If you haven’t seen it recently, rent the DVD of “Inherit the Wind,” starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March. This Oscar nominated movie recreates the events that surrounded the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial” in the late 1920s.

Tracy, playing a character based on the famous attorney and agnostic, Clarence Darrow, takes on March, who plays a character based on famous orator and presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. It is an entertaining battle of wits, logic, and Bible knowledge between two men who, in real life, had the utmost respect for each other.

Events taking place outside the courtroom frame the trial inside and add to the drama, as local Southern Baptist, Methodist, and Assembly of God true believers march and carry on at a fevered pace. They sing Civil War era church songs, wave their copies of the King James Bible, and carry signs denouncing the theory of evolution and asking God to condemn Tracy’s character to a fiery Hell.

The jurors, simple folk who are members of the local churches, are afraid to take a stand against local customs or the mobs outside. The judge just wants to get the trial over, is under heavy political pressure to find the defendant guilty. The odds do not favor either science or reason.

That was in the 1920s. Average Americans would probably assume that those kinds of behavior and extreme religiosity would have disappeared at least fifty years ago -- but average Americans would be wrong.

These are Sarah Palin’s “real Americans” -- gun-toting, rebel yelling, Bible thumping, “holier than thou” evangelicals who believe every single word in the Bible as being from the mouth of God himself.

These are the very people who hate President Obama and oppose gay rights, gun control, stem cell research, health care reform, and any politician from states north of the Potomac and west of the Mississippi.

“If churches would stand for the Word of God (King James Bible) and kick the sorry heretics out the door with their false doctrines that don’t believe that the Bible is the Word of God every Word of it without error, the deity of Christ, that Hell is a literal lake of fire, that Jesus was born of a virgin, that there is only one way to heaven that’s through Jesus Christ alone, and God created the earth in six literal 24 hour days not thousands of years. If our country would put God back in the White House and the school house [sic]…” (Amazing Grace Baptist Church website)

I suggest you do two things:  Watch this recent news video from AP. Then later, when you get an opportunity, rent “Inherit the Wind” (1960). Discover for yourself how far some folks in the south have come in the last 100 years -- and enjoy a really good movie.

Church burns Bibles…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FkbgeR8LKs

Obviously this ignorant yokel pretending to be a religious authority doesn’t realize that the King James Version of 1611 was written in Elizabethan English, a dialect that was only spoken within 50 miles of London and for less than 100 years. Yes, it was the language of Shakespeare, but Jesus and the Apostles spoke in first century local dialects of Greek and Aramaic. Their “Bible” was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The 17th century English pronouns “thee” and “thou” never crossed Jesus lips during his lifetime. Why would God select that particular version over all others as his only true “holy book” ?

This is a perfect example of the “blind leading the blind.”

I wonder what political party these people will vote for next election…

Ever since Charles Darwin introduced the world to the evolution of life forms by means of natural selection, debate has centered upon the perceived challenge to one’s faith by the theory of evolution. Now the debate has expanded to the public school classroom where religious fundamentalists advocate that “alternative theories to evolution” be taught. The candidate usually proposed for such “alternatives” is intelligent design creationism, albeit the term creationism is usually omitted from the moniker by its proponents so as to avoid challenging the Establishment Clause of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The basic tenant of Intelligent Design is that some biological structures (e.g., the vertebrate eye, the bacterial flagellum, bird’s wings) or some biological processes (e.g., blood clotting mechanisms, cellular replication) are too complex to have been produced by natural processes (natural selection) alone; therefore, these structures must have been “intelligently designed.” Although ID supporters ultimately have to acknowledge that to be intelligently designed, there must be an intelligent “designer.” And that this too represents a challenge to the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. So strategically, most ID advocates cautiously avoid such obvious extensions of their claim.

So is ID an alternative scientific theory to evolution? No! Theories are “…in science, well-substantiated explanations of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate tested facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.” (National Academy of Sciences, 1998) And, ID proponents provide no testable hypotheses to substantiate their claims nor do they provide a model that meets the stringent criteria of scientific theory. Therefore, calling ID (creationism) a theory is inappropriate, as it doesn’t begin to approach the robustness of scientific theory. Furthermore, cloaking ID in the language of science by using “theory” does not make it scientific; science has higher standards than mere assertion.

ID has as its basic tenant, a fallacy of false alternative; that those biological structures and processes that science hasn’t been able to adequately explain must be the result of a supernatural intelligent design force or agent (designer). What ID proponents fail to recognize is that currently unexplained does not mean always inexplicable. Science is dynamic and answers may be on the horizon for those questions that remain unanswered. By the very nature of science, there will always be questions that remain unanswered because in the process of answering a question or solving a problem, more questions arise. This is the very nature and a most admirable quality of science. New questions will always be formulated.

If ID proponents want to present their ideas in the science classroom, they must first submit testable hypotheses to the scientific community for evaluation and validation, or, per a contemporary version of Francis Bacon’s quote: “Scientific validation must precede what is taught in the science classroom; we do not teach as science what we hope will be validated in the future.”

Here is a video of Dr. Forbes lecture on “Intelligent Design.” It is long, so clear your schedule, but it is very interesting and well presented.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcBs0ZxQ9VY

[Photo credits: "Baby World" photo by Felix Atsoram, Argentina; "3D Earth" graphic by Jamie Woods, Brisbane, Australia]

• The Old Testament consists of thirty-nine books written by dozens of authors over at least six hundred years. And Moses did not write the first five books. In fact, it is hard to know if he ever existed.
• The New Testament was written by sixteen or seventeen authors over a period of seventy years. Only eight of the twenty-seven books are written by the people traditionally thought to be the authors. Most of the books are written not by apostles, but by later writers claiming to be apostles
• When Paul wrote his letters (penned before the Gospels) to the churches he founded, he did not think he was writing the Bible. So, too, with the Gospels. Mark, whatever his real name was, had no idea his book (the first Gospel to be written) would be put into a collection with three other books and called Scripture; and he did not think that his book should be interpreted in light of what other Gospel writers would write some thirty years later in different countries and in a different context.
• The idea that Jesus preexisted his birth and that he was a divine being who became human is found only in the Gospel of John; the idea that he was born of a virgin is found only in Matthew and Luke.
• In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus never refers to himself as a divine being, as someone who preexisted, as someone who was in any sense equal to God. In Mark, he is not God and he does not claim to be. In fact, he confirms his fallibility in this Gospel by repeatedly predicting that the end will come right away, during his own generation, while his disciples are still alive.
• The Gospels for the most part do not provide disinterested factual information about Jesus, but contain stories that had been in oral circulation for decades before being written down. This makes it very difficult to know what Jesus actually said, did, and experienced.
• There were lots of other Gospels available to the early Christians, as well as epistles, Acts, and apocalypses. Many of these claimed to be written by apostles, who, with the exception of Paul, could most likely neither read nor write.
• The creation of the Christian canon was not the only invention of the early Church. A whole range of theological perspectives came into existence, not during the life of Jesus or even through the teachings of his original apostles but later, as the Church grew and came to be transformed into a new religion rather than a sect of Judaism.

And while the list of things we know about the Bible that ain’t so goes on and on, one of the most disturbing, at least for me, of the truths is:

• There is only one book in the New Testament, 1 Timothy—forged in Paul’s name by someone living later—that states that a woman’s place in the church is to be silent and to “exercise no authority over a man.” What’s amazing to learn is that in the books that Paul really does write, this policy is clearly at odds with what he preached and practiced.

He also shares the following 1981 quote from the father of the USA conservative movement, Barry Goldwater: “There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this Supreme Being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of these political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who think it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I’m warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.”

Today, Douglas Adams says that respected writers and politicians, particularly in the United States, are no longer willing to challenge religious ideas. They are not allowed to say those things. And yet, when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other. Fortunately, it was a Brit, Richard Dawkins, who had the courage to speak up, fervently believing that religious extremists are a serious threat to democracy and human betterment. His book, The God Delusion is easy to read and loaded with facts to support those assertions.

“Oh, but he’s an Atheist,” some will say. But be reminded that people like Einstein and Carl Sagan, to name just a few, did not believe in a personal god. However, that didn’t diminish the scientific data they accumulated and shared in their lifetime.

My mother, a hard-core Jehovah’s Witness, won’t read the book. Her church leaders tell her that it is “the work of the Devil.” That’s a pretty good reason why I think a thinking person would want to do otherwise.

What Richard Dawkins has to say and how he says it in The God Delusion is not only an important work of science, but a clear, articulate warning of what could happen if the current wave of passionate religious irrationality is allowed to continue unchecked. It is one of the best books I have read in the last ten years and I agree with the New York Times Book Review when it said that The God Delusion contained “Lots of good, hard-hitting stuff about the imbecilities of religious fanatics and frauds of all stripes.”

Christians and Jews have always claimed to have God on their side. Yet these major religions are split into dozens of small sects and  several major denominations.  They often teach that the other competing sects are wrong and do not have God on their side.  America claims to be a nation that is based on Judeao-Christian teachings and ethics while pointing out its secular governmental structure.

Muslims also claim to have God on their side. Islam is also split into many sects, both large and small. Each of these sects feel that Allah favors only them and demands that they put to death anyone who is an “unbeliever,” infidels including those claiming to be Muslim, that do not believe exactly as they do.

Within both of these major religions there are hundreds of self-appointed leaders who claim special relationships with God/Allah.  These men often work themselves into positions of influence over the political leaders of the countries they live in.  Prominent conservative religious leaders like Pat Robertson and James Dobson in the U.S. - and literally hundreds of Imams throughout the Islamic world -maneuver themselves into these often revered positions.  Like Othello’s Iago, they often manage to get the ears of national leaders and eventually influence them to sometimes do horrible things in the name of God – like going to war or creating laws that persecute others who do not believe as they do.  They’ll justify these actions, including war of one sect against another, as “doing God’s will.”

We worry about the power of Islamic theocracies in the middle east and Southeast Asia, and yet we can’t imagine that one would ever be set up in America. Americans are not all Christians and should not be governed by just the tenets and teachings of just one religion, especially one that claims to be the only religion that God will support over all others.

We vote for a President and members of Congress, not for a Pope, Cardinals, and Bishops.  In America we expect our political leaders to have their own privately held religious beliefs, but at the same time do not want them to force those beliefs on the rest of us.

George W. Bush has taken the position that we should use our military power to offer and guarantee the same freedoms that Americans take for granted for everyone else in the world.  Yet he and the conservative religous right of the Republican Party in their evangelistic fervor want to actually take away our religious freedoms by imposing their own religious dogma upon the rest of us. Thus we see the beginnings of an American Theocracy.

Is this not what the Catholic Church did during the Crusades and the Inquisitions?  Is this not similar to the religious extremes during Cromwell’s dictatorial rule of England? This approach sounds very much like the what the Taliban has done to whole populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.   Do we really want this to also be in the future for America?

Can you really imagine an all-powerful “Supreme Being over the Universe,” who is supposedly a “loving God,” wanting us to harm or destroy each other as well as killing and maiming innocent women and children only because we don’t all agree on the same doctrines and church traditions?

How come we don’t have a church of our own? The government could put one in every neighborhood and support it with our taxes. Maybe now is the time to set one up and make sure that everyone in our country sings from the same hymn book!

Since she joined the Republican Presidential ticket, Sarah Palin has become the darling of the evangelical Christian wing of the Republican Party.  It has been predicted by some pundits that her nomination as Republican Vice Presidential candidate will eventually put John McCain’s campaign ahead of Barak Obama’s quest and will result in McCain becoming our 44th President.  They feel that Sarah Palin’s popularity with the evangelicals, religiously conservative Republicans, religious independents, and Reagan Democrats will give McCain enough votes in the Midwest and critical Southern states to swing the vote to McCain.

John McCain has always been in trouble with the religious right wing of the Republican Party because he has never really espoused many of their more controversial positions.  By adding Palin to his ticket he has managed to strengthen his position with the evangelicals and Southern Baptists that have tried to take over the party since 1976.  She has clearly verbalized her positions on abortion, women’s rights, the makeup of the Supreme Court, and America’s self-annointed position as God’s most favored country.  To her the war in Iraq is a “mission from God” and it’s purpose is “to do God’s will.” While McCain seems somewhat reluctant to wear any particular religious mantle, Sarah Palin seems to have absolutely no problem mixing her religious beliefs with her secular duties.

Palin seems to forget that separation of Church and State was one of the major components and primary doctrines of the U.S. Constitution as written and approved by the founding fathers.  Prior to the Revolution, they were subjects of the King of England, the titular and secular head of the Church of England – and were therefore also subject to the religous rules of that Church.  Many of our early patriots were Catholic, or held agnostic views that were in direct opposition to “the King’s Most Holy Church.” That is why many of the colonies separated from the English governmental rules and created new states that conformed to their own versions of religious freedom that ignored the authority of the English Church (Rhode Island).

Since the formation of the United States, freedom of religion has been a constitutionally guaranteed right provided specific clauses of the First Amendment. Freedom of religion was closely associated with “separation of church and state,” a concept which was espoused by many of the early patriots such as Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin and clearly outlined in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. The modern legal concept of religious freedom as the union of freedom of belief and freedom of worship with the absence of any state-sponsored religion, originated in the United States of America.

Over the past seventy years many hard-won battles have been fought in the courts to secure and guarantee that church and state will remain separate and that minority views would be protected.  However, other battles continue to rage, led by Evangelical and Conservative Protestant religious leaders, many who are televangelists with huge followings, to promote the teaching of creationism, sexual abstinence, the subordination of women, anti-gay and anti-abortion positions.  They want prayer to be a part of daily school activities and the concept of a “Christian America” to be taught in all schools, public and private.

Sarah Palin has made her position clear on these issues and John McCain has also begun to be more forthcoming in his support of these right-wing Christian positions.  If they are elected to the highest offices in the land and manage to pack the Supreme Court with like-minded justices, then here is what we have to look forward to over the next 20 to 25 years:

• A reversal of Roe vs. Wade, eliminating a woman’s choice over her own body and the use of elective abortion.
• Reduction and probable elimination of all government funded embryonic stem cell research.
• Elimination of all “right-to-die” laws where enacted by certain states, forcing many terminally ill persons to live out their lives in discomfort and pain.
• Reinstitution of daily prayers in public schools and for other publicly sponsored functions.
• Establishment of a national ethic and laws based on Christian Biblical guidelines as defined by the Protestant religious leaders.
• The reversal of all or most “gay rights,” including domestic relationship and marriage rights.
• The required teaching of “Intelligent Design” (really Creationism) in public schools as a counterpoint to teaching the scientifically supported theory of evolution.
• The required teaching of sexual abstinence and the elimination of required “sex education” courses in public schools.
• The banning of public displays promoting gay and lesbian rights, including the ability for any homosexuals to adopt children.
• The complete reestablishment of all Christian religious holiday observances in public schools and government buildings.
• Tighter censorship of movies, cable and network TV, and printed publications – eliminating nudity, sexual references, or any words or phrases that the censors consider to be obscene.
• The promotion of American national interests over those of other countries, especially when those countries are Islamic or non-Christian.  The exception, of course, would be Israel.

This is actually an abbreviated list.  Many other issues, especially involving the medical use of marijuana or other non-pharmaceutical drugs along with many other personal choice concepts would be considered un-American and would be subject to new laws.

More importantly, with the Executive Branch and the Supreme Court either reversing or failing to enforce laws protecting freedom of thought and non-Christian religious practices, we could find ourselves forced backward in time to the 1940s and 1950s in living styles and personal choices.

I lived during those times.  Although I do consider them “the good old days” in many ways, personal freedoms were very different then and very restrictive.  I can assure you that no one, not even the Christan radical right, will really want to live like that again.

Give Sarah Palin and John McCain the vote, and we may find ourselves “back to the future” and “stuck in the Fifties again.” But maybe, just maybe, we’ll end up with a church of our own.

Bush got elected by appealing for votes directly to the conservative Protestant wing of American Christians.  But it is clear that his “born again” Christian views were mostly a sham.  With all of the Bush family connections to the oil and banking industries, not to mention their close ties to the ruling family of Saudi Arabia – and Cheney’s ties to Halliburton and all of their subsidiaries, it makes sense that they would put on the “invisible cloak” of conservative religion and politics to get what they wanted.

I’m not saying that 9/11 was a conspiracy by the Bush Administration, but I do feel that they have a lot of explaining to do.  They’ve left so many questions unanswered about what happened that day.  After the official report and recommendations came out, Bush basically ignored everything and went on to do whatever he wanted or had planned.

It’s also clear that Cheney has, in many ways, been the puppet master of this administration and that he, and his business associates, have especially benefitted from the Iraq war and almost every other decision that Bush has approved.

You can also see that no matter what the Congress wants to do or tries to implement, if it doesn’t involve more money for Iraq and Afghanistan, then Bush simply ignores them.  Bush has activated every war power that is available to a President, and then some, without a formal declaration of war. 

Is it a coincidence that oil is nearly $100 a barrel, that drugs and medical care costs are skyrocketing, and that credit card interest rates average over 19%?  It costs over $50 to fill up the average automobile gas tank, yet Bush will not allocate any major funding to increase the development of solar, wind, or ocean energy generation.  At the same time, natural gas and electricity keep going up at an average of 10% per year. 

Credit card companies and servicing banks can raise your interest rate from 9.9% to 29.9% because your credit score drops a mere 20 points or if you are 5 days late on another bill without any regard to the nature of their original promises or contract to you, the borrower.  And they get away with this – something that no private party lender could ever do!  At the same time, the Bush Administration steamrolled the new bankruptcy law through the Congress – a new law that benefitted only the big banks – not the borrower or any private party, non-institutional lenders.  It was Bush’s gift to the big banks.

Let’s face it:  It’s not about saving the World.  It’s not about saving unborn babies.  It’s not about what’s good for the citizens of the USA.  It’s only about more money and power for the friends of Bush and Cheney.

He’s decided to provide a more direct outlet for his readers and others interested in Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Watchtower Society, and the progress of his next book.

Dick states that he is not trying to compete with any existing blogs that discuss the issues surrounding the JW organization.  He just wants to provide a vehicle to answer questions and get comments from his readers.  For him, this seems to be the easiest way to manage that need for two-way communication.

Dick has also announced his availability for some speaking and book signing engagements.  Any clubs or groups that would like to invite him should contact him through his website at www.RichardEKelly.com or go to his blog at www.RichardEKelly.com/blog/.  Dick will announce his schedule on his blog as his schedule begins to firm up a bit.
Dick will be spending the Winter months in Tucson, AZ.  Any book stores or clubs in that area should contact him as soon as possible.

I’ve just heard it through my private little grapevine that Richard E. Kelly, a Michigan based writer, is about to release his first major book to the public in August (2007).  The book is “Growing Up in Mama’s Club – A childhood perspective of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”  The book is described in more detail at his new website www.RichardEKelly.com.

The August 2007 release is actually the 2nd Edition; the first printing of 200 copies was only distributed to friends, critics and agents for review purposes.  The feedback Kelly got was overwhelmingly positive and many reader suggestions were used to rework the 2nd Edition that’s being released to the public.  The book will be offered online and through several major retail channels.

Kelly tells the story of his mother’s conversion to Jehovah’s Witnesses when he was just 4 years old.  At that age, he just assumed that his mother had “joined a club” – so to speak.  Eager to please his mother, he joined with her in attending the regular meetings and activities of the Witness organization and grew up not really knowing any other way of life.

But through his teen years, he realized that although he loved his mother and continued to want to please her, the teachings and cult culture of the Witnesses was becoming more and more difficult for him to live with and to rationalize his continued involvement.

Kelly relates how he actively participated in field service and meetings, and even voluteered to go and work at the Watchtower printing factories in Brooklyn, New York.  But even his involvement at that level – even in close daily contact with the leaders of the Watchtower organization – could not change his realization that he had to get out from under the control of the Witness religion.

Kelly makes it clear that he no longer holds any grudges or dislike anyone within the Witness religion, past or present.  Part of writing this book was purging all of those feelings from his mind and heart.  His real purpose is to describe what it is like to grow up in such a restrictive religion and its actual effects on young children and teens.  This same situation existed within the extreme examples of Jonestown and Branch Davidian cults.  It still exists today within the polygamist branches of the Mormon Church (Latter Day Saints).

Kelly reports that he has been overwhelmed at the acceptance and the feedback he has received from the readers of the pre-publication edition of the book.  The buzz about his book is moving like wildfire throughout the blogs and online discussion forums that are frequented by ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses and JW wannabees.  Current JWs are known to lurk and read online Witness discussion groups, so there is a clearly a ”hidden” market for his book and others like it. 

I’m sure the exposure on the Internet about these types of religions has contributed to the slowdown in conversions and the loss of many current members of the JW organization.  Books like Kelly’s from other former Witnesses must be giving the leaders of the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn nightmares. 

Kelly wants to emphasize, however, that his book isn’t really a discussion of the teachings and practices of the Witnesses.  Rather his is more of a psychological study of what it is like to grow up as a JW from the viewpoint of a child, not as an adult. 

He points out that similar situations exist in most every religion, but especially among fundamentalist Christians, Moslems, and Jewish sects.  For that reason his book should be read by everyone who is a member of that kind of religion.  They need to know the real damage that they might be doing to their children. 

Kelly says that he will be sharing comments from his readers and also providing updates to the book on his website at www.RichardEKelly.com.

Mr. Bush has a tendency to filter everything through his fundamentalist religious views.  It’s a wonder he has not legalized the burning of witches or required the reading of the King James Bible in public schools, but those still might be possibilities.

Galileo and Copernicus both faced religious persecution and possible death for their groundbreaking scientific findings during the ”dark ages.”  Yet their theories and discoveries finally made it to the light of day (no thanks to the Church) and have become the foundations for much of what we know about the Universe today.

Let’s face it: Someday this valuable scientific information will be available to the masses and many future families will benefit from the discoveries that could be made within the next ten years, rather than being lost to present generations all together.  All Bush is doing is setting back the clock and creating a situation where many people will continue to suffer from injuries and diseases that could be cured or alleviated by the medical benefits that will come from stem cell research.

I will always remember the pleadings of Christopher Reeve, sitting paralyzed in his wheelchair and breathing through that tube in his throat.  Having spoken to many scientists and researchers about the potential benefits of stem cell research, he saw the possibilities for himself and others by this future source of regenerative body repair.  Bush would never give him the time of day.

Nancy Reagan, wife of the late President, also encouraged Congress and the current President to fund stem cell research as a possible cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.  She was ignored.

President Bush can not seem to see the irony in refusing to spend a few millions on stem cell research because it might destroy a few thousand embryonic cells “that could result in life” - while sending thousands of our healthiest men and women to Iraq to die and be maimed for life.  There is no life or personality in stem cells; there are actual living, breathing people with families, careers, homes, and futures ahead of them that Bush has no problem at all destroying by the hundreds.

Bush is a religious and political hypocrite.