Notes from a Radicalized Atheist

Must we?

I try to be fair, I try to be respectful, I try to remember that many of the worthwhile things that have occurred over the last couple of millennia are the result either of the church or their believers. And what, I ask myself, have we atheists ever contributed? Have we started soup kitchens, held the hand of the dying, worked with lepers? So shouldn’t I give organized religion a break?

Want the short answer?

Fuck no.

To any nonbeliever out there, it’s been a bad couple of weeks. Consider, for example, the famous Hobby Lobby case, and can I convince you, Horrified Readers, that the religious backgrounds of the five male justices had noting to do with it? That all five of the justices who voted in favor of Hobby Lobby were catholic (nope, no capitals today, dammit)—that’s a coincidence? Oh, and the other catholic on the court who voted in dissent was a woman—Sonia Sotomayor—otherwise, guess what? It would have been 6 / 3.

Did you know, Hobby Lobby—as yes, I’m addressing you personally, since that apparently is what five people in the US have decided you are—what kind of a crowd you were going against? Because there isn’t one protestant on the Supreme Court (seriously thinking about those caps, too). So you guys walked into the lion’s den and came out unscathed—gotta hand it to you.

Of course, let’s hope your daughter doesn’t work for a closely-held corporation that has strong Jehovah’s Witness beliefs. Otherwise, that blood transfusion? Or the vaccines, which oddly enough have gotten prohibitively expensive? Here, courtesy of The New York Times, is the lead from an article entitled “The Price of Prevention: Vaccine Costs are Soaring:”

There is little that Dr. Lindsay Irvin has not done for the children’s vaccines in her office refrigerator: She remortgaged her home to afford their rising prices.

Guys? Can you imagine what the rest of the world is thinking about us?

Now the situation is so bad that a rabid little college in Illinois—Wheaton College—has decided it doesn’t want to fill out a form telling the government that the college is opting out of the contraceptive clause; here’s the Columbus Dispatch on the subject:

The school had argued that simply doing the paperwork — the form asks only for name, contact information, signature and date — infringed upon its religious liberty because it would trigger the employee’s ability to get the disputed contraception.

What’s this about? Simple—the Supreme Court has just declared the right of corporations to impose their religious beliefs on workers.

Nor did the religious right waste any time, because, the day after Hobby Lobby? A whole gaggle of religious groups sent a letter asking Obama to not issue an order directing the federal government to not award contracts to companies; enter The New York Times, again:

Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s addlebrained Hobby Lobby decision, several groups wrote to Mr. Obama on July 1 asking him to allow federal contractors to fire or refuse to hire workers based on their religious objections to a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Oh—just for your information, the article is titled “Tax-payer Financed Bigotry,” a statement so pithy that it spares you the need to read further.

Well, we already have the catholic church firing teachers and principals of their schools who have gotten married—to members of their own sex, that is. Oh, and by the way, are those schools entirely self-funded? No nickel of the taxpayers going there?

Here’s a clue:

More than 80 percent of students receiving federal vouchers through the D.C. program attend private religious schools with such civil rights exemptions but no opt-out option for religious instruction. 

Oh, and don’t think, by the way, that all you have to do is worry about federal money, because you also have to worry about what the bastards in your statehouse are doing. Because increasingly, that’s where the action is; consider this, from The Washington Post:

In North Carolina, the state legislature recently passed a bill to divert $10 million of taxpayer money meant for public schools to private schools, including those that “provide an education that is Christ-centered” and teach “the truth of scripture” with “Bible-based facts,” such as: “dinosaurs and humans co-existed on Earth; slave-masters generally treated their slaves well; in some areas, the KKK fought the decline in morality by using the sign of the cross; and gay people have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists.”

Know what? I’m now radicalized—for (easily) ten years I worked in a company where wearing a gold crucifix around your neck was almost de rigeur, where saying “bien, gracias a Dios” was the standard response to the question of how you were doing. And I shut up because I was respectful, though I admit to fighting the life-size crèche that Human Resources—ladies? Aren’t you guys supposed to be the experts here?—put up one Christmas. But now?

Now, I wish I had turned the company into a battleground. I wish I had said, “god doesn’t exist,” at every turn. I wish I had told everybody that had a crucifix to take it off, because I found it offensive. I wish the whole company had ground to a halt, so that 499 people could have been jumping the throat of little me. I should have duked it out until the end.

Reasonable?

Done with it!

Lands I'll Never See

OK—this is NOT what I’m going to talk about. I mean, why go on and on about the diocese of Arecibo, which has just been told by judge Ángel Pagán Ocasio that it has fifteen days to hand over the documents about its seven pederast priests and (minimally) twenty victims.

‘It’s old, Marc’ I tell myself. For the last thirty years (or thirty decades?) it’s been the same story. And even though the dioceses of San Juan, Mayagüez, and Caguas have handed over the documents, the bishop of Arecibo is standing firm. He’s not gonna hand them over. The Catholic Church, you see, first has to abuse these kids, and then it turns around and “protects” their privacy.

“I really think men should be barred from running religions,” I told Pablo. It was hardly a felicitous choice, since Pablo is a minister. But he’s gay, so he got it….

I told him because I had told myself—this ranting has got to stop. First you became obsessed with Joyce DiDonato, now it’s the Catholic Church. And besides, the Catholic Church is as open as a Kansas prairie compared to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If memory serves, the video I watched last weekend claims that the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization has a database of 23, 720 reports of sexual abuse of minors, And, like you-know-what, their policy is to report to the Vati…sorry, that’s their headquarters in Brooklyn. Then, the pastor-or-elder-or-whatever is told to handle it internally. But guess what? Church policy requires that for anything to be settled, there must be two—hey, Marc, where’s that famous flare for punctuation?—TWO witnesses.

See what I mean about men in religion?

I knew they were crazy—how crazy I didn’t know. Want an example? Well, Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the denomination, had the really bad habit of announcing the end of the world (added value, Readers: think twice about this when establishing your religion…). He did it several times, and farmers did crazy things like not planting their fields—since why bother? Oh, and some people sold their homes.

So it was all a bit embarrassing when the deadlines passed, but not a problem, because Russell—who must have been quick of feet—came up with an explanation. Jesus had come back—but invisibly! And you know what? It may have been true, because, look—it’s just little me, sitting in a café in Old San Juan. And there are 7.9 million people out there—including two in the plaza right now standing next to a cardboard placard saying “What does the Bible REALLY say?”—who completely believe in the visible return of our savior. So the odds are that Jesus really did come back…

What else do these guys believe?

Well, it may be that my brain was fogged after reading the word—and dimly remembering its meaning—eschatology. (And why am I reminded of Dorothy Parker, just now, who, when asked to use horticulture in a sentence, came up with “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think?”) At any rate, I read the paragraph below three times, and then went off to eat a snicker doodle, just to get the blood sugar up a bit. And guess what? I still don’t get it. For anyone out there who really needs to know, here it is:

A central teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses is that the current world era, or "system of things", entered the "last days" in 1914 and faces imminent destruction through intervention by God and Jesus Christ, leading to deliverance for those who worship God acceptably.[191] They consider all other present-day religions to be false, identifying them with "Babylon the Great", or the "harlot", of Revelation 17,[192] and believe that they will soon be destroyed by the United Nations, which they believe is represented in scripture by the scarlet-colored wild beast of Revelation chapter 17. This development will mark the beginning of the "great tribulation".[193] Satan will subsequently attack Jehovah's Witnesses, an action that will prompt God to begin the war of Armageddon, during which all forms of government and all people not counted as Christ's "sheep", or true followers, will be destroyed. After Armageddon, God will extend his heavenly kingdom to include earth, which will be transformed into a paradise similar to the Garden of Eden.[194] After Armageddon, most of those who had died before God's intervention will gradually be resurrected during "judgment day" lasting for one thousand years. This judgment will be based on their actions after resurrection rather than past deeds. At the end of the thousand years, a final test will take place when Satan is released to mislead perfect mankind. Those who fail will be destroyed, along with Satan and his demons. The end result will be a fully tested, glorified human race. Christ will then hand all authority back to God. 

All I can think is that God—oooops, that’s Jehovah, sorry about that—put these people on earth to make the Mormons look mainstream….

OK—I’ll tell you what you already may know: the JWs prohibit blood transfusions, saluting the flag, joining the armed forces, celebrating birthdays and holidays. In addition, the religion is strongly patriarchal and conservative. Men lead and women are submissive, though men, according to Wikipedia, are encouraged to listen to their wives’ and children’s thoughts—thanks guys!

What if someone goes off the track?

Well, that can be a problem—since, in the first place, contact with any other religion is strongly discouraged. But if it’s really bad, the sinner is disfellowshipped (ah, computer, at last we agree!) and then shunned. So that means your family can talk to you, and any business obligations (especially those with a contract involved) can be done—but that’s it. Oh, and elders can invite you to repent and thus be reinstated (something I was hoping would be called refellowshipped, but no luck).

So the woman in the video of last weekend endured physical and sexual abuse, as did her children, and what was the advice? Go home, be more submissive, and pray harder.

It was, in short, a sort of Sophie’s choice: she could give up everything and save her kids, or she could throw her kids to the wolves, or rather, the wolf. Guess what she chose?

I told myself—I have to step back. This is my sanity, here. No more rants, Marc!

So consider the case of Wells Cunningham, whom YouTube—adept at tracking my history—suggested I watch. Well, I knew the Handel-Halvorsen duo, but what was the story with the man, Halvorsen himself? Is it right to have spent so much time with the JWs, and to know nothing about Johan Halvorsen, 1864 to 1935? Well, here he is, since cute guys have a special place in this blog:

Halvorsen was a Norwegian violinist, conductor and composer of—among other things—incidental music for plays. Oh, and he married Grieg’s—yes, that Grieg—niece. And he’s known for just a few pieces, of which the passacaglia below is one. And another one? The Entry March of the Boyars, which you can find on YouTube, and to which you can listen to the first minute and then safely go off to do something else. Don’t worry, you won’t have missed anything….

And Wells Cunningham, the cellist? Wait—not only is he an amazing cellist, but he also plays the violin—as he does in the clip below—the piano and the guitar. And damn, who is he, and where did he get that amazing technique? With a nod to Malcolm Gladwell, this guy got to 10,000 hours and then decided to do it all over again.

Well, he’s a graduate of the University of Miami and Eastman School of Music, and the principal cellist of the New World Symphony—or perhaps used to be. And he’s done work with popular artists like Jennifer López and Marc Anthony.   

So I listened to the Handel-Halvorsen, and then I listened to Cunningham play the 24^th caprice of Paganini, and was impressed enough to send myself the clip. It arrived in my inbox with the notation: this message has no content.

Absolutely true, I thought, the Paganini certainly doesn’t have any content, so why bother? So I turned to the second symphony of Halvorsen—which actually wasn’t too bad.

There are lands I’ll never get to, and that’s all right, I decided. I’ll never have Cunningham’s technique, for example. I’ll never have faith, or—perhaps—follow a spiritual path. But a nice, Nordic symphony?

Ah, I can go there!

Do You Know Where Your Prócer Is?

Well, having taken care of the decision, yesterday, of whether to charge the Boston bomber in civilian courts or treat him as an enemy combatant—thanks, Barry, for following my guidelines—we can turn our heads to local news.

Not much of which, typically, is particularly cheerful. We have fallen arms (brazos caídos) in the police department—which is to say that almost 1000 cops called in “sick” today. This, states the chief, is putting us all in danger.

This is questionable, at least for me, since the principal activity of our local force seems to be chatting. But my mind may have been poisoned, those decades ago before I moved to Puerto Rico, by the descriptions of the police given to me by my friend Harry, who also told me the following joke, common throughout Latin America.

An old lady hears noises in her living room late at night. She peers through the keyhole and sees two robbers stealing her silver. She then rushes to the window and cries out, “Thieves in the house, call the police!” The next night, she again hears noises, peers through keyhole, and rushes to the window. She shouts, “Police in the house, call the thieves!”

Right—Harry tells it better.

I will say, however, that I caught myself thinking, absentmindedly one day, “Wow, I can’t believe they give those guys guns….”

Well, the police are protesting because of changes to the retirement plan, which is broke, and which had to be amended by a recent law—an action that was basically forced on us by the likes of Moody’s and Standard and Poors. We are, sadly, one small step away from junk bond status, and any degradation would be, if not fatal, at least quite sickening. So we passed a law pretty much in the dark, since, in fact, we have absolutely no knowledge of how much money we need. Why not? Because nobody has ever done any actuarial work on the plan. In fact, it may be that nobody could do actuarial work—it’s not clear that we have the data.

So we passed a bad law and now people are, to say the least, grumpy. Actually, some people are predicting that there will be a massive retirement before the new law goes into effect on June 1, and nobody is quite sure what that will do.

People in our gated communities are grumpy, too—a federal judge has just told them that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a constitution right to enter their communities, walk the neighborhood, knock on doors, and spread the good news. Well, churlish individuals don’t, apparently, want the news—“how do I know,” they are thundering, “that the Jehovah’s Witness isn’t really a delinquent?” (or delincuente, as it works better in Spanish….)

Well, it raises all sorts of questions. The Witnesses are allowed in because they sued, and won. But what about the Mormons? Or what about just Marc—shouldn’t I be allowed to walk down a street provided and maintained by the government? Among the many things that I never quite got, the right of a community to gate themselves in is one.

Right, so The New Day (El Nuevo Día, the local rag) reports that the Archbishop of San Juan, Roberto González Nieves, is very likely grumpy, too. Or maybe not—he’s a scrappy guy, always up for a fight. And what is it, this time? Well, two years ago he decided to name one of the chapels in the cathedral the Altar de la Patria.

Time for a language break—patria has a particular meaning. It’s the motherland, the homeland, the native land. It also, unfortunately, may mean nation, and here the battle starts. The archbishop has made no bones about his views on the status of Puerto Rico—he supports independence. No problem, says some of his parishioners, but don’t drag it into the church.

What González did drag in, a couple of weeks ago, are the remains of a guy—all right, a prócer or patriot—named Ramón Power y Giralt and another guy named Juan Alejo de Arizmendi.

OK—Power first. He was born in 1775 in Ponce, and then was sent at age 13 to Spain, to continue his studies. He joined the navy, and distinguished himself in the blockade of Santo Domingo against the French. None of that is controversial.

What is controversial—at least potentially—is his work as a prócer / statesman. He was appointed to represent Puerto Rico in the Spanish Cortes, a parliamentary assembly meeting in 1810 in Cádiz. And he must have impressed—he was named vice president of the assembly, and fought hard for more autonomy for Puerto Rico. He succeeded in passing the Power Act, which established five tax-free ports on the island, eliminated the monopoly on flour, reduced tariffs, and provided for economic reforms.

The Cortes also wrote a constitution, passed in 1812, and called—get ready—The Constitution of 1812. It was the most liberal of its time; it established universal male (of course) suffrage, freedom of the press, constitutional monarchy and—here you really should get ready—national sovereignty.

This was not a great time in Spain—the French controlled much of the country, what they didn’t control were controlled by juntas—, Bonaparte had deposed Ferdinand and installed his own brother Joseph as king. The Constitution of 1812, says Wikipedia, was never really enforced. At any rate, Ferdinand regained power in 1814, and guess what the first thing he did was?

Right—tear up the constitution.

For those people who support independence, Power y Giralt is a major figure since, for two tumultuous years, it was through him that Puerto Rico enjoyed autonomy. The rest of the island, of course, doesn’t spend much time on him.

Important—Ramón Power y Giralt died and was buried in Cádiz, Spain, in 1813.

Right—on to Arizmendi. First important fact—he was the first native-born bishop in Puerto Rico. He was a strong defender of the poor, and made straw baskets, sold them, and used the proceeds to buy food and clothes for the poor.

He was also a strong supporter of Power y Giralt, and most famously gave his bishopric ring to him, saying it was "as sure pledge that will sustain you in the memory of your resolution to protect and maintain the rights of our fellow countrymen, as I myself am resolved to die for my beloved flock."

Seems pretty innocuous, right? Well, I’ll step back from the controversy and let Wikipedia tell the story:

A modern day interpretation, which has no historical foundation that can be found in the footnote, is that for Arizmendi this was also a national symbol of Puerto Rico by joining his country and God in his heart.  

Well, two years ago the current Archbishop of San Juan dreamed up the idea—why not dig up the remains of Power, over there in Spain, and bring him over to be re-united with the remains of his old friend, Arizmendi? We could have the two great próceres together and put them—guess where?—¡en la Altar de la Patria! Wow—who could object?

If you don’t know, you’re not Puerto Rican. And since there is a group that is both Catholic and pro-statehood, they began petitioning the Vatican, which last year sent over a guy from Ecuador, Antonio Arregui Yarza, to check into the matter.

And Arregui—what did he find?

Not known, says the New Day, but what is known is that the Archbishop of San Juan has been told twice—enough with the Altar de la Patria and nix to the idea of interring the remains of the two patriots in the chapel.  

And so it was that on 6 April 2013, the remains of Ramón Power y Giralt were escorted solemnly into the old city by a group of very dignified—you can see them below—young sailors from the Spanish navy training ship. The remains went first to the capitol, where everybody received them with much formality and respect and protestations of good will. Then, they went to the Department of State, where the process was repeated.

And now?

Well, the New Day doesn’t quite say where the remains are, but…

…I’m running up to the Cathedral to see….