were not treated all that badly in the years before they were allowed to have a place at the table of decision makers. Perhaps, 100 years ago, we should have listened to those who said that women's rights was simply not a legitimate concern and attention should be given to other things, because women were not being treated badly enough to take women's suffrage seriously.

Japanese Americans were not being treated all that badly in the 1920s. Yet, their position quickly deteriorsted several years later. It deteriorated precisely because people were not devoted to the principles of justice as they should have been. If the people of today are not seriously committed to the principles of justice, what will they be capable of in the future?

Demanding that people live by the principles of fairness and justice today helps to protect people - including our children and grandchildren - tomorrow. Similarly, allowing individuals to get away with abuses and injustices today puts future generations at risk that these injustices will find a new target, or they might wander into an area already being targeted.

When Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, it was possible for people to complain then that her concern with walking another fifteen feet to the back of the bus was trivial and unimportant. Whats the issue of moving to the back of the bus compared with concerns like nuclear war and polio? Are we really going to make a big deal over the fact that some people have to give up seats in a bus from time to time when we have to deal with these other issue?

However, this description trivializes what was at issue with segregation. The issue was not that of moving to the back of the bus. The issue was the set of assumptions and attitudes that generated and protected the policy of requiring blacks to move to the back of the bus.

The issue with the Pledge is not about whether or not certain people have to say or refrain from saying a pair of words. It has to do with attitudes that say that the government may legitimately teach children to view people who do not believe are to be thought of the same way as those who do not support liberty and justice for all. What is at issue is a principle that, if accepted, would make it permissible for governments to have children pledge allegiance to 'one white nation' or 'one arian nation'.

No government has the right to participate in a campaign to promote hostility against peaceful law-abiding citizens based on qualities not relevant to their patriotism or moral character.

No government has the right to make it the national pledge and the national motto to put barriers between a group of peaceful law-abiding citizens and public offices within that nation or positions of public trust (such as appointed judgeships).

No nation has the right to teach children, starting on the first day of school, that those who do not support 'one nation under God' are as bad as those who do not support 'liberty and justice for all'.

No government has the right to put signs or stamps in its buildings or on its government paper (such as money) that tells its citizens, "You are not to think of a person as one of us unless he trusts in God."

Is it important to say these things?

I think it is.

The Pledge Project: The Atheist Burka

I have been thinking of the series of posts that would make up this project for months. Here it is, the second day, and I am already altering the arrangement.

Two members of the studio audience responded to yesterday's posting by saying, in effect, "I'm comfortable with 'under God' in the Pledge. The issue just does not interest me."

I know that this is a very common sentiment.

I consider this sentiment to be like that of the fundamentalist Muslim woman who has become comfortable wearing a burka each time she goes out in public. She is comfortable going outside only in the company of a male family member and is comfortable being denied an education or any activities outside the home.

I am not saying this to insult anybody. I am attempting to describe a common psychological phenomenon where the victims of one generation of social discrimination prepare the next generation to also be victims of the same discrimination - to be comfortable in their role as second-class citizens.

Not only is she comfortable in this life (because, face it, it is the only life she knows and we are certainly more comfortable with what is familiar to us than what is different), she enthusiastically begins teaching her young daughter to be comfortable in this life as well. Young minds are malleable, and can be made comfortable with a great many things. We know as a matter of fact that a young girl born in such a country can be raised to be comfortable with the limitations that the leaders of her fundamentalist religion will require of her.

In Texas recently we found another example in which children, raised in a closed community where girls are married off at puberty, also became comfortable with their situation. They could not conceive of anything else. When the camp was raided and they were taken off to foster care, they did not praise their liberators. They demanded a return to what they were comfortable with.

In America, the government begins the process of fitting children comfortably into the atheist burka on the first day of school. From that first day they are told then told to repeat the mantra that the the government does not like those who do not support 'one nation under God'. It thinks that they are just as bad - just as 'un-American' - as those who do not support 'liberty and justice for all'.

As these children come to understand what the words in the Pledge mean, they will include in their growing understanding the idea that people who support 'one nation under God' and 'liberty and justice for all' are good people, and that those who don't support 'one nation under God' or 'liberty and justice for all' are not good people – at least as far as the government and the school are concerned.

Some people like to speak about phenomena such as this in terms of 'memes' – mental analogues to genes that get passed from one generation to another. We should not be surprised that natural selection will favor the meme that will give its host a sense of comfort and will suppress resistance against passing that meme on to the next generation. Ideas fed into the brains of young children are just the type that generate the type of comfort. So, the six-year-olds of today will teach the six-year-olds of tomorrow to wear the atheist burka comfortably and not to complain.

Many of us have applied these concepts to other groups. We have spoken of the way that religious fundamentalists pass religious fundamentalism on to the next generation in ways where the child cannot grow up to question them. We have not realized that we are a party to passing down a set of myths to our own children as well.

We have not been so eager to apply these concepts to ourselves. We have been fed the meme since we were six that not favoring 'one nation under God' is shameful and as un-American as not favoring liberty and justice for all. The government requires that signs be posted where the youngest Americans cannot escape them that tell children, "If you want to be one of us, then you will trust in God – and if you do not trust in God we will not think of you as one of us."

The question of how religions hand down their myths from one generation to the next can be found in how 'comfortable' we are with the way atheists are treated in this country. We can look at ourselves to study how these memes work. They have certainly infected us, given the lack of interest many of us have in rejecting the denigration and abuse of atheists even by their own government.

In some of his writings and his speeches Richard Dawkins has talked about 'consciousness raising'. Here is one area where the concept of 'consciousness raising' applies.

"I am 'comfortable' with the myth that a person who does not support 'one nation under God' is like a person who does not support 'liberty and justice for all'. "

Really?

You're comfortable with that?

And you're going to stand aside while the government teaches the next generation to be comfortable with the idea that those who do not favor 'one nation under God' are as bad as those who do not favor 'liberty and justice for all'? You are comfortable with our children growing up to be 'comfortable with' a barrier that keeps them out of public office and positions of public trust? You are comfortable with society handing out atheist burkas to their children and demanding that your children wear them, and then pass those burkas on to their children?

'Consciousness raising' was introduced to deal with the problems found in other groups who were made 'comfortable with' various forms of discrimination against other groups. They were 'comfortable with' treating women as property whose sole duty was to to obey their fathers and their husbands, and with being treated as property. 'Consciousness raising' applied to the practice of teaching women exactly what it is they had become comfortable with, so that they could see it for what it is.

Atheists need to be made aware that they have been made 'comfortable with' barriers that keep them out of public office and positions of public trust. They have been made 'comfortable with' civic ceremonies where the people unanimously declare, "A person who does not support 'one nation under God' cannot possibly be a patriot." They have been made 'comfortable with' signs in civic hall and on the money that say, "Only somebody who trusts in God is to be considered one of us."

Atheists have been made 'comfortable with' a President who states, "We need common-sense judges who realize that our rights come from God, and that is the type of judge I intend to nominate." Even though they and their neighbors have young children who have just heard the President say, "If you do not believe that our rights come from God then you are not qualified to be a judge," they are 'comfortable with' this situation and simply go about their business.

The atheist burka means atheists not being judges in the United States.

They hear of an Illinois representative tell an Atheist witness before a government committee that, "Yours is a philosophy of destruction," and "You have no right to sit in that chair." The atheist burka means shrugging and doing nothing.

Ultimately, my point is that I do not care how comfortable you have come to be in the atheist burka. It is time to take it off.

More importantly . . . much more important than you taking off the atheist burka yourself . . . you should not allow the government to put the atheist burka on the next generation of children.

The Pledge Project: Acting Against Anti-Atheist Bigotry

I was going to wait on this project . . . but, I think it would be foolish to wait.

The project . . .

Sometime in the next 50 days, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will release its decisions on whether 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance and 'In God We Trust' on the money and in government buildings violates the First Amendment's prohibition on establishing religion.

I consider 'under God' in the pledge, and the national motto of "In God We Trust" to be the most significant cause of the deteriorating political situation that atheists in specific and secularists in general are facing in the United States, and I want to see these practices ended.

When the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals releases its decision, this will create a political uproar that could have a significant impact on the federal election and several local elections. It will have a significant impact on the electability of atheist candidates (or any candidate who would not pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God') and the status of atheists in America for the foreseeable future.

To get a hint of the type of problems I am talking about, vjack was coincidentally kind enough to post on the topic just this evening. See America the Intolerant: Attitudes towards Atheists Revealing.

If we continue to debate this issue as we have debated it in the past we should only expect the results of those debates to be a continually growing barrier between atheist candidates and public office and positions of public trust, and a growing deterioration of the view of atheists among most Americans.

If you think that being a rationalist should not disqualify a person for a position in public life as an executive, legislator, judge, or appointed leader, then you have reason to reject 'under God' and 'In God We Trust' because, as long as they exist, positions of high public office are not available to rationalist candidates.

I do not think that there is any virtue in being an atheist. I can think of many pairings in which I would choose the religious candidate over the atheist alternative. However, I can also think of many pairings where I would choose the atheist over the religious alternative. Where those pairings might occur in the political process the atheist candidate ought not to be disqualified merely because he is an atheist.

I do not need to believe that there is a particular virtue in being black, or that blacks are inherently superior to whites, to know that a government-endorsed program to keep blacks from public office is a vice, and nothing that a good person could support. I do not even need to be black to have strong and serious objections to any such project.

Similarly, I do not need to believe that there is a particular virtue in being an atheist, or that atheists are inherently superior to theists, to know that a government-endorsed program to keep atheists from public office is a vice, and nothing that a good person could support. I do not even need to be an atheist to have strong and serious objections to such a project.

Let's be honest – these policies were adopted, and they continue to be enthusiastically supported – because they serve as a way of keeping political power out of the hands of any person who will not pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God'. They are loved (by those who love them the most) because they endorse a religious barrier to public office that only allows those who are willing to express a belief in God to pass through.

From the very first day that a child can read the words on the money or on the school room wall that say, "In God We Trust", the government is teaching that child that if she wants to be counted as 'one of us', she will trust in God, and she will not accept any who do not trust in God as one of 'us'.

From the very first day that a child enters public school the child is taught that, at least in the eyes of the government, any person who does not support 'one nation under God' is like a person who does not support 'liberty and justice for all'. These are things that all good Americans support, and those who do not support them are not to be thought of as good Americans.

The reason that those who support these policies the loudest want these lessons taught in the public schools – the reason why they are so emphatic on protecting these policies – is precisely because it helps them to eliminate competition from 'secularists' and 'atheists' for positions of public power and public trust. Through these policies they can keep political power in their own hands. By keeping political power in their own hands they can protect these policies.

Attempting to interpret this as some wild conspiracy theory involving millions of people whispering a secret that is never released to the public would be a mistake.

We find the same type of 'conspiracy' in 'under God' and 'In God We Trust' today that we found in 'separate but equal' in the years between the Civil War and Civil Rights. No sane person could look at the way that blacks were treated before 1960 and say that it followed the constitutional guarantee that blacks be treated as equals. However, a deep-seated prejudice (not a conspiracy) kept the majority who loved their privileged status from admitting what no sane and honest person could deny - that these 'separate' institutions and facilities were not 'equal' (and could never be).

Today, this same type of deep-seated prejudice causes people to ignore what no sane and honest person could deny about 'under God' and 'In God We Trust' – that these, like 'separate but equal', are government-supported policies that aim primarily at promoting hostility towards a group of peaceful and law-abiding citizens based on (in this case) nothing more than their beliefs about God. These policies exist to keep political power in the hands of those who are willing to pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God' by making it nearly impossible for those not willing to make such a pledge from gaining public office.

The mere fact that there are so few atheists in public office (and none who have run for public office while denying that we ever were, are, or will be 'one nation under God' since there is no God) is testimony to the effect of these policies.

An important exchange between Chief Justice Rehnquist and Michael Newdow the last time the Pledge of Allegiance came before the Supreme Court is telling on this matter.

As reported on MSNBC:

Newdow had argued that the words "under God" were divisive and damaging to national unity, by pitting atheist against believers.

"What was the vote in Congress" when it decided in 1954 to add the words "under God" to the pledge, asked Rehnquist.

Newdow replied that it was "apparently unanimous," prompting Rehnquist to question how divisive the pledge really was.

"That's because no atheists can get elected to Congress," Newdow insisted, prompting a sudden round of applause in the audience.

Newdow touched almost accidentally on what is a key concern in this dispute – a matter that the audience recognized instantly and responded to. One way to express that concern is as follows:

If an all-white Congress unanimously passed a pledge of allegiance to 'one white nation', only a bigot would deny that they did this to divide the nation between those who were white and those who were black in an attempt to keep political power in the hands of those who were white.

This Pledge Project is about creating a nation where rationalists can have a chance of winning public office and positions of public trust.

This is about creating a nation where the government is not teaching its citizens from the youngest age that their government looks on people who do not support 'one nation under God' the same way it looks on people who do not support 'liberty and justice for all'.

It is about creating a nation where the government does not put up signs in every government building and child's classroom that state, "Only a person who trusts in God can be one of us. And if you want to be one of us yourself, then you must also trust in God."

After the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals releases its decision, the case will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will hear the case late in 2009 or early 2010. This gives us a year and a half to make the case that 'under God' is not about mentioning God in the public square. It is about keeping atheists out of public office.

In fact, any campaign to give atheists a chance to win public office must begin with defeating these practices. There can be no (honest) atheist in high public office against the backdrop of a nation whose government teaches children from the youngest age to pledge allegiance to 'one nation under God' and where political advertisements adorn every public office that say, "Only one who trusts in God can be one of us."

Do you think that rational candidates who base conclusions on the evidence and who understand and can apply the rules of logic should have a chance to honestly win public office?

This issue is where that campaign begins.

The Waste of a Life

A couple of the leaders of the atheist blogsphere got into a dispute recently over the death of pastor Paul Jones.

It started with PZ Myers posting the blog entry, How Sad in which he wrote:

Paul Jones has died. I didn't know him, or even know about him, until his obituary was sent to me, but it's an utterly tragic life story. He was an ordained Baptist minister — there's a waste of a life right there — and his death was ironic and futile.

Hemant Mehta (a.k.a. Friendly Atheist) did not approve. In a post titled, How Sad, Indeed. He wrote:

Believing in God is not as bad as using God's name to advance your own political agenda. That doesn't mean belief in God is correct. But it doesn't imply a complete waste of time. We could all name plenty of religious people (current and historical) who have done wonderful things in the name of their God. It's petty to dismiss those good works because they were done in the name of a God we don’t believe in.

Fortunately, I have a theory of value that is perfectly applicable to these types of questions from which I can derive who (and to what degree) each writer is correct.

In fact, both writers are correct in their own way.

Imagine that there is a nurse who has decided to care for the health and well-being of an isolated community. However, she has come to believe (by whatever mechanisms allow people to believe in absurdities) that arsenic is a cure-all. She arrives with a lifetime supply of arsenic pills. Whenever somebody in the village expresses some discomfort or shows signs of any illness, she provides them with a little arsenic. Those who get better (as some of them certainly will – arsenic in small doses is not fatal but its effects are cumulative) then praise the nurse and the power of her medicine.

However, at the age of 52, this nurse has a tragic accident that takes her life.

This nurse has wasted her life. She has actually done worse than wasted her life. Let’s assume that there is an afterlife in which she learns the truth – that she really was poisoning the villagers and making them slowly sicker over time. If she truly cared about the welfare of the villagers, then this would be a tragic and heartbreaking discovery. She herself would come to the conclusion that, for the sake of those she cared about and, in her ignorance, were suffering harm at her hands, it would have been better for her to have died sooner – or to never have lived at all.

It does not matter that the villagers honored her and praised her, that they remembered her as a compassionate person always willing to come to the aid of those who were sick. It does not matter that she herself thought that she was doing something good. What matters is the fact that she was, in fact, doing harm.

This is the measure of a life.

We can argue that prayer, unlike arsenic, is not poisonous. It does no harm. Yet, ‘having no effect’ is not the same as 'doing no harm.' It matters whether the person is left better or worse off than she would have otherwise been.

We can imagine the villagers being given sugar pills instead of arsenic, generating a genuine placebo effect and giving them the (false) sense that they are actually being cared for. Willing to give the sugar pills a try, they put off seeking real medical care, allowing diseases to develop longer than they would have if this nurse had not given them false beliefs about its effectiveness. A few faithful might even watch their children die of diseases that could have been easily treated. In this case, even without poisoning the villagers, our nurse still made them worse off than they would have otherwise been.

She still would have reason to weep if, after death, she discovers the truth of her actions.

The obituary for Jones also said that he:

always found a way to provide for churches and charities as well as individuals in need.

Does this provide a way saving his life from having been a life without meaning?

Well, it depends in part on what type of charities he gave his aid to and the type of help he gave to people in need.

If he had limited his help to prayer then we are still left with a case like that of the nurse giving away arsenic pills (or placebos, as the case may be). It is the case of a person who produced no real-world good and may have done real-world harm.

However, even if he contributed to genuine charities – charities that did real-world good, we have two questions that we need to ask about the nature of these contributions to measure the value of his life.

First, what motivated these donations to charities?

The relevant test here would involve determining the answer to the question, "Would Jones have contributed to these charities if he did not believe that a God existed?"

If Jones was truly interested in the welfare of others then he would have cared about their welfare even in the absence of a God. He would not have been willing to abandon them to their own fates, watching them suffer with indifference, simply because no God existed to pat him on the head for his good deeds or threaten him with hell for his evil deeds. A person who responds only to these types of rewards and punishes cares nothing about other people – he cares only about his own welfare, and his concern for others only comes as a pretense.

However, if he would have been touched by the suffering of others even in the belief that no God existed – if he had genuine concern for their welfare of a form that did not depend on heavenly rewards or punishments – then he would have spent his life producing real-world good for real-world people in service to real-world people, not in service to am imaginary deity.

However, if the belief that no God exists would have turned him away from charitable work, we may assume that he real motivation was to please God or to buy a ticket to heaven, but that he cared nothing about the people around him. A person must be utterly lacking in compassion to stand around and do nothing while others suffer in a universe where no God exists.

This person, who spent his life serving God or avoiding hell, but who actually cared nothing about the people around him, has, indeed, wasted his life. The good he has provided was, at best, a fortunate side-effect of his actions – but was not a part of his intention or among his goals. He is like the person who, tripping over a shovel as he walks down the sidewalk, happens to crash into a child and knock him out of the way of an oncoming train. He deserves no credit for his actions – no praise – precisely because he did not desire the good that came from his actions. Not if, in the absence of the shovel, he would have watched the child get run over by the train with complete indifference.

Second, what were the opportunity costs of this devotion to charity?

Let us assume that, through a person's charitable activities, he raises $50 for religious efforts that do no real-world good (e.g., missionaries, churches, putting up billboards that say, "Why do atheists hate America?"), funding legislation to ban abortion or constitutional amendments to exclude homosexual unions from the definition of marriage), and $50 to charities that do real-world good (feed the hungry, treat the sick, provide shelter for the homeless, conduct research into any of a number of diseases, clean up the environment).

However, in the absence of his efforts, people would have otherwise contributed $75 to the latter set of charities.

In this case, the true effect of this person's efforts is to drain worthwhile charities of $25 that they would have otherwise gotten. This is not a person to be praised for the $50 that he gave to worthwhile charities that do real-world good, or the $100 in charitable donations that he actually made possible. This is a person who made the world worse off than it would have otherwise been, by costing charities that do real-world good $25 that they would have otherwise had.

In this case, we are talking about a life that was actually spent preventing good from being done more than it was a life spent doing good.

Finally, let us look at a more favorable case – one in which charities that do real-world good would have normally received $25. However, because of Jones’ hard efforts they received $50 instead. We would still have to weigh this gain against contributions that do real-world harm.

Many of the examples that I gave above are not contributions to waste-of-effort but harmless activities. They are contributions to activities that do real-world harm. If he spent effort promoting prayer or the teaching of creationism in the nation's schools, blocking homosexual marriage, fighting to outlaw early term abortions, and supporting the destructive policies of President George Bush because of these beliefs, these harms must be weighed against any good that might have come from the effect is efforts may have had in getting more money to charities producing real-world benefits.

It is true that the obituary does not actually give us enough information to decide which category Jones actually belongs in. The most important part of his life might well have been in giving real-world care to his friends and family. In fact, I would be willing to bet good money that Jones genuinely cared for his friends and his family and even strangers in ways that he would have continued to care for them even if no God existed. He would have still sought after their welfare. He might not have been all that political, and his contribution to the evils of religion we have seen over the past eight years in particular might have been minimal.

If this is the case, his life was not at all wasted. If this is the case, then he took care of the people he cared about and did little harm to outweigh the direct good that came from his actions. We may even call him a good man.

Or he may have been like our nurse, handing out poison and preventing the people he thought he was helping from getting real-world help that would have mitigated their real-world problems.

We simply do not know.

Human Dignity

My recent postings on the selling of organs for transplant touched on the concept of human dignity. There are some who argue that a person who sells his organs (e.g., a kidney) for money is somehow sacrificing human dignity. It is somehow undignified for a person to be reduced to a state in which he must sell off body parts for cash. It makes him little more than a commodity – an 'organ market' rather than a full human being.

G-man commented:

I would venture to guess that people who trade their organs don't find the process to be a violation of human dignity.

I am not willing to grant that venture without more argument. It could very well be the case that those who sell their organs for money do find it a violation of human dignity. It may be the case that those who sell their organs simply find themselves in a position where there is something more important to them than preserving their dignity. Perhaps they have gambling debts to pay off, or they dream of going to college, or they have this plan to start a business that will make him and his family rich. So, he sacrifices his dignity for a greater good.

The place to start with respect to dignity is that it is a value-laden term. It is a term that has value written into its very meaning. It is no mere coincidence that something that results in a violation of dignity is bad – just as it is no mere coincidence that bachelors are unmarried. An evaluation is written directly into the meaning of a term. We cannot actually tell whether something is a violation of human dignity until we have a theory of value that we can use to evaluate that something. If our theory of value suggests that something is not bad, then it cannot be 'undignified'.

If it is true (as the desire utilitarian maintains) that desires are the only reasons for action that exist, and that nothing is good or bad except insofar as it is such as to fulfill or thwart desires, then nothing conforms to or violates human dignity except insofar as it is such as to fulfill or thwart desires. We must have a reason to dislike that which is undignified, and if no reason to dislike it (in the form of a desire) exists, then the claim that it violates human dignity is false.

Elements of human dignity are often taken to be elements that contain intrinsic value. There is something intrinsically wrong with treating people in certain ways. However, intrinsic values do not exist. No state of affairs contains within itself a 'reason for action' dictating that those who perceive it properly must approve or disapprove of it. The person claiming that things are intrinsically undignified is taking his own (probably learned) aversions and mistaking them for perceptions of something external.

G-Man states:

I think the argument has to do with perception. In other words, there may be no intrinsic human dignity, but the way people perceive others influences the way they treat them. So, it seems normal to "sell" your brain and muscles, and nobody perceives that as violating human dignity.

The issue here is one of cause and effect. If others should come to perceive you as merely a tool for their gratification, then they can be expected to treat you as a (mere) tool. The thing about tools is that we can destroy them in the pursuit of our ends, and their destruction does not matter much (except we lose the use of the tool at a later time). There are some tools (e.g., explosives) that are meant to be destroyed when we use them.

Certainly, we have little reason to promote the idea that people are mere tools. For one thing, it risks becoming victim to the idea that we and those we care about are mere tools. Instead, we have reason to preserve the sense that people are something more than tools and, as such, there are certain ways in which they are not to be used. I am not just an organ farm for your convenience. I am a person, and my status as a person requires that I be treated with a certain amount of dignity.

However, if the exchange of a kidney for money is purely voluntary, then this would defeat any claim that I am being treated merely as a tool if I should volunteer to sell my kidney for money. My ends – my goals – are being respected by the fact that I am being provided with the means to pursue my own goals – a wad of money. In fact, it is quite reasonably the case that a wad of money is more useful to me in the pursuit of my goals than a backup kidney. I can't think of any way that my second kidney can help me to retire more quickly so I can work full time on moral philosophy except insofar as it is something that I can use to get extra money.

But selling organs seems like it violates human dignity. And since it seems to do so, it actually does.

This is an important insight.

Take what G-Man wrote above about dignity and apply it to language. There is nothing in the word 'lion' that intrinsically means 'a member of the cat family that lives in prides'. However, because we have assigned this meaning to the word 'lion', it actually does mean that.

We assign meanings to acts in just the same way we assign meanings to words. A salute in the military means something. There is nothing in a salute that intrinsically indicates that the one saluting owes obedience to the one being saluted. This is a meaning that we have assigned to this act. Yet, because we have assigned this meaning, it actually does have the signification we assigned to it.

A culture may designate that it is an insult to fail to present a business associate at a meeting with a business card. Because the act (or, in this case, the non-act) of failing to provide another with a business card has been deemed insulting, it actually is insulting.

Similarly, if we assign to the act of selling an organ the meaning that, "I am something less than a human – a mere organ farm for use by others, then, the person who sells an organ, like the person who salutes a superior officer, is communicating something that we do not want people to be communicating. Effectively, the objection is, "You shouldn't say such things."

But meanings like this are arbitrarily assigned and can be just as arbitrarily unassigned. If it were to turn out that one of these arbitrarily assigned meanings interferes with life-saving activities, this alone is good enough reason to reconsider the arbitrarily assigned meaning we have given to that action. We simply need to decide, "It doesn't mean that at all."

In the case of a military salute, this would be easy. The military would simply hand down new rules. In the case of a cultural norm where no person or group has the authority to dictate meanings, it may take a lot of hard work in order to change public attitudes. Organizations devoted to making sure that people who need organs get the organs they need may need to invest some of their money in a PR campaign that compares the selling of an organ to, for example, the selling of a house or a few hours of one's labor.

We see these types of campaigns all the time, where groups try to take something that has been perceived as good or indifferent and promotes a public attitude of hostility. One example is the way that Mothers Against Drunk Driving changed the image of the drunk driver as the comic nuisance to the irresponsible deadly menace. Another is the way religious groups have promoted the image of atheists as being un-American by writing this idea into the national pledge and national motto.

Where people have a habit of taking their feelings as perceptions of intrinsic value, and where they have learned aversions to the thoughts of people selling organs, the best way to proceed might first require a campaign to change those feelings. Organizations interested in making sure that organs are available to those who need them may need to invest some money in a campaign along these lines.

The question to ask before starting this campaign, however, is, "What will be the effects of weakening this aversion generally?" Will it, in fact, promote the availability of organs to those who need them? Or will it lead to the sense that poor people exist merely for those who have money to use for their own convenience regardless of the cost?

Selling Transplant Organs Part II: Options

Yesterday, I started looking at the issue of buying and selling organs for transplant (e.g., kidneys). I looked at three considerations.

(1) The feeling of yuckiness at having a market in organs. However, we have to ask if the ‘yuckiness’ that people feel at the thought of a market in human organs is, perhaps, like the ‘yuckness’ people once felt (and some people still feel) towards interracial relationships. We have to ask whether this aversion to a market in organs is an aversion that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote, or whether it is an aversion that people have many and strong reasons to inhibit.

(2) Voluntary exchange among competent adults tends to fulfill the most and strongest desires of both participants. If it did not, then they would not engage in the trade. Realizing the desire-fulfillment consequences of trade we have reason to be averse to interfering in the voluntary exchanges of competent adults, including the exchange of cash for kidneys.

(3) However, markets, combined with large differences in income, create a situation where rich people can bid resources away from more highly valued uses (in terms of desire fulfillment) and into less highly valued uses. During a drought, unregulated markets allow rich people to bid water away from those who are dying of thirst to use in swimming pools, fountains, and watering their golf courses.

So, a market in organs such as kidneys would allow rich people to redistribute human organs away from the more highly valued uses (or, at least, equally valued uses) that poor people have for their kidney and towards the less highly valued uses (or, at best, equally valued uses) of the wealthy.

For example, if kidneys were bought and sold on a market, would a rich person with kidney failure be permitted to purchase two functioning kidneys? An unregulated market would allow this. To prohibit it would be to regulate the market.

Would wealthy people be permitted to purchase kidneys to keep them in storage just in case they might be needed at a later date – throwing them away once they have reached their expiration date? Allowing this would be an example of redistributing kidneys from poor people who have a more highly valued use for them, to rich people who values the kidney only as an insurance against possible future harm.

Assigning kidneys by lottery, rather than by willingness to pay, seems to respect the assumption that the poor people value their kidneys as much as rich people do, and that “willingness to pay” (or, more precisely, “ability to pay”) should not be used as a method for moving rich people to the front of the line (and poor people to the back).

However, rationing creates its own problems – it generates shortages.

How many hours would you work each week if the government prohibited people from paying workers? Let us say that the contribution of time to a company had to be completely voluntary, like the contribution of a kidney must be completely voluntary. I suspect that such a program would lead to an economic disaster. Nothing (or very little) would actually get done, and people would limit the work they did to that which would benefit themselves and their immediate family and friends.

We see this in the kidney market, where a prohibition on exchange leads to a severe shortage of kidneys, which has nearly 100,000 people in the United States alone suffering (and dying at the rate of 18 per day) for the want of a (market in) kidneys. It is not the case that, by allocating kidneys in the absence of price, the right and poor equally get to live. Rather, the current rationing system is one in which rich and poor equally get to suffer and (for some of them) die.

And let’s not kid ourselves. Even where the buying and selling of organs is prohibited, rich people have options that poor people do not have – from the luxury of being able to spend 30 hours per week on dialysis to the means to pay for it.

Our options are not limited to “completely unregulated market” or “outright prohibition on the selling of organs”. There is a wide range of options in between.

From a desire utilitarian perspective, there are moral facts. However, they are not always easy to discover. One of the things we may need to do to determine the moral facts is to allow a certain amount of experimentation. In this case, the experiments would involve allowing different states to try different methods for redistributing organs. One of the things that a desire utilitarian can all for is more data, which can then be used to help answer the question.

For example, allow a state to set up a system where the government pays money to the estate of a person who (1) signed up as an organ donor, (2) who died in a state in which her organs could be harvested, and (3) died of natural causes.

Such a law would almost certainly increase the number of organs available for transplant by increasing the number of people who sign up as organ donors. Taxpayers have many and strong reasons to support such a plan since it helps to ensure that an organ is available if the taxpayer (or somebody the taxpayer cares about) should ever need one.

People also have reason to support such a policy to the degree that they have reason to be concerned with the size of their estate and what can be done with the money. This is a gift that they can leave their spouse or children (or parents) in the case of an untimely death – like life insurance without the monthly premiums.

The plan would also side-step the problem of markets redistributing resources away from poor people who have a higher valued use for the product but who cannot afford to outbid the rich person. We may assume that, after death, an individual will have no further use for these organs – that the only options left to the person who died would be low-valued uses.

One major reason not to adopt this policy is a feeling of ‘yuckiness’ associated with the selling of organs. However, there are enough people who report not having this sensation that we have reason to conclude that this is a learned reaction. We can choose whether to promote or inhibit this feeling of yuckiness. Since the feeling is one that tends to thwart other desires (or so it seems) it is a feeling that we have more and stronger reason to inhibit than to nurture.

Some readers brought up some interesting ideas concerning the ‘human dignity’ argument that I would like to address. However, given space limitations, I would like to make that the focus of tomorrow’s post.

I would like to see some state legislature experiment with this option and see if it does not improve the quality (and even the quantity) of life for some of its citizens.

This is just one idea. It is a mistake to think of this issue to be one in which only two options are available - a completely unregulated market and a complete prohibition on exchanging organs for other things of value. When we look at the issue and find problems with a particular solution, it does not automatically follow that, "We have aproblem here. We must completely prohibit a market in transplant organs." Another option is usually available - to design the law in such a way so as to avoid the problem without blocking the availability of transplant organs to recipients.

The main point being that when we step into a realm of moral uncertainty, we have reason to collect data by allowing different states to experiment with different methods to determine which actually helps to promote the life, health, and well-being of its people.

Selling Organs for Transplant

I have recently gotten an urge to take an important moral issue where I really do not know what the right answer is and look at it from a desire utilitarian perspective. I want to look at a set of steps that desire utilitarianism suggests and to use it as a kind of a road map for looking at other issues.

The issue that I want to write about is that of selling organs such as kidneys.

I discussed this issue two years ago in a post called "Buying and Selling Organs" . There, I looked at a number of arguments against selling organs and dismissed each one rather quickly. The only argument that I gave in favor of organ selling is that it would save lives. Though that, to me, sounds like a particularly good argument.

Like I said, this time I want to look at the issue in more detail and tie the specific arguments directly into desire utilitarian theory.

The first and strongest argument that we will likely encounter against selling organs is that it feels yucky. The opponent simply thinks of the idea of a person being paid a sum of money to give up a perfectly good kidney – an offer that he then takes. This just feels wrong. Going on feelings alone, these people side with any politician who would oppose such a system.

In response to this feeling of wrongness, the opponent might drum up all sorts of rationalizations to give this feeling legitimacy. They might argue that it is "playing God" – though, in fact, God gets his morality directly from us. We are the ones who decide what God likes and dislikes and then assign our preferences to Him. God is a human invention, and so is His ethics.

Other catch phrases that are used is that violates human dignity to reduce a human body to a product to be bought and sold on the market place. But what is this 'dignity' and how is it violated by the buying and selling of organs? After all, I sell my brain to the highest bidder for 40 hours each day, as well as the use of my muscles. People also sell blood, eggs, and sperm. These do not seem to have harmed human dignity in any way.

Ultimately, these claims about 'playing God' and 'human dignity' are ultimately just different ways of saying, 'It feels yucky'. Only, we don't want to say 'It feels yucky' because this hardly seems like a good enough reason to bring people to an early death that could have been prevented. We need a better, nobler, grander idea so we pretend that our feelings are associated in some way with a divine entity or some mysterious entity called 'human dignity'.

Within desire utilitarianism, the fact that something 'feels yucky' is a legitimate concern. At the point of action, we all act so as to fulfill the most and strongest of our desires, given our beliefs. If those desires include a particularly strong aversion to the buying and selling of organs, then that is going to impact our behavior. It is just like the aversion that people have to, say, the feeling generated by a third degree burn. If a state of affairs that involves buying and selling organs causes so much discomfort, that alone is a good reason not to do it.

Yet, for a desire utilitarian, we have to go one step further. In addition to noting that we have an aversion to the buying and selling of organs, we have to ask (1) is this aversion malleable, and (2) if it is malleable then how should we mold it to make it compatible with the fulfillment of the most and the strongest of other desires?

Consider, for example, the aversion that some people have towards interracial relationships. They have a primary aversion to these relationship such that the mere thought of a white person and a black person having children. They, like the person who is averse to the buying and selling of organs, are likely to take their sentiment as the final word on the issue. They neglect the desire utilitarian question, "Okay, we know that we have these sentiments. Is it a good idea that we have these sentiments, or should we train the next generation to be free of these prejudices so that they can have longer, healthier, and happier lives than we allowed ourselves?"

Do we have reason to promote this aversion to the buying and selling of organs, or do we have more and stronger reason to inhibit this aversion?

The prima facie argument on the other side argues for inhibiting the aversion to buying and selling organs.

First, there is the fact that voluntary exchange between two individuals tends to fulfill the desires of both individuals. At least, it tends to fulfill the more and stronger desires given the beliefs of the agent.

Now, no agent does a perfect job of knowing his own interests. Agents are fallible. Still, for the sake of efficiency, we have many and strong reasons to establish institutions where each person's decisions are made by the most knowledgeable and least corruptible agent imaginable. Except in cases of young children and severely mentally handicapped, the most knowledgeable and least corruptible individual for advancing an agent’s interests (fulfilling his desires) is the agent himself.

If person A is put in charge of decisions affecting A's life, then A is going to make choices based on what best fulfills the most and strongest of A's desires, given A’s beliefs, at any given time. On the other hand, if person B is put in charge of decisions affecting A's life, then B is still going to perform those actions that tend to fulfill the most and strongest of B's desires. Hopefully, B has a desire to advance A's interests and enough knowledge of A to know what those interests are. Yet, even in the best of circumstances, B's desire to advance A's interests will necessarily be a subset of B's interests. B will still have other desires, and will still act so as to fulfill the most and strongest of B's desires given B's beliefs.

In a voluntary exchange – kidney for money – we may assume that both agents are fulfilling the most and strongest of their own desires by agreeing to the exchange. Interfering with the exchange thwarts the desires of both participants – leaving them in a situation that the most knowledgeable and least corruptible agent tells us will thwart many and strong desires of both agents. We also have a love of liberty telling us that this aversion to the buying and selling of organs is something that we ought to be inhibiting. This love of liberty that desire utilitarianism recommends shows itself in terms of an aversion to interfering with voluntary exchange. We should find the idea of people interfering with voluntary exchange (without special justification) to be objectionable in itself, regardless of its consequences.

However, at this point I would like to bring in a particular form of market failure that I have written about several times. Markets, when combined with wide differences in income, allow people with a lot of money to bid resources away from people with little money, even though the people with little money would use those resources to fulfill more and stronger desire.

My standard example of this is that of a rich person bidding up the price of bottled water after a disaster such as Katrina so she can give her dog a shampoo, or rich people bidding up the price of gasoline in order to fulfill their SUVs while poor people cannot afford to heat their house in the winter.

The application in this case is that rich people in this case would bid up the price of kidneys to where they can get a kidney whenever they want one, while poor people could not afford them.

It is not unreasonable to assume that, on average, the poor person values the rest of his life as much as the rich person. However, the poor person cannot pay as much to protect and preserve the rest of his life as the rich person. So, when the rich person bids a kidney away from a poor person, this is almost certainly an example in which the rich person's ability to pay more is in no way tied to the fact that his life has greater value.

As for those who keep their kidneys (who do not give them up for transplant) the same principle applies. The rich people get to keep both kidneys and turn down any money that might be offered for them (in a sense, very much like bidding up the price of a kidney), whereas the poor person cannot afford to give up that same amount of money as easily as the rich person. Even when he values his kidney as much (or more) than the rich person, the rich person still has the ability to 'bid' kidneys away from their higher valued uses.

It simply seems unfair that rich people (in virtue of their wealth) should be given the power to bid kidneys away from poor people for whom the kidney likely has an equal and may have a higher valued use. At least, not from a desire-utilitarian perspective. The system of buying and selling kidneys would not necessarily be one in which the most and strongest desires are fulfilled. It could very easily be one in which the fewer and weaker desires of those with money get fulfilled by bidding resources away from those who have more and stronger desires but less ability to pay.

This analysis is not done, and I am not yet ready to conclude that the buying and selling of organs is wrong. I have so far only looked at three arguments. The first is a 'gut feeling' response to the thought of selling organs which, like interracial marriage (for some) may well be a gut feeling that we are better off changing. Arguments for liberty and the benefits of voluntary trade for both participants argues for allowing organ sales. However, the capacity of the rich to bid resources away from the more highly valued uses to which the poor might put those same resources.

I want to continue to look at some of the other considerations that surround this issue tomorrow.

E2.0: PZ Myers: Should I call myself an atheist?

This is the 36th in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute’s "Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.". I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.

The last three presentations at Beyond Belief 2.0 had to do with whether people should call themselves atheists. It started with Sam Harris’ presentation where he discussed an earlier speech to the Atheist Alliance International, where he suggested doing away with that ‘A’ word. It continued through Jeff Hawins' presentation on selling atheism through atheist entrepreneurship – and the ‘atheist’ brand name simply carries too much negative baggage to be useful.

So, at the end of the conference, Beyond Belief 2.0 host Roger Bingham called upon Atheist blogger PZ Myers in the audience for some comments on what it is like being an open, uncloseted atheist.

On the off chance that a reader might not know Myers, he is the author of one of the more popular atheist blogs Pharyngula. In his (very conservative) home town he is known as the village atheists, but reports that he is not treated with any hostility. In fact, people complement him on his civility.

They think that I am one of the most courteous savages they ever met.

He went on to say that atheists should go ahead and label themselves as atheists.

I kinda reject the notion that we should not label ourselves as atheists. What we need to do is label ourselves as atheists and stand up in a civil manner in front of these people and have a conversation.

I pointedly reject this point of view.

I also reject the view that atheists should ‘change their name’ or treat the label of being an ‘atheist’ as something to be ashamed of – something that we should run from. I do not see this as a dilemma between abandoning the term ‘atheism’ or accepting the term under Myers’ terms. Rather, I support a third alternative, that I will get to later.

I have a question for Mr. Myers. If all we need to do is to stand up in a civil manner in front of these people and all of our problems will disappear, doesn’t this assume that for the past 150 years we have not been civil?

We have two options. Either atheists have been civil (or at least displaying the normal distribution of civility that we would find in the rest of the population), or atheists have for some reason spent the last 150 years being far less civil than non-atheists.

If atheists have displayed the normal range of civility over the past 150 years, yet people still have this negative view of atheist, then this suggests that the hostility towards atheists is not at all linked to our civility. If we display the normal human range of civility and others still hate us, then is it our obligation to be more civil than non-atheists just to be regarded as equal?

This is neither fair nor just.

The other result, of course, is that atheists have engaged in behavior that has been far worse, on average, than that of non-atheists and, as such, we have brought this hostility down upon ourselves. Yet, I want to see some evidence that this is the case. I want to see some proof that the negative view of atheists that has over half of the population refusing to vote for an atheist candidate is somehow the atheists’ fault.

In fact, Myers himself is expressing anti-atheist bigotry with these remarks. Myers himself is making judgments based on the false assumptions that atheists, overall, are a worse class of people compared to non-atheists, and if atheists would just improve their behavior and act like everybody else, we could be accepted in the community.

It doesn’t matter that Myers is an atheist himself. There is a great deal of evidence that shows how the victims of prejudice can adopt the attitudes of the bigots that dominate their society. In a racist community, the way in which the culture teaches white people to look down on blacks can also have the effect of causing black people to look down on (other) blacks. Cultural norms that see women incapable of holding positions of leadership can infect women to the degree that they, too, will only support a male leader.

And atheists, who see nothing wrong with atheism, can still harbor deep (and unconscious) sentiments that atheists tend to be people of low moral character and it is this low moral character that is responsible for their poor standing in the community.

Like I said, unless and until somebody provides me with hard evidence suggesting that atheists are of a lower moral character than non-atheists, and that hostility towards atheists are directly linked to this low moral character, I am going to assume – as all fair and just people should assume – that atheists are no different from non-atheists in these matters. I am going to follow the moral dictum of assuming that people are innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Under this assumption, recommending that atheists can solve their image problem by becoming more civil is not only unfounded, it is a sign of bigotry. It is an even more pathetic form of bigotry when it is spoken by an atheist against other atheists.

I want to stress, I do not think that Myers intended to insult other atheists. What I am suggesting is that he has unconsciously adopted some anti-atheist bigotry that has worked its way into his subconscious and comes out (unintentionally) in the attitudes he adopts towards his fellow atheists. He has absorbed out of his community shades of the idea that atheists are responsible for their own poor social standing. He has adopted these attitudes without thinking about them – the way many of us adopt attitudes towards others.

We can imagine a member of the Jewish community in Germany in 1930s telling his fellow Jews, “What we need to do is label ourselves as atheists and stand up in a civil manner in front of these people and have a conversation. If we do this, then the Nazi menace will disappear.”

No, it will not.

Nor should we think that walking around with a scarlet ‘A’ on our clothes will end this bigotry. In Nazi Germany, the government required Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothes. This had no effect on diminishing the anti-Semitism in Germany. Instead, the Nazis simply made their victims more visible targets. If America’s government were to require that atheists in America wear a scarlet A the way that German Jews were required to wear a yellow Star of David, this would seem to represent a major success for the ‘Out’ campaign that promotes this type of symbolism. Yet, in this comparison, we see that the symbol counts for nothing.

Nor can we abandon the name ‘Atheist’. Using the term (or not) is not even our choice.

Following the example above, we can imagine a Jew suggesting in 1930, “Perhaps we should abandon the term ‘Jew’. It has such negative connotations. Perhaps, in order to help us become more widely accepted in the German community, we should call ourselves something else – something like ‘Pre-Christians’ perhaps.

Do you really think that this would have done any good? The community targeting them would have continued to call them ‘Jews’ and would have continued to use them as a scapegoat for everything that was wrong with the community. If the community had decided to adopt the label ‘pre-Christians’ they would have done so only by sticking the same negative connotations on the new term that the old term carried.

Atheists do need to continue to use the term ‘atheist’. We need to identify ourselves as atheists and stand up and act in a civil manner. However, in addition to this, the one other thing that atheists must do if the rest is to have any effect is that atheists must get indignant over the insults and attitudes that people harbor towards atheists.

The anti-atheist bigot does not deserve our civility. The anti-atheist bigot deserves our condemnation and contempt. When the Christian writer says that there can be no morality without God and that without belief in an afterlife the atheist is at risk of raping, robbing, and murdering others with wild abandon, it is entirely inappropriate to give a civil response. The moral person does not answer, “I beg to differ with my most esteemed colleague on these matters. The evidence does not in fact support the conclusion that an atheist, who is not bound by religious morality, is at risk of performing these evils.”

The moral person says, “Mr. Smith, in declaring that his religion gives him special knowledge of and motivation to abide by moral truth, has just shown us that his religion instead has made him a hate-mongering bigot. He has just shown himself to be content to promote hatred and hostility towards others based on no evidence whatsoever, but based on the ‘faith’ that his religion alone glorifies the individual who condemns others who do not share his beliefs without any just cause to do so.”

When news anchors, bloggers, newspaper columnists, and politicians learn this lesson, then we may see a change in the attitudes towards atheists. History gives us more than enough examples of people who were, in all things, no less ‘human’ than their neighbor in civility and courtesy, still being subjected to the harshest bigotry and hatred. History gives us more than enough reason to scoff at the individual who says that all we need to do is to “stand up in a civil manner in front of these people and have a conversation.”

Welfare Goods and Desire Utilitarian Rights

In a comment made to yesterday's post "Quality vs. Quantity of Life", Steelman wrote:

It seems to me that "life" isn't an ultimate value (speaking everyday English here) so much as it's a basic value. A necessary value.

In the book, Harm to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Joel Feinberg called this type of value 'welfare value'. Welfare values are particularly important in desire utilitarian theory.

'Welfare values' are those things that are useful for almost anything else a person may desire as an end. They are, in a sense, nearly universal means. They include life (without which it is often quite difficult to fulfill one's desires). They also include health, true belief (or education), liberty, money, property, and help from others.

One of the standard objections against desire utilitarianism is that it is nearly impossible to determine what has value. According to this objection, there are simply too many things to consider to be able to draw a conclusion that something is actually good or bad.

This is a borrowed objection from act utilitarian theory. Act utilitarianism says that we are to perform the act that has the best consequences. Yet, who can determine all of the consequences of an act? A simple act that looks good from the surface – saving a child from a deadly disease – might have dire consequences. This child might grow up to be the next Hitler. So, according to act utilitarianism, the act of saving this child was the wrong thing to do – it was not the act that has the best consequences.

Desire utilitarianism is not concerned with actions except in a derived sense (the right at is the act that a person with good desires would perform). Desire utilitarianism is concerned with good desires – desires that tend to fulfill other desires.

Welfare goods identify a list of objects that are almost universally useful in fulfilling other desires. Desires to protect and preserve welfare values, then, would be desires that would tend to fulfill other desires. Desires to protect life, liberty would qualify.

In a desire utilitarian theory, a 'right to X’ exists where 'people generally have many and strong reason to promote a desire to provide people with X or, at least an aversion to depriving people of X'. 'Welfare goods' provide a good list of things to put in for 'X' in this concept of rights. Thus, we have a 'right' in this case to life, liberty, a minimal standard of living, an education, health care, and the respect of one’s neighbors.

'Rights' in this sense, are not absolute. There are a number of instances in which one right can come into conflict with another, or where a right might run up against the laws of nature. Events could come up where a good person might need to take the life of an innocent person. I have used an example in the past of a child making a purchase from a vending machine that will set off a nuclear weapon in a distant city. The 'right to life' says that the good person would have an aversion to killing the child. However, this aversion may reasonably be outweighed by the good person's desire to prevent the deaths of millions of people in a distant city.

In other circumstances, the good person's aversion to depriving people of liberty might well run up against the need to draft people into military to fight a particularly ruthless enemy, or draft them into service during an emergency. We have reason to promote an aversion to answering mere words with violence (freedom of speech), but we still have reason to condemn the person who would yell "fire" in a crowded theater and to threaten to punish such individuals.

It is also relevant in this case whether socialized medicine or free markets work better in providing people with food, education, and health care. If socialized medicine does not work – if it robs people of health care that they would have had in a free market system, then the 'right' to health care does not translate into a ‘right’ to government-provided health care, or welfare, or education. These consequences depend on the facts of the matter as to which system actually provides people with these welfare goods.

One of the implications of this is that much of the debate that people engage in when it comes to social policy actually makes sense. The debate as to whether markets or government-run systems best provide people with welfare goods is an important debate to have.

Desire utilitarianism disallows either side from claiming that, for example, government systems shall not be used because "They are just wrong." This is because nothing is 'just wrong' in this sense. Something is 'wrong' only in the sense that a person with good desires would not perform the action, and desires are evaluated on their tendency to fulfill other desires. 'Just wrong', in contrast, is an intrinsic-value claim. It is an appeal to an entity that does not exist. No moral argument grounded on a false premise (a premise that “just wrongness” is real and is found in a particular family of actions) is a sound argument.

Yet, it is relevant that a person just 'does not like' depriving others of their freedom of speech (for example). Of course, he needs to go a step further and argue that it is a good thing that people 'does not like' depriving others of their freedom of speech. This, he can do by arguing that an aversion to depriving others of freedom of speech will generally fulfill other desires, since restrictions on freedom of speech are typically abused by people who block the flow of information so that they can thwart the desires of others.

Quality vs Quantity of Life

A debate over the value of life that I participated in with a couple of posts is continuing in the comments section of Evanescent's posting Ultimate Value and Morality and db0's posting on A Division by Zer0, Yet More Hypocrisy from Objectivists.

In this debate over the ultimate value of life, an important distinction is getting blurred between the quantity vs. the quality of life.

If life is the ultimate value the it would seem to follow that the longer a life is (the more life a person has had), the more value has been acquired.

Lets take two people – identical twins, separated by birth when people who traffic in sex slaves kidnaps one of the twins shortly after birth. The kidnapped twin, whom we shall call Longella, is sold on the black market to a criminal organization that engages is child prostitution, and the child grows up being abused (while her education is neglected). She is discarded on the streets of some third-world country shortly after reaching puberty, where she continues to live as a prostitute (since this is the only thing she knows) – being arrested several times and repeatedly raped. When she is no longer appealing to potential customers, she lives a hand-to-mouth existence as a homeless person on the streets until she dies at the age of 59.

Longella’s twin went to Harvard business school, where she was nicknamed ‘Shorty’ by her friends. She went on to form her own company, which was later bought out by Microsoft at a sum that put $5.7 billion into her own pocket. With that money she decided to pursue space travel. She founded a new business that established a hotel in space. Later, in a fully privately financed space venture, she became the first person to set foot on the moon since the Apollo missions. Unfortunately, during her second trip to the moon, a tragic accident resulted in her death. She was 58.

Furthermore, Shorty cultivated her love of space travel from a realization that the development of space is the best insurance against human extinction. Whereas she first came to see space travel as a mere tool – a means to human survival – it became an ‘end in itself’ for her, something that she valued for its own sake.

Now, if life was the only thing that has value, then it would seem that Longella has realized more value than Shorty, because Longella had 59 years of life while Shorty died at the age of 58. If life is the only thing that has value, and Longella lived longer than Shorty, then Longella realized more value than Shorty. If we had the capacity to choose which life to live, and life itself is the sole ultimate value, we should choose Longella's life. We would be irrational to choose Shorty's life – the life that realized less of what has ultimate value.

This, of course, is a patently absurd conclusion. Somehow, the "life is the ultimate value" theorist needs to provide us with an account whereby the Shorty’s life is better than Longella’s life.

The way to do this, of course, is to change the definition of 'life'. It requires saying something like, "When I say that a being is alive, I mean more than that its heart is beating and its brain is functioning. I being is not alive in the sense that I am talking about unless the following is also true . . ." followed by an account of what is allegedly required for "life is the ultimate value" to be true.

This has two implications.

First, it requires abandoning one of the primary arguments used to try to prove that life is the ultimate value. This is the argument that, "Life is essential for value to exist; therefore, life is the ultimate value." This argument uses the term 'life' in its traditional English-speaking sense of being alive. When Shorty died, value for her ceased to exist. However, Longella continued to value for another year. Longella acquired more of that which is necessary for value to exist than Shorty did so, on this argument, Longella’s had more 'ultimate value' then Shorty.

Of course, we already had a reason to abandon this argument. It says that life is essential for value to exist. It also says that life is the ultimate value. So, the argument states that life is essential for life to exist. This is true. However, it is also true that my toaster is essential for my toaster to exist. If my toaster ceased to exist, then it would no longer be the case that my toaster exists. The advocate of 'life is the ultimate value' who uses this argument needs to show how 'life is necessary for life to exist' demonstrates that life is the ultimate value, but "my toaster is necessary for my toaster to exist" does not demonstrate that my toaster is the ultimate value.

Second, the strategy of changing the definition of 'life' leaves us with no account of what it is exactly that makes one life better than another. We are now being told that Shorty's life is better than Longella's life because Shorty's life contained more life than Longella's, even though Longella lived longer.

One important conclusion that I want to draw from this example is to deny that all human activity either does nor should direct itself towards maximizing the number of seconds that one is alive. In evaluating different options, it is quite reasonable to sacrifice "number of seconds alive" in one case in order to realize something else of value. We do it all the time, and a great deal of argument will be required to show that we should not to so.

What can 'life' possibly mean in a context that would allow us to conclude 58 > 59?

Until we are given a definition of 'life' in this context, we have not been given a theory of value. We have only changed the words being used to discuss value. In effect, the “life is the ultimate value” theorist has merely changed the spelling of the word 'value' to 'l-i-f-e' without telling us a thing about what it is.

All he does is tell us, "Of course life is the ultimate value. 'Life' means 'ultimate value' and anybody who denies that the ultimate value is the ultimate value is just an idiot unworthy of our time and attention.”

Which is about as meaningful as telling us, "Of course God exists. 'God' means 'the greatest thing that exists' and anybody who denies that the greatest thing that exists actually does exist is just an idiot worthy of our time and attention." This argument certainly proves that God (under this new definition) does exist. It tells us nothing about what God’s properties are. And it gives us absolutely no reason to believe that 'God' as originally described (as an entity that created the universe, knows everything, and cares about us) actually exists. Using this to assert that it proves the existence of 'God' in the traditional sense is simply invalid reasoning.

The same is true with an argument that says that 'life' means 'ultimate value'.

If 'life' in Objectivist-speak means the same thing as 'life' in English, we are lead to the absurd conclusion that the rational person would choose Longella's life over Shorty's life. So, 'life' in Objectivist speech much mean something different from what 'life' means in English. This means that, until the Objectivist has given us the English equivalent of whatever 'life' means in Objectivist-speak, he has not given us a theory of value. He might as well be telling us that 'woweiu' is the ultimate value. Unless and until he tells us the English equivalent of 'woweiu', he is not telling us anything at all.

'Life' as the term is understood in English is not 'the ultimate value'. This would imply that every decision we make should be evaluated according to its impact on the number of seconds we are alive. What should I have for breakfast this morning? Taste does not matter. Only 'effect on the number of seconds we are likely to live' matters. Who should I marry? Love does not matter, only 'who will contribute to my greater longevity' matters.

The Objectivist, of course, will tell us that, according to Ayn Rand, taste and love does matter. But this only goes to the conclusion that when objectivists talk about 'life' they are using Objectivist-speak and not English. They are using a term that looks like a common English word, and in fact they invite us to draw the conclusion that they are, in fact, using the common English word. Yet, this option – that 'life' in the English language sense is the only thing that matters, would then contradict their assertion that taste and love matter. The only way that 'taste and love matters' can be made compatible with the claim that 'life is the only thing that matters' is to be using 'life' in some non-traditional (and yet undefined) way.

The fact is, Ayn Rand contradicted herself. Attempting to make sense of her claims that 'life is the only thing that matters' and 'taste and love also matter' is like trying to make sense of the claim that 'Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct entities' and 'There is only one God'.

Rand herself said, "If your argument leads to a contradiction, then check your premises. At least one of them must be mistaken." And, indeed, one of her own premises is mistaken.

The proposition that 'life' (in the English language sense) is the only thing that matters’ is false. As the comparison between Longella and Shorty above suggests, we are willing to sacrifice life in order to obtain other goods. This only makes sense to the degree that there are 'other goods' that are more valuable than life.

The proposition that 'life' (in Objectivist-speak) is the only thing that matters is empty. It is like saying 'woweiu is the only thing that matters'. Unless and until the Objectivist has given us an English-language equivalent to 'life' in Objectivist-speak, or taken some other action to define the term, it is meaningless, and statements using the term are empty.

Is There Value After Death?

I overheard a snippet of a conversation yesterday among a couple of people discussing insurance. One of them wondered whether atheists, who have no belief in an afterlife, could care about anything that happened after he died. He seemed to think that the only things that a person can value is what he can personally experience. Since an atheist cannot experience anything after death, it would follow that he could not care about anything that happens after death.

Quite the contrary. Given the nature of desire, there is no mystery to the possibility of an atheist caring about what happens after his death, or even during his life in parts of the world outside of his immediate surroundings.

Let me begin by getting a bit technical and fitting this topic into the general theory of desire utilitarianism.

A "desire that P" is a brain state that motivates an agent to realize any state of affairs in which P is true. For example, a desire that one's child is healthy and happy is a brain state that motivates the agent to realize any state of affairs in which "my child is healthy and happy" is true. A desire that I be remembered by future generations is a brain state that seeks to realize states of affairs in which "I am remembered by future generations" is true.

There are a great many desires where "P" is compatible with the proposition, "I am not alive". For the parent who has the desire "that my children are healthy and happy," it is quite possible for a future state of affairs to exist in which "my children are healthy and happy" is true and "I am alive" is not true. This is what makes it possible for a parent to sacrifice his life to protect his children. The desire is for the well-being of his children. If, by sacrificing his life, he can secure the safety and happiness of his children then he has a reason – in many cases, a very strong reason – to perform an act that will take is own life.

Among my desires I have several for states of affairs that will become true (if they become true) long after I have died. For example, I have a desire that the human race continue to exist – not necessarily as humans, but that there always exist some race of beings that are the descendents of humans. As the Andromeda Galaxy slowly crashes into the Milky Way 3.5 billion years ago, I would hope that there are people around to live through it who can trace their ancestry back to the primitive life forms that were once confined to the area in the neighborhood of Planet Earth.

This desire motivates me to act so as to realize future states of affairs in which the proposition, "Descendents of human beings exist" remains true – as far into the future as possible. That desire motivates me to write paragraphs such as this on (and the one before) in the hopes that expressing this interest in the survival of the human race (and its descendents) I can motivate others to take actions to realize this same state of affairs. The more people who are acting in ways that are compatible with realizing this state of affairs, the more likely it will become that this desire will be fulfilled.

Of course, I will not be around to be aware of our continued survival (or not). I will be dead in a few more decades (at most). But it is still the case that I have a desire that P where P = "Some set of beings that can trace their ancestry back to modern humans survives" and that desire motivates me to act so as to realize such a state of affairs. The fact that I will not be alive when (if) that state of affairs gets realized is irrelevant to the fact that it would fulfill my desires.

The problem with the speaker that I overheard is that he thinks that we only desire experiences. Consequently, a future state of affairs that we cannot experience has no value. His 'theory' that we only value experiences is immediately conflicted by the fact that a great many people value things independent of experiencing them. Atheists are not indifferent to the welfare of their children after they die, or to their legacy, or the suffering of people on the other side of the planet that they will never meet. Atheists value these things without experiencing them – something that the experience theory of value cannot handle.

This fact gives even us atheists a reason to support an institution of wills and estates (which is really what the conversation I caught a snippet on was about).

I have desires that P that can be realized in states of affairs that are caused to exist after I have died. I realize that, after I am dead, I will no longer be able to act to realize those states of affairs. However, while I am alive I can still arrange for other people to act so as to help realize those states of affairs after I am dead. Those other people are inevitably going to act so as to fulfill their own desires given their beliefs. However, this does not imply that everything is hopeless. I only need to bring about a state of affairs in which those agents, in acting so as to fulfill their own desires, act in ways that will help to realize the things that I desired when I was alive.

I can do this, while I am alive, by supporting an institution of wills and estates. That is, I can get people to act so as to fulfill my desires after I die by giving people a desire to act so as to fulfill the last wishes of somebody who has died. Their "desire to fulfill the wishes of somebody who has died" accompanied by a list of instructions written into my will (instructions that I at least believed would help to realize future states of affairs that I value) will help to realize states of affairs that would fulfill by current desires.

There is no mystery in this type of value.

In fact, there is something at least mildly sinister in which this agent I overheard speaking dealt with this question.

Given that atheists obviously care about the future, and that the speaker was aware of this fact, there are two attitudes that this speaker could have taken when approaching this topic. One attitude would be, "By my understanding of atheists they have no reason to care about what happens after they die. However, they do care about what happens after they die. So, obviously my understanding of atheist values is flawed."

The other attitude is, "By my understanding of atheists they have no reason to care about what happens after they die. However, they do care about what happens after they die. Therefore, atheists are insanely irrational."

The former shows a measure of respect for others – a willingness to treat them with dignity that other humans observe, and a willingness to refrain from harsh and harmful judgments unless compelled to do so by evidence. The latter shows a deep-seated bigotry, where one assumes without question that the targets of one's bigotry have a particular trait. It is like assuming that a blonde is dumb or that a black person can tap dance or that a Jew is a part of a money-hungry cabal that controls the world’s banks for the purpose of channeling money into their own pockets. These types of unwarranted negative stereotypes are the essence of bigotry.

Whereas a fair assessment of atheists – one that doesn't display a deep-seated bigotry – begins with the assumption that there is a reasonable explanation for what one observes.

The attitude that the speakers I overheard took on this matter substantially implies that an atheist parent would be indifferent to the torture of his own children as long as it occurred after he died (or in a way where he never found out about it). It assumes a callous disregard for others that there is absolutely no support for. This lack of support would suggest to the moral person that the attitude that atheists care only about experience must be false. Whereas this lack of support does not phase the bigot – he cares only to see his prejudice as justified without any regard to the facts of the matter.

The Gasoline Tax Holiday and Candidates' Moral Character

Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton’s stand on the “gas tax holiday” does not reflect well on her presidency at all. An article on CNN, Obama camp out with new gas tax ad, Clinton camp fires back tells of the specifics of this dispute, and it shows Clinton willing to promote harmful fictions in her pursuit of power.

The proposal on the table is to suspend the Federal gasoline tax for the summer in order to keep gasoline prices down and to save the American gasoline buyer some pain at the pump when they fill their vehicle.

Now, we have two options. Either the supply of gasoline is elastic (responds well to differences to price), or it is not. There is, of course, a range of options in between. However, if both of these end points are bad, then any place in the middle is equally bad.

Let us assume that the supply of gasoline is not elastic. If this is the case, then a lower price will result in increased demand. When demand increases for a scarce product, prices go up. This is precisely why gasoline prices are going up now – because demand has increased and supply has not kept up. This strongly suggests that we are in a period of maximum capacity. We may assume that the current price of gasoline reflects the point at which demand matches supply. (Rising prices suggests that we are actually at a point where demand exceeds supply.) So, the market response to a reduction in the gasoline tax would be to raise prices to the point that demand again matches available supply.

The result will be no gain to the consumer. The gain, instead, will go to the oil companies, who will be able to pocket money that now goes to the government.

That’s one end of the spectrum.

The other end of the spectrum is that the supply of gasoline is elastic and will respond to price. This means that the market will not respond to tax holiday by raising prices but, instead, will raise its supply output to match the existing demand. Setting aside the fact that if the gasoline industry was in a position to do this then prices would not be rising today, this suggests that Clinton’s solution to the problem of gas prices is increased gasoline consumption. Fossil fuel use is a leading contributor to greenhouse gasses. Clinton, then, is advocating that the government spend billions of dollars to promote the burning of fossil fuels, to the detriment of future generations.

But, future generations do not vote and cannot vote against Clinton. In order to secure the Presidential nomination, it seems, Clinton is more than happy to do harm to those who do not have a vote (future generations) in order to buy the support of those who do vote (current generations).

Any place between these two end points (determine by the degree to which gasoline supplies can be increased to match increased demand) is simply a trade off between ‘profits for oil companies’ (to the degree that gas supplies cannot go up any further) and ‘promoting greenhouse gas emissions’ (to the degree that gas supplies can be increased to meet the increased demand).

Now, either the Clinton camp is aware these facts, or they are not. Neither option flatters the Clinton campaign.

If they are not aware of these facts, then Clinton has surrounded herself with a bunch of ignorant fools – and we do not need ignorant fools running White House policy for another four years.

The other option is that the Clinton campaign team has taken a poll that has told them that a gas tax holiday proposal is a vote getter. In spite of the fact that they know that the plan will do no good – that it will actually do more harm than good – most people do not have a sufficiently in-depth understanding of economics to see through to the likely outcomes. They think that this proposal will save them money, and they are all for saving money. Rather than educate us on the economic facts of the matter so that we can better promote our values, they seek to perpetuate and actively promote our ignorance – by telling us that these fictions are true. In their quest to win the election, they do not care about the harm that uneducated people will do to themselves by following policies they know will do more harm than good.

From a political campaign perspective, the choice is simple. It takes a lot of energy to educate the public. It would take a lot of effort to go out and teach the people the economic facts that say, “If you go along with this proposal, either you will be handing your money to the oil companies or doing greater harm to future generations. You will probably just be handing your money to the oil companies.” It takes much less effort to say, “You’re absolutely right. If we suspend the federal gasoline tax for the summer all of that money that the government otherwise collects in taxes will end up in your bank account with no adverse consequences.”

To be fair, I need to mention that the Clinton Administration seeks to combine this gasoline tax holiday with a windfall profits tax on oil companies in order to compensate the government for losses in revenue. Where are the oil companies going to get this money? Well, they’ll get it by raising the price of gasoline to cover the additional cost – by an amount approximately equal to the reduction in taxes. So, people still pay the gasoline tax to the federal government. Only, the tax goes through the oil companies on the way to the government.

Assuming that the ‘windfall profits tax’ on oil companies matches the lost revenue from the gasoline tax. The result is no net effect on the people buying gasoline. They will pay just as much at the pump, and the money will be divided up as it is now, only the method of dividing up the money has changed. The change is one that gives the people the false impression that something was done (that consumers are getting relief and the evil oil companies are being punished) when, in fact, nothing had changed.

This, in itself, is problematic in light of the assertion coming from the Clinton campaign that:

"That’s a critical distinction in this race between, in Senator Clinton, someone who understands the pain that middle class and working class families are feeling…and Senator Obama, somebody who just doesn’t seem to understand that middle class families are hurting, working class families are hurting and that they need relief," Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson said.

The misinformation campaign extends not only to telling the people falsehoods about the effectiveness of their own plan, but maligning somebody who is telling the people the truth. It is one thing to be dishonest to the people. It is another when that dishonesty extends to telling people that they should distrust somebody who is being honest with them (on this issue).

It causes one to wonder if a Hillary Clinton administration would act like the Bush administration in sending out the attack dogs to malign the character of anybody with a voice who dares to tell the people the truth about administration policies.

To be fair, of the three principle candidates for the Presidency, Republican nominee John McCain’s position is by far the worst. McCain has no wind-fall profits tax that will replenish government revenue. Instead (assuming that gasoline prices are inelastic) McCain’s proposal will have the simple effect of reducing government revenues by several billion while increasing oil company profits by a like amount. It causes one to wonder how much the energy company lobbyists are ‘investing’ in lobbying the Republican Party for a gas tax holiday for the consumer.

This, then, highlights another problem with Clinton’s mis-education campaign. Lying to the people on the effects of the gasoline holiday, she would then have to get a bill through congress. This bill would then be subject to political compromise. Republican obstructionists could threaten to hold up the bill until certain concessions are made – concessions that would mean the federal government getting less money (and being forced to endure the risks of a national infrastructure that would be left unrepaired as a result of this policy. At the same time, the oil company executives (and lobbyists) will be the sole beneficiaries and oil company stockholders getting more.

Through her decision to promote myth for the sake of political expediency, she takes away the people's ability to protect themselves from demagogues such as John McCain - somebody obviously willing to exploit a myth in order to transfer more money into the pockets of oil company executives. She gives him cover by supporting, rather than challenging, the fiction on which McCain's policy was built.

This is just one policy in this election. However, this policy does give us a suggestion as to the moral character of the camps - of what they want to accomplish and how they are willing to accomplish it. Character is important. Character tells us something about how a candidate will treat us in the future.

Religious Beliefs and Human Survival

I do not consider religion to be inherently bad. Instead, I look at individual religious beliefs and judge them to be good or bad depending on the degree that it causes believers to behave in ways harmful to others. A belief that there is a god that wants us to feed the hungry and care for the sick is not on my list of problem beliefs. A belief that there is a god that commands the believer to kill anybody who questions that belief is a problem.

Two religious beliefs are a threat to the long-term well-being of the human race. One of them gets a great deal of attention – it is the belief that God will soon bring an end to the human race anyway. It is a belief that the Rapture (or some other religion’s equivalent) is just around the corner, so we need not worry about how our actions today will affect the planet 100 years from now. People who hold this belief risk engaging in behavior that will thwart a great many desires 100 years from now.

Last week, I heard the flip side of this belief. I was with a group of people in which I brought up a recent study that showed that there is a risk of Mercury hitting Earth sometime in the future. According to computer models, Jupiter pulls on Mercury little by little, tugging it out of orbit, until it crosses Earth’s orbit. At that time, there is a risk of an actual collision. (Jupiter also pulls on Venus and Earth, but we are so much larger than Mercury that Jupiter’s effects are minimal.)

This lead to a discussion of threats to the human race.

We have most of the inner solar system mapped and see no threat in the near term (the next few thousand years) from any asteroid crossing the Earth’s orbit. However, we are still at risk of an impact from a long-period comet, coming to Earth from the fringes of the solar system and giving us a few months warning (if any at all) before hitting.

It turns out that the Earth is looking straight down on a system that is at risk of giving off a very strong gamma ray burst. These star systems shoot a burst of gamma rays straight out of their north and south magnetic poles, and we are in a straight line from this system’s pole.

In 2 billion years, the sun will be so hot that life as we know it will be impossible on Earth. In 3.5 billion years the Andromeda galaxy will hit the Milky Way galaxy in a collision that will send the sun on a wild trip – possibly passing uncomfortably close to the center of one of these two galaxies. In 7.5 billion years the Earth will probably be a smudge on the surface of the red giant that the sun has become.

This discussion did not consider the harms that could come to us as a result of a new disease, or (human induced) climate change, or simply as a result of violence and our lack of incentives for taking care of the earth and each other.

In discussing all of these possibilities, one speaker said that we have nothing to worry about because God would not allow anything like that to happen to us.

Honestly, I cannot say whether this individual was serious or if he was being satirical. However, there are people who think this way. It is a very dangerous way of thinking, because it leaves us vulnerable to harms that we could have otherwise avoided. It is much like thinking, “A loving God would never allow anything bad to happen to my child, so I do not need to worry about protecting her from harm.” The parent who does such a thing is guilty of negligence – perhaps negligent homicide, depending of the consequence of doing nothing while waiting for God’s protection.

We condemn the parent who prays over a sick child while the child dies, when modern medicine could have easily saved her life. It is a great deal worse to have whole groups of people praying for the survival of civilization, when we could be taking real-world actions that will serve to greatly reduce the risks we face into the indefinite future.

These are beliefs that deserve our condemnation.

Now, I want to remind the reader of a principle I have defended in this blog and used several times – the right to freedom of religion is not a right to freedom from criticism. It is a right to freedom from violence. In saying that these beliefs are to be condemned I am not threatening anybody’s freedom of religion – because I have not proposed using any form of violence against those who hold this belief.

In fact, I would not use violence, because imposed on people through violence rather than through reason is poorly grounded. It is not only important that people give the impression that they have a belief to avoid certain penalties, it is important that they understand why the belief is worthy of condemnation. The latter person is a much better neighbor than the former.

I would like to see legislation proposed that will help to preserve the survival of the human race. Then, when people challenge that legislation on the grounds that the human race has no long-range survival prospects to worry about, or that God will take care of everything so we don’t have to, use this to illustrate how some religions warp the minds of their followers in ways that threaten the human race.

Though, again, the comments must be focused on those who are actually guilty, and not broadened into bigotry by using this as an attack on all religion. The accusations must remain narrowly focused on those who are actually guilty. But those who are actually guilty of promoting beliefs that threaten human survival should be called out to answer for it.

E2.0: Jeff Hawkins: Entrepreneurial Atheism

This is the 35th in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute’s "Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.". I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.

The Beyond Belief conference came to a close with two short presentations from people who seemed to be there just to observe the conference. One of those observers was Jeff Hawkins is the founder of two computer companies, Palm and Handspring, and the designer of many computing products including the PalmPilot and Treo Smartphone.

Hawkins was given a short (5-minute) opportunity to make a point about entrepreneurship.

Here’s the relevance. We have had two days of people talking about Enlightenment 2.0, and a lot of intelligent speakers presented a lot of intelligent ideas. Those ideas, according to Hawkins, are worthless without entrepreneurship.

He reported how, as a successful business person, people often come up to him with good ideas. They hand their ideas to him and he agrees that this is a good idea. He then looks at the presenter. The problem, he suggests, is not with the idea. It’s with the presenter. “You are not the type of person who can make change happen.”

Talk about brutal honesty.

We tend to think that, “If I have a good idea, the idea will sell itself. All I have to do is build it, and people will come flocking. All I have to do is sign up to create a blog, start presenting my ideas, and soon millions of people will come flocking over to listen to what I have to say, and carrying those ideas out into the world to make change.”

It won’t happen that way.

I have been struggling to come to terms with my own shortcomings in this area for a long time. I have my ideas, but I am not the type of person who can make change happen. I am far too shy and far too docile – too introverted – to do actually bring about change. I can imagine what it would be like to be the type of person who can make change happen. But, can I actually do those things?

Look at this blog and tell me if this looks like the work of an entrepreneur.

Being an entrepreneur is a special type of skill. It is a talent that needs to be cultivated and grown. It requires that a person take an honest look at himself or herself and ask, “How am I going to be the type of person who can make change happen?” It requires more than just a to-do list. It requires adopting the personality of a person who can effect change – a person who does the types of things that make change happen with the same skill that one rides a bike.

Try riding a bike by following a to-do list of when to pedal and when to turn the wheel? You’ll never get anywhere.

All of this makes perfectly good sense, as far as I can tell. Yet, when I think about applying it to a specific instance, I see that Hawkins misjudged some crucial elements of the culture that he was talking to.

Hawkins seems particularly interested in the question of how to sell atheism. He said that it is not a good idea to put a huge target on one’s chest and announce that one is here to bring down the biggest competitor on the block. That competitor will summon the resources at his disposal and squash you the instant it sees you as a threat. With its vast resources, there is nothing you can do to stop it. He suggested that directly challenging religion was a poor idea.

In this blog I am not at all concerned with promoting atheism. I do not think the product is particularly valuable. It is true, perhaps, but a lot of true claims are not particularly valuable. Converting a person to atheism does not automatically make him a better person. This is because atheism does not come with a set of moral guidelines.

However, I am interested in presenting a defense of desire utilitarianism. I defend it because I think it is the best theory of value available.

But here is where the problem was. I am not seeking to sell desire utilitarianism the way that Hawkins might sell a palm pilot or a Treo Smartphone. Desire utilitarianism is a theory of value. Its purpose is to explain and predict components of the phenomena of evaluation. It is a theory in the same way that evolution is a theory of the diversity of life. Evolution explains the changes that we have seen appearing in living organisms on the Earth over time.

The type of phenomena that desire utilitarianism explains includes why we have three different moral categories for action (prohibited, permitted, and obligatory), why negligence is a moral crime, why the actions of a bad Samaritan are not wrong, why particular claims about causation and intention are taken as legitimate ways of deflecting blame (are considered valid excuses), why moral statements appear to be propositions (because they are propositions), and why praise and condemnation have the roles they have in morality.

No other theory does a better job of accounting for these elements.

In this culture – in the culture where theories are presented and defended or defeated based on their ability to explain and predict real-world events, it is perfectly legitimate to walk up to somebody and say, “You are wrong.” I get it all the time. The task is not to try to gather customers to desire utilitarianism the way that one would sign up subscribers to a phone service. The task is to show that the theory actually does do a better job of dealing with real-world observations than any other theory.

The Discovery Institute, for example, treats theories like products to be bought or sold on the market place. They are ‘selling’ a product called ‘Intelligent Design” and they are, in fact, using all of the tools that are used to market a kitchen appliance. They have no interest in truth or the ability to explain and predict real-world events. All they care about is signing up subscribers.

What disappointed Hawkins is that Beyond Belief 2 did not discuss a marketing strategy. There were some remarks pointing in that direction. However, for the most part, the speakers presented a theory and then backed it up with evidence for believing that the theory does a better job of explaining and predicting real-world events than rival theories. In the academic world, you do sell your product by walking up to your neighbor and saying, “You’re wrong and here is the evidence to prove it.”

Furthermore, evidence claims are respected within that community.

We expect evidence claims to be respected everywhere. At the same time, organizations like the Discovery Institute are treating ideas like products to be sold on the marketplace. They are not ‘defended’ in the sense of providing evidence why they are true or false. They are ‘sold’ by linking the product to positive values and by linking competitive products to negative values.

We saw this principle applied to the movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. This movie attempted to link their product, intelligent design, to positive values – God and country. It attempted to link the competing product to negative values – Hitler, Stalin, the Holocaust, and similar evils. It did not even attempt to carefully define what the two products were, and offered no defense of Intelligent Design or refutation of evolution in terms of evidence. It focused exclusively on marketing intelligent design, not proving it.

So, we have two cultures which treat propositions in two entirely different ways. One culture treats propositions like products which are marketed and sold like toothpaste and hairspray. With marketing a proposition, you measure the things that can be said in its defense by its persuasive power – by whether the claim increases sales. The other culture treats propositions as claims about the world. When proving propositions, you measure the things that can be defense by whether it actually supports the truth of a proposition – by whether it increases the chance that the proposition is true.

The problem is that, if the first group is constantly evaluating ways to improve sales, and adopting claims based on that test, it is only reasonable to expect that they will be constantly increasing sales over time. The second group – the one that evaluates ideas in terms of truth – can expect to constantly struggle against the steadily improving marketing skills of their competitor.

Hawkins made one claim against the different ideas that think there is a lot of reason to question. Speaking about the fact that people once widely believed that the world was flat, they now believe it to be round, and the reason for the change is because there was money to be made sailing around the earth. He was wrong on a number of accounts. If you could find a way to make money off of evolution, he said, then it too would come to be universally accepted just as the round earth is now accepted.

Hawkins is wrong on two accounts. The first is that the earth was known to be round since the days of the ancient Greeks. The debate that Columbus had with the scholars of his day was not over the shape of the earth, but with its size. Scholars at the time said that the Earth had a diameter of about 24,000 miles – Columbus said it was about 14,000 miles (and that the East Indies were just over the western horizon). Columbus was an idiot – who managed to get lucky in stumbling into the Americas where he thought China should be.

More importantly, Hawkins was wrong to think that you can’t make money off of evolutionary theory. Evolution is the foundation for all of biology, which in turn is the foundation for all of medicine, agriculture, and environmental studies.

At the same time, the real dispute that the Church had with science in the 1600s was whether the Earth or the Sun was the center of the solar system. The Sun-centered solar system has come to be widely adopted. Yet, I cannot think of many ways in which the difference between the two could be explained in terms of profitability.

Hawkins made two true and important claims.

First, the idea that truth will always conquer myth and fiction is, itself, a myth. Truth requires that people actually take the effort to defend it.

Second, it takes a particular set of personality traits to affect change. It takes a willingness to act and a talent in getting people to pick up the cause and join in the action.

A well marketed fiction can well win the day – as it does in most parts of the world, and that is something for us to be worried about. That is something that should be teaching us to do a little bit more than sit back, enjoy our casual lives, and expect truth to win out on its own without any effort on our part.

Scalia, Torture, and the Responsibilities of Writers

I don’t think that I will be able to forgive liberals for a long time for this – for putting me in a position where I feel compelled to defend the likes of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia. However, Scalia recently made some comments about the constitutionality of torture that liberal writers have taken well out of context in order to score political points.

There are enough political points that can be scored against Scalia without making things up about him.

Scalia's comments were a part of the following exchange on the CBS news show 60 Minutes

STAHL: If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib, and they are brutalized, by a law enforcement person — if you listen to the expression “cruel and unusual punishment,” doesn’t that apply?

SCALIA: No. To the contrary. You think — Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.

STAHL: Well I think if you're in custody, and you have a policeman who's taken you into custody–

SCALIA: And you say he's punishing you? What's he punishing you for? … When he's hurting you in order to get information from you, you wouldn’t say he’s punishing you. What is he punishing you for?

Scalia is right.

For something to count as punishment it has to be a penalty inflicted by law for the commission of a crime.

Punishment is when the law states, "Any person driving greater than 25 miles per hour within 1000 feet of a school shall be skinned alive in a vat of salt water."

This is punishment in the legal sense. It is punishment because the state has declared that this action shall be taken against a person upon conviction of a crime. It is done as retribution for a past offense.

If a soldier drags an Iraqi citizen out of his house, straps electrodes to his genitals, then connects the wires to the car battery in order to get information out of him, this is torture. It is also cruel. However, it is not punishment in the legal sense. The 8th Amendment does not apply.

There is a Constitutional prohibition that applies in this case.

No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

Plus there are all sorts of provisions for what counts as due process of law. The fact that necessity requires depriving people thought to be enemy soldiers of liberty without due process of law in terms of a trial and conviction is much of the reason why prisoners of war may not be subject to harsh punishment. The harsher the punishment, the more due process is required to prove that the punishment is justified.

The moral issue that I have with this is that those who wrote gotcha articles against Scalia on this issue should have known the truth about what he said.

Those who knew but who did not care have shown that they are the type of people who are comfortable with bearing false witness against others for the purpose of promoting (unjustified) hostility against them. We do not need these types of people in this culture. We are much better served by people who care about the truth, and who will confine their attacks to the things people actually say and do because they are wrong, and not make up fictions for the sake of promoting hostility.

Those who did not know what Scalia actually meant were intellectually reckless. They were still people motivated by a desire to hate and, as a result of that motivation, blinded themselves to relevant facts that a concerned and responsible person would have seen. I have little doubt, in most of these cases, that if a liberal had said exactly the same thing, many of these willfully blinded people would have instantly seen the fact that, "Oh, no, this liberal that I love (for being liberal) was not saying that torture is good. He was saying that torture for the sake of getting information is not punishment in the legal sense. Punishment means retribution for a past crime not harsh treatment for the purpose of extracting information."

They did not see this answer in this case because they did not want to see it. Their desire to score political points against another was stronger than their desire to see the truth, and their relative lack of interest in the truth is a moral strike against them.

We can add to the moral transgressions in this case that the writers were not only willing to distort Scalia's words in order to score gotcha points against the political right, but were also willing to distort the Constitution. At issue here is the interpretation of the 8th Amendment. An eagerness to distort the meaning of the word punishment for political ends is an eagerness to distort – to miseducate people on – the meaning of the Constitution for the sake of political expediency.

We can extend this sphere of moral culpability outward to include the audience for these writers. This type of writing exists to the degree that there is an audience for it – a group of readers whose attitude is, "Do not tell me the truth. Tell me what I want to hear." This is the attitude that makes Fox News popular, and the attitude that is responsible for a political campaign that completely lacks substance.

We can also expand this sphere of moral culpability by adding the crime of hypocrisy to the moral offenses. Many of those who embrace the distortion of Scalia’s words will condemn political rivals who are too eager to accept distortions in their own thinking.

The first thing we need are readers who are willing to demand from writers a greater respect for the truth – readers who, on discovering such a willful blindness to the facts in an issue say, "I can't trust that writer any more – time to move on and find one who respects truth over rhetoric."

We also need readers willing to condemn other readers who do not follow the same standard. Readers who are willing to say to their neighbors, "Your decision to be willfully blind to obvious distortions made for political purposes makes you a part of the problem."

Like all moral crimes, this one will never go away. However, like all moral crimes, any success we make in reducing the frequency and magnitude of these crimes makes the world a better place than it would have otherwise been.