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On my desk there is a slightly messy and seemingly bottomless pile of paper.  The individual sheets are not pure white and blank, devoid of content.  Rather, the pile consists of recent science findings in the form of select news releases spit from my printer.  A few years back the title to one began with these words: Darwin Was Right.  That article was generally about evolution acting at the group level, specifically about the discovered molecular mechanism that maintains social harmony in ants by controlling their sexual development.[i]

Of course, it would be crazy to believe that Charles Darwin was right about everything.  He wasn’t.  Darwin was neither omniscient nor infallible.  His knowledge was incomplete; he may have made a few missteps among his many stellar advances.  Yet those failures do not detract from the fact that the core element to his thinking—the evolution of species via variation and natural selection—was spot on.  Every week I find confirmation of it in my pile of articles: of gaps being filled, of yet more hard data added to an already massive mountain of evidence, of the novel insights into the quirks and shortcomings of biological life that point not to the plan of a great creator, but to a process that generates what is from what was.  From the ongoing work of contemporary scientists I learn of new pieces to the full picture of evolution. Which makes it even more curious to me that a belief in creationism remains strong.  As readers of this magazine are aware, if creationism had a textbook of findings specifically befitting their theory (cough-cough), most of those pages would be blank.

In a mildly ironic development, the very day I read about molecular mechanisms within non-reproducing ants, announced with the words, Darwin Was Right, I ran across a poll on the AOL news website that asked this question:

Which explanation about the origins of life on Earth do you believe in?

The results of over 200,000 respondents, when I weighed in with my minority viewpoint (that sadly remains a minority position to this day):
Creationism                             47%
Evolution                                35%
Intelligent design                    12%
None of the above                    6%[ii]

My first thought: My, we’ve got some slow learners out there.  But in fairness, the problem is not likely an innate handicap of the intellectual variety.  It instead probably stems from the who, what, and why of those doing the teaching, as well as the motivation of the students.  Due largely to religion, many folk apparently prize the meaning of a solution over the validity of it.  The result is an acquired learning disability.

THE PROBLEM

Skeptics work to counteract creationism.  This is not because we are hostile to any and all religion, but because it is our nature to question and combat claims that strike us as bogus.  Many a skeptic will get equally passionate arguing against evidence for alien spacecraft, even though he or she would be absolutely thrilled by a real occurrence of it.

So how do we combat the counterfeit claims of creationism?  How do we repel the push to inject it into our public school curricula?  For one, we applaud and support people and organizations like Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education and Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society.  Yet when encountering creationist thinking in our daily lives, what can we do?  Opposing the many fraudulent anti-evolution arguments seems a Sisyphean task.  Flaws in old arguments are repeatedly pointed out, the goal-posts moved back to where they belong . . . etc.

Sometimes I wonder whether in some circumstances a different approach could yield better results.  Rather than refuting creationist assaults on evolution ad nauseam, a more productive tactic may be to turn the proverbial tables.  One smart, specific question asked of a creationist, followed by their silence and/or floundering response, can make a strong impression. This is a tactic that polished creationists frequently employ.  “Well, if evolution is true, why don’t you explain this to me, smart guy!”

Instead of focusing on the defense of evolution, why not put some energy into the asking of disabling particulars of the creationist stance?  After all, if creationism deserves serious consideration as a science, or an educational alternative to it, it should provide some intelligent answers; it should offer knowledge.  Of course, this ploy won’t outright win an argument, but that is rarely a realistic possibility.  Perhaps the best we can do in such situations is to sow seeds of doubt in the creationist confronting us, or, more likely, in those on the periphery listening in.

In my recent few years of reading science articles and blogging about them, I have shared numerous evolutionary findings.[iii]  In reviewing them, I have gleaned three themes with the potential to diminish the confidence of individuals leaning toward the creationist camp. In a series of three articles, I will share them. They are: 1. The Emperor is All Gaps, 2. A Mountain of Evidence versus a Divot of Questions, and 3. The Imperfect Fabric of Life.  In the paragraphs that follow I hope you find a few good seeds to sow in your own encounters with individuals who have thus far failed to arrive at the best solution to the puzzle of biological life.

 Part I – The Emperor is All Gaps

Creationists of yore—and those today behind the curve of cutting-edge creationism(!)— were and are fond of pointing out that such things as the eye is so incredible complex that no single, random mutation could give rise to it.  Because part of an eye is of no use, evolution can’t account for it.  But wait a minute.  For many years this gap has been filled.  Sadly, in a move reminiscent of one of Zeno’s paradoxes, the creationist is likely to respond, “Sure, you have explained x, but you are still only halfway there!”

Not only is half an eye not worthless, but neither is a fraction of an eye.  One sheet of desktop reading informed me,

“Larvae of marine invertebrates—worms, sponges, jellyfish—have the simplest eyes that exist. They consist of no more than two cells: a photoreceptor cell and a pigment cell. These minimal eyes, called eyespots, resemble the ‘proto-eyes’ suggested by Charles Darwin as the first eyes to appear in animal evolution. They cannot form images but allow the animal to sense the direction of light. This ability is crucial for phototaxis – the swimming towards light exhibited by many zooplankton larvae. Myriads of planktonic animals travel guided by light every day. Their movements drive the biggest transport of biomass on earth.”[iv]

In an act so incongruous that it strikes me as humorous, creationists habitually highlight gaps in the body of evolutionary knowledge, real or imagined.  In fairness to our side, I would like to point out that we of the pro-evolution persuasion do lack something—a body of knowledge, or even a set of testable hypotheses, on their part to evaluate, analyze, critique and question.  What to do?

One might summarize the creationist position as nothing more than a single, massive gap filled with a solitary agent. A creator.[v]  An all-too-common mistake, as I see it, is to resort to rebutting the existence of that creator.  An alternative and potentially more fruitful course might be to instead “flesh out” the gaps in their position. Politely ask them to explain a biological finding that naturally fits into the evolutionary body of knowledge.  By doing this you will highlight the impoverished state of their supposed knowing

Sure, many a creationist will pull out the tired, old, shrug-of-the-shoulders response: the answer is “God”—who works in mysterious ways.  The proper reaction to this is to point out that the explanation they just gave is a non-explanation.  It would score a zero on any minimally stringent test of knowledge.

A WHALE OF A TALE

Consider, for example, the whale.  The whale in isolation is a curious creature.  A warm-blooded mammal, it generally spends its life in deep, frigid oceans, yet breaths air and has thick layers of blubber to help maintain body temperature.  Two new sets of whale fossils were discovered in 2000 and 2004.  There are no living specimens of these whales anywhere in the world. From the layout and analysis of the bones, the fossils of one set were of a male, a female, and a fetus within the female.[vi]

Challenge for creationists: The species, Maiacetus had four legs, shaped much like flippers, as in the case of other archaeocetes.  Judging by the skeleton, these whales were able to support their weight on land, but could not travel far.  Please explain the location of the animal remains: the mountains of Pakistan.

The fetus within the female was positioned for head-first delivery, like land mammals but unlike modern whales.  Please explain.

If any lame answer is given, ask this very appropriate follow-up question: And how do you know this?  Please be specific.

Speaking of archaeocetes, a paper published in 2009 analyzed the “massive data set of the morphology, behavior, and genetics of living and fossil relatives” to today’s half mammal, half-fish, the cetaceans.[vii]  Included in this group are dolphins and whales,

Using evidence including DNA analysis, the study confirmed that of all the other species, cetaceans are most closely related to the hippopotamus.  As has been asserted for some time.  Please explain.

One extinct cetacean ancestor, Ambulocetus natans, its fossil determined to be 48 million years old, might be described as a “whippo,” or maybe an “orcapotamus.”  This creature’s form might seem strange to us, even fanciful, because none exist today to become accustomed to, as we have with such other peculiar creatures as the platypus, the narwhal, the giraffe, etc.  (Don’t get me started on the scores of insects that, if projected onto a big screen would make one suspect some artists at Pixar had dropped acid prior to drawing them up.)  But back to Ambulocetus natans.  From skeletons preserved in rock we have learned it had a shape and size reminiscent of a crocodile, but swam with not a side-to-side motion, but rather up-and-down.[viii]  Like the otter and the whale.  Please explain.

THE MISSING SUPER

With its programmable 8-way power seats, its remote-controlled power windows, its blazing acceleration, its vision-blurring top speed, its “Electronic brakeforce distribution” and tire-pressure monitoring systems, etc., a 2012 Mercedes-Benz might seem an altogether different kind of vehicle than a 1908 Model T Ford.  Yet the Benz is still an automobile.  Dismantle both vehicles and you will be left with a pile of distinct components: mechanical, electrical, chemical.  And that’s all.

Likewise, we human beings consider our own kind to be so impressively advanced as to deserve a class of our own.  But as with the Benz, we are built from 100% natural stuff.  When disassembled we find no soul, no floating point of light, no void where a supernatural element must be.  For many a creationist, this fact is distasteful to the utmost.  It may actually be the deal-breaker for accepting evolution.

Unfortunately for those wishing otherwise, insights into the inglorious nature of our kind continue to accumulate.  Such as the unearthing of new fossil “kinds” like man, yet also like animal.  How is a creationist to maintain his or her cherished dualism?  Sadly for them, rather than skeletons in their closet, creationists have fearful fossils beneath their feet.  In 2004, to give one example, a new hominid species was discovered in Spain.[ix]

Challenge to creationists: Anoiapithecus brevirostris—discovered in a fossil-rich area (making more discoveries likely) and dated at 12 million years—is notable primarily because many of its facial characteristics are uniquely shared with our kind.  Please explain.  Kindly also explain what kind of predictions your system of thought makes about future fossil finds.

When contemplating human characteristics in light of our close animal relatives, the notion of the soul becomes superfluous.  Sure, our ability to communicate appears light-years ahead, but this is akin to using a dashboard GPS unit relative to the old-school paper map.  Only those myopically anthropocentric will see our kind as absolutely separate and unequal, possessing one or a number of traits whole-clothe unique.  This is not the case.  Ask a primatologist.

In terms of our biological nuts-and-bolts, it begins with DNA.  I give a thumbs-up to one bit of research about genes that control the development of the human fifth digit.  In a news release titled, “Yale Researchers Find ‘Junk DNA’ May Have Triggered Key Evolutionary Changes In Human Thumb And Foot,” I found:

“Results from a comparative analysis of the human, chimpanzee, rhesus macaque and other genomes reported in the journal Science suggest our evolution may have been driven not only by sequence changes in genes, but by changes in areas of the genome once thought of as ‘junk DNA.’”[x]

The gene in question is HACNS1, and experiments discovered that when activated in mice, the human version caused changes in the development of the ankle, foot, thumb and wrist.  The chimpanzee and rhesus versions of HACNS1 did not.  Creationists, please explain this real feature of creation.

Elsewhere on the human DNA chain we find the FOXP2 gene.  A 2009 study published in Nature shared some interesting findings about it. Chief among these being that mutations of the human form of the FOXP2 gene in humans cause disruptions in speech and language.  The chimpanzee has a different form of the gene.  They also have different vocal abilities.[xi]  Creationists, please explain.

With each passing year, scientists are discovering yet more whats and hows of the genomes of wildly diverse species.  They are fleshing out the thousands of regulatory elements that act as genetic switches, turning genes on or off.  Meanwhile, in the creationist camp . . . crickets.

NO HOWS, NO WAYS

Scientists tend to shy away from why questions, not necessarily because these questions are too big to handle and don’t readily lend themselves to reductionist methods, but because they aren’t scientific. Case in point would be this philosophical biggie: Why does the universe exist? When worded with a why, the question begs a response relative to social and emotional concerns. If the answer resides outside these, the use of the word why curbs the endeavor to understand.

To think more scientifically an individual must change their why questions to how.  While why implies intention and purpose, how directs our attention to the verifiable workings of the world.  A strategy of creationists is to frame questions in why language.  Resist the urge to go there.  Remain scientific—keep the focus on the how.[xii]

As the saying goes, science is limited relative to religion.  Scientists can’t just “make stuff up” and get away with it.  This brings to mind the classic Sidney Harris cartoon that depicts two scientists at a blackboard contemplating a complex equation.  There is a gap in the middle of a string of mathematical symbols.  The gap has been filled with the words, “And then a miracle happens.”  One scientist says to the other, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.”  Yes, a better understanding demands we be more explicit.  Likewise, we should ask creationists to be explicit, to fill in the ways and hows of creation.  If this can’t be provided, no claim to having knowledge can be reasonably made.

Nature isn’t an empty spot on a blackboard.  There are many, many things we already know.  There are many other things we are in the process of learning.  On such thing is manifest by the extravagant tail of the peacock.  In news of research into “showy male traits” from 2008, I found this sentence:

“A team of Wisconsin scientists has turned from the question of why such male traits exist to precisely how they evolved.”[xiii]

Turning from why to how is indeed good science.  As for the how, the answer resides in the evolution and regulation of what else but gene sequences.

In fruit flies the males’ abdomens sport “tail ends” that are colorful and obviously ornamental. The females do not.  Why?  How does this happen?  How did this come to be?  The females of the species have the same genetic circuit, but it is activated differently; the trait is then “repressed.”

Challenge to creationists: Females of many species have genes capable of making them more colorful, more beautiful, and yet these genes are inactive.  Please explain.

Not only does the very ground creationists walk upon contain fossil evidence they must deny or rationalize away, but the rapidly advancing field of genetics is uncovering a trail of clues leading back to not a magic creator, but to more primitive ancestral forms.

Almost as shocking as links going back in deep time are the links of relatively recent origin.  Consider the findings of this run-of-the-mill science news release titled, “Evolutionary Event Underlying Origin Of Dachshunds, Dogs With Short Legs, Discovered.”[xiv]

In brief, the research found that a single, distinct evolutionary event nicely accounts for the characteristically short, curved legs of contemporary dachshunds and other breeds with stunted legs.  After examining over 40,000 DNA segments in dogs, a string of code was discovered that is present only in short-legged dogs—corgis, basset hounds, dachshunds and more than a dozen other breeds.

As for the explicitly scientific how–

“Specifically, the researchers found that in contrast to other dog breeds, all short-legged dog breeds have an extra copy of the gene that codes for a growth-promoting protein called fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGF4). Although functional, the extra gene lacks certain parts of the DNA code, called introns, found in normal genes. These characteristics led researchers to conclude that the extra gene is a so-called retrogene that was inserted into the dog genome some time after the ancestor of modern dog breeds diverged from wolves.”

If you have dogs in your house, you are living in a natural history museum of a near-term variety.

Creationists, the appearance of the dachshund was a recent event.  Certainly, none of these animals could have been passengers of Noah’s 40-day cruise.  Please explain how this distinct form came to be.  Be specific.

A WAR UNSOUGHT

The science findings supporting evolution keep coming.  Yet the most important consequence of these is not that they promote a pro-Darwin, anti-creator stance.  The ultimate purpose of scientific research is to advance our knowledge of the universe as well as to improve our control over it.  Pure and simple, that is the aim of science.  If there is a war between science and religion, it is a war scientists rather not fight. They have better things to do.

In part two of this three part series I will be sharing with you more bits to the accumulating body of evidence for evolution.  Up next: “A Mountain of Evidence versus a Divot of Questions.”

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Demolishing the wall between church and state in order to establish a Christian theocracy is the ultimate goal of the Christian Right. Since they believe their version of Christianity is infallible and the only true means of salvation, they can’t understand why their religion shouldn’t be an integral part of our lives and our government as well. They believe they are doing us a favor by saving our souls and think by Christianizing the world they are preparing it for Christ’s Second Coming.

To tear down the wall, fundamentalist Christians flagrantly twist facts. They claim our first presidents, as well as most of our other founders, were Christians, that the essential documents our country was founded on incorporated Christian precepts, and that the founders didn’t really intend to establish a strict separation between Christianity and the government.

I’ll review specific evidence to help refute these claims.

The religious beliefs of the first four United States presidents (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison) is a good starting point since these remarkably talented men provided crucial leadership in the creation of our particular form of government.

All were strongly influenced by the European Enlightenment, a movement that promoted scientific thinking and religious tolerance. Most of the members of the Enlightenment were Deists, a minimalist religion that promoted the idea of a non-anthropomorphic god, a vague idea of a first cause or a god of nature. Deists thought this pseudo-god created the Universe and then retired to allow it to operate naturally. They did not believe in miracles or any humans, such as Jesus Christ, possessing divine powers. Many historians have classified these presidents as Deists.

The first four presidents were highly intelligent and comprehensively well educated, (Washington had less formal education than the other three) – including the classics and scientific knowledge of the time. They were men of exemplary character. All these attributes eminently qualified them to create a government structure that has endured and been a model for the rest of the world. (I feel a bit depressed when I compare these giants against some of our recent presidents, and I believe we should start critically reviewing what has gone wrong with the selection process).

Although the first four presidents did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and had serious misgivings about much of religion in general, they were tolerant and friendly in their dealings with religious figures. They all believed in complete religious freedom for everyone and stressed that this freedom was only possible when the government remained entirely neutral toward religion.

1. George Washington (1732-1799), the first president of the United States (1789-1797), was the hardest to read of the early presidents concerning his religious beliefs. He realized how contentious the subject of religion was, especially in public office, and simply tried to keep his true feelings to himself.  It is understandable that some have regarded him as a Christian since he was a vestryman in the Episcopal Church, which he attended sporadically, less so as he became older.

This superficial appearance of Christianity is countered by considerable evidence:

• He never took communion, even though his wife Martha did, which required the family carriage to make a return trip to the church to pick her up. Most Christians took communion at some time;
• In his time, church attendance was often a social obligation rather than an indication of a person’s true beliefs;
• In Washington’s writings, he never referred to Jesus Christ;
• There is no evidence he expressed belief at any time in conventional Christian dogma;
• His father was a Deist;
• The Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie, rector of the church Washington attended with his wife, in reply to a question about Washington’s religion, said: “Sir, Washington was a Deist”;
• Thomas Jefferson noted in his private journal in February, 1800: “I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did.” (Gouverneur Morris was the principal drafter of the Constitution, a member of the Continental Congress, a senator from New York, a minister to France, and a freethinker);
• Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister, in an interview in 1831, stated concisely: “I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges himself as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more.”

2. John Adams (1735-1826) was the first vice-president of the U.S. and the second president (1775-1801). He played a prominent role in the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence and then exerted strong leadership in persuading the Second Continental Congress to adopt it.

Although he seemed to enjoy going to the Unitarian Church and described himself as a “church going animal,” he was a Deist, and a weak one at that, as revealed in his voluminous and erudite (sprinkled with quotations in multiple languages) correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. Quotes from multiple sources attest to his religious beliefs:

• In a letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, in explaining why he rejected the ministry, Adams wrote: “The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching”;
• Views of Religion by Rufus K. Noyes records this statement: “When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it”;
• Adams made this observation in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved – the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced”;
• Another letter to Jefferson contained this statement: “There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel…. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books?”

3. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third president of the United States (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence. He was probably our most brilliant president and a prototypical Renaissance man, with a prodigious array of talents and accomplishments.

Jefferson chose this epitaph for his tomb: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia.” It is highly significant that he included the Virginia religious freedom statute and omitted his two terms as president. This statue clearly outlined the church-state separation concept and served as the model for the Constitution. His epitaph confirms how important he thought this separation was.

• In his religious beliefs he is usually classified as a Deist, but at times he sounds almost like an atheist. Of the four presidents, his views on religion are the most extensively documented. Here are a few quotes that express his beliefs, in his own words:
• In a letter to Ezra Stiles, Jefferson wrote: “I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know;”
• Writing in Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson observed: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth”;
• Jefferson, in replying to a letter of John Adams, stated: “If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation of that hypothesis is just, ‘that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it’ “;
• He wrote in a letter to Dr. Woods: “I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies”;
• Corresponding with John Adams, he noted: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter”;
• Even Jefferson’s belief in God seems a bit shaky in this statement in a letter to Peter Carr: “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god….”

4. James Madison (1751-1836), the fourth president of the United States (1809-1817), has often been called “the father of the constitution.” Also, more than any other person, he can be considered responsible for making the Bill of Rights part of the constitution. He helped draft the constitution of Virginia and insisted on its providing separation of church and state.

He was a Deist but without much depth of conviction. Here are a few quotes that reflect his attitude toward religion:

• In a letter to William Bradford, Jr., he observes: “Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”
• He notes in another letter to Bradford: “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize”;
• Addressing the Virginia General Assembly about religious assessments, he said: “Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution”;
• Writing in a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, he explains: “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

Clearly, our first four presidents were not Christians, and the god they believed in was consistent with a Deistic one. In fact, the Reverend Dr. Wilson, who was almost a contemporary of our early statesmen and presidents, and extensively researched their religions, stated that the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents elected up to his time, not one had professed a belief in Christianity. The presidents that he was referring to were the four I have discussed plus, in order, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson.

Some fundamentalist Christians claim that our government is founded on the Declaration of Independence, and that this document proves the founders intent was to incorporate Christian principles because of the mention of God. Of course, this contention is nonsense. First, our nation is founded on the Constitution and not the Declaration of Independence. Second, the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and written by Thomas Jefferson, does not contain any references to a Christian anthropomorphic god. I checked the document and found four references that could be construed as being to a Deist- type entity. One reference is to “Nature’s God,” another to “Creator,” still another to “Supreme Judge of the world,” and finally one to “Divine Providence.” Third, there is no mention of Christ or Christianity in the document.

Our Constitution is the document that defines the structure of our government, and its understanding is crucial to answering claims by fundamentalist Christians that our nation was founded as a Christian nation. James Madison, its chief architect as previously mentioned, keenly recognized the horrors that can ensue if religion insinuates itself into government and quite deliberately constructed an obviously secular document. Not once is there a mention of any type of deity, Christ, or Christianity. In fact, the only mention of religion is in Article 6, Section 3: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This article clearly separates church and state.

Nonetheless, Article 6 of the Constitution was not strong enough to satisfy everyone and the First Amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights further delineated church-state separation: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;….”

Thomas Jefferson spelled out the meaning of the First Amendment even more precisely in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association: “ Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

And as an unambiguous statement of the non-religious nature of our government, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli is unexcelled. This treaty was signed into law by President John Adams and reads: “As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, ….”

At the time of the creation of the Constitution, the colonies were religiously diverse: Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, Baptists, Anglicans, and others. It can be fairly said that the colonies were predominately Christian. Nonetheless, even though some clergy vigorously, but unsuccessfully, pushed for the insertion of Christian references into the Constitution, most of them, and Americans in general, seemed to understand the concept that strict church-state separation meant greater religious freedom for all. The churches’ acceptance of the concept of strict separation stands in sharp contrast to the situation nowadays where there are unrelenting efforts by fundamentalist Christians to destroy the wall.

It is ironic that the Enlightenment in Europe degenerated into the excesses of the French Revolution but that its principles became established instead in our country. The Enlightenment strongly influenced the thinking leading to the American Revolutionary War and strongly influenced our leaders in setting up our secular republic. We can only speculate what form of government we would now have if our government had been formed at another time with less enlightened leaders.

The founders of our country clearly meant for there to be a wall between any religion, including any form of Christianity, and our government. To maintain this essential separation, our citizens and watchdog groups need to be constantly alert in resisting these incursions.

But to ultimately remove the assaults against the church-state wall, it is essential that another wall eventually come down, a metaphorical one that exists in the frontal lobes of the brains of fundamentalists. This wall, constructed with a material called faith, separates a rational area where truth is decided with logic and evidence from a dark, irrational region where any type of religious belief, no matter how illogical, can exist. Only when this wall is gone will fundamentalist Christians realize their beliefs are not infallible and should not be imposed on everyone.

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For Immediate Release
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

ST PETERSBURG, Fla.—Governor Charlie Crist has been accused of assaulting a man for identifying himself as an atheist during a campaign event held in St. Petersburg. On Friday, March 5th, University of South Florida graduate student Michael Middlebrooks approached the Governor downtown and was greeted with a smile and a handshake until he mentioned he does not believe in a god. Crist reportedly became irate, ripping a campaign sticker off the man’s shirt that was placed there by a staffer moments earlier, and then shouting over his shoulder (as he turned his back), “I feel sorry for you!”

Atheists of Florida President John Kieffer sent a letter to Governor Charlie Crist on Monday asking that he issue an apology to the man targeted for this mistreatment.

“Imagine instead if you had ripped a campaign sticker off some other religious minority,” Kieffer wrote, “say a Jew or a Muslim, shouting, as you did here, that you felt sorry for them. The outrage in such a case would create newspaper headlines around the world.” He continued by referring to the event as an attack on a minority worldview which is an affront, an outrage, and possibly even qualifies as a hate crime “because [Governor Crist] committed this battery while denigrating [the victim's] personal religious worldview.”

Kieffer’s letter is available for public view at the Atheists of Florida web site (http://www.AtheistsofFlorida.org), along with a discussion area where others may read or contribute their own comments.

Rob Curry is a native of St. Petersburg and serves as Executive Director for Atheists of Florida. He added, “Crist should be ashamed of such boorish behavior. His actions and words this past Friday deeply dishonor the town we both call home by making it the setting for a grotesque mockery of his constitutional duty to treat all Florida citizens with equal respect under the law.”

Atheists of Florida members have been actively seeking to end official government prayers at Tampa City Council meetings since January, and more recently at Lakeland City Commission meetings. Their stance is that government should be neutral with respect to religion, neither advocating nor discouraging religious beliefs and rituals.

About Atheists of Florida
Atheists of Florida, founded in 1992, is a nonprofit, educational corporation created to heighten public awareness about atheism and to monitor state/church separation issues throughout the state. The organization is a founding member society of the Atheist Alliance International.

Atheists of Florida serves the needs of a growing nonreligious community of reason whose members disagree with supernatural doctrines while valuing personal liberty as a precious heritage for everyone. Recent national surveys show that 16% of the American population is nonreligious, an increase from 14% two years prior.

Objectives include: (a) advocating state/church separation, (b) defending the civil rights of atheists and others with minority views on religion, (c) educating the public to dispel common misconceptions about atheism, (d) offering social support for atheists, (e) encouraging an inclusive sense of community, inspiration, mutual understanding and respect, and (f) promoting freedom, honesty and integrity

Contact:

John Kieffer
President
(813) 919-9161

Rob Curry
Executive Director
(727) 851-6452

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In the news recently, Governor Sarah Palin was extremely upset about a joke David Letterman told about her daughter being “knocked-up” by a Yankees baseball player. Admittedly it was in very poor taste, as Letterman himself agreed. It has been suggested that Gov. Palin was protecting her child, which is understandable if that was, in fact, her motive. However, I doubt this joke will incite rapist or child molesters to increase their activity. Nor will it, as Gov. Palin suggested in her response, “contribute to the high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.” Mr. Letterman apologized but not to the satisfaction of some. There are those who have called for him to be fired.

This reminded me of the controversy and firing of Don Imus in 2007 over his racial slur about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called the firing “a victory for public decency.” Rev. Al Sharpton said, “It’s not about taking Imus down, it’s about lifting decency up.”

I am not condoning what either Letterman or Imus said, but they were insensitive jokes, the only goal being to draw laughter. As a mother and non-racist, I thought both comments were uncalled for and not particularly funny. But I am not at all sure how making a spectacle of and firing Imus will affect public decency or lift it up or how Letterman’s crude joke will alter comedic language.

Others, however, are using far more incendiary language on a regular basis with impunity.  It seems Free Speech is free for some people but not for others.  Some examples:

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 30% of the (estimated 5000) completed youth suicides every year are homosexuals between the ages of 15-24. The number of homosexual murders increased by 28% in 2008, 29 killings last year (report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs). These also are someone’s children.

The callous, insidious anti-gay speech that evangelicals, other Christian ministers, and some right wing TV and radio personalities spew over this land via the airways most assuredly attributes to and incites these hate crimes committed by those who believe, beyond any doubt, the language of these ‘authority figures’. Why else would such atrocities occur? Who else instills these thoughts on a continual basis, ad nauseum?

Many Christians, Christian organizations, and Right Wing pundits publicly demonized recently murdered abortion provider, Dr George Tiller. They certainly utilized their free speech rights with the same incendiary remarks about abortion as with the gay community. Dr. Tiller was a father and a grandfather. I’m sure his cruel, untimely murder will affect his children for the rest of their lives.

Terry Randall, the founder of Operation Rescue ,called Dr. Tiller a “mass murderer” and “we grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.”

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News has for years called Dr. George Tiller  “Tiller the baby killer” and described his clinic as a “death mill.”

Rush Limbaugh, who coined the term “feminazis,” says “he used the term to describe women who are obsessed with perpetuating a modern day holocaust: abortion.”

The late Jerry Farwell blamed 911 on the feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters.

Mother Teresa in her many travels around the world said,  “the greatest threat to peace is abortion.”

Pope Benedict XVI said, “Abortion is a crime of aggression not only against the unborn, but also against society.”

There are countless ministers who convey thoughtless, cruel remarks to their congregations every Sunday morning. They know there are dangerous and twisted organizations and deranged individuals who will act on their words. When someone does act on their hatred, these messengers claim they mean no harm, they are only stating God’s word and reinforcing biblical principles. Their words have power and they know it.

Why do we put up with this? Why aren’t they fired?  Because their God is on their side and they have far too many who believe what they say.

The Army of God’s web site is a training ground for Christian fundamentalist terrorism. Operations Rescue is not the peaceful pro- life organization it claims to be. Check both sites out and see for yourself.

Free speech is a wonderful gift, but words have power and consequences. They make an impression on the listener. If the listener and the person/s exercising their free speech cannot discern odious, inflammatory speech from decent speech or a joke, then they have a serious problem and society is in trouble.

Why is it a comedian can lose his job and be publicly ostracized because of an “offensive” joke that won’t incite murder or bombings or cause child molesters to go on a rampage, yet media hacks on the right and fundamentalist ministers can say anything they want, no matter how cruel, immoral, or offensive, as long as they do so in the name of God and their biblical interpretation of morality?

Gov. Palin is not without her own offensive, even dangerous rhetoric which she uses to enhance her political ambitions. So I must ask her, “Hasn’t something gone awry with free speech and what offends when public spectacles are made of a few people who tell insensitive jokes while many others are allowed to express their vehement hatred in public with nary a wrist slap?”

You betcha!

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In September of this year, I will have been practicing law in Orlando for twenty years. In the course of my career, I have gone from being single with no kids to married with two, from prosecuting to defending criminals, and from belief to unbelief. One consistent thread that runs throughout is my dealing with the believing public.

Other than physical illness, legal problems are for many the worst ordeal of their lives, especially in the criminal arena. I’ve represented people who were on the brink of ultimate disaster, watching their lives unravel, their dreams dashed and their future sink away into oblivion. Many waited for months in the county jail to hear their fate. Overcrowded, poorly fed and under constant stress, most could not stand to look the devil in the eye until the last possible minute, sometimes with the jury standing just outside the courtroom door.

Many relied on their faith to get them through. Some concluded that they had to pay for their sins and were willing to accept their punishment. But many more believed that their saviour would come through in the end and pull them from the fire. Clutching their Bible in their shackled hands like a lucky rabbit’s foot, they would confidently step off the cliff.

That frequently left me in the position of having to figure out how to get irrational people to make rational decisions. Despite what most people think, criminal defense lawyers are not usually focused on the very unrealistic goal of getting their clients off completely. The vast majority of the time, we are concerned with battling excessive charges and getting a fair sentence for the crime the client actually committed. Once we can get the case fairly charged and a reasonable sentence recommended, it becomes our task to convince the client to accept it and avoid the risk of trial and a greatly enhanced sentence. Having to overcome superstitious beliefs makes that task much harder.

I grew up a churchgoer and have studied the Bible extensively. I largely credit being a lawyer with training me to think rationally and value evidence. But my training in scriptures has aided me many times in getting clients to make the right decision within their own religious framework. Maybe I’m copping out, but I just can’t bring myself to challenge people’s religious beliefs when they are incarcerated and it’s the only thing holding them together.

What I tell people, and I’m talking only about Christians, is that their faith does not promise them material success in this world, but in the next. All the Apostles and many thousands more Christians in the first century C.E. were tortured and murdered for their faith. I tell them they cannot expect to avoid their fate on earth if even the Apostles were not spared. They don’t like the argument, but they have no response for it. Usually it works.

It feels hypocritical sometimes. It does not, however, feel as bad as failing to convince someone to make the right choice and watching as they dash themselves upon the rocks.

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