Is it Racist to Criticize Islam?

            It almost goes without saying that the subject of Islam is a bit of a hot button these days. Conflicts sprout up on an almost daily basis, and rare is the month that goes by without some form of atrocity getting committed by some person or group claiming Islamic inspiration. Whether it’s mass kidnappings of young girls, beheading members of other religions, rioting and even outright mass murder over cartoons of their prophets, suicide bombings, inter-sect warfare, or whatever new item that comes up in the news, it’s hard for an outsider to come away with a positive impression of the faith these days.

            At the same time, Islam does not lack for defenders even among those who decry these atrocities. It’s not unusual at all for non-Muslims to excuse the religion from culpability, claiming that the perpetrators aren’t “true” Muslims, or that those who level criticism are being Islamophobic or even racist. And sometimes, such defenders may even have a point, because it’s also not unusual for people to go way over the top in broadly labeling everyone who bears a Muslim identity as a potential threat. But on the other hand… not so much.

            Of course, the easy response to claims that criticism of Islam is racist is that Islam is not a race. But as true as that is, it also kind of glosses over the fact that opposition to Islam is often used as a mask to justify anti-Arab bigotry. I’ve read more than a few articles about people condemning a community of Arab ethnicity for their Muslim beliefs, when the community was in fact majority Christian. Since it’s not acceptable in modern America to attack people simply for being Arab, people do sometimes attack the religion associated with being Arab as a sort of racism-by-proxy.

            The other issue that such a glib response tends to gloss over is the fact that religious bigotry is a thing. It’s not technically racism, but it’s still bigotry.

            So am I saying that it may not be racist (at least not directly) to criticize Islam, but it’s still bigoted to do so? Well, no, that’s not what I’m saying either. The point is that both sides kind of have to exercise a bit of nuance and critical thinking on the subject. Look at the circumstances, the context, and the content of the criticism. Generally speaking, if someone is criticizing Islam because it’s something strange, brown people practice, then it’s probably racist criticism. If someone is criticizing Islam by lumping everyone who identifies by that label into the stereotype of violent misogynist, it’s probably religious bigotry of some stripe. For that matter, if someone is opposing a particular idea simply because it’s Islamic, that is also probably religious bigotry.

            But there are legitimate criticisms of Islam. As a religion and an ideology, Islam is a collection of ideas (though not necessarily the same collection from one person to another). Some of those ideas - such as encouragement of charity and community responsibility - are good or could have good arguments made in their favor. We shouldn’t reject those ideas merely because they are Islamic. Some of them - such as the ideas that Allah exists and has marching orders to give us, Muhammad was a god-inspired prophet who conveys those orders, or that people who stop believing either of those ideas should be killed - are bad. We shouldn’t refrain from criticizing those ideas merely because they’re Islamic. Ideas, religious or not, are legitimate targets of criticism, and opposing the bad ideas contained in Islam is not the same being bigoted towards Muslims or toward any particular race.

            Once again, we return to a recurring theme that comes up in my blog: one of the great bad ideas of religion is the packaging of ideas together under a defining monolithic label. The good ideas (and indoctrination) can be used to generate deep commitment to the monolith, which in turn makes it incredibly fraught to try and attack the bad ideas. Such attacks are perceived as assaults on the monolith itself, and with it the good ideas that it contains. So you end up with situations where people refuse to question whether their religion’s creation myths are true, because that implies questioning the authority of the religion that proclaimed it, which in turn implies questioning that same religion’s pronouncements against murder. But there’s no logical link between the myth and the moral pronouncement other than the fact that they both got packaged into the religion. Breaking these kinds of links is one of the reasons that criticism of religion is essential to a progressing society.

             So to bring the topic back around, I guess the answer to the question in the title of this post is “not necessarily.” The mere practice of criticizing Islam (or any other religion) is not inherently racist or even bigoted. But there are ways to use the excuse of criticism to engage in racism and religious bigotry. It’s up to all of us to think carefully about the criticism we encounter, as well as the criticism we produce, to ensure that we are avoiding those pitfalls.

Do Atheists Really Hate Carrie Underwood’s New Song?

            This originally came up a few months ago, but seemed to blow over before I had the chance to complete a post addressing it. But it has recently resurfaced, and it annoys me, so I thought I’d say something about it.

            Now, if you don’t frequent explicitly Christian or atheist web sites, or aren’t a big country music fan, you may not even be aware of the fact that Carrie Underwood released a song a little while back called “Something in the Water.” It wasn’t long before claims started popping up on the internet that atheists were “attacking” Underwood for singing about her faith, and trying to get her song banned.

            This came as a surprise to me when I first heard about it, since I’m not a country music fan and therefore hadn’t followed Underwood’s career at all. Also, I frequent a few atheist sites, and hadn’t heard a peep from any of them about her new song. In fact, the first time I’d seen any atheist blogger mention “Something in the Water,” was in response to the sudden proliferation of accusations that atheists were attacking the singer. And that response (as well as all the attached comments) appeared just as blindsided by the accusation as I was.

            Figuring there must be something really incendiary in the song to make people think atheists would be offended by it, I went and looked up the lyrics. It’s a pretty standard, cookie-cutter Christian “My life used to suck, then I found Jesus, and now everything is peachy,” story. There’s really not much in there to get riled up about, and it’s not like Underwood is the first (or even the seventy-first) country star to record feel-good god-music. This was looking pretty hinky to me.

            So I looked up some of the accusatory posts. This one is pretty typical. In fact, several sites were running this exact wording, verbatim. You notice anything interesting about it?

            In case you didn’t follow the link (or did, and just didn’t notice what I did), it’s this: there’s no attribution. No quote from an atheist speaker, writer, blogger, or what-have-you voicing a condemnation of the song. No links to any news story or blog post in which an atheist has anything to say about it at all. But there is a link to a video for the song, and a strong encouragement for people to view and share the song to support Carrie against us mean, nasty atheists.

            That’s when it hit me: this is someone’s idea of a promotional ploy!

            The atheist persecution of Carrie Underwood for “Something in the Water,” is entirely made up. It’s an invention, out of nothing, for the purpose of driving traffic to her song video. And it says a lot of very nasty things about those who made it up, those who repeated it, and those who responded to it.

            First, it’s built on the lie that atheists are actively offended by the mere fact that someone believes in the Christian god, and that we wish to ban all religious expression. For the most part, we aren’t and we don’t. It’s efforts to impose those belief structures on, and to demonize, us and everyone else that tends to offend us. This song represents nothing of the kind. This is, itself, an extension of the fake persecution complex in which certain segments of American Christians like to cloak themselves; if you can’t really be persecuted, at least you can pretend to be.

            Second, it absolutely relies on the intended audience not looking into the facts or even thinking about what they read. It’s so blatantly manipulative that it’s hard to believe anyone takes it seriously… until you read the comment sections and start to see posts from people who absolutely believe it’s true and are spewing anti-atheist vitriol in response.

            Third, the underlying mode of thinking is just plain ugly. Whoever came up with this idea didn’t say to people “You should listen to this song because it’s good,” or “You should listen to this song because you will find it inspirational.” The message they decided to go with was “You should listen to this song because atheists hate it, and you hate atheists.”

            The results are predictably toxic. A few more Christians convinced to see atheists as evil bogeymen, a few more atheists convinced to see Christians as unreasonable hate-mongers. More division and rancor where none was called for, all to drive a little more click traffic to a music video. And that’s if I’m being charitable – it’s entirely possible that the division and rancor were the actual goals of the campaign in the first place.

            In the grand scheme, this little dustup is not that important. It’s just a country singer singing about one of the topics country singers tend to sing about, and a little accompanying publicity flap. I don’t even think that Underwood herself is responsible for it – I have yet to find a quote from her one way or the other that actually relates to this particular event. But I think it is illustrative of the way some people are happy to use religious identity as a weapon to sow division and a tool to promote their own agenda. I hope that we can all strive to be better than to fall for it.

Should We Mock Religion?

            This is a post that has actually been very difficult for me to write. It started out several weeks ago, in a fairly lighthearted and irreverent tone. But I was still trying to flesh it out and finish it off last week, when a group of armed men slaughtered unarmed cartoonists at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in the names of Allah and Mohammed. That prompted me to scrap much of what I’d already written in favor of a much angrier and more strident post.

            But I’m a slow writer, which means that I’ve had some time to think more soberly about the subject and start to see some of the more alarming responses to that tragedy before finally completing the article. I should say up front that these events have not changed my essential conclusion, though they may have added some nuance to what I want to say about it and altered the tone of my presentation. We’ll get to that conclusion in a moment.

            The question of whether we should mock religion is a subject of debate within atheist communities, and one that at times creates some fairly sharp divisions. After all, in many cases we are talking about deeply held beliefs that many people regard as being at the very core of their identity. It’s an emotionally fraught issue with many pitfalls and much potential to create rancor. Plus there’s the strategic consideration that doing so might simply make us look mean or disrespectful in ways that could make it harder for people who might otherwise agree with the aims of atheist or humanist organizations to ally with them. These are all reasonable arguments for why it might not be the best of ideas for atheists to mock religions.

            And, as yet another group of extremists has just so forcibly reminded us, some people really are willing to kill over it.

            So, in the face of all of that, the question is placed even more forcefully before us: should we mock religion? And to me, the answer remains what it has always been: yes.

            All of us, believer and unbeliever alike, should mock religion whenever and wherever it strikes us as ridiculous. Note that I’m not saying we should mock religion just because it’s religion. Nor am I saying that all ideas contained in religious traditions deserve mockery. I’m saying that whenever a belief or behavior strikes us a ridiculous, then we should feel free to say so even when those beliefs and behaviors are rooted in religion. Preferably with at least a modicum of wit and sensitivity, but ultimately that’s a matter of taste and talent. The long and the short of it is that we are free to ridicule ideas that are ridiculous, and the religious label should not confer automatic immunity.

            Too often, society tries to shield religious ideas from criticism by insisting that we must treat them seriously. Even if we don’t share them, even if they seem like the most uproariously ridiculous thing we’ve ever heard in our lives, any beliefs with the label “religious” on them must be treated with the utmost respect.             But that’s an intellectually bankrupt way to defend any idea. It forgoes any notion of the ideas having merit of their own and simply declares that we’re not allowed to criticize them. If the ideas are worthwhile, they will withstand criticism and mockery, and be stronger for having done so.

            But most (if not all) people (myself included) hold at least some ridiculous beliefs. Many times, we accept them simply because they are considered normal in the culture in which we were raised – this cultural acceptance can deprive us of the ability to recognize their absurdity. Ridicule can help to break down this barrier, and allow us to take a fresh look at ideas we may never have realized seem laughable to others. It’s a chance to step outside our own perspective and look at the ideas anew. Mockery, at its heart, is the use of humor to express criticism. It won’t work for everyone, obviously, but no single approach does. The more we restrict the avenues by which to approach criticism of any ideas, the more we hinder ourselves from ferreting out the good and the bad ones.

            In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, we’ve seen all kinds of outpourings over the free expression issue. Notable among these have been the equivocations from religious speakers to the effect that, while the murders were unacceptable, it’s kind of the paper’s own fault for insulting Islam. Pope Francis made headlines just the other day for stating publicly that it’s natural for insults to be met with violence, and that “you cannot make fun of faith.” I suppose this shocked a lot of people, since the Pope has been building a reputation as a compassionate and reasonable man, but it didn’t surprise me at all. He has to say that. Because he knows that if he concedes that we can make fun of faith in general, then we can make fun of his in particular. He knows that his is no more able to stand up to it than any other, and he’s the leader of an organization that is built on the need to be taken very seriously indeed. Religious leaders of all creeds know the same thing true for their own faiths as well. That’s the reason why they support a consensus that all religious faith, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to anyone on the outside, must be treated seriously.

            It’s a gentleman’s agreement to avoid Mutually Assured Mockery.

            But if an idea is ridiculous, then it is by definition deserving of ridicule. Slapping the label “religious” on a ridiculous idea doesn’t magically transform it into a respectable idea. It remains ridiculous, and shielding it from ridicule remains unjustified. From a non-Mormon perspective, “Wear magic underwear,” is a ridiculous idea. From a non-Muslim perspective, “You deserve to die if you draw the dude who rode the magic winged horse,” is a ridiculous idea. From a non-Christian perspective “You owe everything to a dude because he died for you, even though he’s still alive (just invisible now),” is a ridiculous idea.

            And, among the most ridiculous ideas ever devised is that anyone should be killed for making fun of ridiculous ideas. That idea is a joke. The extremists who supported and pulled off this attack are jokes. Sick, twisted, dangerous jokes they may be, but their reverence for the imagined honor of a centuries-dead warlord is rendered more ridiculous by their willingness to kill over it, not less. It makes their ideas more deserving of mockery, not less. The difference between their behavior and that of a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum is only the fact that they have guns in hand while they squall their infantile rage. At best, the violence can make us fear them for the danger created by their temper tantrums, but they cannot make us respect the ideas they purport to defend by throwing them.

             In other words, the unreasoned and violent demand that religious belief be above mockery even by those who don’t share them is, in and of itself, a reason for mockery. If you tell me “God will not be mocked,” I respond “Yes, yes he will. And if he has a reasoned objection, he’s welcome to show himself and explain it.”

            But while we’re on the subject… mock atheists and atheist ideas if that’s your inclination. It’s not like we’re above a little ego deflation ourselves.

            So now, having said all that, there’s no reason to be a dick about it. My point is that humor has a role to play in how religions and religious beliefs are addressed; that not only can we mock faith, but sometimes we may even be obligated to do so. It is most emphatically not that we should be asses to people, or that we should never take their feelings into account. Nor should we spend so much attention on making fun of religions that we fail to even think about when and where they make worthwhile points. If you are using humor to shut down your own compassion or critical thinking, you’re probably doing it wrong. But in no case can we concede that the religious label is a blanket shield against any idea being the butt of a joke.

 

And now, for your amusement...

 

Does an Atheist Life Have Meaning?

            As we come to the beginning of a new year, a time that many people traditionally treat as an opportunity to take stock of their lives, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on what gives our lives meaning.

            One of the theist criticisms of atheism that seems to come up with great frequency is that atheism makes life meaningless. I always find it odd when this criticism is brought up in debates about the existence of gods, since it’s a complete non sequitur. Whether or not a god can give your life meaning has no bearing at all on whether a god exists.

            But I’m not going to go into a detailed discussion on the problems with that line of argument. This post isn’t about that. It’s about how I, as an atheist, deal with the question of meaning in my life. It’s a question that so many people ask themselves in the course of their lives, and one with many see as an obstacle to adopting an atheistic world view: what does my life mean?

            I’ll come right out and say this up front: atheism cannot tell you what your life means. It cannot even tell you that your life has any objective meaning whatsoever. So, if you’re looking to be told what your life means, it’s not going to happen here. For that matter, I’m not even going to tell you what my life means. And it’s not that I’m keeping anything from you, but rather that I can’t tell you what it means.

            The reason for this is fairly simple: meaning is inherently subjective. Nothing in all the world means anything, unless it means something to someone. What’s more, most anything you can think of won’t mean the same thing to everyone, nor will it mean the same thing to you at different points in your life. As far as I can tell, the whole idea of “objective meaning” may very well be nonsense. I’m not even sure that it’s something that’s desirable, especially not for something as complex as a human life. Can you imagine how unutterably dull it would be for the meaning your life to be able to be boiled down to something simple enough to be understood exactly the same way by everyone regardless of their perspective? Isn’t that what an objective meaning would be? I actually find that idea rather bleak and colorless.

            My life, and its meaning, is constantly evolving even just with respect to me. I understand myself differently now than I did last year, which was different from how I understood myself ten years ago. Everyone whose life has touched mine has left some of their influence behind, and taken away some of my influence with them. The meaning of my life will be different for them than it has been for me. The girl to whom I was a lousy boyfriend in high school will assign different meaning to my life than will my son or daughter. I don’t see any reason to want to erase all that different perspective, the rich interplay of how lives affect each other, how meanings interweave throughout our lives, in favor of some idea of “objective meaning” that I can only think cheapens the whole notion of meaning.

            Some argue that the temporary nature of an atheist existence renders all of this ultimately meaningless. To this mindset, only an eternal existence beyond mere materiality has any meaning at all, by virtue of its permanence. I don’t see it. Given eternity, it’s a virtual certainty that eventually all that can be done will be, all meaning that can be mined will be, and then still you’re left existing on and on. That doesn’t seem any more meaningful to me than a temporary existence. Actually, it seems less meaningful to me.

            In this life, I will never learn what “everything means.” And, probably, nobody else will either. But that’s because meaning will be constantly changing, constantly evolving. There are always new meanings for everyone to find, for everyone to create, and yes, for everyone to forget only to be discovered anew by someone further down the line. I want my life to mean something positive to as many people as it can, but I also want it to mean something different to as many people as it can. Meaning is dynamic, subjective, and yes, temporary. In my mind, that’s what makes it beautiful and, not to put too fine a point on it, meaningful.

What War on Christmas?

            I guess I’m a bad little atheist culture warrior. Here it is, mid-December already, and while conservative Christians were already declaring the onset of hostilities all the way back in October, I still haven’t fired a single shot in the War on Christmas. I haven’t demanded that a single church take down its nativity scene, or threated to boycott a store because their greeter or cashier said “Merry Christmas,” to me. I haven’t even vandalized any baby Jesus statues. It’s almost like I’m not fighting the War at all! Why not? Am I just bad at this atheism thing?

            Or am I just like the vast majority of atheists, who aren’t waging a war on Christmas at all? Who do, in fact, find the very notion of such a war absurd? You do know, don’t you, that when Bill O’Reilly announces the War on Christmas every year, the only notice most atheists give to the idea is to make a passing joke? You know that, right?

            The War on Christmas is a joke. Sure, one side (I’ll give you a hint: not the atheists) thinks it’s a real serious thing^TM, but to the rest of us, it’s a joke. And it’s not even a “Flying Spaghetti Monster,” kind of joke, where we actively participate in writing it and spreading it. It’s the kind where all we have to do is sit back and watch the one and only side actively participating in their own made-up war stumbling around jousting at shadowy caricatures and taking it all oh-so-seriously. The participants make a joke of themselves, and we laugh.

            “But wait!” you may say, “Atheists really do try to take down nativity scenes, and people really do try to make stores say ‘Happy Holidays,’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas!’”

            You’re right, of course. But these things have nothing to do with a War on Christmas.

            Let’s talk about nativity scenes, to start. This is a straight-up church/state separation issue, and has nothing to do with trying to get rid of Christmas. Any person, business, church, private organization, whatever, has every right to put whatever religious iconography they choose on their private property. You may see an individual atheist here and there getting indignant over them, but by and large we really don’t care. In fact, I happen to like Christmas decorations and fully endorse such displays. When it becomes an issue, when lawsuits get involved, is when nativity scenes are put on public property (by which I mean “property held by the government,” not “property that happens to be in a publicly visible place,”) to the exclusion of all other religious messages. It has nothing to do with Christmas itself, and everything to do with the government endorsing a particular religious belief over all others.

            Moving on, we can talk about store greeters saying “Happy Holidays,” or “Seasons Greetings,” instead of “Merry Christmas.” This is, of course, related to a couple little secrets that are known to only a very select few people, so of course you can be forgiven if you don’t know about them. The first secret is this: there is more than one holiday being celebrated at this time of year (for example: Chanukah, Yule, Solstice, Kwanzaa, New Year, etc.). The second, even more deeply held secret, is that not everybody celebrates Christmas!

It may be appropriate to take a pause here while you pick yourself up off the floor, and to let those two secrets sink in.

            OK now? Are you ready to move on to thinking about the implications? Here are a few of them that you may want to chew over. You see, by and large the greeters and cashiers at the store (especially the big chain ones) don’t know every – or even a large percentage – of the people who come through. They don’t know what holidays you do or do not celebrate. Saying “Merry Christmas,” to a complete stranger who might be, say, Jewish, or Muslim, or Wiccan, or even a Christian of a denomination that doesn’t celebrate Christmas, would be a complete non sequitur. As would be saying “Happy Chanukah” to a Christian. But “Happy Holidays” covers just about everyone (even people who don’t celebrate any of the seasonal holidays, since they’ll probably be getting a holiday off of work at the very least). It even includes Christians. It is not an attempt to erase Christmas, it’s an attempt to include non-Christians in the generally festive atmosphere engendered by having so many seasonal celebrations clustered together.

            I am not saying that “Merry Christmas,” is offensive. I am saying it’s not necessarily an appropriate thing to say to a stranger who might not celebrate it. Especially if it’s not even Christmas Day – and remember, retailers are spreading out the holiday buying season over longer and longer periods of time. If you’re not careful, you’ll be saying “Merry Christmas” to a Jewish person in the middle of Chanukah, three weeks before Christmas, and making yourself (and, by extension, your employer) look like a complete tool. If, like most businesses, your goal is to appeal positively to the widest possible selection of customers, “Happy Holidays,” only makes sense.

            When you demand, on threat of boycott, that stores acknowledge your holiday and only your holiday to the exclusion of everyone else’s (which is what demands for greeters to say “Merry Christmas” amount to), you are not defending your faith from attack. You are demanding that it be privileged above everyone else’s beliefs. That’s not a War on Christmas, it’s a War by Christmas on all other holidays. I’m quite certain there are many Christians who are fully aware of this, and press the war anyway because they believe it is only right and proper for their beliefs to dominate and overshadow all others. But many actually do seem to believe that there is an active effort to destroy or erase their holiday. I want to assure them that this just isn’t so.

            Having discussed those two issues, I’d just like to say a little something about Christmas itself. Most Americans – including many non-Christians – celebrate some version of Christmas. Some of us love the heck out of it. A war on something we celebrate and enjoy would be nonsensical in the extreme. Sure, we may not celebrate for the same reasons Christians do, but here’s the thing: we’re not obligated to. Culturally, Christmas has come to signify family togetherness, and a celebration of love and generosity both within your family and within the wider community. But you’re not obligated to see it that way if you’d rather focus on its religious side. I really can’t stress enough how much it really, really doesn’t bother us if religious people want to celebrate a religious Christmas. It’s the constant demands that people who don’t share your beliefs behave as if they do, and that their own beliefs are and ought to be invisible, that prompts the kinds of pushback you receive.

            In the end, secular America is not trying to take Christmas away from you. We’re not trying to tell you that you can’t have Christ in your Christmas. You can have your pageants, and your extra church services, and your nativity displays, and none of us have much to say about it other than “enjoy!” In the meantime, I will celebrate my Christmas how I choose, and I will happily wish everyone the greatest possible enjoyment of whatever version of whatever holiday they happen to be celebrating this time of year.

            Happy Holidays!

What Would Change Your Mind?

Atheists are often asked what it would take to convince us that a god exists.

There are a number of throwaway answers to that question that it might be tempting to give you. Perhaps if the moon were suddenly covered in flaming letters readable in every language simultaneously, or if the stars suddenly rearranged themselves to spell out a divine message, that would be convincing. Perhaps if God himself descended in glorious flames to tell me personally that he was there, I could be persuaded. And really, I could toss any of those out as the answer to the question, but I think it would be dishonest to do so. Because I don’t know that any of them would convince me.

After all, depending how these various revelations might manifest themselves, there could be natural explanations for any of them. These might range from hallucination, to natural phenomenon, to intervention by ultra-advanced aliens, to some explanation that I haven’t yet even conceived.

There’s this concept/joke in engineering: unobtainium (yes, the word existed before James Cameron created his MacGuffin for the Avatar movie). It refers to a hypothetical material that has all the properties you need in order to solve an engineering problem, except for the fact that it doesn’t (and often can’t) exist. It’s called unobtainium because it’s literally not obtainable, and that’s why appealing to it is a joke. I kind of see appealing to God as an explanation for a mystery as being like designing for unobtainium. Except that if I suggest that I can solve a problem with unobtainium, the other engineers laugh and then we go find a real solution. If I suggest that I can explain a mystery with God, large portions of the population not only take that as a real explanation, they will act as if it is nigh criminal to set that aside and go looking for a real explanation.

The thing is, no engineering problem has ever been solved by sticking with unobtainium. Nobody ever built a bridge or flew a rocket into orbit by throwing up their hands and declaring that it simply couldn’t be done until we discover unobtainium. And nobody ever made a discovery about how the world works by throwing up their hands and declaring the mystery couldn’t be solved without a god. All of our experience tells us that it’s irresponsible to declare “God did it,” and stop looking for any other explanation.

And here’s the thing: we will never discover unobtainium. By it’s nature, it’s undefined because it is literally whatever is needed to solve whatever problem you have. If we have a problem, and discover a material that solves it, that material will be something defined. It wouldn’t qualify as unobtainium. And God is the same way: the concept, at least in Abrahamic religions, has evolved to become the being that has whatever properties are needed to solve any mystery (and yes, I do mean evolved – the earliest portions of the Bible don’t really describe the sort of being modern Christians describe when arguing for their God). That means it is inherently undefined, so how would you ever identify it if you saw it?

So what it all comes down to is that I don’t see how I could be convinced to change my mind. I can only imagine it would have to be some sort of experience so emotionally overwhelming that it overrides the sorts of concerns I’ve raised here and elsewhere. I won’t say that it’s impossible that I might have such an experience, because absolute certainties are few and far between in life, if any exist at all.

On the other hand, all Abrahamic religions and many others as well feature rather prominently at least one character who knows absolutely what it would take to convince me: their god. I would think that an omniscient god would know exactly what would convince me that it exists, an omnipotent one would be able to do it, and an omnibenevolent one would want to do it. So maybe that’s in my future.

But I don’t think it’s likely.

Is the Constitution Based on the Ten Commandments?

One of the more ridiculous claims one sometimes comes across in church/state separation debates is that the US Constitution is based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. This is one of those claims that makes you wonder how anyone can confidently make assertions about the content of the documents, when those assertions make it plain that they haven’t read either of them. And that’s leaving aside the question of what the Ten Commandments actually are; there are multiple different versions based on which version of the Torah/Bible you’re reading, aside from the fact that the collection we think of as the Ten Commandments aren't actually what the Bible identifies as the Ten Commandments. But put that aside, and let’s take a look at how the Ten Commandments are reflected in the Constitution, shall we?

Commandment 1: I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

No portion of the Constitution names Yahweh, or any other god, as an object of religious devotion, and it acknowledges only “We, the People…” as the source of authority for the government. In fact, there’s only one mention of any religious subject anywhere in the Constitution. It appears in Article VI, and it reads like this:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

That explicitly forbids the government from requiring a particular religious profession from any of its members. In other words, any member of the government is explicitly allowed to place other gods before the Biblical one if they so choose, or to have no god whatsoever. They don’t even need to know anything about any religion, much less a specific one. But what about the rest of the people?

 

Well, the Founders took care of that one, too, with the First Amendment which reads:

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

 

That explicitly forbids the government from requiring a particular religious belief or practice. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States explicitly gives its citizens the right to violate the First Commandment. Government enforcement of the First Commandment anywhere in the US is absolutely illegal. Clearly, the First Commandment has no support in the Constitution whatsoever, so we’ll move on to the second.

 

Commandment 2: You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

This one forbids the practice of idolatry. It is clearly contradicted by the First Amendment as well, which denies the government the ability to limit either your religious beliefs or your speech (which is usually interpreted to cover artistic expression). The US government employs many symbols embodying “images or likenesses…” of things that are “in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,” (e.g. the Great Seal of the United States), and none of this is even remotely suggested to be forbidden by the Constitution. So we can only conclude that the Second Commandment is also entirely unrepresented, and its legal enforcement forbidden, by the Constitution.

 

The Ten Commandments are now zero for two. Let’s move on to the third.

 

Commandment 3: You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

What does this even mean, to “take the name of God in vain?” Some people toss the phrase around as if it refers to any direct verbal reference to God (whether by name or by title), whereas others seem to treat this as violating an oath sworn to God. If we’re talking about that first sense, quite clearly that’s First Amendment territory once again and the government is forbidden from enforcing it. The second sense is a little more complicated, in that the Constitution does require things like oaths and affirmations for certain offices and treats these as legally binding promises. Bear in mind, though, that everywhere that the Constitution requires an oath, it explicitly allows the alternative of affirmations. Affirmations are secular promises, and are always treated in the Constitution as legally equal to oaths to God. So the Constitution doesn’t seem to treat “taking God’s name in vain” in the promissory sense as being any different or more serious than violating any other legal promise. So I’m gonna go ahead and score this one as a zero in the Constitution as well.

 

Commandment 4: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Yeah, this doesn’t get even a mention in any way whatsoever. Zero for four.

 

Commandment 5: Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that Yahweh your god is giving you.

Also not mentioned in the Constitution. Zero for five!

 

Commandment 6: You shall not murder.

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but the Constitution does not forbid murder. There’s a good reason for that, of course: the Constitution does not define the behavior of the citizenry so much as define the structure and powers of the government. While it does give the government authority to pass laws for the common good (and forbidding murder is obviously in the interests of the common good), the Constitution itself does not forbid it. So believe it or not, zero for six!

 

Commandment 7: You shall not commit adultery.

Also not mentioned in the Constitution. Zero for seven!

 

Commandment 8: You shall not steal.

Finally! One that sort of gets a mention without being outright prohibited! The Constitution gives Congress the authority to raise a navy for the purpose of preventing piracy. Piracy is a form of theft. So for the first time in the Constitution, we see that something the Commandments forbid is actually mandated to be prevented. Of course, piracy is really only a narrow subset of theft. We’ll be generous and score this one at half a point.

 

Commandment 9: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Perjury! Perjury is bad! Perjury is… not mentioned in the Constitution.

 

Commandment 10: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

This is what’s called a “thought crime.” As in, it tries to directly forbid a certain kind of thought: namely, coveting. Not only is this not covered in the Constitution directly, it is utterly unenforceable. Indirectly speaking, it must clearly also be contradicted by the First Amendment, since in order to have the right to speak any idea you must also have the right to think any idea. Also, coveting what other people have is a major motivation behind the US economic system. Once again, a big fat zero.

 

Total score for the Ten Commandments versus the Constitution? 0.5/10. If I’m being generous. I actually don’t think it would be out of line to score those Commandments whose enforcement is outright forbidden by the Constitution as negative numbers, rather than the zeros I gave them. And in that case you’d be looking at a total score as low as -2.5/10.

 

I hope by now that it’s clear that the Constitution is not based on the Ten Commandments. And don’t just take my word for it; read them both for yourself. Most of the Commandments get no mention at all, and the majority of those that get addressed in any form are specifically forbidden from receiving government backing. They do fare a little better when you get into the body of law that has grown up around the Constitution, in that those laws do forbid murder and theft, recognize parental sovereignty over their children (within limits), and view adultery as valid grounds for divorce (but not for the death penalty, as the portion of the Bible containing the Ten Commandments does). Of course, that’s true of pretty much every society that has ever grown large enough to need laws, whether or not they’d ever heard of the Bible. Any honest observer can only conclude that the Constitution has absolutely nothing to do with the Ten Commandments.