Pre-Paid Legal, Pyramid Schemes, and Religion

This post was originally written for the Skepchick website back when it was an on-line magazine rather than a blog. I twas later run on the blog. However, neither version of it still survives, and as such, I figured I would post it here. In the past I have at least attempted to contact them and let them know that I was re-posting stuff that I had originally written for them on my own blog. But as they have never actually replied to any such email, I'm not bothering this time around. If any of them read this and don't like that I re-posed it, they can contact me and let me know.

I entered the room and took my seat. I was there out of male stupidity. I had been invited by an attractive young woman, but, from what I had been told, I sincerely doubted that I would have any interest in buying the product that I had been told would be pitched. The dress of those around me – dark suits for most of the men and long skirts and pale blouses on most of the women – reinforced the notion that I was in business-land. Little did I know that I was about to be subjected to what amounted to the financial and psychological equivalent of a cult indoctrination.

The meeting was allegedly a sales pitch for the products hocked by a company called Pre-Paid Legal, a company that sells legal insurance. When I met Lucy (not her real name) at a party the previous week, she had invited me to the meeting, indicating that it would be simply an opportunity for me to hear about their products. What I discovered was that the entire “meeting” was structured as a religious gathering, geared at getting the audience to shut-off their critical faculties, and that the product that Pre-Paid Legal really wanted to sell was not legal insurance, but rather a pyramid scheme.

Pyramid schemes, Ponzi scams, and other such matters have gotten a fair amount of attention in skeptical circles. Typically, those who fall for them are labeled as greedy fools who didn’t bother to question what was really going on because they either were too stupid to get it, or else they allowed avarice to cloud their judgment. If my experience this evening was any indication, while greed plays an important role, the techniques used to hook and reel-in the unlucky participants may be just as important.

The Invitation
This had all started innocently enough. I was at a party at a friend’s house, and found myself in conversation with Lucy and her housemate. She had recently dropped out of college. When I asked why, she told me that she had found a job and no longer needed college. I then found myself in conversation with her about this, with me trying to convince her that she would find things easier in the future if she went back to college, and her insisting that she had found a company where she wanted to work the rest of her life in a manner reminiscent of a teenage bride who is convinced that nobody understands her (doomed) love.

As the evening began to come to an end, she invited me to attend a meeting at a local hotel in order to hear about her company’s products. While I wasn’t keen on buying legal insurance, I was interested in trying to meet up with Lucy again, and so I accepted the invitation and gave her my phone number. A few days later, she called to tell me the time and location of the event.

Religious Indoctrination
Upon reaching the hotel the night of the presentation, I noticed a general sense of desperate hope among the people assembled and waiting to be let into the room. I saw people who I recognized from the party as being part of the Pre-Paid Legal (PPL) team circulating and herding people into the meeting room once it was opened. At the door, a pair of other PPL folks tried to get the name and contact information for everyone entering the room (being the sort of person I am, I just walked in and ignored their pleas for me to give them my information).

I found a seat, the doors closed, and the sermon began. It quickly became apparent that we were not there to be sold legal insurance – we were there to be sold positions within PPL. Yep, this was a pyramid scheme, and as with all pyramid schemes, promises of riches were made to those who would plunk down some of their hard-earned (and in the cases of at least a few of the people in the room, desperately needed) cash in order to buy a “job.”

I did not choose the word sermon by chance or out of sarcasm, this sales pitch was, quite literally, a sermon. God was replaced by PPL, salvation by money, morality and earthly good by the material possessions that one could purchase with said money, and mother church by the pyramid scheme (AKA “Network Marketing,” AKA “Multi-level Marketing,” AKA “an absurd scam”, and so on…). Just as in many churches, the audience was encouraged to speak in unison at key moments (usually shouting words such as “opportunity,” “choice,” “money,” and so on). The origin of the company (a mythical story about the founder’s run-in with litigation) and many dramatic stories of people having the finances and often freedom saved by PPL were thrown out to an increasingly credulous audience. To add to the drama, a few different speakers approached the front, and would often begin weeping at key moments, showing the joy and overpowering emotion of having become one of the upwardly mobile (the financial equivalent of the “saved”), and having met their new friends through PPL (they would consistently indicate the troupe of grinning clones sitting on the sides). The message was cleared – join PPL and you will not only make money, but you will also be helping to save people, and you’ll gain the oh-so-bestest friends that you ever did have!

Just as in many churches, the sermon came to and end with testimonials where the faithful (those who had already made a commitment to PPL) were encouraged to tell their stories both to try to convert the heathen masses, and to reinforce the social pressure on those already involved. At the end of all of this, people were invited to come up and plunk down their money to purchase a position with PPL, just as the heathens are welcome to come up to the front of many churches after a service in order to be converted. No mention was made of the many controversies that PPL had been involved in (and talking with the “associates” later, I learned that they were woefully ignorant of these things as well), no discussion of risk/benefit analysis of putting one’s money into PPL was provided, and there was no mention made of the other players in the legal insurance industry (in fact, it was often implied, if not flat-out stated, that PPL was the only significant player, despite the fact that many larger, more stable and reliable insurance companies are in the field).

While there were many charts and figures projected on the screen at the front of the room to give the evenings activities the outward appearance of a business meeting, the structure was strictly that of an evangelical church service, and the language a mix of mythological and out-of-context business lingo, all aimed at both convincing the audience that this was a legitimate business meeting, and in getting the audience to feel well towards PPL without stopping to think critically about the financial and personal investment that they would be asked to make.

In short, this was less a business meeting than a religious indoctrination ritual that borrowed the tactics of Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Charismatic Christianity for a financial end.

Feel – Don’t Think
What bothered me most about the situation was seeing the enraptured look on the face of the people sitting around me. Listening in on conversations before we entered the room, it became clear that many of these folks were desperate. They were unhappy with their lives and their jobs (those who were lucky enough to be employed), and simply hoped for positive a change. Some had been told, as I had, that this would be a sales pitch for legal insurance, but most had been brought with the hope that they would find new employment, and they were desperate enough for a change that they wanted to believe. I do not know if PPL makes efforts to actively recruit these sorts of folks, but this was the result that I saw that evening.

Once these folks, who wanted to believe and were therefore vulnerable, were brought into the meeting room, the entire presentation, as described above, was geared at getting them to believe and not question. Watching the people in the seats around me, and listening to the chatter afterwards, it was clear that this sermon had accomplished its task, at least for the evening. Why wasn’t I also drawn in? Perhaps it’s because I have been to enough religious services at enough different types of churches to recognize the methods when I saw them. Perhaps my training as an anthropologist led to me to see the patterns behind the behaviors. Perhaps the fact that I am immediately suspicious of anyone who wants me to give them money is what tipped things. Perhaps it’s the fact that the evenings “special speaker” reminded me less of a sensible businessman and more of an especially slimy dope-peddler. Regardless, there appeared to be frighteningly few of us in the room (including many of the established PPL folks) who saw the night’s event for what it really was.

The entire structure of the evening, from the outburst of weeping on the part of the presenters, to the encouragement of people shouting back slogans and buzzwords was all geared towards a basic goal: make the audience feel that they are part of a select group, smarter than the rest, able to see an opportunity when it comes, and feel a sense of euphoria about it. Doing this in a group setting further allowed the organizers to make use of the tendency for people to become locked in a pack mentality, to not want to be the one nay-sayer in a room full of believers, to push people who might otherwise have been skeptical over the threshold into convert. That the euphoria was for a false cause and the opportunity illusory did not matter, because once they were hooked, PPL would get their money. These people were encouraged to link a good feeling about PPL to a good feeling about themselves, and critical analysis of the situation, the sort of thing that would show the situation for what it was, was discouraged.

Creation Myths and Other Confusions
In addition to the use of a religious sermon format, the PPL presentation borrowed from Protestant Christianity in another way – it used a creation myth to justify its existence and explain its mission.

The myth runs as so:
Harland Stonecipher was involved in an automobile accident in 1969. After the accident, he found himself being sued for by the other party in the accident, an unwarranted move as Stonecipher had not been at-fault. Faced with mounting legal fees and damages assessments, staring down a convoluted legal system that he did not understand, Harland felt lost and afraid. However, like any good mythological hero, he overcame and triumphed in the end.

The memory of this accident stayed with ol’ Harland, and he saw it as both a problem and a potential opportunity. Eventually he realized that he could help other people (and, it should be noted, stuff his own wallet) by offering legal insurance of the sort that he knew existed in Europe. This insurance would save the finances of those who, like him, were taken by surprise by a litigious individual. Moreover, this would help those who found themselves in trouble with the law and who might otherwise have to rely on overworked public defenders.

Now, Pre-Paid Legal is a booming business, publicly traded, well-respected by the legal community, and will probably cure cancer (okay, I made that last one up). All hail Harland Stonecipher, the great savior of mankind!

The truth of the matter was rather different. Stonecipher was indeed involved in an automobile accident. However, he was not immediately subject to an unprovoked lawsuit. Rather, he filed suit against the other party for a sum of $125,000. The other then filed suit against Stonecipher afterwards and settled for the much smaller sum of $3,000 (Cohen 2003). While Stonecipher’s suit may have been justified (I do not claim to know one way or another), the fact that he sued first and was then subject to a suit for a smaller amount of money does corrode away some of the hero-veneer with which he was laminated in the materials released by PPL.

Moreover, the product, legal insurance, is not the unique province of PPL. In fact many companies provide legal insurance, many with better coverage at better rates than what is offered by PPL. A number of employers offer legal insurance along with health insurance as part of a benefits package. When I asked an attorney who I know about PPL, they simply said “well, you can get better coverage elsewhere.” So, the wonderful and unique product of PPL is neither unique nor wonderful, it’s not even reputed to be particularly good. Our old pal Harland did not offer something new to humanity, contrary to the creation myth. He didn’t even offer something that was any better than what already existed. However, you would never know that from the legion of hard-sell masters whose methods, both as employed at PPL and elsewhere, have gotten the negative attention of many state regulators (Davis 2002).

On top of that, it has become open to debate whether or not PPL even provides the services it claims to provide. At least one court in Mississippi has decided that PPL has failed to provide the services advertised and as such was guilty of fraud (Davis 2005) (and Federal regulators have required that PPL begin reporting their profits in a more honest manner [Davis 2005]), and many folks I have encountered who have had dealings with PPL have told me horror stories concerning their inability to actually make use of legal insurance when they needed it. It is worth noting that roughly half of the folks who buy policies do not renew them at the end of the year (Davis 2002).

So, the origin is a myth. The value of the alleged product (as opposed to the one actually being sold, i.e. the “sales position”) is debatable and therefore largely mythical. Is it at least true that you can make a lot of money doing this? Well, sort of.

There are those who make a lot of money, but they are the ones who are extraordinarily successful at selling others on the idea of being a salesperson, those who actually spend their time selling the legal insurance are likely to lose money (Davis 2002; CBC News 2000). Moreover, the majority of those who recruit others into the company still don’t make much money on the deal (CBC News 2000). So, there are a few who do manage to make money at this, sometimes a fair amount of money, but they are few and far between, they do so not on the strength of their product but by pulling others into the cult of Stonecipher, and even these folks tend to have to jump from company to company (or scheme to scheme, as it were) as these schemes are not good long-term investments even if you are successful with it, the mathematics eventually causing the whole thing to fold in on itself (‘lectric Law Library N.D.).

As Cohan (2003) put it, the pitch is full of good stories, but these stories don’t stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, the structure and setting of the pitch is such that many in the audience shut off their critical faculties and buy into it without applying that critical scrutiny.

Quoting Scripture
The coda to my PPL experience came two days later. Lucy called me up and asked why I had not committed to PPL that night. I simply stated that I was not impressed. Lucy pressed further, asking why I was unimpressed, so I told her that if she would give me twenty minutes I would explain.

I explained the basic instability of pyramid schemes, whether they call themselves Network marketing, multi-level marketing, or by any other name. I explained that I could see three possible futures for PPL – it burns out (like most pyramid schemes) and she is left empty-handed, it finally crosses the line (or is finally found to have crossed the line) of what is legal and is taken down by the authorities, or it becomes a standard insurance company and the current crop of salespeople find themselves increasingly disadvantaged, if not quickly unemployed, in a more standard corporate hierarchy.

She disregarded all of this and simply stated that she believed that I wasn’t “seeing the opportunity” (a phrase that was often repeated throughout the sermon a few nights earlier). I responded that I did see what was happening, I suspected I could see it more clearly than her, and that I was not interested, and I was again told that I was “obviously not seeing the opportunity.”

It was at this point that Lucy began quoting scripture. No, really. PPL has produced a good deal of material aimed at keeping the faithful recruiting. These materials are filled with inspirational stories (which, given the truth behind the Stonecipher story, I am not inclined to take on face value), and logically fallacious sayings aimed at shutting down the critics and converting the heathens. The next twenty minutes were spent with her quoting what amounted to “Chicken Soup for the Pyramid Scheme Soul” at me, me pointing out why I wasn’t buying it, her becoming frustrated, and then quoting another PPL tract, clearly wanting me to see the error of my ways. In the end, I was halfway shocked that she didn’t announce that she would pray to Ponzi and his messiah Stonecipher for my deliverance.

When it became clear that I wasn’t biting, she asked to put me in touch with someone higher up the food chain who, she felt certain, would be able to get me to see what I was missing. I declined. When at last the phone call ended, I could read the heavy sense of rejection and disappointment in her voice of the sort that I often hear from frustrated evangelicals upon discovering that they are unable to answer the questions of someone they’ve marked for conversion.

Religion, Symbols, and the Stifling of Free Thought
Whether what I experienced is common to PPL or simply the hard-sell method of a particular cell of folks within PPL, I cannot claim to know. What I do know is that it is no surprise that someone attempting to sell a shaky business model with a questionable product would resort to the methodology of born-again religion to do so. After all, both use emotion to push the convert to feel that they have made a good choice and are somehow superior the masses (whether because they are “saved,” allegedly “helping people,” or “on the road to riches”) and both fall apart when an intended convert begins asking tough questions. The difference is that born-again religion may have some beneficial effects for the average convert, while some basic research into the company suggests that PPL is simply likely to drains their bank account.

Ultimately, the reason why so many people in the room that night were entranced by the PPL pitch, despite its lack of logic or legitimate evidence, was that they were sold a set of symbols. The stories, images, and promises that were made were provided in a way orchestrated to imbue them with meaning, with values, and to question the legitimacy of the stories was to question the legitimacy of the values that they seemed to exemplify.

By leaving out a few relevant details, Stonecipher’s story of the accident and legal case takes a run-of-the-mill story of litigation and imbues it with the power of what many perceive to be out-of-control litigation and the helplessness that many feel when faced with the law. It provides hope to deal with these fears in the person of Harland Stonecipher, who single-handedly re-invented the way that legal representation works to save the masses. The story becomes mythic, it is imbued with meaning, it tells of the heroics of an individual, and how you can join him. To show intelligence and inquisitiveness and question the story is to question the legitimacy of what PPL is doing and the righteousness of the PPL converts, and in turn to question the opportunity for you to be a hero (and, or course, make wads of cash while doing it).

There were many other stories told the night of the pitch, and each of them had one thing in common with the story of Stonecipher’s auto accident: they took a rather mundane story and imbued it with meaning so that the act of selling either insurance or memberships through PPL became something more than a simple occupation. One thing priests have known for centuries – it’s harder for the faithful to question a story imbued with meaning than one that is not, and it’s easy for the infidel to be impressed by the conviction of those who are energized by myth, even if the story doesn’t match up with reality.

Amen.

CBC News. 2000. Pre-Paid Legal Services: Worth the Money? Broadcast on April 11, 2000.

Cohan, Peter. 2003. Pre-Paid Legal is in Need of Better Reality, not Better Stories. OKC Business, July 28, 2003.

Davis, Melissa. 2002. Pre-Paid Legal’s Colorful Workforce. The Street.Com, available online on July 10, 2006 here. Davis, Melissa. 2005. Pre-Paid Weathers Guilty Verdict. The Street.Com.

Electric Law Library. N.D. How to Avoid Ponzi and Pyramid Schemes.

Puritans, Pilgrims, and the Taliban

Wow, it's been a while since I last wrote.  I am likely not going to be getting back to a regular schedule anytime soon, but I will be able to write occasionally.

I am a fan of Dan Carlin's podcasts, especially his show Hardcore History (a terrible name for a show, but an excellent podcast nonetheless).  The most recent episode, as of the time that I write this, is about the Anabaptist rebellion in/occupation of Munster, Germany in 1534-1535.

If you are interested in this historic episode, I strongly recommend that you listen to the episode (just click the link above).  But the thumbnail is this:  The Anabaptists were one of the early Protestant sects that arose after Martin Luther posted his list of theses.  They were far more radical than Luther himself was, and the Anabaptists gave rise to numerous sub-cultures, including several that were essentially communistic doomsday cults (yep, history is often weirder than fiction).  One such group became violent, and established a short-lived government in the German city of Munster, where they managed to hold off the local authorities for a time, while establishing a miniature totalitarian theocracy within the city itself.  They were eventually crushed by the city's Bishop (a secular as well as religious authority figure at this time in Munster), and the leaders of the rebellion put to death in a rather horrific manner (though one that won't surprise students of Medieval history).

This story has echoes throughout Europe.  In England, Protestant sects gained power under Oliver Cromwell, and established an authoritarian theocracy in England (though, to be fair, many would have considered the deposed-then-executed Charles I's monarchy to be authoritarian as well, and arguably also a theocracy as Charles I was also the head of the Church of England), and then near-genocidal campaigns against Catholics in Scotland and Ireland.  Under Oliver Cromwell (the Lord Protector, a role different than, though in ways comparable to, the king), England became hostile to things such as drama, dancing, etc.  In fact, the attitude of the government under Cromwell towards the arts and entertainments is rather reminiscent of Afghanistan under the Taliban**.

Comparable stories played out across Europe, with Protestant sects rising, and committing acts of violence, including ones that we would now consider terrorism in England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and on and on and on.

These stories fascinated me, but they do not surprise me.  They might, however, surprise many contemporary people in the United States.

There is a commonly held belief here in the U.S. that Middle Eastern violence and world-wide terrorism is a product of beliefs and ideals unique to Islam.  Islam, this belief holds, is unusual among the Abrahamic religions* in its advocation of violence.  Therefore, it is the only of these three religions that produces violence on the strength of the religion itself.  Sure, there have been evil/violent people who claimed to be Christian or Jewish, but they just used religion as an excuse to do what they were going to do anyway.  Islam actually causes the violence!

People who hold this opinion are thoroughly ignorant of history.

In part, the ignorance is willful.  People rarely want to acknowledge that the club to which they claim membership can produce bad seeds.  As a result, Christians tend to deny the role of religion in the European wars of the 16th through 18th centuries, but they are hardly alone.  Members of most ideologies that have produced violence tend to deny that the ideology produced said violence.  

In part, it's the fault of those of us who deal with the past professionally.  We have a hard time grappling with ideology, and as a result, tend to look for other causes for violence, when ideology may be the cause.  As is summed up by historian R. J. Knecht in his book The French Wars of Religion, 1559-1598:

Many people nowadays attach little importance to religion.  Consequently, they find it difficult to believe that it played a major part in the civil wars that tore France apart in the late sixteenth century.  They look for other reasons: political, economic and social.  Religion, they argue, was merely a 'cloak' used by the great aristocratic families to give respectability to their ruthless pursuit of power.  But the sixteenth century was not the twentieth: religion did rule the lives of thinking people...  

...even today religion can move people to action, as is daily demonstrated in the Middle East and India...Material interests, including brutal power-hunger and greed, were certainly present in the French Wars of Religion, but religion was also crucially important.

Although Knecht focuses on religion, it is not unique.  Any sort of totalizing ideology - a belief system that claims to encompass either everything, or at least everything that matters for living in the world - is capable of producing the zealotry and hysteria necessary to create violence.  Religious violence is nothing new, likely having been with us from a very early in our time in our history as a species, but is has at times been joined by other ideologies as a source of violence - witness the anarchist bombings of the 19th and early 20th centuries, for example.

We know that Christianity is capable of the same types of violence as modern militant Islam not because Christianity shares many ideological underpinnings with Islam (though it does), but because Christianity has produced precisely the same sort of sectarian violence, political and social oppression, and acts of terrorism in the past.  Christianity still has the potential, and a theocratic undercurrent still breathes and seethes and seeks power (look up the Dominionist movements).  The story that we often hear is that Christianity gave rise to the Enlightenment (or, if the commentator dislikes the science and necessity of doubt that came with the Enlightenment, they will try to claim that Christianity is the source of the parts of the Enlightenment that the commentator likes).  The truth, though, is that Christianity was muzzled by commerce and politics, beginning in the Netherlands during the Renaissance, where city officials and business interests realized that persecution of religious minorities could be bad for profits.  The more peaceful Christianity that we know today is a product of historic de-fanging, a religion that has been molded by social currents and mores, as much as (if not more than) it has influenced the social currents and mores.

The rise of ideological authoritarian states has happened many times before...and it sure as hell will happen again.  While religion is typically the cause (being the most common potentially authoritarian ideology among humans), it can also occur with non-religious ideologies (noteworthy 20th Century examples include Nazi Germany, the rise of the U.S.S.R., and Cambodia under Pol Pot).  Similarly, the rise of ideological violence and terrorism is also nothing new.  Essentially, all that is required is for some group to conclude that they know they absolute truth, and believe that they, therefore, have the right to impose that truth on everyone else.

But we need to not be ignorant of history.  We need to acknowledge that while the technologies and means used by ideological zealots may change, their presence seems a constant.  We need to acknowledge that our own religions and political ideologies could, potentially, lead to chaos and violence - in part we need to acknowledge this to keep ourselves humble and not demonize our opponents, and in part we need to do so in order to prevent our own creeds from becoming the enemies that we loathe.




*Worth noting: many people who hold this belief would leave out the Abrahamic religion part, as many people who believe this are so thoroughly ignorant of Islam that they are unaware that it shares a good deal with Judaism and Christianity.

**Monty Python produced a funny and informative song about the English civil war:



...or, if you have a bit of a different set of tastes, I will happily recommend Mark Steele's version to you:




***Though I would note that their own actions were a result of the overall form of communism to which they adhered, where atheism was a part, but not in any way the whole.  In much the same way, while most people are loathe to admit it, Protestant Christianity (specifically Lutheranism) was a part of Nazism, but it was in no way the whole of Nazism.

The Difference Between Criticism and Oppression

Since there seems to be some confusion on these points:

You are free to believe whatever you like. this includes, but is not limited to, the notion that there is a powerful deity answering your prayers, that members of some groups are irredeemably evil or astoundingly good, that there is no god and we are alone in the universe, that fairies exist and will help those who help them, and so on.  How you develop and maintain these beliefs are entirely your business, provided that you do not infringe upon the rights of others in the process.

You are free to say whatever you like, provided that it is not slander or a threat. This means that you can announce any of the beliefs you may have, including, but not limited to, those above.  Again, you may do as you will, provided that you do not infringe upon the rights of others in the process.

You are free to spend or not spend money on any legal item and at any legal business that you like. This means that you may support a business that is ideologically in-line with you.

You are free to do all of these things. No question.

However, you are not free to be exempt from criticism. No matter what you do or believe, there is someone else who disagrees. They may express that disagreement in any legal manner they choose - be it stating their criticisms (sometimes in a vulgar manner, sometimes eloquently), engaging in debate, engaging in legal protest, boycotting businesses, or choosing to patronize particular businesses.

And criticism is not the same thing as oppression. It is oppression when you use the force of law to make someone behave in a manner that your beliefs require, whether or not they share those beliefs. It is oppression when violence is used to enforce a particular arbitrary ideology. It is oppression when policies or laws require you to try to hide who you are for fear of reprisal.

But being told that you are delusional, a dick, a bigot, or some other such thing? Seeing the business that you support being boycotted by those who disagree with its policies? Having people argue against your ideas openly in the public sphere? That's criticism.

There are a few topics that we have grown accustomed to going unquestioned and uncriticized - religion is the big one, but certain ideas in politics, personal philosophies and the like also fall into this category.  But the fact that criticism has long been suppressed and frowned upon does not make it invalid, nor does it destroy the right of others to criticize these matters.

I often meet Christians (both of the right wing and left wing varieties) who assure me that they are uniquely under attack and oppressed.  Their evidence?  Well, people criticize their beliefs, there are public figures who advocate atheism, and now they may have to live in a society where gay people have rights!

Let me give you some fucking perspective.

I am an atheist.  In the city in which I live, there are multiple billboards and a number of signs which are extraordinarily insulting and state that someone who lacks a belief in a god, such as myself, is inherently bad, evil, untrustworthy, or just a sad little figure.  There are not, and have not been, equivalent signs pointed towards Christians.  Every time the local news runs a story about any topic that might have a religious angle, they call on a local pastor who is particularly out-of-touch with reality, and who blames all the ills of the world on people like me...oh, and on the gays.  When I am around town, it is not unheard of for people to try to make me pray with them, and then to become angry when I refuse.

I do not believe myself to be oppressed.  I am receiving criticism - all of it baseless, most of it stupid - but I am not being forced to do anything against my will, nor are my rights being denied to me.

I have yet to meet a Christian who has to put up with the same level of routine criticism that I do, and yet I know many who claim that what criticism they do receive is somehow a form of oppression, and is somehow worse than what everyone else receives, even though the plainly and objectively have it much, much better than the rest.  They are simply whining that they are increasingly having to accept the same type of criticism that all of the rest of us have been dealing with for decades. 

Let me give you a bit more perspective.  In countries such as Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanastan, there are many places where Christians are legitimately opressed.  They are murdered, their churches are bombed, they are attacked in the streets.  Here in the United States, these things don't happen.  Yeah, yeah, I know, your pastor has some story about a guy who knows a guy that was beat up for being Christian - but if you actually look up what occurred, you quickly discover that these stories are routinely either unverifiable (that is, made up) or are gross distortions of a very different set of circumstances.  What's more, nobody, but nobody, makes it to high elected office without making a point of trying to appease Christians - even if the religious right claims otherwise.

Or, to put it another way:

Christian "oppression" in the United states:  You are allowed to live, believe, and worship as you please.  However, you aren't allowed to force my children to recite prayers to your god in a public school and state-funded time.  You have to deal with the fact that I am allowed to disagree with you in public, so long as I do so in a legal manner.  You are increasingly unable to force people who are not members of your church to live as if they are.

Christian oppression in parts of the Middle East:  You have to hide who you are, there is a fair chance that you will be the victim of a bombing, stabbing, or shooting, and there are those within the government who wouldn't mind outlawing your existence, if they haven't already.

See the difference?  When an American Christian claims to be oppressed, they are not only factually wrong, they are demeaning and insulting to those who really are oppressed.

Similarly, we hear many a member of the religious right (which, of course, does not represent all, or even most, Christians, but it a sizable political force that has largely hijacked Christianity as a label) claim that gay rights is oppression of Christians.  As has been pointed out before, just as there are white supremacist churches that are allowed to spew their bile, so too will homophobic churches be allowed to spew their own.  Just as KKK members are allowed to teach their children delusional things about non-whites, so too will people be allowed to teach their children delusional things about non-straights.  Your right to be a bigot is not being taken away, but the cover that you have long used - that you aren't a bigot, that you are a "person of faith" who "believes in the biblical definition of marriage*" - is being questioned, criticized, and taken apart by those who see through it.  You can still claim it, just as white supremacists claim that they aren't racists, they just believe in the separation of races as taught in the Bible (Tower of Babel or Israelite conquest of Canaan, anyone?), but people are beginning to see through the obvious falsehood of it.


You are not oppressed when someone else gets the same rights that you have.  Men were not oppressed when women were finally granted the ability to vote.  Segregationists were not oppressed when the Jim Crow laws were struck down.  And Christians are not oppressed when non-Christian schoolchildren are not forced to recite Christian prayers, nor are any straight people oppressed when gay people are given their due rights.


You absolutely have the right to hold whatever beliefs you wish, to state them as you please, and to attend churches, patronize businesses, and associate with those with whom you agree.

But when you push for laws that would penalize others who do you no harm for being something that you dislike, you are the one engaging in oppression.  That you may soon have to accept that same-sex couples can marry no more oppresses you than the fact that mixed-race couples can marry oppresses white supremacists.  That it may soon be illegal across the nation to fire someone for being gay no more oppresses you than a chauvinist is oppressed by not being able to fire a woman without cause.  You are not being oppressed, you are simply not being allowed to oppress others.  Grow up and deal with it.

But you do not have a right to not be criticized.  and criticism is not oppression.  If you don't want to be labeled a bigot, then don't be a bigot.  But act like an adult and stop whining when you get called on your bullshit. 




*This routine statement pretty much proves that most of these people have never read the Bible.  Otherwise they would relaize just what a mess it is as regards the rules surrounding marriage.

Archaeology, Biblical Literalism, and "Shut Up, That's Why!"

Over the weekend, my fiance was playing about on Facebook, when she came across something that a friend of hers had posted.  It was an image of the Bible accomanied by a brief note explaining that there was no archaeological evidence that the Jewish people had ever been captive in Egypt.

Following the image and note were a series of comments, most of them ill-informed and rather stupid.  This included the people who insisted that the Bible was in all ways accurate, as well as those who used this as an excuse to call religious people idiots.  Then there was the anti-semitism on display (seriously, several people wrote comments stating that "all Jews are liars, so this shouldn't surprise us!" and things to that effect).

But buried amid all of it was one of the more absurd arguments for Biblical literalism I have ever heard.

One commentor wrote "Telling a people that they weren't kept as slaves is like telling a woman who claims she was raped that she wasn't!  Even if you're right, your still an asshole!"

Now, of course, there is a tremendous difference between discussing something that allegedly happened to a culture literally thousands of years ago, something which has literally become the stuff of myths and legends, and something that allegedly has happened to a person still living.  I will leave it to others to explain why accusing someone of lying about rape is counter-productive (hint - it has to do with the way that rape has generally been treated and the context in which accusations, both legitimate and false, occur), but saying "hey, I think you're lying about rape" is so different from saying "you know, there's no evidence to back up this series of mythic events that allegedly occurred 3,000 years ago" that they're not only not in the same ballpark, they're not even on the same planet.

It is what the write Greta Christina calls a "shut up, THAT's why!" line of argument.  It's intended to make the person advancing an argument not want to push it, no matter how much merit the argument may have, to tell them that they will either be wrong, or be an asshole, and either way it's not worth going further.

It's dressed up in such a way that it uses a mis-understanding of how to handle accusations of sexual assault to try to dissuade people from discussing the shortcomings of literally ancient historical claims.  It is essentially saying "you should just ignore all of that evidence from archaeology and history, as well as comparative folklore, that shows that this old story is probably false, because only someone loathesome would even briefly consider the possibility that perhaps a particular religious text isn't exactly the most factually accurate document on the planet...and besides, you're taking the side of the rapists!  You know, 1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted, and if you keep questioning the Exodus story, then you're helping the rapists!"  Yeah, when phrased accurately, the accusation comes across as disjointed and silly as it really is.

It's also, frankly, demeaning to victims of sexual assault to compare their trauma to discussions of history.  So, really, it's the person who would make this claim who's the asshole, not the people who doubt the Bible's accuracy.

The irony of this is that it is a "political correctness run amok" line of argument - the notion that you can't question a historical narrative simply because it might hurt someone's feelings, and the fact that it is phrased in such a way as to take generally "lefty" attitudes towards oppression - and yet it is most likely to be embraced by the very people who tend to dismiss complaints from women and minorities as "political correctness run amok" when there's a legitimate grievance.  Somehow, I doubt that very many Evangelical pastors or right-wing congressmen would have a problem with this line of argument.

Arrogant Atheists?

Every now and again, I find myself talking to a religious person who declares that "you have to be pretty damn arrogant to be an atheist!"

To be clear on what they are saying, I always try to follow this up by asking whether it's that they have met arrogant atheists, or whether there's something about atheism that they believe leads people to be arrogant, etc.  With very rare occasions, they come back with "it's arrogant to think that there isn't a god!"

Arrogant? Really?

Certainly, it's arrogant to say "I know that there is no god!"  Humans aren't capable of knowing anything with absolute certainty, there's always the possibility of us being wrong.  However, it's no more arrogant to say "I know that there is no god!" than to say "I know that there is a god!"  And depending on the line of thought that resulted in this conclusion, there are more and less arrogant paths leading to either of those conclusions.

What's more, the admittedly arrogant statement "I know there is no god"  is significantly less arrogant than "I know there's a god, AND I know that he wants X, Y, Z,and requires humans to do A,B, C."  The more that is added on to what one claims to know with certainty, the more that the claimant is asserting that their own beliefs are supreme over anything that anyone else might state.

So, at worst, a "strong" atheist (one who claims to know that there is no god) is not inherently any more arrogant in their beliefs than most believers in a god or gods, and in many cases may be less so.

What's more, most atheists are "soft" atheists, like myself.  I do not claim to know that there is no god, but I look at the world around me, and I see no compelling reason to believe that there is a god.  Some people, people who are not me, will assert that I am an agnostic.  That is only kind-of true, though. I don't claim to know whether or not a supernatural entity that might be called a god exists, true, but I do think that the existence of such a being is extremely unlikely.  I am open to evidence that I am wrong, certainly, but after spending many years searching for such evidence, I have finally stopped pursuing threads that all lead to dead ends.  The question of the existence or non-existence of gods occupies my thoughts only in so far as those who believe in the existence of such entities try to force me or others to accept their own (consistently unsubstantiated) claims*. 

Is it still arrogant for me to say that "I don't think there's a god"?  I don't believe that it is, but perhaps I am wrong.  The reality is that every one of us thinks that we are right and correct in our beliefs, otherwise we wouldn't hold those beliefs.  But the notion that my conclusion that it is unlikely that there is a god is somehow more arrogant than someone else's conclusion that there is?  Well, that's an astoundingly stupid (and, let's face it, arrogant) notion that exists not because it has any merit, but because it allows people to focus on the alleged faults of others rather than turning inward and examining their own beliefs.






*A very common question from religious believers is "why don't you atheists leave religious people alone in their beliefs" to which my own response is "the majority of us would be happy to do so, if religious believers weren't busy trying to use the force of law (int he form of things like Proposition 8, DOMA, "blue laws" etc.) to force us to conform to their beliefs." 

In other words, we'll stop bothering the religious if they'll stop bothering us.  And yes, I am aware that many religious people do have a "live and let live" attitude, which is excellent, but: A) enough don't that these laws stay on the books or get voted into law, and B) the refusal of many of the moderate folks to speak up against the zealous and militant means that you allow the militants and zealouts to claim your name and speak for you, so I don't want to hear you complain when you get lumped in with them - if you don't stop them from claiming the name of your religion, then it's your own fault if you are considered to be like them.  It may not be fair, but it is the way that society works.  And, hey, I get lumped with with assholes like Christopher Hitchens, so it goes both ways.

Betting on Pascal's Wager

Every few months or so, I will find myself in conversation with someone who is religious, and will eventually bring up some variation of Pascal's Wager.  Sometimes it's very clearly articulated in it's classic form (follow the link above for an example), but most of the time it's done in a less formal way (likely not even intentionally referring to Pascal's idea, but nonetheless echoing it) by saying something along the lines: "but, aren't you afraid of Hell if you don't believe?" or, more common "but doesn't believing that death is the end just make you sad?"

I have described my view regarding death before, and see no reason to go into depth about it now.  Suffice to say, I have the same healthy respect for death that most adults do, but I don't think that I fear it overly-much.  So, no, the thought of death being the end doesn't make me sad, it makes me want to make my life better and make the world around me better.  And as I don't believe that there is any sort of torturous afterlife for the infidels, I don't fear that, either.

However, how I feel about death is, really, rather irrelevant.  I am, as far as I can determine, incapable of consciously making myself believe something that I know to be untrue.  So Pascal's wager simply doesn't work because I can't "wager that there is a god and heaven" because I can't force myself to believe in something without cause or evidence.

But there's another aspect of this that has always sort of bothered me.  It seems to me to be astoundingly sacrilegious and offensive to adopt the mantle of a faith for personal gain, as opposed to because of sincere belief.  The difference between joining a church in hope of eternal rewards and joining a church in hopes of some sort of material gain (say, for example, business contacts) is a difference of degree, not of type.  And it seems insulting to those who do sincerely believe that someone would join in hopes of avoiding punishment or gaining a reward, as opposed to joining because they honestly believe the tenets of the religion. 

As a result, whenever someone brings up Pascal's Wager in some form or another, I find myself wondering whether the person doing so is actually one of the faithful themselves, or if they are someone without severe doubts who professes a stronger belief than they actually possess out of a hope for reward or an avoidance of punishment, and is somehow seeking group absolution in trying to get others to join them.

The Old News of Lost Tribes

Many years back, when I was in my early 20s, a friend of mine converted to Mormonism.  At the time, he was, like many new converts to a religion, very enthusiastic and wanted to share with everyone.  For the most part, this was fine - while I disagreed with most of his new-found views, they did appear to be doing him some good (though he would later outgrow them and leave the church), and I wanted to support him in doing something that seemed to be helping him (as you can probably guess, my views on religion in general have changed since then).  However, as I had received some training in archaeology, he often wanted to discuss the Mormon Church's views on North American archaeology with me.

As I have described before, the Mormon church teaches a version of North American prehistory that is completely out-of-touch with the archaeological record.  As a result, I think that conversations with me on the subject were rather frustrating to my friend.  But one thing that he said frequently during these conversations struck me as interesting.  He made the statement that Joseph Smith originated the notion that the Native Americans were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.  When I spoke with friends of his from the church, I heard them confirm this particular claim.  Later, as I spoke with Mormons in Santa Cruz (where I was living at the time) and Santa Barbara (where I attended graduate school), I heard this claim expressed again. 

Now, I have been unable to confirm whether the Mormon Church claims as part of its official doctrine that Smith originated the idea that the peoples of the Americas are from the lost tribes or not (I have found that trying to pin down many specific claims gets pretty slippery pretty quickly), but it seems to be a not-uncommon claim amongst members. 

This is odd, as the claim had been around for centuries before Smith was born.

Spanish clergy and intellectuals, intrigued by the new people encountered by Spanish explorers, often floated hypotheses regarding where these people came from, and a popular notion since the 16th century was that these were the lost tribes.  These ideas were popular enough that by the time that the Spanish government asked for information regarding the Americans in 1813 (17 years before the Book of Mormon was published, and also before Smith claimed to have received visions as well as the alleged golden tablets) several of the priests who wrote the responses referred to the notion that the natives were descended from Israelites, and phrased their answers in such a way that it is clear that this was considered a relatively mainstream view.

In 1825, a few years before the Book of Mormon was published, The View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith (no relation to Joseph) was published, which has many parallels to the Book of Mormon including an obsession with teaching the Americans about their alleged ancestry in Israel. 

Anyway, the point is that this idea that has often been described to me as "groundbreaking" or novel had, in fact, been in circulation for centuries before Joseph Smith began writing, and was in active circulation around the time that he produced the Book of Mormon.

War on Christmas Annual Report

Last year, I had thought that the annual "War on Christmas" idiocy was rather muted, and figured that the popularity of this particular form of stupid alarmism was finally fading.  And then, this year, it picks up again, with the U.S. Congress even getting in on the act (funny, I thought that maybe they'd have other things to do).  And while last year I had encounters with twits, this year I see signs like this one broadcasting twitdom along a major highway:

Sign on Highway 180 in eastern Fresno County.

Now, had I seen this sign 20 years ago, it would have been in a social context where it was very clear that it was an admonishment towards Christians to not lose the religious value of the holiday to commercialism.  Even as an atheist, I can see merit in this view.  But in the days of the non-existent "War on Christmas", these signs now tend to be aimed at non-Christians and are intended to give them what-for and let them know that they are not welcome.  In other words, twenty years ago, someone who was sincere and in at least some way honorable would have such a sign up as a way of trying to elevate fellow believers, an honorable thing to do.  Now it's just bigoted assholes who do so in an attempt to hurl abuse at those who are outside of their club.

Hell, even the sorts of people who used to express concern over the commercialization of Christmas now demand the commercialization of it, provided that the money-changers in the temple pay lip service to Christianity to the exclusion of every other group on the planet.  Don't believe me?  Let me show you the mis-named American Family Association's "Naughty or Nice" list.  Yeah, they honestly are not only okay with the commercialization of Christmas these days, they are actively campaigning for it as a way of making non-Christians feel unwanted.

Head hurting...world spinning...too much stupidity...

To make things even more bizarre, the usual Religious-Right bullshit about how "Christians are persecuted in America" has been getting amped up, with everything from the tendency of rational people to roll their eyes at Tim Tebow to the refusal of public schools to force non-Christians into Christian prayers seen as a sign of the persecution.  As in previous years, this reached it's usual December peak o' stupid this year when I began to hear, both around town and in the media, about how wishing someone "Happy Holidays" is a form of anti-Christian persecution.

The dictionary on my desk defines "Persecute" as "To Harass with Cruelty and Oppression."  So, members of the LGBT community, who often face direct violence as well as legislation aimed at stripping them of rights can fairly argue to be the most persecuted minority in the U.S.  In many locales, while legal persecution of ethnic minorities may be prohibited, it is still nonetheless a common practice (such as this church that banned an inter-racial couple*).  Religious minorities, while they usually face much milder harassment (although in some areas even this gets increased), also could argue to some minor persecution (people losing jobs, being harassed or even physically attacked, being barred from public speaking and advertising - which is, notably, in every case open to Christians).

But Christians?

Christians make up something in the neighborhood of 70%-80% of the U.S. population (depending on how you crunch the numbers).  A politician can not become elected without pandering to Christians in some way - even non-Christian politicians have to engage in some degree of pandering.  Christianity is the only religion that has one of it's holidays observed as a Federal and State holiday within the U.S.  While acts of vandalism occur against Christian churches and property, they are far, far, FAR less common than acts of vandalism against the places of worship of religious non-Christians, and the property of the same non-Christians plus atheist organizations. 

What's more, the attempts at bigoted legislation, hogging the public square, and acts of vandalism and aggression against non-Christians are pretty routinely helmed by, you guessed it, Christians.

Now, it should be said, most Christians don't do this sort of thing, most are actually good citizens, and decent people...but, and there is a but of course, they tend not to speak up when other, more radical, members of the Christian community are doing these things.  While the majority of Christians are not engaged in this sort of nonsense, by remaining quiet when the obnoxious minority are engaged in it, they give them cover, and the willingness of many otherwise decent Christians to reflexively strike out - whether through the media or the ballot box - at anyone who questions the obnoxious minority, they make themselves complicit.  At most, they will attempt to claim that the offender is "not a real Christian" as a way of denying that their own religion can give rise to the sorts of assholes that they will readily spot in other religious groups.  In short, Christians are not persecuted in the U.S.  If anything, Christians are either persecutors or are complicit through silence in the persecution of others. 

Christians who complain of persecution in the U.S. are fools or liars or both.  And regardless of which of these options best describes the one that you most recently encountered, they slander their fellow Christians in other nations who really are facing persecution.  In Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other nations, it takes great courage and conviction to declare one's self a Christian.  I may not agree with their views, but I can see something admirable in their fortitude.  In the U.S., declaring one's self a Christian is not an act of bravery, as it is the declaration that one stands with the majority.  At best, it's a statement of fact, which is honorable but not remarkable.  At worst, it's a disingenuous attempt to claim to be part of a privileged minority.

And it's privilege that this is all about.  Nobody is persecuting Christians in the U.S.  Nobody.  Nobody has the power to do it, even if they wanted to.  What is happening is that Christians are being told that there are other people living here, and that they have as much a right to speak and be heard as anyone else.  And, it should be said, most Christians accept this with grace and with ease.  However, a very vocal group can not see the difference between not being allowed to persecute and being persecuted themselves.  They can not see that they have the same rights as everyone else, and are not entitled to special rights that the non-Christians don't have.  And, unfortunately, the Christians who get it, who are generally decent and honest and aware, seem to be unwilling to call them on their bullshit.

And the yearly "war on Christmas" bullshit is symptomatic of this.  There are many holidays during this time of year.  There are people who celebrate no holidays this time of year.  The fact that the Federal and State governments essentially shut down on December 25 means that even those who don't celebrate Christmas are forced to observe it in some way - even if the observance is trying to figure out how to get work done without the necessary agencies involved.  So, if you support Christmas being a Federal and State holiday, but are upset that non-Christians are doing something to make it their own - the sentiment expressed in the phrase "Happy Holidays" - then you are an empty-headed hypocrite.  I have no respect for you, nor will any person with more than two brain cells to rub together.

You are not being persecuted, maltreated, or harmed in any way.  Grow up, and get over it.






*The church later rescinded the ban, but the fact that it occurred in the first place shows the depth of racism and willingness to engage in real persecution that exists in that particular church community.

Mormons and the Term "Cult"

So, we're gearing up for the 2012 election season by watching the Republican front-runner change every couple of weeks.  Because Mitt Romney is in the running, this means that, every now and again, we get to hear some new claim or fact about his religion.  He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormons.  While much is said about the Mormon church in general and Mitt Romney's involvement (or, more often, his supposed and/or feared type of involvement) in particular, one common claim that is made, over and over again, is that the Mormon church is a cult.

A cult. 

Interesting word, "cult." 

Interesting, largely meaningless as used in general conversation word.  A term of abuse with no real meaning other than "they believe stuff that I don't" or "I don't know what they believe, but they give me the willies."

The problem is that there is no real generally agreed-upon definition for the word outside of research circles.  Within the research community, the word "cult" lacks pejorative meaning and refers instead to any particular form of supernatural belief and/or the rituals engaged in by people who follow a belief system.  Using this definition, all forms of Christianity are cults, as are all forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and many forms of nationalism, where one venerates a symbol of the nation rather than a supernatural being, but does so with the types of rituals and beliefs with which one venerates supernatural beings.  Broadly speaking, the term "cult" and the term "religion" are almost interchangeable within the social sciences*.  So, in this sense, Mormonism is a cult, but your local Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian churches also represent cults.

In broader colloquial English, the term "cult" generally means a shady, destructive group that hides its members away from the rest of society, holds strange beliefs, and has predatory recruitment patterns. 

Does this describe Mormonism?  Well, if we get away from the absolutely arbitrary ideas that most religious people have regarding what is destructive to one's soul (and, really, considering that no two denominations of even the same religion will agree on this, it seems an absurd thing to focus on) and look solely at verifiable harm and destruction that a group can do, it's hard to think that Mormonism is a cult.  Certainly, there is no shortage of stories of members who are secretly homosexual or who have some doubt about the teachings of the church being done harm by the indoctrination, but that's true of the vast majority of religious traditions and is not in any way unique to Mormonism.  So, if Mormonism is destructive in any meaningful way, it is no more so than any other religion, so if you are reluctant to call the local Southern Baptist denomination a cult on these grounds, you probably shouldn't call Mormonism a cult, either.  In fact, given the general focus on self-improvement and social responsibility within the church, the Mormon Church may be healthier on average than many other denominations.

As for hiding members away from society, Mormonism is pretty damn innocent there.  Unlike groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and many Protestant denominations, Mormons are generally encouraged to be members of the broader community through social functions, charity work, and political activity.  While I take serious issue with some of the ways in which this occurs (such as a general - though by no means universal - support of Proposition 8 ihere in California), it nonetheless demonstrates that members are not being held away from society at large.  While the Church has been known to discourage the reading of certain books and viewing of certain films, television shows, etc., it doesn't seek to prohibit this in the same way that many Protestant churches and the Catholic church have historically (and currently) sought.  What's more, the Mormon Church encourages education and general social engagement, which is more than can be said for many "main line" denominations**.  So, again, while I often have problems with the Church's official and unofficial stances on issues related to this point, there is not the prohibition of interaction with the outside world that I have seen in many a "main line" Protestant church.  So, once again, not really cult-like.

How about holding strange beliefs?  Well, I've described some of the Mormon Church's teachings before, and they are pretty weird.  You know what else is pretty weird?  The idea that the world was created in six days by a strange all-powerful being that seemingly was just always there, a belief held by many a "main line" church in the U.S.  The idea that a man in Italy who wears a funny hat communicates with this creator and is infallible in his decisions is also pretty damn weird, but that's Catholicism for ya'.  While we're at it, the entire idea of the Holy Trinity really only makes sense if you think of it as mythology and not reality.  The idea that a religious group that has been abused throughout the course of western civilization is the special chosen people of an all-powerful deity is pretty odd, come to think about it.  And don't even get me started on talking snakes.  And yet, these really bizarre beliefs are considered mainstream and respectable by people who think that Romney is a member of a cult.

Some people will respond that the Mormon Church hides many of their beliefs from the public, holding secret closed ceremonies in the Temples.  This is true, and I can easily understand where this would unnerve many people.  Hell, I find it a bit creepy, myself.  However, I also know enough about human religion to know that this is pretty damn common amongst religions.  I don't like it, but it's an aberration within Christianity, not within religion in general.  So, unless you want to dismiss the majority of religious systems the world over as "cults", you'd be hard pressed to explain why this makes Mormonism a cult.

How about predatory recruitment?  Well, first off, it's really hard to think of anything less threatening than the tie-wearing bicycle-riding missionaries.  Have they been known to take advantage of people's moments of weakness to get them to join the church?  Yep.  Does this separate them from the "main line" denominations?  Nope.  In fact, the use of missionaries, who are very clear about their purpose, means that the Mormon church is arguably less predatory than many, perhaps most, other expansionist religious movements.  My own personal experience is that, as a child, many different churches made an effort to persuade myself and my school-mates to join their ranks, whether our parents approved or not.  This included the usual Protestant sects (Baptist, Methodist, Calvinist, etc.) and even a couple of Catholic churches.  However, the local Mormon Church never invited the children to any religious functions - it would often invite the adults and suggest that they bring their children with them, but it was always an invitation at the adults first.  While I haven't done any serious research into the matter, my own experience and that of others with whom I have spoken has been that this is the common way that the church works.  So, whereas on everything else, the Mormon Church is no more cult-like than most churches, on this point it actually is much less cult-like than most other churches.

Now, I do take issue with the Mormon Church on many points - note, though, that I don't take issue with specific Mormons except where they require me to do so.  Like any church, the Mormons are not a monolithic whole, but rather there is a range of ideas, beliefs, and attitudes on many issues, and it is wise to keep this in mind, because you will find yourself dealing with individuals (many of them both bright and articulate) and not mindless automatons.  Moreover, what issues I have with the Mormon Church, I also have with many, probably most, other religious groups.  But as to the question of whether or not the Mormons constitute a cult, well, that idea is absurd and reveals a large degree of bigotry on the part of the populace of the United States. 






*The terms do have different meanings, but are intertwined enough that for our purposes here, they can be thought of as essentially the same thing. 

**Many people will say that the Mormon church encourages this for it's own reasons.  This is probably true.  It is also true of pretty much every large national and international church organization, so, again, if you're not going to consider the local Baptists a cult on these grounds, it's pretty damn hypocritical to consider the Mormons a cult. 

The VA, Funerals, and Religion

So, a group of legislators and clergy are trying to force the families of all people who die in military service to observe Christian funeral rites, whether the dead or their families are Christians or not.

Read more here.

Of course, they are framing this as them "standing up an protecting the rights of Christian soldiers against the godless commie liberals!" But the fact of the matter is that Christian families/servicemen are free to have Christian funerals on federal land. They always have been. They have to request them, though, just as Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and members of every other religion have to request funerals that conform to their religions so that they don't have the views of another religion pushed onto them during the funeral. It is perfectly legal, and nobody is trying to stop it.

Contrary to what these people claim, religion isn't banned during military funerals. However, the families of the deceased are not forced to have the rites or rhetoric of another person's religion thrust upon the funeral of their family member.

If you look at what's going on, these legislators are actually pushing for rules that will make a religious ceremony the default for all military ceremonies, and allow VA staff and volunteers to push religion during funerals even if it is against the wishes of the deceased or their family.

This isn't an attempt to protect Christians, it's an attempt to force everyone else to accept a specific form of religion. It'll fail when it comes to court (if the legislation even passes), and the Veteran's Administration is doing the right thing in resisting it. But, as is so often the case, despite all of the rhetoric, this isn't about standing up for religion in general or Christianity in particular, it's about domination and beating down the people who are not members of the dominant religion. It's bullying, and nothing more, and if the legislators and clergy had any sort of a sense of shame or decency, they would provide and apology and back away. But, of course, that isn't going to happen.

This is dispicable, callous bullying.

Of course, it is also unlikely that any rule requiring religious funerals against the wishes of the deceased and their family will actually stand up in court, so this is also a case where those backing it who aren't purely delusional are clearly taking up time (and the tax-payers money) to grandstand and engage in divisive politics, which is, frankly, evil and destructive.


Edit: As I searched for more information on this, I kept coming across hysterical claims that the VA was banning mention of religion at military funerals. This is not true. Religious services are allowed for families who wish to have them. The VA does not allow VA staff or volunteers to push religion into funeral services where the family of the deceased does not want them. Again, the existing rules are about people having the funeral that is appropriate to their family, and NOT having a government agency push or prohibit religious rites on those who don't want them. The people wanting a change are not trying to allow religious funerals, they are already allowed, they are trying to force them on people who don't want them.

The 4th and Mythology of the Past

Monday was Independence Day in the U.S., the day when we blow crap up to celebrate the fact that 235 years ago, a group of men sent what amounted to a "Dear John" letter to England and declared that the United States was a sovereign nation of its own.

What fascinates me is the way in which this event, and the period in time surrounding it, has become mythologized within the U.S. that a mythology has built up around it is not surprising, this happens in most, if not all, countries. What fascinates me is the way in which the mythologies often radically depart from reality, and the degree to which people cling to their views when even the most cursory research would prove them wrong. And I'm not even talking about the "Paul Revere rode to warn the British*" nonsense.

There are a few different types of mythologization. One of the most common is the heroification of the Founders. By this, I mean the assertion that they did more than they really did, such as can be found in the "Price They Paid" account. There is also a particular strain of heroification in American Christianity that holds that the Founders were supernaturally inspired and "the wisest men ever to have lived." In these cases, the Founders are blown up beyond who they really were, usually for social or political purposes that serve the person creating the myth.

And people buy into it because they want the myth to be true, they want these guys to be larger than life. Which is weird, because these are people who rejected the existing order, created a new system of government based on trying to fix some of the problems that led to the fall of the Roman Republic, fought a war over this, and then relinquished power when their terms in elected office were up, despite what one might expect. If that, the reality, isn't cool enough for you, then I really have to wonder what would be. They don't need to be supernaturally inspired or have models of virtue in order to be pretty damn outstanding. Yes, these were humans, and they had their faults - slave ownership, an ability to fall into petty partisanship, and the prejudices of their day. But the reality, good and bad, warts and all, is amazing enough. These were remarkable men living in remarkable times, and it doesn't need to be made into something it wasn't.

But the myth gets warped in all sorts of ways to suit various purposes, all of them requiring that facts about the events be ignored and, often, that new facts be invented. One of the arenas where I have taken a particular interest is that of how the religion of the Founders is viewed. It is increasingly common for people to assume that they were all Christians of some sort, with many Fundamentalist Christian sects claiming that they were all specifically Born-Again Protestant Evangelical Christians of a sort that many a mega-church pastor would recognize as one of his own. This is, of course, not true. It's difficult to get a handle on how many Founders there were, because the term can be defined in many ways (just the signers of the Declaration of Independence? All of the representatives at the Constitutional Convention? The prominent writers who pushed the agenda of the rebel colonists?), but any reasonable count would include people of a wide range of religious positions, which includes numerous Christians, it must be said. However, the particular brand of Born-Again Protestant Evangelical Christianity that is prominent in modern politics today is a relatively recent creation, growing out of 19th and 20th century religious movements, and none of the Christians who were present for any of the events that might qualify them as among the Founders would recognize it as the Christianity with which they were familiar. Moreover, even amongst the Christian Founders, the role of Christianity in their lives was highly variable - George Washington, for example, is known to have stopped bothering with church and didn't attend.

And, of course, many of the Founders were clearly not Christian. Thomas Jefferson re-wrote the New Testament to remove supernatural elements. Thomas Paine was openly atheist, and often wrote disparagingly of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Deism and even atheism were not uncommon amongst educated men of the time, and that category includes the Founders.

Which brings us to another myth. While many Christians falsely claim that the Founders were all Christians, or even more falsely claim that the Constitution sets the U.S. up as a "Christian Nation"**, it is common amongst my fellow atheists to hear that the Founders were all deists - sort of a "weak proto-atheism"*** that was popular in the 18th century. This is also not true. As described above, there were many religious views amongst the Founders, and the claim that they were all deists is just as false and absurd as the claim that they were all Born-Again Protestant Evangelical Christians.

It fascinates me that we tend to project our present politics onto the past without regard to what was actually going on in the past. This is, to a degree, understandable, but it is mistaken. While there is much int he past that can provide information and guidance for the present, the past is, nonetheless, a different place with different social orders and different rules, and it leads to nothing more than dubious mythologies when we try to read the past by the issues of the present.






*No he didn't, you illiterate twit. Actually what surprises me about this is that the original statement seemed like a basic slip of the tongue - the sort of mistake that all of us can make even when we know better, she likely wanted to ay that he was coming to warn the colonists about the British and stumbled over her words a bit. No big deal, we've all done that sort of thing. What surprises me is the fact that Palin stuck to the erroneous claim after she made it, and really she has to know that she was wrong, simply so that she wouldn't have to admit that she made a mistake. What surprises me even more is that many of her supporters seemed to take this as a sign of her conviction rather than a sign of her unfitness for any responsibility beyond running the Slurpee machine at the 7-11. Really, being firm in your conviction of a completely false premise - and one that you probably know is completely false - is not a strength, it's a severe liability.

Then again, from what I have seen, most of her supporters are also young-Earth creationists and believe that WMDs were found in Iraq, so whatcha' gonna' do...


**Fun fact: Religion is mentioned only twice in the Constitution: 1) when religious tests to hold public office are prohibited (in other words, a member of any religion or no religion can legally hold public office, and it's nobody's business but their own what their religious beliefs are); 2) in the Bill of Rights when prohibitions against the government establishing or interfering in religion are stated. In other words, the Constitution is pretty clearly not a Christian document. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or wholly ignorant.


***The basic idea of deism is that, as there is no evidence for miracles or any sort of supernatural interference in people's day-to-day lives, this is consistent with the creator of the universe, usually conceptualized as a god of some sort, having put the universe into motion, and then stepped back and not interfering any further. Once cosmology and biology began to discover natural processes which explained the orign of complex systems better than a creator deity, deism began to decline. This is the reason why flat-out atheists were unusual in the 19th century, though some did exist, while deists are relatively rare in the 21st century.

The Sweat House vs. The Cross

This story is both disturbing and fascinating. It is about a group of Native Canadians, specifically the people of a Cree Village named Oujé-Bougoumou, who destroyed a sweat lodge built on the grounds of another person's home because they were worried about, in the words of one of the elders interviewed for the article, witchcraft entering the village.

Sweat lodges were a common part of the social and religious life of many Native American groups. In this case, the man who built this one did so because he took an interest in the religious beliefs and practices of his ancestors, and he wanted to share this with other members of his community. Was this a good idea? I haven't a clue. I can certainly understand the impulse, especially with some of the problems facing his community, to try to return to a past in which one believes (whether rightly or wrongly) that one's people were stronger. I have my doubts as to whether or not it would actually have the effect that he intended, but it seems like an understandable impulse.

It was destroyed because the elders and many people within the community are Christians - their parents, grandparents, and great-grand-parents having been converted by European missionaries - and they view this interest in past religious practices to be a return to a pagan past and, again as one elder called it, witchcraft.

The article portrays this as, in part, a generation-gap issue, with younger members of the community having an interest in earlier practices, and older members wanting them forgotten. But I have to wonder if it is really that simple. It is noted in the article that a petition to have the sweat house destroyed gathered 130 signatures, out of a town of 700. That's certainly a large number, but still a definite minority. OF the 530 who didn't sign it, how many were in favor of the sweat lodge? How many didn't care one way or another? How many were ineligible to sign because of age or some other social prohibition? How many never saw the petition? And how did this actually break down along age lines?

The article also portrays this as religious conflict, and this seems accurate, so far as it goes. Pentecostal Christianity is a powerful religious force among many rural communities in the Americas, and the Native Canadian communities are no exception. There are a few different forms or flavors of Pentecostalism, but many of them portray anything that is not Christian (and often, not specifically Pentecostal) as being literally satanic, the work of demons, and not to be tolerated - individual freedoms quite literally be damned. These are the same sorts of people who can reliably be expected to protest a palm reader getting a business license because they are afraid of the palm reader's magic.

The denial of earlier religious practices because of current religious beliefs is not unheard of in other parts of the world. For example: I have friends who work in Egypt, and they have told me that it is common to find that their excavators are extremely disrespectful of the human remains pulled from ancient graves. The ancient Egyptians were not Muslim, and so many of the modern Egyptians who work on archaeological sites view their ancestors as degenerate pagans and not worthy of respect.

But one issue that is not discussed in the article, but I suspect is in play, is that of power relations. Very often, religion becomes a part of the power structure, even when church and government are not formally tied together. Much of the screaming about the U.S. being "a Christian Nation" has little to do with theology or ecclesiastical views, and everything to do with one group feeling that it has the right to impose it's views, standards, and attitudes on others, whether they are members of the group or not. Likewise, the passage of the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in my home state seems to have little to do with people believing that they are going to somehow do away with homosexuality than it does with people believing that they should have the right to deny rights to others based on absolutely arbitrary and nonsensical religious standards. Similar strains of argument can be found in right-wing political parties throughout Europe, and also in some political movements within Canada, New Zealand, and Australia (where they are considerably more muted than in the U.S. or Europe). In all of these places, the basic notion is the same: "you may not agree with us, we can live with that, but you had damn well better do everything to our weird and arbitrary standards, no matter how loopy, and not challenge use, no matter how reasonable you may be about it, because we have power here!" Any deviation from an arbitrarily-defined "norm" is shouted down, or even violently opposed, not because it actually poses a threat to individuals, but because people not sticking to the norm may eventually force legitimate questions of and changes to the power structure.

And so I wonder how much the fight over the sweat lodge in this community is based on religion, how much it is based on age, and how much it has to do with one group wanting to exert its power in order to ensure that it keeps it. These three things are, of course, not mutually exclusive. It is likely that all of them are in play. But as the third - power relations - is almost never explicitly stated (very few people want to admit that they are clinging to power for the sake of clinging to power), I have to wonder how much it plays a role here.

Not Buying Religion's Demise

It was probably 1998, I had recently graduated from college, and I found myself in a car with the father of a friend of mine. We were talking history, a subject that we were both interested in, and he stated that science was slowly but surely eradicating religion. I pointed out that this didn't actually seem to be the case. He responded by pointing out that the methods of science (asking questions and testing everything, even things that seem obvious) are in direct opposition to the methods of religion (faith and tradition), and announced that he had "destroyed" my argument.

But, well, he hadn't.

Yes, there is evidence that people who claim no particular religious allegiance are growing in number (this is often referred to as the "rise of the nones"), but if you look more closely, it's not that these people are necessarily giving up supernatural beliefs, it's that they are becoming dissatisfied with the churches. In other words, it's the actions and positions of the churches, mosques, and temples that is pushing people away, not the recognition that belief in gods and spirits is not supported by scientific evidence.

What's more, even those who are loud and proud atheists often adopt belief systems that function in a manner similar to religion - complete with the group think, dogma, and refusal to acknowledge contradictory evidence. I have no problem at all thinking of numerous atheists who were nonetheless ideologically committed to Marxism or it's arch-nemesis libertarianism, and there's a huge number of people who won't admit to a belief in the supernatural and yet engage in all manner of muddied or magical thinking within worldviews based on the appeal to nature fallacy. Even in countries with very high numbers of atheists, these types of supernatural beliefs tend to persist. So, even though religion may formally have been eliminated for these people, essentially religious, dogmatic irrational thinking is still present.

And then we have the fact that a number of prominent scientists are themselves religious. If science were eradicating religion, we would expect that this would be amazingly rare. While the American Academy of Sciences is composed primarily of non-religious people, surveys of the scientific profession more widely have found that religious belief among scientists is more common than generally thought. While the number of non-religious vs. religious scientists certainly suggests that science does have a deleterious effect on religious beliefs, it doesn't seem to actually eradicate them.

His argument made sense in a purely abstract way, which is probably why it is a popular notion amongst many of my fellow atheists. I have often heard, and used to believe myself, that improved knowledge about science would lead to the eventually loss of religion from society as science increasingly supplies better answers to questions that were once the province of religion, such as "How did we come to be here, and what are we, anyway?" Also, religious-type thinking, that is thinking that assumes a wide range of essentially dogmatic and supernatural notions (which includes many political beliefs) can get further away from this by not making overt empirical claims (though such ways of thinking often have many implied empirical claims).

The problem is that religion does more than simply provide answers to questions. It orients how people view themselves within their world, and provides symbolic meaning to the world around a believer. There are, of course, other sources for these things - I make no secret of the fact that I think that there are many sources that both provide better answers than religion and do less harm - but regardless of what other sources exist, religion does do more than simply answer questions. Therefore, while scientific knowledge, which simply does answer questions, has forced modifications to religion (for example, belief in a flat-Earth, which is taught in the Bible in Ezekiel 7:2, is not subscribed to by the vast majority of Christians and Jewish people today) but not eliminated it. By doing more than simply answering questions, religious-type thinking is able to maintain a toe hold even when all of its empirical claims are proven to be nonsense.

But there's another important factor at work here: people's ability to compartmentalize their thoughts. All of us hold beliefs, ideas, and values that are inconsistent with other beliefs, ideas, and values that we hold. Sometimes we may be confronted with this fact, but most of the time we are not, and we are able to continue placing the notions into different mental boxes without ever having to confront the dissonance between them. Many, probably most, of us will even go through bizarre mental gymnastics in order to avoid having to admit that some of our notions clash with each other when we are confronted with the fact. In the end, this ability to compartmentalize allows us to continue believing notions long after they have been conclusively disproven, and more subtly, they allow us to continue to hold values and concepts that clash without ever recognizing that we are doing so.

Religious thinking may go away, but I am not hopeful of that. For all that it seems like the advance of science should quash religion, the structure of both religion and our minds would seem to indicate that it won't. Religion will change, and may become more of an equally irrational but individual notion of spirituality, but I don't think it's going away.