Can atheists be parents?

I had other blogging plans this morning when I woke up and I will get to them later this afternoon hopefully. A friend posted a link to the following article on her twitter and I just had to share the whole article. I simply couldn't believe my eyes as I read this.


The following is from TIME Magazine and the link is at the bottom

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark
decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young,
scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of
Children's Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that
asked for the couple's religious affiliation.

John Burke, an atheist,
and his wife, a pantheist, had left the line blank. As a result, the bureau
denied the Burkes' application. After the couple began court action, however,
the bureau changed its regulations, and the couple was able to adopt a baby boy
from the Children's Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange.

Last year the Burkes presented their adopted son, David, now 3 1/2,
with a baby sister, Eleanor Katherine, now 17 months, whom they acquired from
the same East Orange agency. Since the agency endorsed the adoption, the
required final approval by a judge was expected to be pro forma. Instead,
Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue.

Inestimable Privilege. In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied
the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme
Being. Despite the Burkes' "high moral and ethical standards," he said, the New
Jersey state constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of the
inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the
dictates of his own conscience." Despite Eleanor Katherine's tender years, he
continued, "the child should have the freedom to worship as she sees fit, and
not be influenced by prospective parents who do not believe in a Supreme Being."

The Burkes are now living in Carterville, Ill., near Southern Illinois
University, where John Burke has worked for the past year as a speech
pathologist. Nevertheless, Judge Camarata ordered the parents to send David's
sister back to the New Jersey adoption agency. Two weeks ago, aided by the
American Civil Liberties Union, the Burkes appealed directly to the New Jersey
Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. If they fail in their appeal,
Eleanor Katherine may have to leave the only family she has ever known and await
adoption by another couple whose religious convictions satisfy the State of New
Jersey.

Source article - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877155,00.html

Now I am not an American and I am not up on there laws perhaps as much as I should be but don't they have a little thing about the seperation of Church and State. Because this clearly crosses that line in a very very serious fashion. It is one thing to screw with the parents and that is bad enough. But to toy and play with the emotions of a small child like Eleanor is just monsterous. I'm was surprised as I read throught he article that the judge didn't try and remove both of the childern. Clearly David would fall under the same law that he is giving as his reason for taking her away.

************************************************************

So did I mention that the above article is from the year 1970?

Did you feel outraged reading it? I know that I did. I still believed that it could happen today, maybe that's because might just let it happen again if we are not watchful. Old news articles can be a wonderful way to keep in touch with the current reality we live in.

Atheism on the rise

So this weekend was kind of strange on the movie viewing scale. Tamile and I ended up watching Religulous and then the first part of Root of all Evil. Both of which are pro-atheism or anti-religion movies. They both brought up a number of the same points and even interviewed some of the same people. The point stressed by both of the films were the dangers and the threats caused by organized religion such as;

• Muslum Terrorist - Who are doing what they do because of their understanding of their faith and how they will be rewarded because of those beliefs.
• Intelligent Design - Christian fundementalists attempts to control what is taught to the children of America.
• Faith based governments - Ruling a society based on faith rather then on fact.
• The Environment - Some Christian fundementalists believe that the Earth was put here for our use.
• Control - The control some faiths put on their members.

Those where not all of the examples but the ones that leap to mind as I type this. In Religulous Bill Maher also went to great length to stress some of the things he found to be the aburdities of faith based believe. which at times made his movie a little funnier than the documentry that Richard Dawkins put together.

The highlights of both had to be the interviews. Both of them spoke with people of various levels in faith based communities and religions. I was most surprised by some of Bill Mahers interviews outside of the Vatican. One points raised by a priest there was the Jesus Christ was number six on a list of Gods or Saints that the people of Italy were likely to pray too.

In the end the thing that struck me most was how little impact this had on my own beliefs. When I held the same light that both Richard and Bill were using to my own faith, I felt it stood its ground fairly well. We don't promote the same violent ideals the others do, we have a pretty free live and let live ideal to the way we live our lifes, we are as a general rule environmentally aware, and finally our belief in personal growth and responsibility tend to make us more aware of what is happening in our world. As opposed to the faiths who are living their lives on this plane of reality only to move forward afterwards into a paradise. That paradise based belief can easily be seen by someone as saying my life will be better after I die. For pagans if we end our lives we only have to come back and do it all over again.

To finish off I wanted to share this CNN article I found "America becoming less Christian, Survey finds."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/09/us.religion.less.christian/index.html

A Year of Living Biblically

So in our book study group a few months ago one of the members brought up a book she was reading called 'A year of living biblically' (There is a link on the left side of the page) The idea of the book sounded facinating and I asked to borrow it when she was done. A week ago she arrives with the book out of the blue and I've been reading it since.

When I updated the blog a bit I wanted to make a point of talking abit about it. After all lets face it it does seem like something a little odd for a pagan to be reading. Dispite or perhaps because of the subject matter I'm finding that I really enjoy the book. The basic premise is that the author A.J. Jacobs a non-religious jew who was raised in a non-religious household has decided to try and get a better understanding of the bible by living it. I don't mean just living the ten commandments that so many people try and fail at following. I mean all of it.

The book chronicles is journey through the experience and all the different places he visits and events that he takes part in. He is very honest about his experiences and goes in to some personal aspects of the journey as well. Including the challenges he faces in being fruitful and multipling with his wife and the challenges of raising a son while trying to follow a biblical life. It is an interesting study in living a religious life. While the rules (All 72 pages of them) are not ours as pagans. I've been finding a lot of the lessons he learns along the way can easily be carried into our faith.

This past week at a ritual I had the honour of invoking Lugh for group. So I thought I would share the invocation and devocation.

Oh long armed warrior
Master of all the Arts and all the Crafts
And feaster in the hall of the King of Nuada (New-ada)

Lugh we invite you forth
Join us in this circle
And grant us your blessing
As we celebrate all that is you
And all of us that is apart of you.



Lugh we thank you
We thank you for the insights
those we have found in ourselves
And those we have found in the world around us

Fair thee well as you depart this realm

A good reason?

So as part of my job I hear a lot of different reasons why people want to cancel their services (TV, Internet and phone) Today I think I heard the best possible reason.

Customer: "I'm a good christian and I have to cancel my TV service it's to much of a temptation."
Rep: "Am sorry temptation?"
Customer: "Yeah temptation, I've already had to cancel my internet because of all the porn."
Rep: "Oh you mean the Adult pay per view shows?"
Customer: "Yeah as a good Christian I find them to be to much of a temptation and have to cancel my TV Service."
Rep: "You know Sir I can set it up so that you wouldn't be able to access them without a password or without calling us to order them."
Customer: "No I better just cancel it all."

I got to sit there listening to this exchange or at least one side of it. I couldn't believe my ears. After the call we did check his records and he had resisted the temptation so far and had canceled his internet giving the same reason.

Church sign

*Update* Pagan Bloggers Network

Back in April I set up the Pagan Bloggers Network in hopes of connecting with other Pagan bloggers. Well it's been a success in the past three months we have gotten 19 pagan blogs together and interconnected. I'd encourage all of the readers to take the time and visit each of them. Read a couple of the enteries you never know when you might just find some hidden gem, also be sure to comment as well. You all know how much we bloggers love the comments.

Blogs

1. Between the Ticks
2. A Heathen's Day
3. Bringing Up Salamanders
4. Meta Pagans
5. Howling Hills
6. Another Ravan Perch
7. Coffee House Studio
8. Upstream From Lethe
9. Where I am, Knitting is also
10. tinkerbell
11. Centaur Cunningman Journey
12. Stir the Claudron
13. Owl's Wings
14. The Scared Space
15. Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom
16. Whisperings on the wind
17. The Holy Dark
18. Hedge Raven
19. Flight of the Fnordomancer
    

The Pope's war on Woman

Ok just read this on CNN pissed me off. Here is a better article on reuters

The Vatican announced Thursday in a general decree that it will excommunicate
anyone who would attempt to ordain a woman as a priest and the woman herself.

Where do they get off on this? Here are woman spreading the word of there god and in many case have been for some time. Now The Vatican (AKA the Pope) comes along and announces "No More" It doesn't limit itself to woman who are priests to even try and become one gets you kicked from the church and their version of heaven as well. Someone who is excommunicated would no longer be able confess (One would hope this wouldn't be a big deal for someone who wanted to be a priest) but they also wouldn't be able to take Sacraments or even sharing in public worship. Not being a christian I have to ask do they check for this before services?

Ok so here is the logic behind the ruling

The Church says it cannot change the rules banning women from the priesthood
because Christ chose only men as his apostles. Church law states that only a
baptized male can be made a priest.

At the time most woman where married and busy at home raising families and taking care of the kids. That was what was expected of woman in that day and age, they had no choice. With the exception of the prositutes... But wait did Mary Magdalin(Not sure on the spelling) travel with him as a trusted companion. I think the vatican forgets about her far to often.

Just as an interesting comparisson.

But some offences, including heresy, schism, and laying violent hands on the
Pope, are considered so disruptive of ecclesiastical life that they trigger
automatic excommunication, or "latae sententiae".

For a woman to attempt to become a priest is as bad as a woman striking the Pope. That seems it bit harsh for someone wanting to spread the word of their lord.

I think in the end I will stick with my paganism and worship the Gods of old.

Is faith evil?

So am getting close to the end of Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion" and once I've finished I'll post a over all review of the book and my thoughts on it. I've also downloaded a 2 part BBC show that he took part in called "The Root of all Evil" he disliked the name. However the BBC wanted to use it to get peoples attention. Either way it goes well with today's blog about the book.

Like with any talk on religion I honestly don't believe that these things describe everyone who believes. However it certainly does apply to what I would like to think of as a very vocal minority.

The section I just finished was entitled "What's Wrong with Religion" he over the course of the chapter he covers a lot of material and makes a number of interesting points. I won't go in to all of them but will mention a couple that caught my attention. I think the most interesting one was the importance placed and not placed on life. For example the importance placed on the unborn life of a newly conceived baby, one so young it is barely more than a few cells. They cry out that it is murder and that all life is scared, even the potential of life. By that logic a woman being raped shouldn't fight back because there is the potential of life. The logic is clearly flawed in my opinion. I guess it doesn't help that many of the same people who protest and in some cases call for the deaths of Homosexuals, and murders. I would have thought all potential life would include the living.

Richard also introduces the reader to the term 'American Taliban' not a phrase he coined but one that certainly seems to fit. A lot of the quotes that the site shows go hand in hand with the believes of the Taliban just change it from Christianity. It doesn't matter if your Christian, Pagan or Atheist click on that link at the start of this paragraph and read through some of the quotes. Many of them made me just shake my head while others disgusted me. Sadly a lot of these people represent (Or pretend to represent) a large number of Christians and as such they are often seen as a representation of Christianity as a whole.

But lets get on to the real subject of this blog "Is Faith Evil?" Richard makes the argument through out the book and more directly in this chapter that Faith is Evil not just in reference to the extremists like the Taliban (In either Country) but faith in general. Here is what seems to be the root of his logic that led to it.

Faith is evil because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.

The argument continues on to say that even teachings moderate religions though not extremist in themselves are an open invitation to extremism. Due to the way all principles of faith must be respected. After all if everyone is to be expected to accept and respect your religion, you should be expected to respect others. That includes the Osama bin Laden, suicide bombers, the abortion doctor killers all of them do what they do out of faith.

Here is where I have to disagree I certainly expect people to respect my own faith path as a Wiccan. I respect people of other faiths, I don't in anyway feel the need to or the responsibility to respect any person whose faith leads them to hurt, kill or even threaten other people. My own belief includes the words "Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill — an ye harm none, do what ye will" To put it simply you're free to do what you want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. It's a straight forward and to the point I suppose you could argue that under that rule abortion wouldn't be allowed, but then you would have to figure whom the pregnancy would hurt more the unborn fetus without nerves to feel or the mother (A whole and complete person)

Faith itself isn't evil what is done in the name of faith often is. I could post a laundry list of evil things done in the name of religion and include them all. My own is in that list as well although not on the same scale as the big 3 religion, after all we haven't been around for more then a hundred years. We as people need to look beyond our faith and realize that people worship how they worship and it is up to them to decide how they do it. Its not my(or anyone else) place to tell them what they can and can't do, so long as they are not doing it to me.

Now my own faith is a mystery religion and people who follow it are actively encouraged to study and learn. In fact people regular question the basic tenants of faith that we follow. It is through questioning that we learn and come to better understanding of the mysteries. We don't take things on blind faith, that's one of the things that love most about Wicca. I encourage people of every faith to do the same, question everything, learn and research it. All it should do is strengthen your faith, if it does something else perhaps your following the wrong path. If someone is telling you just to believe something and not to question it them maybe they have something to hide. By questioning and furthering our own understanding of our faith and our beliefs we can better stop people from doing with evil acts under the banner of our faith.

The God Delusion - Pagan Point of View

So as am sure you've seen on the book shelf widget on the left that one of the books am currently reading is the The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It's a very enjoyable read so far and am maybe a quarter of the way through it. He doesn't pull any punches in his writing style and doesn't make any excuses for his opinions. I can easily see how it could really be a difficult read for Christians to work through. While the author makes it clear from the beginning that he applies the same logic to any and all gods he does make his primary arguments against the Christian God since that will be the one that the majority of his readers will be familiar with.

As an avid reader I was pleased by the start of the book, which opens with the following instead of a dedication. Once I read that I was excited to read on.

In Memoriam

Douglas Adams

(1952 - 2001)

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful

without having to believe that there are

fairies at the bottom of it too?"

He spells out his main goals in the preface of the book giving the readers an a good idea of where he is heading with the book. As some one who believes in the Divine, I have to say I agreed with a lot of what he had to say and his goals. The one thing that really stood out for me was the concept of a Muslim Child and a Christian Child. There is no such thing, children are far to young to make decisions about things like that. So it would be much better to describe them as children of Christian / Muslim parents. As a parent myself this idea really hit home, I remember having to deal with my eldest daughter who was raised part time in a born again Christian house hold. Where she was taught that various things where evil and would result in people 'burning in the fires of hell' . It caused a lot of problems for her and our house over the years since a lot of the people she knew at our house and liked fell in to the groups she was being taught to hate.

In the early portion of the book he uses for terms fairly regularly when talking about various historical figures.

Atheist - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Agnostic - One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.

Theist - belief in the existence of a god or gods

Deist - The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

The first two terms I had heard in the past and knew what they meant, but I had never heard the term deist used before, I find the term very interesting. Despite being a Wiccan I would put myself some where between Deist and Theist. On one hand I believe in the existence of Gods and of Goddess, but am not so certain that they really care what we do one way or the other. The best description I've every used to describe it is that the Divine is like a diamond. While the various Gods and Goddess's that we use in worship are facets of that Divine source.

The book goes on to deal with common arguments in favor of a God, but again it focuses on Christian arguments in favor of a Christian God. So while they are interesting to read from a pagan prospective they are not all that relevant. Personally I've found that the majority of them I've had brought to me by Christian friends when they lean am Wiccan. In response I used a lot of the same points that are being used by Richard and the people he is quoting.

Well that brings you to the same place I am in the book. I'll post more as I read on.