(no subject)

Though I have to be here through next week, technically, this is the last
week of education. After Friday, the only thing remaining is Final Exams
next week. For me, who teaches only three courses that require a Final, two
of which will be finished this week (Seniors) and one of which my Student
Teacher will write and grade (Gotta admit, he writes good finals--now I know
how my principal felt when she didn't believe that I'd written my own final
exam my first year).

This means that much of this week and most of next will be centered on
packing my crap up. Normally I take home a few things I need to revamp and
refine my course- and lesson plans, but leave the majority of my stuff here.
This year I need to pack everything out--nothing physical of me can remain
here when I'm done. And that's kind of sad, but also kind of good--I've
made no secret of my dissatisfaction with certain elements of this place,
and I've been wanting to teach in a larger school for a while now--and
hopefully I'll get that chance.

I should know by next Friday where I'll be teaching next year. I'm still
hoping for a comprehensive high school that isn't Hiram Johnson or Burbank,
though I could deal with those places if called to do so.

For now, I continue my Senior classes, and try not to think about the good
I'll be leaving behind with the bad.

Things I'd Like to See Disappear From the American Consciousness, #4: The Idea of the Moral Theist

Don't bother looking for things 1-3; I made the number up. I've tried
to be somewhat neutral here and not rail about what I think of religious
belief itself, but I may have failed. So if I offend, well, I didn't mean
to, but I'm not apologizing, either. I believe what I believe.

I am very sick of what I call the "Idea of the Moral Theist." There is a
belief in this country, mostly promulgated by Christians, but held by pretty
much ALL theists, no matter their personal god-construct, that being of
their religion means they are more "moral" than atheists (No, Wiccans and
other Pagan folks, you do not get a pass on this as a group, though
individuals among you know better). The theory goes that their religion
gives them rules to follow in order to be "good with god," which leads to
their morality. ALL members of this religion are thought by folks who
subscribe to this particular bit of lunacy to be inherently moral. Now, of
course not all religious people think this, but a huge number of them do.

The number one problem with this theory, of course, is that there are a
number of assholes on the planet who claim religious belief. One of the
best illustrations of this is a quote from one of the soldiers implicated in
the Abu Ghraib scandal: "I’m a good Christian. I teach Sunday School. But
there’s a part of me that likes to see a grown man piss himself in fear.”

There are so many things wrong with this sentence I shudder to even think.
But here's my take on the ideas presented:

1. Teaching Sunday School means you're a good Christian.
Uh, no. Anyone who'd met my Sunday School teachers from my days in the
God-Box would know better than this. Brother Domingo seemed a good
sort--until we discovered he was having an affair with the other teacher.
And anyone who has a part of himself that likes to see a grown man piss
himself in fear is NOT, by my own cover-to-cover reading of the Bible, a
"good Christian." Add to this the Catholic Priests who have molested or
raped thousands of young men and women, the Nuns who are notorious for being
strict martinets, obsessed with being mean and nasty to millions of students
in catholic school, and you begin to see the enormity of the falsehood
here.

2. Being Christian means you're moral.
Really? Tell that to the members of my former church, who discovered that
the pastor had been embezzling funds for years. Tell that to the members of
the Branch Davidians, who were a cult, yes, but a Christian cult. Tell that
to the millions of children around the world beaten by their Christian
parents. Tell that to the kids in Africa beaten and tortured to death
because they "have the devil in them." Tell that to the poor homosexuals of
Uganda, who now live in fear because they don't live up to the narrow
definition of "moral" given to their country by the religion of ignorance.

LOTS of people who commit crimes claim they're Christian. So, clearly,
being a Christian doesn't make you an honest person. Nor does it prevent
any other failing of morality--any more than being an atheist does.

You know what? Being Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Wiccan, or any
other faith doesn't make you moral. It doesn't even give you a leg up on
morality. It just means you believe in something.

My father in law (a minister) likes to say that it's harder (and, in his
mind, more admirable) to be a moral non-Christian, because we don't have a
set of rules to follow. But that's not only shortsighted, but wrong. It
takes no belief in an afterlife at all for me to know that stealing harms
another, and that's wrong. I don't need the Man in the Sky to tell me it's
wrong to murder someone; that's pretty self-evident from the fact that I
don't want to die or spend the rest of my life in prison.

I'll conceded that those laws came from religious laws, originally, but I'll
also point out that Rome, even before Christianity, had laws about how to
treat each other, and I'm pretty sure (though I admit I can't find evidence
to prove it) that those laws were not based on religious ideas of the Greeks
or Romans. And even if I concede that the development of morality requires
outside rules such as religion (which I don't, but since we've never had a
culture arise from total non-religion, I can't definitively claim it), that
time is past. It's possible to be raised as an atheist and know better than
to steal or hit people or kill.

I've gotten off track a little here. Bottom line, though: Being religious
doesn't mean you've got more morals than the atheist. Get over it.