Religion, Faith and Belief – well covered in the Media, but with different slants

By Gary Berg-Cross

Lots of media (newspapers, magazines, radio and online types like blog sites etc.) have a Religion section or its equivalent.  WaPo has it online under the National section where you can read about the “Latest Religion News.

This includes local Religion events from around the Washington area including music

(Dixieland jazz), Martha’s Table, food drives, Super Bowl Fellowship, Bible study, yoga, wellness, organ recitals.

Under the WAPO  RELIGION heading you read how the ubiquitous  (and Controversial)

Koch brothers give big (again) to Catholic University. But you can also find related  coverage under the Metro or Style section which has On Faith.

The NYT has a Religion and Belief section with occasional posting like:

Mark Oppenheimer Beliefs column. A January post observed that many faiths struggle with concept of animal ensoulment; cites proliferation of pet cemeteries throughout the United States.

An earlier one in January was about former NY Gov Mario Cuomo willingness to speak publicly about his religious beliefs.

On Xmas day atheist Mark Bittman Op-Ed article cross-posted there that reflects that 2014 was the 100th anniversary of Christmas truce during World War I, when soldiers from both sides took break from fighting to be festive together.

Also on Xmas dayT M Luhrmann had a cross posted Op-Ed article about people attending God-neutral, growing in popularity movements like Sunday Assembly around Xmas Yes even for atheists group ritual is important to make sense of the world.

Even the Guardian has a Religion section and moving to online phenomena the news aggregating blog site called  the Huffington Post has a Religion news section. It’s under its Voices category. As a liberal site I find its coverage includes a bit more critical tone than most of the others. You can read about “Why Julianne Moore Stopped Believing In God” They break faith down into several categories and also have a  Religion and Science section that features "blog posts and news reports that address the ongoing conversation and tension between religion and science. The page has a pro-science and pro-faith point of view and highlights smart, sophisticated perspectives from all religious traditions on how to best improve relationships between these two fields of inquiry."

These feature research and fact-oriented coverage and not just opinion. Recent examples include, “Children Exposed To Religion Have Difficulty Distinguishing Fact From Fiction, Study Finds”  and “Religious Objections To Vaccines Are A Threat To Public Health.”

Still I find most of these sites could be considered religiously or faith oriented. They are labeled so.

A bit different is the Belief section of the very liberal blog aggregator Alternet.  Here we are beyond a religious and religious faith slant to one of the more general topic of belief including secular belief. Atheism is pretty prominently featured and discussed and discomfort to faith-based belief folks is likely.  They cover issues in a more confrontational way - sort of like a New Atheist style, but they include articles that might take on that topic too.

Recent posting included:

Eminent Biologist: Religion Should Be Eliminated for the 'Sake of Human Progress'

E. O. Wilson: You don't have to be an atheist to know that religion is harming the Earth.

Of course some of the coverage discusses the religio-political connections such as:

People With No Religion Underrepresented By a Factor of 100 in Congress ...

AlterNet-Jan 28, 2015

20 percent of Americans have no affiliation with organized religion. Only 0.2 percent of Congress says the same. By Zaid Jilani.

Another one with political connections was “This Week in Religion: Huckabee Claims God Blessed Him, and Mormons Back LGBT Rights.” 

Dan Arel, author of Parenting Without God and blogs at Danthropology, authors the This Week in Religion section. Just in January he has covered some critical topics:

This Week in Religion: Pope Francis Tells His Flock to Stop Breeding Like Rabbits Jan 23, 2015,

This Week in Religion: Christians Continue Their Assault on LGBT Community Jan 17, 2015,

The Past Week in Religion: God Pronounced Owner of an Alabama City Jan 11, 2015, and 

This Week in Religion: Bristol Palin Decries Separation of Church and State: Jan 2, 2015,

Other recent posts on Alternet.org include some overviewing non-belief in a bit of the way other media feature an established religion.

The 6 Types of Atheists and Non-Believers in America

AlterNet-Nov 17, 2014

The answers tell us a lot about religion and non-belief in America. ... Not all of them identify as atheist or agnostic or a non-believer, but plenty do, and while there are many people offering to defend this particular community, few are willing to speak for them. ...

Still other posts are critical of religious leaders such as:

Billy Graham's Son Is One of America's Most Dangerous Islamophobes. This one by Bill Berkowitz  was aggregated from another liberal blog site TruthOut.

Alternet is one of those challenging sites.  No one is going to agree with everything they feature, but you get some interesting topics, usually documents and well reasoned if a bit argumentative – sort of like the New Atheists. An example is the “12 Worst Ideas Religion Has Unleashed on the World” By Valerie Tarico who argues that these 12 dubious concepts advocate conflict, cruelty and suffering. Among them are things hard to disagree with:

The idea of  Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don’t merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves.”  Or Holy War – If war can be holy, anything goes.”  Blasphemy the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. is of course on the list, but the #1 listed was:

Chosen People –The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. Calvinists talk about “God’s elect,” believing that they themselves are the special few who were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).

Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.

No feel good Super Bowl Fellowship coverage likely at Alternet.org, but lots of thought poking topics.  It not only makes you think, it makes you want to think. 

Playing on Dialogues

by Gary Berg-Cross

Atheists, skeptics and non-believers along with their issues are not often shown in a very positive light when presented to the public on either the big or small screens. They are often stereotyped as misanthropic, slightly angry doctors, "lost souls” clinging to unsatisfying rationality or perhaps something else distinctly attackable and mildly distasteful. A recent and notable exception is in the award-nominated biopic film The Theory of Everything (a theory on the birth and death of universe perhaps from “nothing”) which features seminal theoretical physicist-cosmologist Stephen Hawking.  

Hawking is a familiar stranger to most of us and wildly know author of A Brief History of Time, which is highlighted in the film along with his firm liberal and atheist stances.  It is impossible to ignore his never-give-in bravery in the face of illness and his honesty expressing controversial ideas.  His confidence and good, perhaps naughty, eye-twinkling humor while clashing with his Christian wife makes him very fully human.  These dialogues includes:

Wife "What's cosmology?"

Stephen "Religion for intelligent atheists."

Wife persisting but interestingly "What do cosmologists worship?"

Stephen "A single unifying equation that explains everything in the universe."

Later at  Stephen’s family home dinner includes "You've never said why you don't believe in God."

Stephen "A physicist can't allow his calculations to be muddled by belief in a supernatural creator,"

Wife gets the last word "Sounds less of an argument against God than against physicists."

His humble humanity makes it hard to generate that fear-disgust reaction in the heart of believers. It is great to see this cinematic approach to not only hard science but also secular human values.

Besides this movie we have locally at the Anacostia Playhouse Theatre, a Sharpstick Productions of three plays written by Harrison Murphy and directed by Jim Giradi that take on some of these atheist-religious debates. Called Red High Heels and running from Jan 15-24 we are offered 3 one-acts that helicopter over differing perspectives.  It's a dialog feast and more than one can take in with a single viewing, but hopefully it will stay around and let repeat visits.

We start at a Bar as a middle aged man is having (by chance - randomness is a theme is these, so expect some surprises all is not as usual) a very bad day.  He is joined by a younger man, perhaps a younger version of himself, full of fight and confidence. He counsels toughness from a youthful, peanut-eating perspective.  They are quickly joined by an older man/version, perhaps from our protagonist’s future self who underlines alternate perspectives and counsels a wisdom that is the residue of living, which allows us to understand what is really important.

Play 2, Vignettes, moves from this intimate setting to the more public and impersonal and often frustrating one of waiting in an airport.  We move from friendly counselling to pairs of people falling into arguments.  A wide range of types and generations are here, flawed people in recognizable situations, including a comic relief, story-telling grandpa that leads us on an improbably journey trying to entertain (impress?) his grandson, a business man having an argument via cell phone, a prof and daughter who are stumble into the most bonding conversation as she leaves for college, and a lay preacher and hiking enthusiast with a bit of Hawking’s light humor touch sparring with a hard-headed lawyer.  

These are morally ambiguous, conflicted characters, flawed but believable folk.  Various characters introduce us to their philosophic perspectives and how they make sense of the world.  It’s about path finding, staying on track, or belief in guiding forces, but their lives are all over the landscape and lunge off track as they are all lead into a plane to take them away on a new direction. Who is steering things anyway?

This sets the stage for the final play which finds new people on a new flight with a mysterious Blue Box. It's a bit of a Hitchcock macguffin-type plot appropriate for the mysterious atmospheres generated in the plays.  But a single discovery and the evidence in the Box prove if God exists or not.  You are invited to guess as to the nature of proof. Here the extremes of debate are represented by a new-style, no holds barred Atheist, as for no quarter in conflict with a judicial Theist giving no solace except to say that Faith is the answer. 

In between we hear from professionals (Psychologist, Philosopher, and Anthropologist) as well as a Zen Buddhist as they argue whether the box should be opened.  We hear them argue their perspective of the issues in short segments. Along the way the play explores ideas about objectivity and subjectivity in our perspective beliefs, how context affects even a philosopher’s views, how intellectual passions can lead to emotional ones and more. 

As in the Hawking movie you may not learn enough about Space Time Singularity or Black Holes to write a book after watching these plays but its about the clarity of the interdisciplinary arguments. You gain into the issues and how they are discussed. The play's cosmologist shows the passions that stir up person like Stephan Hawing and perhaps an Atheist partner.You may know enough to be wary of Schrodinger's cat and Pandora's box. 

As an extra feature after the plays there is a 20 minute talkback session to hear from the audience.  These are run by people who are astrophysicists or philosophers and the like.  I was the Psychologist representative for the opening night and our after play conversation might have gone on for an hour.  

Stirring things up with Secular Shows, Characters and Issues

By Gary Berg-Cross

Between the new Noah movie and the new Cosmos series espousing the scientific method over faith-based belief we've seen some  conservative Christians howling about the culture.  Cosmos provides a real presence of secular-scientific values and thinking infused into the culture as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson genially poo poos creationist arguments about intelligent or the Jewish testament-based, fundamentalist claim that the Earth is about 6,000 years old. 

In a recent WAPO article called ‘From ‘The Good Wife’ to ‘Cosmos,’ a good moment for atheists and scientists on TV’ Alyssa Rosenberg noted atheist (and pretty normal but strong) character Alicia Florrick (played by Julianna Margulies) standing up to her teenage daughter Grace’s  fervent conversion to Christianity. In the aftermath of the death of a major character there was this exchange as Grace pushed the idea of heaven. She got push back.

“What does that mean, Grace? He’s in heaven? With angels and clouds?” Alicia demanded when her daughter told her that Will was “with God.” ”What does it mean if there is no God? Why is that any better?” Grace asked of her mother. “It’s not better,” Alicia responded. “It’s just truer. It’s just not wishful thinking.”

As noted in Voices, when Alicia more or less “outed” herself as an atheist to a reporter last season despite the political impact, it outraged some fans. 

'One upset viewer wrote on ReligiMedia blog that many “good wives” had identified with Alicia but now found her “far less sympathetic and frankly a tad bit revolting.”'

These shows follow movies like The Ledge by atheist writer and director Matthew Chapman (see trailer) which was a recent talked-about films with an openly atheist “heroic’ character who philosophically contemplates suicide.   Such movies confront some of the easy assumptions about the religious basis for morality. Earlier I'd blogged about the movie Agora which features the last Alexandrian librarian Hypatia. BTW, there’s even a Facebook page for Atheist Movies but it mostly covers books and other media.

Now there is a new movie in that vein by Baltimore-based  independent film maker and theorist Erik Kristopher Myers. His first feature film, ROULETTE, released on Thanksgiving 2013 to positive critical reviews, includes a negative portrayal of Christianity and its examination of Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice. It’s led to some outraged response from viewers, film festivals, and potential distributors alike.

Myers will be discussing the film and his attempt to dramatize a balanced examination of the cause and effect of a religious upbringing at the April 19^th (2-4) WASH meeting held in the Rockville MD library.  He will talk about the personal consequences of his endeavor in the face of an industry that shies away from perceived anti-Christian commentary.

See http://www.meetup.com/humanism-218/events/175208882/

Playing with Forgivenss & Redemption

By Gary Berg-Cross

It’s a big time for redemption as acts of atoning for a sin, fault or mistake). Recently we had adulator and trail hiker Mark Sanford’s successful bid in the South Carolina special general election.  He was forgiven his sins, at least by his Tea Party backers. The NRCC chose not to provide him funds.  As one religio-conservative publication put it in a post called, “Mark Sanford: Welcome Back to Washington”:

He [Sanford] has always been a consistent, principled, and courageous conservative. And he has always done it with showmanship and clarity that gets the points across to voters.

He unfurled this showmanship in this campaign of redemption, in which he was combatting not just his opponent, but also his deeply tarnished image as result of serious ethical transgressions during his second term as governor.

Standing by the flawed man was surprising in one way, since Conservatives generally are less forgiving than Liberals and ague that a politician who commits a moral error in his personal life is likely to commit one as part of official duties. Well perhaps not for members of their own team. And in very Christian South Carolina, at least, another factor was at play, the Christian idea of redemption. One read that clearly in Sanford’s  post-win self-analysis with thanks to God & redeeming grace:

“Some guy came up to me the other day and said you look a lot like Lazarus,” Sanford told the crowd Tuesday night, referring to the man who, according to the Bible, Christ raised from the dead. “I’ve talked a lot about grace during the course of this campaign,” he said. “Until you experience human grace as a reflection of God’s grace, I don’t think you really get it. And I didn’t get it before.” (reported in NYT opinion piece)

One may be a bit uncomfortable with this version of American style religio-politics that loves sinners, who prostrate themselves before us and beg for forgiveness.  After all it shows they buy into the sin idea.  And maybe the devil made them do it.

Another religious excursion into redemption territory, perhaps a more progressive hike than the Sanford style was visible in the widely reported remarks by Pope Francis' regarding atheists who he gave credit for possible good works. .

According to Catholic News Service, the pope was speaking of a broad horizon people of all or no faith working together to do good. "The Lord has redeemed us all with the blood of Christ, all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone," he said. Some may ask, "'Father, even the atheists?' Them, too. Everyone."

Well this simple redemptive stance didn’t last long. One day after the inclusive Every-Do-Gooder idea we were treated to damage control headlines of “Vatican Clarifies Pope's 'Atheist' Remarks.”   A less progressive Vatican spokesman (a Rev. Thomas Rosica) released a statement that clarified that redemption isn’t salvation. Quoting from Church “Catechism” we learn that people who reject the teachings of Jesus Christ cannot attain salvation.  Bad news for many.

"All salvation comes from Christ, the Head, through the Church which is his body. Hence they cannot be saved who, knowing the Church as founded by Christ and necessary for salvation, would refuse to enter her or remain in her."

Anthony Weiner’s redemption tour as part of his announced candidacy for mayor of New York City is just starting up, so we are likely to hear more about sinners and redemption, this time with the New York Jewish twist. Lots of ideas on redemption in that Creed. We’ll see if forgiveness gets wrapped up with the condition that you seek it from god. It seems like yet another uncomfortable scene in which special speakers to god exercise some semi-official brand of religio-morality calculus using the vocabulary of sin.  Self selected people get to divine God’s plans which gets all tangled in democratic processes of judgment.  

All in all forgiveness is a good thing, but I’m more comfortable with a non-sinner. humanist take on it like Mark Twain, “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

Images

Wordle on Forgiveness: http://devotionalchristian.com/bible-verses-forgiveness/

Forgiveness: http://montereybayholistic.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/50-forgiveness-quotes/

Do They Contradict Themselves?

By Gary Berg-Cross

They say that “Mother Nature Never Shaved with Occam’s Razor.” And it is not just physical reality that is complicated.  Humans and their positions are too. Mayor Koch, who died Feb. 1 at 88 of congestive heart failure, was many things and some of them complex, puzzling and perhaps paradoxical.

Early a crusader against Communism and the Vietnam War, he was elected as a Democrat but  later campaigned for George W. Bush. He opposed unions (denouncing transport union sympathizers as “wackos,”) although they helped rescue the city when the teachers' union furnished $150 million from their pension fund to buy Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds. He self described himself as a sane libreral but  became more hawkish over time and berated Obama for timidity in attacking Iran or confronting the Muslim world – “"President Obama is showing weakness to the Muslim world." Ed Koch Reverses Position, Slams Obama's "Weakness" on Muslims

Koch was a known for outrageous, antagonizing and unapologetic pronouncement such as reported by Joseph Berger in the New York Times," needlessly by saying Jews would be "crazy" to vote for Jesse Jackson for president because Jackson could be (like Koch himself)  outspoken, to many people’s annoyance and use outrageous language such as slurring NYC as "Hymietown".

Still I was a bit knocked back to hear a recent Koch clip from the Piers Morgan show where he mused about his secular-religious views this way:

"I'm secular but I believe in God. I believe in the hereafter," he said. "I believe in reward and punishment. And I expect to be rewarded. God gave me a very good hand to play over my 88 years. I have no regrets."

OK, so maybe this is another politician having it both ways and wanting to be loved by both sides. To be fair maybe he is talking about secular government and religion and bounding his secular to what is Caesars' and his religion to what is God's.  It would be nice to draw out such politicians so we know what type of values they have and what type of government we can expect and who they might heed on what issue.


Or it is easy to say that a Mayor Koch was a one-man anomaly: a self-declared secular Jew who harbored a strong belief in God, but he is not alone.  As I noted in “All Mixed Up: Perplexing Hyphenated Identity, 50-50 Concepts and Mixed up Ethnicity,” American has not only an ethnic hyphenated label phenomena like Irish-American, but one that mixes religion and ethnic identity such as the self-label Atheist Jew. Does it make sense to say that one is an atheist Catholic? It doesn’t seem like it. I can be an atheist who is a White, English person, but atheist and Catholic are both in what seems the “religion” dimension with no overlap on the Venn diagram. It can seem confusing since terms for Jewishness and Catholicism seem like religious identity, but they also have ethnic-historical identity too. This can be accepted as part of human complexity and people labeling things on their own terms, but it can make understanding what people, such as declared “secularists” stand for.  In what we variously call the Near or Middle East there is much labeling of secular government, Turkey and Israel come to mind, they are very religious nations too. And what claims to be a secular government can drift over to religious pressures such as the rising influence of ultra-orthodox  in Israel.

 For more confusion and having it your own way like Mr. Koch see Can a secular humanist believe in a god?

I guess some people can think this way, but it seems like they are floating in some see of definitional relativism that relies on the rest of us to tolerate their having it their way. Still I have some concerns that having it both ways without a better understanding leads to situations such as we have on the debt, deficit & economy.  Conservatives agitate for a cut in government spending to handle the "debt problem."  But this hurts the economy and so they can complain about slow job recovery.  If you stimulate job growth with spending they can complain it increases the debt.  It's one equation with 2 unknowns and a guaranteed complaint. Sometimes this hyphenated view of cultural identity (secular) or religious identity seems like that type of variable equation that can flip back an forth as needed.  The result may be confusion..at least in the hands of people not trying to understand or pursue a clear definition of secular in a world of religious cultures.

Or perhaps they are more in the spirit of Walt Whitman in his Song for Myself:

“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself.....

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. "

Thinking about the Growing Number of Nones

By Gary Berg-Cross

“’Nones’ on the Rise” was the title of the recent Pew Forum poll on Religion and Public Life. The simple statistics was that 1-in-5 adults surveyed had no religious affiliation. Even more ( third of adults) of respondents under 30 report having no religious affiliated today. Room for the Secular Student Alliance to grow. These are the highest percentages ever found in Pew Research Center polling and one can see a trend. The Christian Post summarized the implication as: “The Latest Pew Survey: Christianity Losing, Secularism Winning.” Those identifying with Protestantism was down 5%. What’s the turn off?  Perhaps not a deep study of religion’s tenets but a practical disgust. Most of the unaffiliated say religious organizations are too concerned with money, power, politics and rules. But there are lots of buts. Sure the 20% of adults (46 million or so) include some atheists.  More than 13 million of Americans are self-described atheists and agnostics. But that is only about 6% of the U.S. public. One may be a None and not an atheist.  One might fancy crystals.  Only 12 percent of the "nones" identify themselves as atheist. The largest category (13.9 percent) of the religiously unaffiliated are those who say they are "nothing in particular." What are the rest? What does the survey tells us about the Nones?    “Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day.”

Just because organized religion isn’t important to nones doesn’t mean that ideas of meaning and belonging traditionally identified with religion isn’t important.

But only 10% report that they are actively looking for a religion “just right” for them. It seems that modern society has unhooked some folks from the traditional and organized religion.  Maybe they can find meaning and community elsewhere. There is a range of substitutes and perhaps a friendly community of Humanists would be one. It might be nice to include them in our conversations and see if free inquiry, critical thinking, an appreciation for science , humanist principles/values and healthy skepticism have some appeal. People like Chris Stedman, Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard is already reaching out with some plans from his point of view for a national discussion on religion. We might want to broaden that a bit and hope for some more assimilation into the secular community.

We know something about None’s political leanings too:

“the religiously unaffiliated are an increasingly important segment of the electorate. In the 2008 presidential election, they voted as heavily for Barack Obama as white evangelical Protestants did for John McCain. More than six-in-ten religiously unaffiliated registered voters are Democrats (39%) or lean toward the Democratic Party (24%). They are about twice as likely to describe themselves as political liberals than as conservatives, and solid majorities support legal abortion (72%) and same-sex marriage (73%). In the last five years, the unaffiliated have risen from 17% to 24% of all registered voters who are Democrats or lean Democratic.”

Another trend to consider.

Image Credit

Pew Poll: http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx

A Young Atheist on Humanism

This is a paragraph from Jen McCreight on her Blag Hag blog:

"Why keep atheism as the label, then? Well, for one, the atheist movement is the one I most associate with, and progressive atheists interested in social justice are already a growing group within the atheist movement. It seemed natural to focus my efforts there. But also, “atheist” is still seen as a dirty, confrontational word, while “humanism” is often a softer way to dodge the drama…since most people don’t really know what humanism means. Trust me, I used to use the label “secular humanist” a lot when I lived in Indiana and was too scared to out myself. No one had a clue what it meant and never wanted to appear stupid by asking me to explain. But now I want to keep using the word atheist until it becomes destigmatized."

Jen was talking about why she wanted to create a new label Atheist+ in prior posts. It was obvious to me that secular humanist was a good label for what she wanted to do. I had documented the substantial decline in the use of humanism and secular humanism in our language with numerous WASHline articles. Note what she is saying here:

“since most people don’t really know what humanism means.”

“No one had a clue what it (humanism) meant and never wanted to appear stupid by asking me to explain.”

This is an authentic report of the views of a younger secular woman. It accurately reflects the consciousness of her generation. The implications for WASH are obvious.

Presidential Religious Affiliations

by Gary Berg-Cross

I was surprised to read the other day an article in the Washington Post on how Mitt Romney’s nomination marks milestone for Mormon faith. The article noted how America this campaign is silently observing another milestone as Willard Romney has become the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party. This on top of the first four years ago with the election of the first African American president.

What followed in the article was breakdown of the religious affiliations of the nation's presidents. They all had one in the chart in WAPO (shown below). Who knew taht LBJ was affiliated with Disciples of Christ.  along with Garfield?
Now I had always heard that there was some debate on this. After all as Wikipedia notes:

"Throughout much of American history, the religion of past American presidents has been the subject of contentious debate. Some devout Christian Americans have been disinclined to believe that there may have been non-religious or even non-Christian presidents, especially amongst the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a result, apocryphal stories of a religious nature have appeared over the years about particularly beloved presidents such as Washington and Lincoln."

To be sure Thomas Jefferson (listed as "no specific Christian denomination" in  WAPO along with Abraham Lincoln), William Howard Taft  (Unitarian??) and Barack Obama  were all at least accused of being atheists during election campaigns. A list of U.S. presidents most widely considered to be closet atheists includes Grant too.
includes Grant who WAPO lists as Methodist. 

If it is reasonable to argue that religion teaches followers to be satisfied with not understanding the world we are condemned to have candidates for President who lack some potentially critical understanding.  It might help explain the political state we are in.

Minority Report and Getting Fair Coverage

by Gary Berg-Cross

Early on after the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida there was a notable struggle to get facts and reasoning before public. It took nearly a month for Martin's story to catch fire in the mainstream media. Mainstream, national media initially gave the story little coverage, but black media in particular, and to some degree online social media, kept the story alive. Syndicated columnist George Curry makes the point that black media have a history of covering anti-black violence, which mainstream media sometimes picks up on later.

"The black press plays a unique role, because they know right away and can recognize these kinds of stories and the value of them," Curry says.

Two African-American journalists -- Trymaine Lee of The Huffington Post and Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic, who were among the few to cover the story early. This time they weren’t the only ones. Black American TV anchors like CNN's Don Lemon, MSNBC’s Tamaron Hall (andhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Al Sharpton ) as well as major newspeople like Charles Blow at the New Times and Eugene Robinson and Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart kept the story before the public. With steady coverage there was time to get some reasoned discussion of things like “Stand Your Ground laws” and how they had come to be passed in several states.
It was also an opportunity to make the story personal as Capehart, wrote an "Under Suspicion" opinion piece about the personal tragedy of Trayvon's story, relating it back to his own experiences as an African-American teenager living in Newark, New Jersey. His piece recalled his education about the "don'ts" for an African-American youth - the list of things he shouldn't do, lest he rouse suspicion.

All of this coverage, by the way, aggravated Fox News who had to dreg up a conservative black voice to claim that the focus with its implied message of racial bias, if not hatred was unjustified. I think in contrast that many of the topics discussed were important to hear. In this it reminds me of conversations about other minority’s issues and the increasing coverage they get. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are one such who have spoken in solid support of Trayvon’s family and their quest for justice. Over time the GLBT has been able to get its issues and personal stories before the public.

One can hope that there will be a similar evolution for Atheist et al minorities. This would reflect a growing Secular Humanist media (certainly on the Internet), secular and humanist anchors and prominent newspeople to keep corresponding fairness and justice issues before the Public. The recent coverage of the Reason Rally is a small step with the discussion on UP with Chris Hayes being a good example starting with Chris openly saying that he thinks of himself as an atheist.