David A. Schwinghammer, click here
to update your web pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by David A. Schwinghammer
National Prayer Day 5/18/2010 8:36:27 AM
Atheists and Agnostics opposed National Day of Prayer.
A Federal judge recently ruled that National Prayer Day was unconstitutional. Atheist and agnostic groups then suggested a National Day of Reason.
According to a recent Pew poll, 1.6 percent of Americans declare themselves atheists; another 2.4 call themselves agnostics, and 12.1 are “nothing in particular,” but may still believe in God.
There’s some confusion about the language involving the National Day of prayer. If the designation includes the word “meditation” I don’t see a problem with it.
What we need is more efforts to reach out to each other, not only in Congress but among the lay community. The United Methodist Church of northeast Minneapolis and the Minnesota Atheists have come together to promote a Bible study class, of all things. It’s called Secular Bible Study and they hope to attract people of all stripes: Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, Christians, Jews, and even Muslims. Chester O’Gorman, community outreach director for United Methodist, argues that “people have lost or lack the skills to engage in constructive and respectful dialogue in the context of profound disagreement.” There’s also a minister in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who preaches that hell is on earth, not in some subterranean region where the devil parades around like some Nazi SS officer with pitchfork and whip, torturing woebegone sinners. The minister's name is Carlton Pearson, and he used to be a big shot evangelical preacher with over 6,000 parishioners contributing wheelbarrows of cash. He was even an advisor to George W. Bush. Then one day he saw what was going on in Rawanda on the evening news and an insight came to him: Basically, we create our own hell here on earth. Pearson shut down his mega church and moved in with the Unitarians, where he now welcomes everyone, including atheists and agnostics.
One reason humanists are reluctant to go along with a National Prayer Day or anything else recommended by the Christian Right is their insistence on a literal interpretation of the Bible. There’s no room for discussion when everything is based on faith. The Bible was written, and rewritten, as late as the early 17th Century, by dozens of different hands. Some theologians maintain that none of it existed, other than maybe Deuteronomy (written by Jeremiah’s scribe) before the Babylonian Captivity, and that the Essenes brought back a lot of Zoroastrian and Mazdian mythology which was included in Genesis and other Biblical books. Then there’s the Book of Revelation. Was it written by John the Evangelist or John of Patmos? Was it intended to be symbolic? St. Augustine did not want Revelation included in the New Testament, until the other bishops agreed to teach it symbolically. It was meant as a pep talk for Christian converts in Greece and Anatolia who were being tortured by the Romans, and the “sinners” involved were the Romans. At the time Christians expected Jesus to return during their lifetimes and that’s the way Revelation should be read. If it had always been taught that way, a lot of lives would have been saved.
Still, humanists need to take a lot of what organized religion does and incorporate it into a national secular church. People want ritual; people want to be with other people. The Seekers, who were extant during and after the British Civil War recommended that everyone find God in nature. Of course that didn’t last very long because most people were on their own. People want the church to be there when there’s a new baby in the family, when a family member gets married, when a family member dies. They also want consistent values to teach their children. Einstein said that the church that came the closest to a “cosmic” religion was Buddhism. When Buddha reached nirvana he saw a void. Buddhism was originally meant to be an agnostic religion. The only god Buddha’s disciples prayed to was the Buddha within, which gave humanity a great deal more respect than Christian churches are willing to give us. The emphasis was on kindness and compassion, meditation, and a scorn for material possessions.
What we can’t afford is a continued split. Organized religion in America is holding us back in respect to education, science and politics. It was totally irresponsible of the Republican party to make fundamentalist religion their political base. They did the same thing when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. They moved right in and scooped up all those segregationist and racist votes.
If the Methodists and non-believers in Minneapolis can come together, why not the rest of us?
Dave Schwinghammer's published novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Amazon.com at a discount, both new and used.
