Tag: religion

Questioning your beliefs is a good thing

Questioning your beliefs is a good thing

The full title of this book is How to See Religion Differently: What questioning your beliefs can reveal, and why it can lead to a healthy mind. The book is by Luke Pemberton who was raised Catholic and questioned his beliefs (or at least what he was told to believe) as he got a bit older.

I think that questioning your beliefs is a good thing. Different folks will decide different things. Religion makes sense to many people. Others will decide that religion or maybe a particular religion is not for them.
Continue reading “Questioning your beliefs is a good thing”

She loses and refuses

She loses and refuses

The Rowan County Kentucky clerk still refuses to obey the law and issue marriage licenses to gay couples despite a Supreme Court Ruling making same-sex marriage a right nationwide and losing her court case and subsequent appeals claiming that to do so would violate her religious freedom.

She loses and refuses to do her job. She was elected to do the job of county clerk. She should do it. Not just the parts she likes, but all of it. Continue reading “She loses and refuses”

Rowan County Kentucky Clerk should resign or follow the law

Rowan County Kentucky Clerk should resign or follow the law

The Rowan County Kentucky Clerk’s Office has decided not to obey the law and issue marriage licenses to gay couples despite a Supreme Court Ruling making same-sex marriage a right nationwide. The Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis claimed doing so would be a violation of her religious rights.

However, U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning felt differently and ordered the office to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Continue reading “Rowan County Kentucky Clerk should resign or follow the law”

Taxpayer-subsidized politics

Taxpayer-subsidized politics

Taxpayer-subsidized politics may be coming to a church near you. Why do I say that?

Paragraph (3) of section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 contains this:

(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.

Simply put means that tax-exempt organizations (including churches) cannot carry out propaganda or political campaigning. This seems entirely reasonable to me.

But a bill has been introduced in the House (HR 153) which deletes the part above in bold. This seems to say that churches (and other cited tax-exempt organizations still cannot engage propaganda to influence legislation but are allowed to intervene in political campaigns. Seems rather confusing to me.

Also does it mean that if someone wants to support a candidate for office (or trash an opponent) that someone can now get a tax deduction by funneling the contribution through a like minded church or minister instead of a Super-PAC?

Doesn’t seem like such a good idea to me. What do you think?

Comme

First Amendment, Alabama, Christians, and a judge behaving badly

First Amendment, Alabama, Christians, and a judge behaving badly

I haven’t blogged in a few days but here is something to tide you over:

Apparently the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court believes that First Amendment only applies to Christians. Read the whole sad tale about this judge behaving badly.

The Fact/Faith Debate: Why Science Hasn’t Killed Religion by Jack Gage

The Fact/Faith Debate: Why Science Hasn’t Killed Religion by Jack Gage

The Fact/Faith Debate: Why Science Hasn’t Killed Religion by Jack Gage is an interesting and thought-provoking book.


The author did a great job in the Introduction telling us a bit about himself. And knowing a bit about him is important to understanding the book and why he wrote it.

Then Jack Gage goes into why there is a Fact/Faith debate in his first chapter. In this chapter he introduces the most unusual and an interesting aspect of this book. Rather than basing the book on just his beliefs, a panel of 6 jurors of various faiths or lack of faith get to vote on questions related to the issues presented in each chapter. This small group is somewhat like a jury in a legal trial.

Of course, 6 is a very small sample but it is a start in addressing the question of how intelligent and often highly educated people can examine the same set of “facts” (or scientific evidence) and come to very different conclusions, especially when these facts conflict with their faith-based beliefs.

I wish the sample size was larger and various jurors were able to discuss why they believe what they believe often in conflict with the evidence but that would be another book or maybe several books.

The middle (and much) of the book is a presentation of scientific evidence on various issues and then the faith-based view followed by a jury vote. I thought this was interesting at first but after 15 or so of these I just got a bit tired of it.

In many of these middle chapters the faith-based view was represented by fairly extreme positions such as Creationism or groups that interpret the Bible literally. But the beginning and end of the book discuss a variety of religious faiths so I do not think the book focuses too much on fundamentalist Christianity.

It also seems appropriate to examine these views since many Americans share many of these beliefs to some extent. For a relatively extreme example, here is a quote from Georgia Republican Representative Paul Broun of the US House of Representatives Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that, All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.

I thought the last few chapters were very good in reaching some conclusions on how and why people reconcile their religious faith with the scientific evidence.

It was a good book and I’m glad I read it.