Study: Impact of religion on childrens ability to recognize fiction

By Mathew Goldstein

Are children innately inclined to believe that fantastical stories are true?  Or is the widespread tendency of children to believe that fantastical stories are true a result of their being taught by adults to so believe?  Kathleen H. Corriveau from the School of Education, Boston University, Eva E. Chen from the Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Paul L. Harris from the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, carried out an experiment to answer these questions and the results have been published under the title Judgments About Fact and Fiction by Children From Religious and Nonreligious Backgrounds in Cognitive Science journal.

They divided 5-6 year old children into four groups based on whether they attended religious or secular school and whether they went to church or not.  They worded the same stories three different ways: Realistic, religious miracle, non-religious magical.  Some stories featured a well known fictional or historical character (e.g. Goldilocks or Thomas Edison), other stories featured a stranger.  They asked the children to evaluate if the story was real or pretend and asked them why they reached their conclusion.  They subsequential further varied the fantastical stories four ways according to whether the event was biblical or not and was described with the word "magic" or not.

When introduced to a character via a realistic story (none of the story events violated everyday causal constraints), all four groups of children categorized the character as real. Moreover, when justifying their categorization, they appealed to the reality-bound nature of the story events. All four groups of children were less inclined to categorize the protagonist as real when the story included an explicit reference to magic.  This indicates that young children realize that stories involving real people typically include events that could actually happen.

Very few of the no religion children (secular school and no religious worship) categorized the characters embedded in the religious stories as real. Among those that did, none justified that conclusion with a reference to God.  Indeed, whenever these no religion children did refer to religion—which they sometimes did in the context of the religious stories—it was to justify a decision that the character was pretend. By contrast, the other three groups of children frequently judged the characters in the religious stories to be real. Moreover, the three groups of religious children often made an appeal to religion to defend their conclusion that the story was true.

The no religion children also categorized the characters embedded in magical stories as pretend, and most of their justifications referred to the impossibility of a central event in the story. Religious children were less likely to judge the characters in the magical stories as pretend (about 50%) and in line with this equivocation, they made more appeals to reality and fewer appeals to impossibility than did secular children.

These results suggest that children are not born believers with a belief instinct.  Young children raised without religion have little difficulty recognizing that fantastical stories are fairy tales.  Yet all young children, with their limited amount of first hand experience and knowledge, are inclined to value and accept what their parents and other adults tell them.  Exposure to religious teaching convinces young children that some agents have special power to override the causal regularities of everyday experience.  These children will then readily accept that such extraordinary powers are also wielded by agents presented to them in narratives.

Religion thus undermines the natural ability of children to distinguish fanciful fiction from constrained reality.  Unfortunately, it appears that some of this negative impact persists through adulthood and thus a cycle of religious belief and indoctrination repeats itself across generations. This dependency on childhood indoctrination also implies the perpetuation of religion is fragile and can be broken.

The Negative Consequences of Believing in Superstition - Part I.

I was perusing Ophelia Benson's Facebook page last Saturday morning and ran across a post she put up Friday about the post on Dave Muscato's wall regarding Jaclyn Glenn's Youtube video slamming feminism and how she is disappointed - no, outraged - that AA is supporting Glenn's anti-feminism.

One of the comments (which I can't find to quote, dang it) made a comment about the negative consequences of believing in superstition.  It rang a bell with me, so here we are!

There are numerous negative things religion brings to society which many religious folks either overlook or are brainwashed into thinking they are good, mainly because they believe it's good because they're told it is, but have never actually examined the issues to see what the reality is.

But today, we're going to look at a few things.

As I see it, there are at lease three major areas in which religion (believing in a superstition) brings negative consequences to society.

1. Patriarchy (Part I)
2. Sex (Part II)
3. Politics/Law (Part III)

Of course, these aren't the only things at issue, but each of these are major, affecting broad areas of society.  So, let's take them one at a time.

(This is going to be a long post, so I will post in installments.  This is the first, the others will follow tomorrow and Monday.)

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is defined as:

1.  social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly :  control by men of a disproportionately large share of power
2.  a society or institution organized according to the principles or practices of patriarchy

This sounds very clinical, and almost reasonable, doesn't it?  But what are the consequences of these things?

In the modern context of our present day political scene, the relevant part of that is about the legal dependance of women and children, though we will see other consequences of it as well.

In today's western society, especially the US, the practice of patriarchy is at least partially based on religion.  In the Republicans' "War on Women", it IS based on biblical strictures requiring men to be the head of the household, and women being denied the right to be "in charge of" men.

In other words, they are relegated to second class citizens.

Now, in the larger US society, in the last hundred or so years, we've managed to back some of that off.  Women can now own property in their own names, vote, drive cars, work outside the home (and in fact, at jobs traditionally reserved for men), and can marry (or not) according to their own wishes.

But, I am going to back things up a bit and note some negative consequences of allowing the Fundies to begin denying women those rights, as they seem to want to do - which will highlight some ways in which we have failed to progress into a more modern way of thinking about women.

First of all, think about the term "dependance" in that definition above.  Legal dependance, especially. What does that entail?  Briefly, it means a woman (or a child) has no legal rights of her own.  She has to have a male guardian who has the right to "care" for her, as a legal responsibility.

That has two consequences.  The most obvious is that she has no rights of her own.  He can pretty much force her to obey his every wish, and she has no legal recourse, unless he is neglecting her welfare.  She is, in fact, virtually his property.  In many countries, this is in fact, the case.

But wait, there's another side to it.  HE is obligated to care for her.  That means he is responsible, legally, to feed her, clothe her and provide her with shelter.  This isn't something he has a choice in, it becomes his legal obligation, for which he is liable if he fails.

What if he can't?  What if his resources aren't up to the task?  Sure, he can neglect her to her detriment, but that leaves him vulnerable to accusations of neglect which may, if his society cares, cost him.

Either way, this kind of situation isn't exactly fair to either one.  Worse for the lady, since she is the one losing rights, but if she is prevented by the social or legal rules to not be able to work, the whole family suffers.  In fact, the entire society suffers.

This is actually the worst part of the patriarchal system.  The entire society, from the individual, to the family, to the potential employer, to the city, State and the entire country, everybody suffers, both socially and economically.  To stop half of the population from working is to cut your potential GDP in half, at the very least.  Even if you only go halfway and allow women to work, but restrict them to certain jobs (and, equally, restrict men to certain jobs) you are still preventing people from working in their best way and potentially most skilled career.  The potential of people working at their best level and in a skill that they are best suited for is huge, and the frustration (for both men and women) in being prevented from doing that is as huge as the potential.  The cost of such false restrictions based on arbitrary and unnatural reasoning is perhaps not as bad as a complete ban on women working, but it is a non trivial figure.

Society suffers in other ways.  Women are, actually, as smart as men, and as capable of doing anything men can, save perhaps (on average) some jobs or tasks requiring major body strength.  (...and even there, some women exceed that standard and do quite well in those circumstances, as on the other hand, some guys fail!) In the US, after over a century of women working, there is plenty of evidence that many aspects of society are better off with the participation of women.  Corporations find that women make better organizers, deal better with adversity and are better at mediating conflict.  In politics, women (when allowed to work independently) are often better at compromise and negotiations than men.

As costs have risen in recent decades, women have been forced into the workplace, bringing in much needed resources and allowing single women to raise children alone under better economic conditions than once was allowed.

I could go on, but it is obvious from these examples (which are only a few examples of many) that were women forced back into the home, the economy of the US would take a hit that would guarantee our immediate slide into third world status.  Poverty would become, instead of merely commonplace, rampant and virtually the norm.  The middle class would be destroyed, and those in poverty would be devastated completely.

Notice that I haven't even touched on the health care aspects of women's rights, and the devastation the American family would suffer were women no longer allowed to control their reproductive rights.  In fact, the proposed restrictions on contraceptives would be devastating to not only women, but to the entire country, as it would push us back into a time where women were not capable of stopping pregnancy.  (This does, of course, include the prohibitions against abortion.)  The social consequences of this would be to push many women out of the workforce, and reinstate the social pressures against allowing women to work, with the consequences noted in the previous paragraphs.

I haven't addressed the other side of the issue, which is the damage to men a patriarchal system can and does do.

This system not only imposes restrictions on women, but imposes strict (depending on the time period and the culture involved) roles for the two different genders.  (Note here, the refusal of this system to even acknowledge the existence of the LGBT folks!)  This framework of strict roles is restrictive and limiting for both men and women.  Men may have a larger menu of choices, but they are no less prevented from crossing that line than women are.

Some women are great corporate managers.  Some are great politicians.  Some aren't.  Many men just suck at those roles, and choose to do other things, including these days, staying home to take care of the kids.  Numerous articles have been written by guys who have done this, and it is liberating for them to be able to do so.  As it is liberating for women to be able to be corporate managers.

Some guys are fantastic secretaries, or office managers, or nurses.  Men can be social workers, cooks, day care workers, pole dancers and strippers.  And they can be good at it.

Patriarchy would prevent them from doing all this, as those are not "traditional" men's jobs.

Men are forced into a false and totally artificial image of "manhood", that is as false and artificial as the image of "womanhood" the ladies are forced into.  This produces mental and psychological stress and often damage that hurts the individuals, their families and their friends - often their employers as well.

It also forces men into this culture of rape we all know so well, but I'll deal with that in the "sex" topic.

In short, patriarchy is not a system that is supportive of society, but is damaging and harmful to a society that hopes to progress into a modern, peaceful, and productive society which accords equal rights for all citizens.

In short, it is un-American, in accordance with the ideals declared by us in the Declaration of Independence.

Some of the last points I raised also apply in the next section.

Come back tomorrow for Part II!

Robert W. Ahrens
The Cybernetic Atheist

Events and Entropy are in the saddle

by Gary Berg-Cross

Ralph Waldo Emerson is supposed to have said:
"Events are in the saddle and ride mankind." 

It seems an apt image for these eventful times which are riding roughshod over humanity. Just a while ago things were bad enough with Veteran Affair scandals and the Supreme Court riding citizens, especially women, and favoring business, religious & sectarian interests with activist retro decisions. Sure there were climate change issues with a record year of temperature in 2013 and monster storms, but this all seems mild compared to the flood of happenings now. Did I mention Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan? Or someone with guns named Bundy? Sorry I am distracted. One worries that it’s a bit like climate change itself with old weather patterns shifting and new turbulences everywhere. Just a while ago scenes of families and children on our border filled headlines and the sights of the children tugged at our hearts. This has been blown away by new headlines.  The NYT captured only a tiny bit of the tumult and angst with:

A Week of Agony, From Eastern Ukraine to the Gaza Strip

Russia’s asymmetric and opportunistic proxy war in Ukraine has turned into a real war with bombing of cities and shoot downs. Events seem to be evolving to a new form of Cold War which will bring more proxy state battles, red scares and us-against-them reasoning.  The elite adults, our best and brightest, seem inefective again and the populous has lost faith in them.  While it is not yet the floodgate of the  Guns of August, we've just celebrated  the 100th anniversary of Austrian  Archduke's assassination in Sarajevo. Chaos breaths new opportunities for violence and so we see the acute escalation in another asymmetric conflict as the Israeli state bombards areas and tanks “churned into Gaza to hunt down militants raining rockets on Israel.”  

It’s déjà vu all over again with unending and escalating conflicts & crises that can’t be stopped by normal means and we drift into that helpless feeling that events and animosities are in control. Every side sees itself as victims and can justify the carnage. That's not a good long range vision and as they say eventually an eye for an eye culture leaves us blind.

A predictable, percolating fallout of this blindness is that truth and its pursuit becomes the first casualty of conflict.  Conflict is just too important to the conflicted to be covered in an objective way. Sound discussion is silenced by conflicting emotions as the 2014s gets defined as a time when “paroxysms of senseless tragedy that the world cries out for a halt.”  But there seems no easy way to halt events till “We Win!”  Or to consider it another way, peace loses.

I was foolish enough to take a book of readings on Peace for a short

vacation and the contrast between such thinking and curre,nt events was triply upsetting as I wished for more than being at peace but being able to make peace. But then the investment in armaments is much greater than the investments is peace-ments.

In human affairs we’ve had momentous times. Some leading up to war and others following it.  One thinks of WWI and its immediate aftermath which involved the two current hotbed locations of Russian with the communist revolution and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and, as discussed by Paul McGeough its dicing up by Britain’s Mark Sykes and France’s François Georges-Picot. They struck a deal on how to carve up the region should the Ottoman Empire collapse as a result of World War I. Fans included colonizing conservative pols like Winston Churchill:

”The British grabbed Palestine, attempted to set up puppet monarchies in Arabia and in 1921 cobbled together hostile peoples—Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Arabs—into the artificial and unstable kingdom of Iraq, ruled by the imposed Hashemite king Faisal. ….this form of indirect rule was "empire lite" as fashioned by Churchill, then colonial minister. “(see Cambridge historian Catherwood’s Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq)

Sure we need pols like Churchill at times that can ride events and like the feeling of control. But they can be invested in their own empires and occupations and associated visions and rhetoric that eventually un-horse us. As further discussed in McGeough's article on Mid-East borders, people are still devising ways of diving the territories up.

It’s the natural course of entropy that trends toward disorder, unless events are in the hands of a intelligent horseman.  So we’d like an intelligent horseman like FDR please. But then we'd need a whole stable of FDRs along with cultural change. Not likely, alas.

Summer reading on the question of science & religion compatibility

by Gary Berg-Cross
Dr. Gregg D. Caruso is happy to announce the publication of Science and Religion: 5 Questions . Gregg Caruso edited a collection of 33 interviews with some world's leading philosophers, scientists, theologians, apologists, and atheists.

Contributors include a Nobel Prize winning physicist, three Templeton Prize winners (well for balance?), 2 “Humanist of the Year” winners, “the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism” (New York Times), a National Humanities Medal winner, a National Medal of Science winner, a Star of South Africa Medal winner, a Carl Sagan Award winner, a National Science Board’s Public Service Medal winner, a MacArthur Fellow, a Lakatos (Math) Award winner, an Erasmus Prize winner, a “Friend of Darwin Award” winner, a “Distinguished Skeptic Award” winner, the first Muslim to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures etc.


By names it includes Simon Blackburn (one of my favorites), Susan Blackmore (another), Sean Carroll, William Lane Craig, William Dembski, Daniel C. Dennett (yes another favorite), George F.R. Ellis, Owen Flanagan, Owen Gingerich, Rebecca Goldstein, John F. Haught, Muzaffar Iqbal, Lawrence Krauss (ditto), Colin McGinn (mysterian philosopher), Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Timothy O'Connor, Massimo Pigliucci, Rev. John Polkinghorne, James "The Amazing" Randi, Alex Rosenberg, Michael Ruse, Robert John Russell, John Searle (always interesting), Michael Shermer (ditto), Victor Stenger, Robert Thurman, Michael Tooley, Charles Townes, Peter van Inwagen, Keith Ward, and I guess since we have Muslims and Reverends we need a Rabbi, so we have David Wolpe.

Here are some of the topics and questions where compatibility is confronted:

• Are science and religion compatible when it comes to understanding cosmology (the origin of the universe),
• biology (the origin of life and of the human species), 
• ethics, and the human mind (mind brain dualism, souls, & the perpetual challenge of consciousness & free will)? 

The arguments in Biology for example include the complex question of chance in nature, and religious proponents suggests that it is not clear that the process of evolution operates by chance (as is often claimed), since the process could be guided by God, and if one insists that we must regard it as operating by chance, then one seems to be begging the question. Evolutionary theory, in short, does not show that there is no design in nature, he notes, especially since it reveals the existence of incredible biological complexities, coupled with the fact that the probabilities of these occurring all throughout nature are staggeringly low. Dennett, of course takes on such arguments with counters that evolution could include many things such as "Supermanism, and he suggests that if we gave him enough time he could produce widespread belief in Supermanism."

Other topics addressed include:

• Do science and religion occupy non-overlapping magisteria? 
• Is Intelligent Design a scientific theory? 
• How do the various faith traditions view the relationship between science and religion? 
• What, if any, are the limits of scientific explanation? 
• What are the most important open questions, problems, or challenges confronting the relationship between science and religion, and what are the prospects for progress? 

For interested parties the book is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/8792130518

More info at: www.greggcaruso.com

Jesus the Madman

This post is not about the mythical Jesus of Nazareth. There is another myth recorded by Josephus, a renowned historian who has much of his writings preserved. I have been reading Richard Carrier's new book On the Historicity of Jesus. The data in that book sheds some illumination of a vast variety of confusions that people might have about this region and its people during the time when Christianity evolved. As a partial aside Carrier did not think that Jesus came from Nazareth even if it were logically possible for that to happen. His view is that the first Christians were a cult called Nazarenes, which had nothing to do with Nazareth. The Greek word that was later presumed to refer to Nazareth was a form that normally would have nothing to do with a town called Nazareth. The mythical person called, Jesus of Nazareth, would supposedly been killed in about 30CE.

The Jesus of the current post is likewise part of a mythical story. We would think this because this myth has a number of magical events such as “a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city” and “chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds.” It is a different Jesus because the death of this Jesus would be closer the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70CE and this Jesus was “the son of Ananus.” Besides being roughly four decades after the crucifixion of Christ there is no reference to any divinity or relationship with God. This Jesus is just determined in the story to be a madman. The astonishing fact is that researchers have found over 20 elements of commonality between this myth and thee classical Christian myth. Carrier suggests that “this story inspired the general outline of Mark's entire Passover Narrative.”

The complete text from a translation of the Josephus text in “The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem” is included below.

3. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star (20) resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews' rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, (21) [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb

in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner (22) [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to

deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, "Let us remove hence." But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, (23) began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and

the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and

dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!" And just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.

Root Differences Between Theism and Naturalism

By Mathew Goldstein

Some of you may be acquainted with Tom W. Clark and his excellent naturalism.org web site. In 2007 Mr. Clark published an article titled When Worldviews Collide: Root Differences Between Theism and Naturalism which discusses his impression of a debate between theist philosophers Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro and atheist philosopher Andrew Melnyk. I do not have strong opinions on many controversies, particularly regarding questions that focus on technical questions requiring expertise that we non-experts do not possess, but with this debate I am unequivocally in agreement with the atheist side. One of the reasons I am so comfortable taking sides here is that the only expertise that is needed to evaluate this controversy, despite the academic rigor of the discussion, is a decent general education. 

I very much agree with Tom Clark's analysis that at the bottom of the disagreement between the theists and atheists (a.k.a. naturalists) is a different approach to evidence, or in the words of Tom Clark "The debate reveals some rather different ideas about what counts as good evidence, good explanation, and admissible argument.... disagreements about the explanatory potential of dualism, about the epistemic status of intuitions and data ...." 

As Tom Clark argues, "A striking methodological difference between the two sides, one that helps explain their differing takes on reality (dualist vs. monist), has to do with the status of what T&G call first person data. They put great stock in the validity of what they believe are widespread and commonsensical intuitions about metaphysical matters, intuitions deriving from personal experience.... But from a philo-scientific perspective, the claim that some intuitions or experiences wear truth on their sleeve and can’t be second-guessed is to let the tail of data wag the dog of theory.... We shouldn’t trust intuitions, however widely they might be shared, as direct apprehensions of what’s real since they are notoriously unreliable: mass delusion is possible.  Instead, we must test intuitions against objective evidence."

Mr Clark continues: "Transparency and reliability come from having specified and verified the existence of all entities, mechanisms, and events that participate in the explanation, such that there’s nothing mysterious or ad hoc involved.... A transparent explanation, at least for naturalists, can’t have gaping holes, filled with unexplained, ad hoc explainers. If some things currently escape explanation, so be it; that simply makes life more interesting." In other words, theists have an unfortunate tendency to mistake weak arguments for strong arguments as a result of applying a too lax standard regarding what qualifies as reliable supporting evidence. Or, as Mr Clark says "Yet their departures from good philo-scientific practice can best be explained, I think, as a function of putting the desideratum of a purposive reality above the desiderata of explanatory transparency, evidential reliability and cognitive coherence."

Narrow, Religious & Business Exemptions?

By  Gary Berg-Cross

In its Hobby Lobby case decision the supremely, un-supreme court approved (rammed down our throat?) yet again another religious exemptions….for business.  It is yet another activist judge fallout from a Clinton era, federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act  (RFRA) passed by Congress to “protect individuals' religious freedoms.”  OK you have to now

translate “individual” to “company boss’s” (with firm religious beliefs).  And it’s supposedly just for contraception, that special religious sensitive area of human life.  It’s a religious liberty according to Justice Alito who saw boss liberty as in danger. Bosses with religious convictions, it seems to some, are under siege and feeling less free. They need some protection from this big, insensitive, secular government that is intruding on their exercise of belief. 

One may ask about the protection of employees, but this intrusion and harm seemed not to trouble Alito. His position seems to be something like “side effects are NOT going to happen if I say they won't happen.” There’ no explanation beyond that. No more reasoning about why this doesn’t open a door to something more. Justice Ginzburg could see some likely downside:

 

"The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage"

And she offered some rationale why the ruling seems unreasonable:

"Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community."

 

On the potential slippery slope we have quickly learned that “Other corporations are going to jump in and take advantage of this I assume and say, ‘well wait a minute, our corporation doesn’t like this or our fundamental founders of our corporation doesn’t like that.’  Based on that, we should be able to opt out of provisions of Obamacare also and get away from that for our employees,” Analyst Greg Skordas

As widely noted this ruling was dressed up as one of those narrow decisions, but it seems to me more like another camel’s business-and-religion-friendly nose under the secular tent.  The rulings words say that it applies only to closely held private or companies whose owners have “deeply held” religious objections to certain forms of contraception. How narrow is that? It depends on understanding terms like closely held.  How many of US companies might fall into this category?  Well mom and pops qualify, but so might a company employing 10,000 people if held by a family of 5. One notes that Hobby Lobby itself has 600 stores with about 30,000 employees. They aren’t the biggest either.  Mars Inc., the family-owned candy giant, takes in $33 billion in revenues and has about 72,000 employees. Closely held Cargill Inc. takes in more than $136 billion in revenue and has about 140,000 employees. Indeed, roughly 90% of all companies in the U.S. are closely held, according to a 2000 study by the Copenhagen Business School. And they account for up to 50% of business. So there is a sneaky scope here despite what it is called.  What’s going on?

 

We've seen this type of opening before, although people have a short memory, the current problem has a long history. The spate of court decisions seems like part of incremental trend to slowing, but actively turn laws in a very business and religious faith friendly direction.  Certainly is friendly to those who are anti-choice. As Vox noted “since 2010, states have moved aggressively to restrict access to abortion and taken new steps to defund family planning programs.“ The wave of changes seems unprecedented and some see its roots in an:

unholy alliance of conservative greed, reactionary politicians and oppressive religious fanatics, which has a pinnacle of power in the Supreme Court, ‘

The core of conservative justices we have now seem more like a gaggle of politicians in judicial clothing that have slumped into shallower and shallower thinking in the service of some growing solstice of ideology.

One way of understanding this trend and its Supreme Court connection is to go back to lobbyist

& Nixon appointed justice Lewis F. Powell (see an earlier blog on Powell and Corporate Blueprints). This is a pre-Bork time but some of the politicization & hidden agendas we see in the court today goes back to Powell’s detailed plan, formalized in a secret 8 pg. memo entitled “Attack of American Free Enterprise System.” This was written to activate and engage the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The message then was familiar now, “become more aggressive in molding politics and law in the US.”  This is the aggression we see in increasingly polarized & politicized elements of our society. The consensus view is that the Powell memo, together with efforts by other proto-neocons, like Jewish Conservative Irving Kristol, united Chamber-types, reactionaries and Wall Street plutocrats crystallized an ideological vision that was emerging in early neocon circles. With this type of money and well placed backers the result established a opaque cabal of right-wing think tanks and lobbying organizations like the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Accuracy in Academe, and Fox News. They in turn provided the ideological seeds, political cover & groundwork for these religio-corporatist movements that this type of Supreme Court grows out of. They can all be traced directly to subversive spirit & full-spectrum methods outlined in the Powell blueprint manifesto against progressive values, secularism, & the American left.

So in June, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that, under RFRA, corporations counting as people - their sincere religious belief that “life begins at conception" also get protection.

In other words “Freedom for Bosses' Religious Beliefs.” We have to stay tuned and alert. Sincerely secularly but also politically-astutely alert.

Money for unions, but not corporations, is compelled political speech!?

By Mathew Goldstein

The Supreme Court recently announced its latest decisions.  We now know that a conservative majority is giving priority to the religious free exercise claims of commercial and non-profit institutions and their owners over the freedom and health of employees and general applicability of religiously impartial, secular laws to all citizens.  They are also giving priority to the self-interests of employers over employees.

The conservative majority concluded in Citizens v. United that corporations have a free expression right to use corporate profits in their general treasury for partisan political activism even when employees, or stock investors, disagree with content of the corporation's speech.  Investors and employees are thus compelled to finance partisan political speech that they disagree with.   After all, a significant portion of the money that corporations are spending on politics is financed by equity capital provided by pension funds — capital contributions employees finance with their paychecks without an option to select the individual companies.  This is currently considered to be constitutional.  Yet, if executives and shareholders could not use their corporation to advance political positions, nothing would prevent those people who are executives and shareholders from making any speech they want, or spending any of their own money to disseminate that speech.

When a majority of employees vote for union representation, the union is compelled to bargain on behalf of all the employees in the bargaining unit, including anti-union employees.  The employees can subsequently vote for different union leadership, to change unions, or to go without a union.  It logically follows that all bargaining unit employees can be compelled to pay a union a fee each year to cover the costs of this union representation.  Employees can voluntarily pay an additional union membership fee to qualify for optional union membership benefits or they can donate to a union affiliated PAC.  The union can then utilize this extra voluntary income to finance partisan political activity. But to compel employees to pay a union fee for collective bargaining still supports the functioning of the union, and unions, along with corporations, now have a right to engage in partisan political advocacy.  Accordingly, the conservative majority recently declared in Harris v. Quinn that compelled collective bargaining fees are unconstitutional compelled speech.  Unions must now depend on employees being self-sacrificing idealists for financing of their primary collective bargaining function.

So employees and investors are compelled to support the partisan political speech of corporations, unions are compelled to represent all of the bargaining unit employees, and employees cannot be compelled to pay the union for collective bargaining because unions can engage in partisan political speech.  Is this what the constitution says according to the conservative majority?  Do they really think this makes sense?  Can someone tell me that I am misunderstanding what the conservative majority is doing?  The way I see this, at a minimum, pension plans now need to ensure that employees are not compelled to indirectly finance corporate political speech by granting employees an opt out from investing their money in any companies that they disagree with.   Until they do, pension funds will be vulnerable to the challenge that they are violating the First Amendment. After they do, pension funds will incur additional expense to provide this opt-out.

If there are legitimate and principled reasons for heavily discounting the legitimacy of the political advocacy of organized labor while simultaneously exalting the legitimacy of the political advocacy of organized capital, then let's hear the conservative majority try to explain what they are. It would make much more sense to acknowledge that both corporations and unions have economic functions that need to be kept separate from their partisan political activities. Their secondary partisan political activity should be financed separately from their primary economic functions via a PAC. We should rely on a separate category of corporation for journalism companies that can engage in partisan advocacy but not engage in other types of commerce. The conservative majority is unnecessarily creating a big, complicated, mess by using a free speech rationale to combine the economic functions of corporations and unions with their partisan political activities.