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IF MAN CAME FROM APES WHY ARE THERE STILL APES?

I've been seeing this as a parody of creationists for so long, that it's almost a bit surreal to see someone actually using it seriously. And it's not just some random commenter on a blog, but the message a church is putting out to the public. Even if the sign person at the church has enough freedom where the message doesn't have to get approved by someone else first, my wife tells me that the message has been up for over a week - plenty of time for someone in the congregation to say something about it.

I could just point and laugh at the sign, which may even have been enough for this entry, but that's not very productive. So, while I've covered this on the blog before, since the prior coverage was brief, I'll go through again explaining why this question sounds silly once you actually understand evolution. Since I have covered this before, some of the content below has been copied copiously from a previous post.

One of the easiest ways to see the error in this line of thinking is to use an analogy. I'll use myself as an example. My great great grandfather and grandmother on one side were German - not just of German ancestry, but born in Germany and immigrants to the U.S. So, I can quite literally say that I am descended from Germans. But it's also quite obvious that I'm not descended from any living Germans. A certain group of Germans and I share a common ancestry through my great great great grandparents. The descendants of my great great great grandparents split into two lineages - one that continued in the U.S., and one that continued in Germany. That lineage in Germany is composed of my cousins, not my ancestors.

Another way to see the error in this line of thinking is to pose it with a different group of animals. It's a bit like asking, 'If crows evolved from birds, why are there still birds?'

It's a very similar case with us and chimpanzees and bonobos. Around 6 million years ago, there was a population of apes that was neither human, chimpanzee, nor bonobo. Over the generations, this population split into multiple lineages, each of which evolved independently. Most of those lineages have gone extinct, but there are still three of us left. We are cousins. We can go back further in time and find the ancestor that we share with gorillas, and further to find the ancestor we share with orangutans, and on and on all the way back till life began. None of those ancestors will look exactly like any of their modern descendents, since evolution has been occurring in all of the lineages. (Obviously, we haven't actually found fossils of all species that have ever existed. But, in the same way that you know you must have a great great great great great great grandmother, even if you don't have any record of her, we also know that we must have common ancestors with Earth's other organisms, even if we haven't yet found their fossils.)

I think there's another misconception associated with this assertion. I think it goes back to the Great Chain of Being, where people feel that evolution is directed, and that us humans are the pinnacle. That's not the case. Much of the change that occurs in evolution is through mutation and natural selection (though those aren't the only drivers). Mutation is random. It just happens, without any conscious intent. Think about yourself - did you pick any of the mutations that make your DNA slightly different from your parents? Did you pick any of the mutations that make your children's different from yours? Natural selection isn't random. It acts like a filter - eliminating the mutations that don't work as well, while allowing the ones that do to pass through. But it's only a filter. It relies on the raw material from random mutations.

It's also important to keep in mind that mutations aren't good or bad on their own. It all depends on the environment an organism is living in, the animals lifestyle, and other factors. DNA to make gills is very useful for a fish, but wouldn't do a damn for us.

So, let's go back to that ancestral population of apes. Somehow, it got split into at least two lineages. Those lineages, once they became reproductively isolated, could no longer share DNA between each other. So, whatever beneficial mutations popped up in one population would have been available only in that population. Any mutations that made the eventual chimp lineage better at climbing trees, for example, would have been unavailable to our lineage. Likewise, any mutations that made or lineage better at walking on the ground would not have been available to the lineage that led to chimps & bonobos. So, once that population was split, the two lineages went their own separate evolutionary ways.

Environment could also have played a role. Now, I doubt the following is exactly what happened, but it's an interesting thought experiment. What could have caused that ancestral population to become split? Imagine that it was a new river, that cut through their range. Imagine that the river became so big that the ancestral apes couldn't cross it. And suppose that on one side of the river, the forest stayed largely intact, while on the other side, the forest gave way to savannah. Now, with one lineage living in forest, and the other in savannah, you can see how natural selection would have favored different mutations in each of the two lineages, causing each to evolve markedly differently.

So, once you understand a bit about how evolution works, the question 'If man came from apes, why are the still apes?' seems nonsensical, and even a bit silly.

Here's a related blog entry I wrote a few years ago:
Why Do People Have a Problem With Our Relation to Other Apes?

That entry also addresses the semantics of this a bit. In my opinion, we are just a type of ape, so saying that we evolved from apes just seems obvious.

I find this to be incredibly silly, and I'm not alone. The comments to the article linked to above are nearly all atheists ridiculing the idea. Pharyngula also has a blog entry on it, with over 100 comments so far saying how stupid they think the idea is.

I touched on this before in my review of The Year of Living Biblically, but it's worth repeating here since it's so relevant.

Atheism is only a big deal in the present, because religion is such a big deal. There are lots of other things people don't believe in, but nobody notices because there's no countering belief. Let me use an example. I realize there are still a handful of people who believe in fairies, but they are the exception, not the rule. Most people are a-fairiests. But nobody would propose building a museum or a temple dedicated to the non-belief in fairies.

Right now, us atheists are vocal because religion has so much undue influence in society. But if society gradually shifts to become more atheistic, as appears to be the case, eventually being an atheist will just be the default position, and nobody will make a big deal of it.

In my case, and in the case of many of the 'new' atheists, atheism is really only a side effect of other, positive values. We're committed to rationality, critical thinking, evidence, the wonders of the universe. But there are already grand buildings dedicated to those values - museums, universities, libraries. These aren't like temples in that people go there to worship, but they do provide a setting for those values to thrive. I'd much rather see money going to support those existing institutions than see it go to some cockamamie temple of non-belief.

Mitt Romney has backpedaled on his acceptance of global warming. Here's what Romney had to say this past October.

My view is that we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.

Source - Think Progress

As far as I know, he still accepts evolution.

Newt Gingrich has also backed away from supporting climate change. In a town hall meeting in Iowa, he said that global warming "hasn't been totally proven", and that even if it had been, he'd no longer support a cap and trade strategy to address it.

Source - Mediaite

There's also the matter of his upcoming book, where he has decided to cut a chapter on global warming.

Source - The Guardian

Gingrich has recently made some disparaging remarks about evolution. In the quote below, I included just a bit more, to highlight his contempt for the separation of church and state.

The idea that taking school prayer out in 1963 made the country better? I don't see any evidence that children who don't spend a moment recognizing that they're subservient to God... [I think the video was edited here -JRL] I'll let you approach God in any way you want to. There's an enormous difference between a culture which believes it is purely secular, and a culture which believes that it is somehow empowered by our Creator. I always tell my friends who don’t believe in this stuff, fine, how do you think — we’re randomly gathered protoplasm? We could have been rhinoceroses, but we got lucky this week?

Source 1 - YouTube
Source 2 - Think Progress

Actually, that part about approaching God any way I want to really pisses me off. What about those of us that don't believe in any gods? Are we non-existent? Or just not worthy of any consideration?

So, going back to the point of that original Political Litmus Test blog entry, I no longer see any Republican candidates worthy of consideration. Someone living in a fantasy land, or someone willing to lie on something so obviously true, is not someone I want running the executive branch of the federal government.

At Cranston High School West in Rhode Island, there was a mural painted to look like a banner with a prayer on it. For reference, here's the full text of the prayer (per WPRI):

Our Heavenly Father, Grant us each day the desire to do our best, To grow mentally and morally as well as physically, To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers, To be honest with ourselves as well as with others, Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win, Teach us the value of true friendship, Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West. Amen

The mural had been there for decades, but just recently, it has become the focus of some controversy. The short story is that a student, Jessica Ahlquist, complained to the adminstration that the banner was illegal and that it marginalized non-Christians. The school didn't listen, so she went to the ACLU. The ACLU told the school that the banner was clearly illegal, and that there wouldn't even be a debate if it were to go to court. The school still did nothing. So, the ACLU followed through, filed a lawsuit, and unsurprisingly, a judge ruled that mural had to be removed. As part of his opinion, he wrote:

No amount of debate can make the School Prayer anything other than a prayer.

Well, as you can expect, throughout the whole affair the 'good' Christians of Cranston have not been happy about this at all. It really has brought out the worst in some people. The blog, JesusFetusFajitaFishsticks, has a collection of some of the comments that have been directed at Jessica. Of course, there are the usual Christian threats that she'll burn in Hell, along with lots of people calling her a bitch. There are some threats that get even more explicit, such as:

Fuck Jessica alquist I'll drop anchor on her face

Let's all jump that girl who did the banner #fuckthatho

"@Ry_Simoneau: But for real somebody should jump this girl" lmao let's do it!

@jessicaahlquist your home address posted online i cant wait to hear about you getting curb stomped you fucking worthless cunt

As that last comment pointed out, someone even published her home address in the comments section of the local paper. In fact, the threats were so bad, that Jessica had to get police protection.

And it's not just young students acting out against Jessica. Grown adults are getting in on the act. Rhode Island State Representative Peter Palumbo, a Democrat, made some comments about Jessica on the John DePetro Show. He called her, perhaps somewhat jokingly, "an evil little thing". He also said, "Poor thing. And it’s not her fault. She’s being trained to be like that." When pressed on it, he relented a bit on her, but said that "she's being coerced by evil people." Seriously. An elected official is calling people evil for asking a school to take down a sectarian prayer.

On the petty side, local florist shops are refusing to deliver flowers to Jessica. The organization that was trying to send her the flowers eventually went to an out of state florist. According the the FFRF press release:

FFRF was forced to go to an out of state business, Glimpse of Gaia, in Putnam, Conn., which not only agreed to deliver the flowers but threw in a second bouquet from the shop with its own message, “Glimpse of Gaia fully supports our First Amendment and will not be bullied by those who do not. Here’s to you, Jessica Ahlquist.”

This whole ordeal has revealed quite a bit of hatred and bad behavior over someone simply asking a school to follow the law of the land and respect the Constitution. It's certainly revealed the ugly side of Christianity, and shown Jessica Ahlquist to be a very courageous young woman.

Here are a few sites where you can show your support for Jessica:
jessicaahlquist.com
Support Jessica Ahlquist
Evil Little Shirts

Here's one more link to a news story:
Rhode Island Teen's Battle Against Prayer Banner Has Gone 'Too Far,' Mayor Says

And I'll also note that The Digital Cuttlefish has devoted quite a few blog entries to creating verse about this situation. It's well worth browsing through that site to read them (as well as all the other poems).

Early on, the article presented a 'fact', without any rationale to back it up:

All of the energy concentrated in one gallon of gasoline is enough to charge an iPhone once a day for almost 20 years.

So, I thought I'd run some numbers to see just how reasonable this was.

First, what's the energy content of a gallon of gas? According to Wikipedia's Energy densities page, the energy density of gasoline is 47.2 megajoules per kilogram. A gallon of gas weighs about 6 lbs, for a mass of about 13.2 kg. Multiplying by the energy density gives 623.04 MJ in a gallon of gas.

Now, for something that took a little more work, what's the energy content of the iPhone battery. According to Wikipedia's iPhone 4 page, the battery is 3.7V at 1420 mAh. (An Ah is the "the electric charge transferred by a steady current of one ampere for one hour" - Wikipedia). So, doing a simple calculation on that, let's figure out the power the battery is putting out, and then how much energy that would be after the one hour for the Ah:

P = IV
P = 1.42A * 3.7V
P = 5.254W

As a sanity check, that's in line with what some random guy on the Internet claimed on Yahoo Answers, according to his kill-a-watt power meter.

And since energy is qual to Power times time:

E = Pt
E = 5.254W * 3600s
E = 18,914.4J

So, if we simply divide the energy content of the gas by the energy content of the battery, we get 32,940 charges. Assuming a charge every day for a year, that's 90.2 years. Now, of course, there are inefficiencies in the systems, so that's not right. Gasoline engines in cars are typically on the order of 25% - 30% efficient (per Wikipedia), and their alternators are typically on the order of 50% - 60% efficient. However, permanent alternators run optimally can have efficiencies in the high 90%'s (again, per Wikipedia). So, the claim that a gallon of gas could charge an iPhone every day for 20 years seems pretty reasonable.

An iPhone may not be huge, but 20 years is a pretty long time. It really just goes to show how much energy gasoline contains, and why it's so useful for powering vehicles.

As a side note, this is why I personally think that biofuels offer so much hope. If a way can be found to efficiently convert biomass into a gasoline like fuel (such as some of the studies on algae), we'd have a high density energy source that could take advantage of existing infrastructure. No waiting overnight to charge batteries - just a quick 10 minute stop at the pump to fill up with dead algae.

There was quite a mix up in the top 10 list this month. Two of the pages hadn't made the list before - Ray Comfort: Quote Miner Extraordinaire and Response to an E-Mail Supposedly Summarizing Dr. Charles Krauthammer's Views on Obama. In addition, the order was mixed up quite a bit from the trend it had been falling into. The MBT entry was down to 9th, while the blog entry, Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?, made it to the top spot for the first time.

Traffic dipped just a bit in December, back to just about the same as last July, but still not too far out of line with what it's been for the last year.

Anyway, here are the 10 most popular pages from this site for December 2011. And hopefully, I can get back to making substantive posts again next week.

1. Blog - Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
2. Autogyro History & Theory
3. Blog - My Favorite Airplanes
4. Blog - Ray Comfort - Still Ignorant on Evolution
5. Blog - Book Review - Voyage of the Beagle
6. Factoids Debunked & Verified
7. Blog - Ray Comfort: Quote Miner Extraordinaire
8. Blog - Response to an E-Mail Supposedly Summarizing Dr. Charles Krauthammer's Views on Obama
9. Blog - Crazy E-mail - Cash for Clunkers
10. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
11. Blog - Creation Museum/2nd Law of Thermodynamics

A Plane Christmas Greeting
by Bud Eichel

T'was the night before Xmas,
At Finleyville "Airdrome".
Not a creature was stirring,
Human, elf, or gnome.

All Aircraft secured,
In their Hangar "stalls".
The Xmas shoppers,
Home from the Malls.

From atop the Hangar,
The wind-sock hung low.
And bathed in moon-light,
The runway was aglow.

The rest of the field,
Was snowy and white.
This flyer's home-base,
Was a beautiful sight.

Then quick as a wink,
Dark shadows appeared.
Following moon-beams,
As they all neared.

Big ones and small,
These shadows all grew.
Twisting and turning
As by me they flew.

They made a "formation",
The shape of a "V".
Now as they pass,
They are plain to see.

Stearmans and Wacos,
A Stinson went by.
T-Crafts and Luscombes,
All on the fly!

Home-builts, a Mooney,
A new Carter-copter.
A Cessna amphibian,
An L-2 Grasshopper.

PT's and BT's,
From World War Two.
And old-style craft,
Like the Wright Bros. flew.

A "Cub" and a Grumman,
A sleek Monocoupe.
Can you believe this?
A pretty, '47 Ercoupe!

Aeroncas and Cessnas,
A Beech Musketeer.
Of all these Planes,
Not one, could I hear!

Are they "ghosts" of the past?
Am I tired and weary?
Wait, just a minute,
I have a theory!

That Angels exist,
I have no doubt.
And on Christmas Eve,
I'm sure they're about.

Did they take the form,
Of things that I love?
Is this my "gift",
From Heaven above?

If this was a gift,
I'd sure like to share.
Merry Christmas, to All,
I wish you were there!

Happy Holiday's, and Happy Landing's, to all my Pilot friends, & families.

No matter how you celebrate this time of year (or even if you don't celebrate at all), I still hope you have a good time.

But first, I think I'm going to make a tradition of something I did last year, and embed a YouTube video of Tim Minchin's 'White Whine in the Sun'.

My previous War on Christmas posts:

• War on Christmas (probably the most informative of all these links)
• Another Attack in the War on Christmas
• Yes, Virginia, There Are Liars
• The Salvation Army - To Give, or Not to Give?
• War on Christmas, 2010 (not much to this one)

The Digital Cuttlefish has quite a few Christmas poems. At the bottom of the first link below, he's provided a list of everything he posted this year. So, I'll just link to that one, plus a poem he wrote last year that I really like.

• (The War On) The War On The War On The War On Christmas
• The Night Before (The War On) Christmas

And that's it for my War on Christmas this year.

Added 2011-12-19 - Okay, one more thing. Here's a spoof on the Charlie Brown Christmas special that I couldn't resist posting (from Calamities of Nature). Just click on the image to see it full size.

Athletes thanking Jesus is nothing new. I always thought it was a bit odd to think that God would favor one team's prayers over another's, or that God would be a Broncos fan, but I'd gotten used to it. But, a blog website I read on a regular basis, Why Evolution Is True, also just so happened to discuss Tebow's religiosity, and one of the comments on that site presented something novel.

If you really believe there is a powerful supernatural agent that can actually affect the outcome of a football game in your favor, how the heck is this not cheating? If a powerful psychic was steering the ball around from the sidelines, this is obviously an unfair advantage. Once again, God gets a special exemption.

I'd never looked at it that way before. Anyway, I don't have any deep commentary. I just thought it was funny and I wanted to share.

First things first, the Salvation Army does a lot of good. Their thrift stores are well known, as well as their help to the needy. Perhaps slightly less well known are their disaster relief, rehabilitation centers, and homeless shelters, as well as a few programs I'm sure I've forgotten. And let me also dispel a prominent rumor. The bell ringers don't take a cut from the red kettle (see Snopes).

But, they're not without controversy. Keep in mind, the Salvation isn't just a charity. They're a church. They take positions on issues that would otherwise have nothing to do with their charity work. Take a look at this page on their site:

Salvation Army USA - Position Statements

They have positions on:

• Abortion
• Alcohol and Drugs
• Economic Justice
• Euthanasia
• Gambling
• Homosexuality
• Human Equality
• Human Trafficking
• Marriage
• Pornography
• Religious Persecution
• Suicide

Their positions are exactly what you'd expect from the religious right. For example, here's part of what they have to say about gambling.

The Salvation Army believes that gambling engages its participants and promoters in an exercise of greed contrary to biblical moral teaching. Gambling at best wastes personal resources, and at worst afflicts millions through a lifestyle of compulsive behaviors and destructive influences.

And just to show what they consider so bad:

Some examples of gambling include casino games, state lotteries, and betting on sports.

Moving on to something that's more of an active political discussion right now, here's part of their statement on homosexuality.

Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. The Salvation Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for same-sex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage.

And here's the beginning of their statement on marriage.

The Salvation Army affirms the New Testament standard of marriage, which is the loving union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. Marriage is the first institution ordained by God (Genesis 2:24), and His Word establishes its significance (Matthew 19:4-6).

Now, if they just had position statements, as bad as they are, that would be one thing. But the Salvation Army actively works to support their positions. The most famous example from this country was when New York City passed the Equal Benefits Bill, requiring all organizations receiving public funds to provide the same benefits to "domestic partners" as they do to spouses. The Salvation Army threatened to quit receiving public funding rather than abide by the law, which would have in effect shut down the majority of their operations in the city.

Then, there are numerous local incidents - none which are officially supported by Salvation Army headquarters, but which are still rather widespread. Someone else has already covered this pretty well, so here's a link to their article on the issue:

ARISE - Do not donate to the Salvation Army

Here's just a sampling of some of those local incidents:

• Refusing to help a gay homeless couple
• Disposing of Harry Potter and Twilight toys because they were against Christian principles
• Destroying books they disagree with
• Turning away a transgender woman who subsequently died from the cold
• Turning away children of illegal immigrants

Aside from how their positions affect their own charitable donations, here's an example of them trying to 'steal' money from another charity. When H. Guy Di Stefano died, he wanted his estate to be split evenly between 8 charities. One of them, Greenpeace International, was absorbed by the Greenpeace Fund between the writing of the will and Di Stefano's death. The money that was to go to Greenpeace International was going to go to the Greenpeace Fund, and none of the other charities had a problem with that, except for the Salvation Army. They argued that because it wasn't the same charity named in the will, that the money should be split evenly between the 7 remaining charities. An agreement was reached, and The Army's lawsuit was dropped.

More Info:
Seattle Times - Salvation Army settles its dispute over Issaquah man's $33 million bequest

And then, there's their cult like treatment of officers in their church. They can only marry other officers in the church. And it's not an empty threat. A few years ago, they did terminate an officer when he became engaged to someone from outside the organization.

More Info:
Christian Post - Salvation Army Leader to Lose Job for Violating Marriage Policy

So, what's a person to do? I think it's up to the person and how they're realistically going to respond. It's not as if the Salvation Army is the only game in town. There are plenty of worthwhile charities that don't have such horrible positions. My wife and I already donate to several charities, but I've decided to donate just a little more to make up for what I used to put into the red kettles.

But, I do think the Salvation Army does much more good than harm. So, if the only way you would donate would be to drop your change into one of their kettles, then don't hold back! Most of your money will go to helping people, and it's better than doing nothing at all. So in that case, go ahead and give the Salvation Army your spare change.

As far as overall traffic, the site just keeps on plugging along about the same. Based on average per day (since some months have more days than others), October had a slight dip in traffic, but November had a slight increase to above what it had been in September.

The top 3 seems pretty solidifed for now. I was a bit dissapointed to see the Ray Comfort entry dip off the Top 10 in November, but I was happy to see the chicken enchilada page make it back in.

Anyway, here are the 10 most popular pages from this site for October 2011.

1. Autogyro History & Theory
2. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
3. Blog - Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
4. Blog - Running AutoCAD R14 in XP Pro 64
5. Factoids Debunked & Verified
6. Blog - Ray Comfort - Still Ignorant on Evolution
7. Blog - Letter to Pharmacy about MBT Shoes
8. Blog - My Favorite Airplanes
9. Factoids Debunked & Verified, Part II
10. Programming

And here are the pages from November 2011.

1. Autogyro History & Theory
2. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
3. Blog - Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
4. Blog - Running AutoCAD R14 in XP Pro 64
5. Factoids Debunked & Verified
6. Blog - Letter to Pharmacy about MBT Shoes
7. Factoids Debunked & Verified, Part II
8. Blog - Creation Museum/2nd Law of Thermodynamics
9. Recipe for 3 Cheese Chicken Enchiladas with Cream Cheese Sauce
10. Programming

I usually try to point out my favorite books from the year in this part. In years past, I've had some difficulty because there were just so many books that I liked. This year, though, there were a few standouts. My favorites were Dragon's Keep, All My Friends Are Dead, Why Evolution Is True, Two Years Before the Mast, and Castle. That's not to say that some of the other books weren't really good, but those five, at least to me, were exceptional.

Since this entry started as a response to an e-mail, it started with the assumption that the person I was writing it to was familiar with Boone's editorial. So, I'm not going to quote all of his editorial. If you go to the Snopes link below, you can find a link to the full version.

To get the easy error checking out of the way, Snopes confirmed that this was written by Boone.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/patboone.asp

Accuracy of Quotes

The editorial started off with 4 supposed quotes from Obama.

"We're no longer a Christian nation." - President Barack Obama, June 2009

" America has been arrogant." - President Barack Obama

"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals."- President Barack Obama

"You might say that America is a Muslim nation."- President Barack Obama, Egypt 2009

As far as the accuracy of those quotes, this article on UrbanLegends at About.com covers all four of them pretty well:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/a/president_without_a_country.htm

None of the four is an accurate quote. The first cut short what Obama said, changing the meaning. Here’s the full quote:

Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation — at least, not just; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

If Boone had included the full quote, he’d have realized that it said almost exactly what he wrote near the end of his article about what Obama should have said.

BTW, the awkward wording on that was due to Obama misspeaking. The originally prepared written copy of the speech put ‘just’ right in the middle of the first sentence, not tacked on at the end.

The second and third quotes are paraphrased, though not changing the meaning too much. However, it’s always best to read quotes in full context, which you can do at that UrbanLegends at About.com link.

The fourth quote doesn’t appear to even be a paraphrase. The closest Obama came to saying anything like that was in an interview with a reporter. Here’s the section of the interview where that probably came from:

Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there's got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.

Christian Nation? Founders Intentions

Okay, moving past Boone’s inaccuracy in the quotes, let’s look at some of his other points.

Let’s start at the whole notion of the U.S. being a Christian nation, and being founded by Christians. In fact, this is a bit of a complicated issue. The Founding Fathers were no more uniform than any group of politicians. Some were definitely Christians. Some definitely weren’t. Some called themselves Christians, but were outside what would be considered mainstream Christianity today. And some probably changed their views throughout their lives.

Thomas Jefferson is probably the most famous example. He called himself a Christian, but for all intents and purposes, he was a deist. He didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ, and went so far as to make his own version of the Bible where he removed all the miracles. In letters, he wrote that he disagreed with some of Jesus' teachings. Jefferson certainly disliked organized religion and churches. He wrote “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government,” as well as, “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

Boone, for some reason, dismissed Jefferson’s statement about a ‘wall of separation between Church and State’. I think Jefferson was quite clear in what he wrote:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

Elsewhere, Jefferson wrote statements that confirmed this, such as:

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

More Info:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_religion#Anti-clericalism.2C_anti-mysticism.2C_and_anti-Calvinism
• http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/chapter_2.html

George Washington didn’t discuss religion much at all. However, it’s interesting to consider the story of him and Communion. He never took Communion. On those Sundays at which Communion was served, he would leave the church early. After the pastor warned him that he might be setting a bad example by leaving early and not taking Communion, Washington quit going to church on Communion Sundays altogether. Many people have used this example (among others) to argue that Washington only went to church for social reasons, and wasn’t very religious himself.

More Info:

• http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/chapter_3.html

You can look beyond statements from individuals. The Treaty of Tripoli had wording that I can hardly imagine being passed in today’s political climate, but which didn’t seem to faze the Founders. Article 11 of the treaty states:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This wasn’t something that just slipped by. It had unanimous Senate support. To quote from the link below:

[The treaty] was, according to the official record, read aloud (the whole treaty was only a page or two long), including the famous words, on the floor of the senate and copies were printed for every Senator. (It should be noted that the controversy about the Arabic version is irrelevant here: all official treaty collections from 1797 on contain the English version, and all include the famous words of Article XI.) A committee considered the treaty and recommended ratification. Twenty-three Senators voted to ratify: … The vote was recorded only because at least a fifth of the Senators present voted to require a recorded vote. This was the 339th time … that a recorded vote was required. It was only the third time that a vote was recorded when the vote was unanimous! (The next time was to honor George Washington.) There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty.

President Adams signed the treaty and proclaimed it to the nation on 10 June 1797. His statement on it was a bit unusual: "Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof."

More Info:

• http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/buckner_tripoli.html

While the Declaration does mention a ‘Creator’, that could be taken as a deistic stance as easily as a Christian one (in Jefferson’s original draft, there was no mention of a creator at all). But, that’s somewhat beside the point since the Declaration was a statement of war against the British, not a founding document of our nation, and it doesn’t carry any weight in current U.S. law. The Constitution itself never makes mention of a god or a creator at all, except for listing the date as “Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven”, which is no more explicitly Christian than using the convention of B.C./A.D.

More Info:

• http://candst.tripod.com/doitj.htm
  
• http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#god
  

It’s also worth noting that the first de facto motto of the U.S. was ‘E. Pluribus Unum’ (from many, one), and that ‘In God We Trust’ wasn’t made the official motto until the Red Scare and McCarthyism. ‘In God We Trust’ didn’t even start appearing on coins until the Civil War. Similarly, even though it’s from a later period than the founding of the nation, the original version of the pledge of allegiance (written by a socialist, by the way) made no mention of the divine, and it was also during the McCarthy era that the pledge was altered.

More Info:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Pluribus_Unum
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Changes
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy

However, like I wrote above, the issue of religion in the founding of our country was complicated. There were numerous Christians among the Founders, and many people who did want religion to be more prevalent. When it came to state constitutions, many did include language about God and Christianity, and many states even had religious tests to hold office. (Keep in mind that the Bill of Rights originally applied only to the federal government, so state governments could violate those Amendments).

So, the short answer is that people were divided on the role of religion in government even at the start of the country, but it appears that the federal government, at least, was primarily secular.

Judeo-Christian Values?

But even if our government wasn’t explicitly religious, was it still founded on Judeo-Christian religious principles? Not really. At least, not values that are exclusively Judeo-Christian.

Many laws are so basic that they’re present in practically all societies, regardless of religion. Any laws against murder, theft, etc., are pretty much common to all civilizations, not just Judeo-Christian ones. The golden rule, for example, was present in many ancient societies, from the Egyptians to the Chinese.

The structure of our government certainly is not based on Christianity. It’s a democratic republic, which dates back to the Greeks & Romans (who worshipped a pantheon of gods). Enshrining laws in a written code dates back at least to the Code of Hammurabi.

One aspect of our government that’s actually in direct contradiction to Judeo-Christian values is the religious freedom part of the 1st Amendment. Compare it to the first few Commandments (either 1-3 or 1-4 depending on how you count them). Giving people the freedom to worship whichever gods they want to, or none at all, is not a Judeo-Christian value. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 is another passage from the Bible going against the 1st Amendment).

I think it could be argued that our government was based more on Enlightenment values than any particular religion. That’s not to say that many Founding Fathers and citizens didn’t have Judeo-Christian values, but rather that those values were applied more to their personal lives, not politics.

More Info:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enlightenment

Last Remarks on Religion

As one last part of this discussion on religion vs. government, above I was only correcting Boone’s factual errors. Moving to the subjective realm, another point is to question the importance of the Founding Fathers’ original intentions. They weren’t infallible, or guided from on high. They were simply men doing their best. Remember, these are men who (as a group, at least) agreed that slavery should have been legal and that women didn’t deserve the right to vote. And like I wrote above, they originally only applied the Bill of Rights to the federal government, so states could infringe on liberties as much as their citizenry allowed. So if we want to change things about the country that we no longer like, we shouldn’t feel like slaves to the Founders.

As far as the current makeup of the country, it’s still majority Christian, but the trend is away from that. In 1990, around 86% of the population was Christian. In 2008, it was down to 76%. In 1990, 3.3% of people were of non-Christian religions. In 2008 it was 3.9%. The biggest change was in people of no religion. In 1990, they were 8.2% of the U.S. population. In 2008 they were 15%. (Those numbers don’t add up to 100% partly due to rounding, but mainly due to the people who refused to respond to the question on religious affiliation in the survey.)

If that trend continues, it will only be a few more decades until Christians are a minority in the U.S. (according to some surveys, this point has already been reached in the UK). But do you want a new majority to be able to push their religious beliefs through government? I don’t. That’s the whole point of Jefferson’s ‘wall of separation’. It ensures that no matter what your religious beliefs, you’ll always be free to practice them without government interference (so long as they don’t break any other laws, of course).

More Info:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#ARIS_findings_regarding_self-identification
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United_Kingdom

Not Living Up to Ideals

Honestly, I’m not sure why anyone would disagree with this statement unless they were blinded by irrationally extreme nationalism. I have yet to talk to a single person I know personally who likes the Patriot Act, or who doesn’t think that it’s a gross violation of our liberty. Or the TSA - every time I fly, I’m annoyed at the pointless hoops I have to jump through, knowing that they’re little more than show, which would do practically nothing to stop a determined terrorist, but which violate the 4th Amendment.

Or consider the detainees in Guantanamo, who are being held without trial, on suspicion of having committed a crime. Granted, those detainees are not citizens, but have we become so cowardly that we’re willing to deny 6th Amendment rights to human beings over a technicality? (Especially for the people who put so much stock in the Declaration. It says ‘ALL men are created equal’, not just ‘all men born on American soil or to American parents’.)

And what about using a method of torture which, during WWII, was considered sufficiently horrendous to justify the hanging of Japanese soldiers who had employed it against our troops? And the present day torture is not an isolated case of some rogue soldiers, but a decree that came from the White House.

To quote another of the Founding Fathers, it was Benjamin Franklin who wrote, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

More Info:

• http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/04/pew-poll-public-support-for-torture-at-five-year-high/
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/guantanamo-detainees-see-legal-progress-reversed/2011/06/21/AGr71ljH_story.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding#World_War_II
• http://civilliberty.about.com/od/waronterror/ig/War-on-Terror-101/Rights-of-Guantanamo-Detainees.htm

Closing

I guess that’s most of it. My e-mail response, and hence this blog entry, grew a lot longer than I’d originally intended, but Boone just said so many untrue things that I wanted to respond to. But the summary is that Boone misquoted Obama and went off on some ranting from that false base, while adding in a bit of a distorted history of the nation, as well.

The quake's been a topic of quite a few conversations here in Wichita Falls. Earlier this week, I had a dentist appointment. My dentist is pretty friendly, and we usually talk a bit about non-teeth related topics. He's never brought up religion with me before since that would be unprofessional, and given my views and the region I live in, I never make it a point to bring up religion myself. However, when we got to talking about the quake, he told me about the mental checklist he went through trying to figure out what was happening.

I can't remember his exact words, but he said that at first he thought it might have been the Rapture. Now, he wasn't exactly sure if was going to be taken, but he was pretty sure his wife was going to make the cut. So, when he looked over and saw her still sitting there, he knew that that couldn't have been it.

Anyway, I have no commentary. I just thought it was funny.