My mother passed this bit of e-mail to my wife (“Dr. Dobson’s Plea” about atheists trying to remove “God” from TV), which I’ll analyze below. It was probably a case of just forwarding e-mail to a group list of family members, because based on the content; it should be obvious to anyone who knows me that this would generate a pointed response. One of my biggest pet-peeves is the use of the internet to propagate lies, falsehoods, myths, and half-truths. My other pet-peeve is when religious people think that everyone else should be religious, too.
Understand that what follows does not come from anger or disrespect, but rather an attempt to foster truthful, intelligent discourse. Also keep in mind that debunking lies and questioning myths is not disrespect, it is the very basis of scientific inquiry and personal development. If you find my point-of-view offensive, maybe you are not as secure in your beliefs as you think.
First of all, before you just believe anything that you read in your inbox, try using the internet for more than just forwarding on e-mails of questionable veracity. There’s a great site called http://www.snopes.com which does a great job of debunking the most popular internet flotsam. This “plea from Dr. Dobson” contains many pieces of information that can be disproved in just a couple of clicks.
Apparently we are to be allowed to watch TV programs that use every foul word in the English Language, but not the word “God.” It will only take a minute to read this and see if you think you should send it out.
This opening statement sets the tone for the letter. It should be considered hyperbolic at best and deceptive at worst. We are not allowed to watch programs with every foul word in the English language. The FCC makes very strict limits as to what language can be broadcast over the public airwaves on radio and television. (Private pay-TV services are another matter, but you must choose to receive them. Your ears aren’t going to be subject to The Sopranos on accident.)
Later hours of the evening will allow more so-called profanity than others and certainly the standards have relaxed since Lucy Ricardo could not be called “pregnant” on TV. But in these days of 500-channel cable TV, it is quite easy for anyone who doesn’t want to hear George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” to follow a sanitized television diet.
CBS discontinued “Touched by an Angel” for using the word God in every program.
No, CBS cancelled Touched by an Angel for the same reason any other business discontinues production of a product: it wasn’t selling. In the TV world, that’s ratings.
Madeline Murray O’Hare, an atheist, successfully managed to eliminate the use of Bible reading from public schools a few years ago.
Yes, this part is true. But she did not set this precedent. A few wealthy men wrote this as part of a social and political contract back in 1787, the relevant part of which reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
I, too, am an atheist, so this may influence how you read my words. Regardless, one of the things I do fervently believe in is the wisdom of the First Amendment. Our Founding Fathers learned a great deal about the corrupting influence of religion in politics and the woe that may befall a minority of citizens who do not espouse the dominant majority religion.
A Bible reading in public schools — schools funded and regulated by the government — amounts to government establishment of religion. Even if most of the kids in school believe in Jesus, praying in school to Jesus is certainly unfair to the kid who prays to Allah. Or to kids who don’t believe in supernatural fairy tales at all.
It’s a really easy issue to understand. Suppose you move your family to Detroit, in a pre-dominantly Muslim Arab-American neighborhood. Are you going to be happy when they open up the school day with a call to Mecca? Maybe you move to the suburbs of Salt Lake City; do you want your kids being taught that Joseph Smith was the enlightened prophet of God? Maybe it’s a neighborhood in Bed-Stuy, NY; are you ready for a reading from the Torah? Perhaps you move somewhere on a Navajo reservation; shall the shaman tell your kids about the Happy Hunting Grounds?
Why is it so divisive an idea to keep fact-based education in schools and myth-based education in churches? Why do some Christians feel the need to assert dominance over public discourse?
Now her organization has been granted a Federal Hearing on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, DC. Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America.
This one is easy.
See the snopes web site, http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/fcc.htm#add and http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/fcc.htm#dobson
The actual FCC petition (which was denied, by the way) can be read at ftp://ftp.fcc.gov/pub/Bureaus/Mass_Media/Databases/documents_collection/75-946.pdf.
The bottom line is that the petition had nothing to do with the general airwaves of radio and TV, but rather educational channels, and the FCC ruled that yes, even those who promulgate education in mythologies with no evidence have a right to the federal airwaves.
Even Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family has denied his involvement with this e-mail: http://family.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/family.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=489&p_created=1037383326
[massive snips]… Please defeat this organization and keep the right of our freedom of religion.
This is where I just have to shake my head. How is it that keeping a separation between church and state somehow makes Christians believe that they are losing their freedom of religion? Remember the First Amendment also says “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
No one is shutting down your churches, closing down any religious broadcasters, or preventing you from praying on your own in school, at work, or before dinner at a public restaurant. What we are doing is preventing you from using your majority power to force government-sponsored public participation in your un-provable interpretation of supernatural phenomena.
REMEMBER: Our country was founded on freedom of religion and our Constitution is based on the 10 Commandments.
First of all, we’d have to ask “which 10 commandments?” When I look in the religious texts of the Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, I find quite a lot of discrepancy among them. But for the sake of argument, let’s use the Protestant version, since we can assume the Founding Fathers would’ve used those.
Next, we’d have to ask about which set of the 10 commandments. In Exodus 20, we learn about tablets of stone on which God inscribed the commandments, and these were later smashed by Moses. Later, in Exodus 34, we learn of a second set commissioned by God to contain the words lost on the first set. However, the second set deviates from first set by quite a bit. See http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.pdf. (I’m sure the religious among you will not click a link with the word “atheist” in it, for that info must surely be the interpretation of anti-God propagandists. That’s a hard argument to make, however, once you notice the document contains nothing but your own scriptures…)
But let’s put those facts aside and concentrate on the Protestant ten commandments found on the first set of stone tablets as described by Exodus 20. Since you’re probably pretty familiar with them, I’ll describe them in short hand instead of the flowery “thee” and “thine” of scripture:
1. You shall have no other gods before me.
This is nowhere in the Constitution and there is no law forbidding the worship of other gods. In fact, the First Amendment specifically allows the free exercise of other religions.
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.
Again, not only not in the Constitution, but specifically allowed by the First Amendment. By the way, isn’t a six-ton block of granite inscribed with the ten commandments a “graven image”?
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Not in the Constitution, in fact, according to the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech…” The law protects my right to take your God’s name in vain. If Freedom of Speech doesn’t protect the most despised forms of speech, it is meaningless.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Not in the Constitution, not enshrined in law anywhere. Besides, which sabbath day are we talking about? Friday sundown (Jewish), Saturday (Seventh-Day Adventists), or Sunday (most Christians)?
5. Honor your father and your mother.
Not in the Constitution, not enshrined in law anywhere.
6. You shall not kill.
Finally! Something in the ten commandments that actually is a law (not in the Constitution, per se, but I’ll let it slide). Homicide certainly is illegal, and for reasons that don’t take a millennia-old mistranslated political religious text to understand. But we also have a number of legal exceptions to that commandment. You can kill if you’re the governor of Texas and a court has issued a death sentence. You can kill if you’re in the armed forces and are ordered to kill. You can kill if you are a police officer with reason to believe your life or other innocents are in danger. You can even kill if that is the only recourse to prevent an attacker from killing you.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
It’s not in the Constitution, but it is in some state laws, and it is almost always sufficient cause for divorce.
8. You shall not steal.
This one is also a law, and for good non-religious reasons.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
This one is also a law.
10. You shall not covet.
Not only is this not in the Constitution and not against the law, I’d argue that it is antithetical to the basis of capitalism.
So there we have it. None of the ten commandments can be found anywhere in the Constitution, and only three of the commandments are actually against the law.
Now, I can understand why many people latch on to these e-mails, and I understand how religious people are alarmed by some of the developments in the world today, the United States in particular. People are just as scared of crime, violence, disease, and death as they always have been. But simple fixes like posting the ten commandments in schools and fighting for school prayer are not only ineffective and misdirected efforts, they are actually counter-productive.
Fight for politicians and policies that address the real problems. Fix our economy so that both parents don’t have to work so hard to make a living and be so absent from their children’s lives, so they can instill in their children notions of right and wrong, good and evil. Reduce our school class sizes and fund education so teachers can help the kids who are falling behind or identify the ones who may be being abused or neglected. Reduce our oil dependence so we are less vulnerable to terrorism. Stop exporting intolerance of religion, support human rights, and end American imperialism so the terrorists won’t want to attack us. Support scientific research that will lead to the curing of diseases and the healing of the sick.
“Radical” Russ — after all, What Would Jesus Do? forward reactionary unproven emails or work to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and protect the weak…
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