Guest Post -The Bible is Such An Obvious Myth; Why Do We Take It Seriously?

INTRODUCTION 

At the outset, I should make clear that I am not a biblical scholar.  What I’m writing below is based entirely on my observations of the plain text of the first few chapters in the biblical book of Genesis.  I am writing about the creation myth and the myth of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.  Scholars, professional philosophers, theologians, rabbis, priests, ministers, and preachers may have different things to say.  For this essay, I’m taking the text at face value.  I assume that the text is a myth, written down by human beings. My goal is to nitpick and point to contradictions and/or inconsistencies that appear to my untrained eye.

After watching a video in which Alex O’Connor pointed out a few things about the creation myth I decided to reread it to confirm what Alex had to say an draw som conclusions of my own.  I was actually surprised by what I saw in the text itself, things I had never considered before.  Keep in mind that as far as I’m concerned the text is a creation myth and nothing more.  

There are many versions and editions off the Bible.  For that reason, I’m not going to cite chapter and verse like a preacher.  Nor will I give citations which would elevate this essay to the status of scholarship.  Nevertheless you can look it up, as they say, if you have any doubt about the details I provide here.  

I find some of the elements of the story humorous and ironic, but as I point out in the conclusion, there is really nothing funny about people waisting their lives chasing a false promise — a myth.  

We can do better.  

THE STORY

In Genesis, it’s written that after creating the world, there were no plants or herb because 1) the god had not caused it to rain, and 2) there was no one to till the ground. After a stream appeared and watered the ground, the god added some water to the dust of the earth, formed a man and breathed life into him.  By the way, making some clay, sculpting a man, breathing life into it — that’s a good trick, but the god wasn’t the only one who could do it.  A couple thousand years later, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel did the same thing in Prague.  I first heard that story while walking with a guide through the Prague Jewish cemetery — The guide wouldn’t lie, would he? Oh, but that’s another story.    

Then, the god planted the garden with every tree that was pleasant to look at and good for food.  The god also planted a tree of knowledge (of good and evil) and a tree of (eternal) life.  First the man was made and only then the garden was planted.  When the man put into the garden to till it — there was no mention of a John Deere tractor.  The god told the man that he could eat anything in the garden EXCEPT the fruit from the tree of knowledge, because if you do, on that day, you will die.  I want to emphasize that the man was told he would die on the day he learned the difference between good and evil — on that day.

After the man was ensconced in the garden, the god put the man to sleep, extracted a rib an made a woman.  It’s interesting that before performing the costectomy the god used an anesthetic.    

Later, the serpent showed up to have a word with the woman, Eve.  The first thing to notice was that the serpent was an animal.  More crafty than the other animals, but an animal — not the devil disguised as an animal.  And the story tells us that all the animals were made by the god. “The serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the lord god HAD MADE.” (My emphasis).  I just want it to be clear that the serpent was a wild animal.  

When the woman told the serpent they were forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or even touch it — in other words, look but don’t touch or eat, because if you do, you’ll die.  The serpent said: “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 

The woman saw this tree that looked good, the fruit was good to eat, and it “would make one wise.”  After she at it, Adam took some too.  They didn’t die, but they saw that they were naked.  Being naked caused shame so they grabbed some fig leaves and sewed some loincloths. 

That night when there was a nice breeze, the god walked through the garden (the story doesn’t say what the god was doing during the day).  The god didn’t see the people so it called “where are you.”  When the man told the god that they were hiding because they were ashamed of being naked, the god knew right away what had happened.  The man blamed the woman and the woman claimed the serpent had tricked her. 

As a result: 1) The serpent was cursed to crawl on its belly; 2) The woman was cursed with increased pain in childbirth and subjection to her husband; 3) The man was condemned to toil and sweat to grow food — cursed is the ground, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth, “until you return to the ground, for out if it you were taken.  You are dust and to dust you shall return.” 

Then the god made them clothes and banished them from the garden, lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever.  To make sure they didn’t return and eat the fruit that would let them live forever, the god put “the cherubim” with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life.   

Verbum Domini — I kid you not.  Can we talk?

THE OMNISCIENT AND ALMIGHTY GOD

Christians teach that god is omniscient, i.e. the god knows everything, even what is in a persons brain — I know people like to say that god knows what’s in their hearts. I know what’s in your heart too — blood.  Our thoughts are in our brain, are they not?  But if god is all knowing, why did it not know where Adam was.  Adam was hiding and it was only when he told the god he was naked that the god knew he had dated the forbidden fruit.  Seems strange, does it not?  Also if the god is omniscient, why didn’t it know Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit — it wasn’t until Adam said he was ashamed of being naked that god figured out what had happened.  

Likewise, if this almighty god didn’t want the people to eat something that would let them know good and evil — the essence of being a god, why did the god plant the tree of knowledge in a place to which the humans had access? If the answer is so that the god could test the humans, recall that the humans didn’t know good and evil, right and wrong.  Knowledge of good and evil came with the fruit of the tree.  Well, maybe the trees of knowledge and life were already there.  No, the myth is explicit, first the god caused a stream to rise and water the ground, from that water and some dust the god made a man, then the god planted the garden that had all the trees, including the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.  

“We learn from the forbidden fruit, for brains there is no substitute.” (Robert Frost, Quandary).  There were about ten then that caught my eye as I reread the myth.

First: The god lied. The god said the humans would die that day. The god didn’t say that if they ate the fruit, eventually they would get sick or suffer an injury, or just die of old age.  No, on the very day you eat it, you will die. Instead, they lived for hundreds of years.  Eventually the life span of humans was set at 120 years.  It was the serpent who told the truth. “You will not die” — and they didn’t.

Second: The humans had access to a tree that granted eternal life, but that didn’t interest them. They chose the one that made them like the god with knowledge of good and evil. On one hand it would seem like knowledge was more attractive than life, but we have to remember that until they ate the fruit, they didn’t know what was better, they didn’t know good from evil.  

Third: If the essence of a god is the ability to know good from evil and only gods, and those like gods, have that ability, why did this almighty god create evil and introduced into the world in the first place?  Is it even possible to have good without the opposite? The god knew that evil exists, it just didn’t want to let the humans in on the plot.  Perhaps good and evil are just facts of life.  As Robert Frost wrote about bad, “It was by having been contrasted that good and bad so long had lasted.”  You can’t have good unless it’s opposite is there too, so how is it that we are told that evil entered the world because of original sin?

Fourth: None of the punishments introduced anything new, the consequence was that the serpent and the people would be aware of the status quo. 

The serpent was condemned to crawl on it’s belly, but the story doesn’t mention that the serpent had legs, or wings, or any other means of locomotion.

The woman would have an increase of pain during childbirth and would be number two on the totem pole. 

The man had already been charged with tilling the garden, it was the very reason the god mixed some mud - water and dust, and made him.  Now he would be aware how much work it was to grow food on ground full of thorns and thistles.  Evil was not a consequence of becoming like a god, it was knowledge of how evil their life was that was their punishment.  The lying god didn’t want the humans to know how evil it (the god) was, but the serpent blurted out the truth.

Fifth: It was the man who was punished with laborious farming cursed soil.  The irony is that in early human societies, it was the women who did the farming, while the men went off to “hunt and fish” — a likely story.  Like Ulysses, the men were probably off swapping stories about one eyed monsters and mermaids singing irresistible songs.  So the woman got the short end of both sticks: pain, painful childbirth and subservience, and still got stuck doing the farming. The real transgression wasn’t eating the fruit — it was being female.

Sixth: If the god feared that humans would become like gods, why place the means within their reach?  Remember the god planted the garden with the trees after he made the man.  Did the evil god set them up to be punished?  It sounds evil on its face.  

Seventh: What makes a being godlike is the ability to learn and discriminate twixt what to love and what to hate, to paraphrase Frost again.  The irony is, the more knowledge we gain the fewer gods and demons we are haunted by. In the few thousand years since the story was first told, we have gone form living in a world without fire or wheels to world of atomic energy and the ability to fly to other planets — some of our space craft are now traveling through deep space beyond the reach of our sun.  We know why the sun rises in the east, we know why the planets rotate around the sun, and we know that the stars are not just little lights to make the night sky a little brighter.  We know how the universe was formed and we know how life evolved.  And we know that all these things work without any divine intervention. 

Eighth: Christianity teaches that eating the forbidden fruit was a sin so heinous  that only crucifixion and resurrection could fix it. But if we follow the story, it wasn’t the humans who sinned — it was the god who lied. The god placed the temptation, allowed the crafty serpent into the garden.  Before they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, the humans lacked the capacity to know right from wrong.  So where was the sin? Perhaps the Christian story should be revised showing that it was the god who required the forgiveness of the humans.

Ninth: If the god lied from the beginning, why believe anything else it says? This same god later promises eternal life after a life of suffering.  Okay, …fool me twice, shame on me.   

Tenth: Once the man and woman knew good from evil, the first thing they did was to make clothes from fig leaves.  Apparently, the knowledge of good and evil doesn’t extend to fashion. Before banishing them, the god made them proper clothes from animal skins. “You’re not leaving my garden in fig leaves. Here—this will do until you find Dolce & Gabbana,” said the god doing its best imitation of Bruno.

CONCLUSION

Today we know this story is a myth.  We know that humans, like every other living plant or animal evolved.  There never was a “first” human.  There could have been no original sin which required redemption.  The ultimate end of the myth, at the other end of the Bible, no makes no sense — No god, no original sin, no virgin birth, no death and resurrection.  The whole kit and caboodle is a myth, much like the other myths that were common in that part of the world.

Whether we examine the original creation myth or modern religions, one thing clear: religion of any kind is irrational. Gods, demons, serpents — these no longer belong to the world in which we live. Whether the myth is preached from a pulpit—or echoed while walking through a cemetery—it remains just that: a pie in the sky lie.

Why does all this make a bit of difference?  Because there are still millions, if not billions, of people around the world that still believe it and waste their lives chasing a myth rather than learning how the world really works.  People find comfort and meaning from a story that has no basis in reality.  Any feelings of personal comfort or feelings of morality are meaningless when grounded in a falsehood.  And the fact that it makes people comfortable or like they want to do the right thing or somehow provides a purpose to live, does not make it any less false.  Religion makes claims about the world that are not true.  It’s cruel to make false promises and false claims.  

Can’t we do better?  What’s the alternative?  Rational secular humanism grounded in Enlightenment values.  

Mike Messina

IAF Opposes HSB 242 - Gender Identity Should Remain In The Iowa Civil Rights Code

Recently a bill, House Study Bill 242, was introduced in the Iowa House with the specific goal of removing gender identity from civil rights protections. This would make Iowa the first state to remove a protected class from such a law and would push transgender citizens out of nearly all legal protections that are based on gender identity. Furthermore, this bill would disallow changing sex on government documents, push transgender women out of domestic violence shelters, crisis centers, and healthcare locations, and allow transgender Iowans to be discriminated against when seeking housing or financial assistance. Lastly, it uses unscientific language that replaces rigorous definitions of gender, gender expression, and sex with partisan language that obfuscates and precludes any citizen from expressing their gender by striking “gender identity” from any form of civil rights protections.

Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers strongly oppose this pernicious and harmful bill.

IAF advocates for a secular government that protects and respects ALL citizens, regardless of their gender, sex, religion, age, ethnicity, race, national origin, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.  A bill like this does nothing to advance the interests and rights of citizens of Iowa and everything to advance the interests of unscientific fearmongering religious groups that seek to harm some of the most vulnerable Iowans.  Civil rights legislation is designed to protect the rights of citizens, not provide additional rights or status to certain groups. This bill seeks to undermine equality under the law and carve out a special path to discriminate against transgender citizens. 

This does not represent equality under the law, rather it seeks specifically to undermine it. Equality under the law, free from discrimination based on inherent individual characteristics, is a requirement that we citizens should demand in a democratic society.  This bill and the advocates for it stand in stark contrast to humanistic ideals and values of a free and pluralistic society based on reason, science, and a government interested in the common good.

It is also immensely immoral and unethical to target a group of Iowans to undermine their rights and protections, especially if it is based on a religious moral panic.  These are not the values that are represented in the Iowa Constitution nor are they values that IAF and their members represent. IAF is deeply saddened that political leaders in this state have decided attacking a minority group is of greater value than standing for secular values and democratic governance.

IAF, alongside scores of scientists, activists, healthcare experts, and civil rights leaders oppose this legislation and other bills like HSB 242. We are hopeful that assaults on Iowa’s civil rights cease and that the legislature embraces science and secular governance over sectarian misinformation and pernicious ostracization of our fellow citizens.

Do not pass HSB 242.

Jason Benell

President

Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers

Secular Morality is Superior to Faith-Based Anything

What does atheism have to do with LGBTQ issues, abortion, voting rights and other issues? Freedom and better outcomes is what.

As President of the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers, from time to time I’ll get asked “what does atheism have to do with X issue?” to perhaps justify IAF or our members dropping out or away from any given cause or signing on to one. Most often this is brought up in regard to support of LGBTQ rights, but also on issues like abortion, voting rights, education issues, and even American foreign policy. The question is usually, but not always, asked by someone who has a position that is counter to a position that IAF may hold or different from a statement they may have seen secular leadership at both the state or national level have made.  I understand why folks want to speak up on many of these issues, but I also want to make it clear as to why groups like IAF and myself consider our position a direct result of our atheism and value of secular reasoning.

Unlike opposition to groups like IAF, particularly the religious and faith based groups, atheists are free to think for ourselves.  Most of the assaults on our liberties and our ability to use evidence and science to come to better conclusions are based in faith traditions that consider new information harmful to their core belief structures. This means we are not constrained by faith based thinking or folksy wisdom as stand-ins for critical thinking or uncomfortable truths about the actions of our government and other actors. It is a special type of freedom to look at the world as it is, using science and reason and coming to conclusions without the monkey of spectral authority on our backs. 

It also gives us the freedom to be wrong on things and to change our minds. This is not a method that is available to those that think all morality and wisdom were figured out thousands of years ago. Instead, those who believe in ancient scriptures risk finding themselves outside of the orthodoxy with reinterpretation or reimagining of texts, often twisting themselves into pretzels to do so.  This leads to the very kinds of schisms that we are all too familiar with: accusations of heresy, rifts between families and communities, churches and institutions splitting up and spinning off, and yes, ultimately in holy wars.

Rejecting the entire premise that a timeless and spaceless god has demands upon us immediately defuses these kinds of conflicts. It is a tough discussion for a theist to have when the very people they oppose on moral grounds are using the exact same basis for their position: a holy book.  This is why you find religious people on both sides of these issues: not because of an inherent goodness or badness of their scripts – remember they are often literally the same scripts - but because of their ability to use empathy and reason against those that rely on faith beliefs that drain them of that very empathy.

Rejecting faith-based reasoning frees you from this dissonance and more.

This also means that we find less reasons to distrust and dehumanize people that may be different from us.  It allows us to embrace our empathy and look for the consequences of our actions rather than how we feel about doing certain actions or other people’s actions make us feel if they don’t impact us. It isn’t our business what other human beings do with their bodies, just as we wouldn’t want anyone to impose their beliefs on our bodies. Thus, we find no motivation to invent reasons to control others via some kind of group enforced invisible morality. When it comes to actions of our governments be it foreign or domestic, atheists must find a secular reason for doing things, and the consistent person rejects those that have no evidence. This means taking into account historical data or setting aside this or that groups moral claim or tradition.  This means considering the consequences, unshackled from decisions or moral teachings from people who are wholly separate from the issues of today.

While we do stand on the shoulders of giants, we also find wisdom in not consulting those same giants on the issues of today.  This would be as if we were to consult Henry Ford on how best to maintain the latest electric vehicle.  He would be of no help and likely even detrimental to the maintenance and operation of such a vehicle, so too is this true of our moral and civic responsibilities. If we leave behind our faith-based morality, we find ourselves free to make better decisions and seek out better outcomes and make our lives objectively better. From these ancient scripts and teachers, it allows to take what is good and leads to better outcomes, better societies, and leave in the dustbin of history the detrimental, the unscientific, the bigoted, the misogynist, the harmful.

But you can only do that if you don’t believe they have any kind of divine authority because such an authority clearly does not exist.

This is why the issues that are brought up are so important to secular folks and free thinkers. There are no secular reasons to invade the uterus of a person or diminish their right to their own body carte blanche. There are no secular reasons to say this group of people has equal rights, but this other group doesn’t because of who they love or how they look like.  There are no secular reasons to turn away from teaching the cornerstone of biology, evolution. There are no secular reasons to support foreign wars unconditionally nor to cause mass starvation or subjugation.   These are in the realm of faith and fear and a foreclosure on a better world.

Taking a stand against the demon haunted world is what has made us a better species and what has made our societies better. Being an atheist is standing up and saying, “I don’t need divine intervention or instruction to care about my fellow human beings”.  It cuts away the baggage and makes our moral and civic choices stand entirely on our own shoulders.  We reach conclusions that we come to through collaboration and looking at results, not by glancing backward to ensure we’re “doing it right” for fear of being out of step of ancient words. It places the humanity of our fellow human beings front and center, not to the side or behind any holy edict.

This is why atheists and secular humanists and freethinkers must take a stand on these issues. This is why it is important for atheists to speak up and speak out about things like equality, like civil rights, like education, like healthcare, like government programs, like democracy. Otherwise, we cede all morality to those that think they had it al figured out 2000 years ago and are still struggling to make it make sense. We know how that turns out for human progress, how that turns out for the LGBTQ community, how that turns out for women, how that turns out for science.

Lets not go back into that darkness.

Guest Post - Mike Messina - A God By Any Other Name

Far be it from me to bitch and complain.  HOWEVER, I can’t get it out of my head that Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers are having a “Winter Solstice” celebration.  Winter Solstice? Really?

Why is it that IAF wants to celebrate a holiday that has roots in ancient observance of the darkening and rebirth of the sun.  Its no accident that the Roman church celebrates the birth of sweet baby Jesus on the same day as the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, a week-long festival, honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture, included feasting, gift-giving, and social role reversals.  I could go down a long list of ancient celebrations of the darkening of the sun and anticipation of spring.  Christians, Celtic, Norse, whatever.  A god by any other name…

In an article published in Free Inquiry (vol. 42, no. 1), Tom Flynn wrote of solstice celebrations:  “What do we gain by ousting one outmoded superstitious observance from our lives if we replace it with an even older superstition?”  A god by any other name…

Are we some kind of new age — spiritual but not religious — one with Mother Earth — religion?  If that’s what people want, fine but be aware of the slippery slope.  The winter solstice is so tied to humanity’s childhood when there was a god behind every tree and under every rock that a solstice celebration is just a way to have a Christmas party without a Christmas party — a loophole if ever there was.  We don’t need a god by any other name…

In my essay, The Baby and the Bathwater, I quoted Tom Flynn ‘s argument that holidays, in general no longer make much sense.  An additional reason why holidays were so important to ancient people has to do with the perception of the passage of time.  Think how your own perception has changed from when you were a child when a day seemed like a week and a year was a life time.  Today, as an adult, a week seems like a day and years spin by before we know it.  Most of us have our feet in multiple centuries.  My grandparents were born in the 19th century.  My parents were born in the early 20th century and lived into the 21st.  Children born now will very likely see the 22nd century. In a time when most people lived for 25 or 30 years, life was short but working days were 16 hours long, work injuries debilitating if not fatal, disease not understood, child birth frequently fatal, &c.  It was no wonder that people yearned for pie in the sky.  Such superstition no longer makes sense.  We no longer need to pay homage to the gods of our ancestors.  A god by any other name…

Okay, I get it, it’s cold outside; everyone else is decking the halls, singing schmaltzy Christmas carols, drinking eggnog, exchanging useless gifts, &c; why can’t we have some fun once in a while.  We have tossed the bathwater as well as the baby — scroll down, past “older posts” to December 14, 2023 to see my essay on this very topic — but we still feel the need to fight for our right to party, as it were.  But a pre-Christian, Christianized religious holiday?  Come on, can’t we do better than that?  A god by any other name…

Why not, then, celebrate the amazing things humans have achieved, all without the aid of any of the gods — we simply have no need of that hypothesis.  Right out of the gate I can think of three examples of events, all of which occurred around this time of year, all of which are worthy of commemoration, and all three devoid of the stench of superstition, ancient or modern. We don’t need a god by any name…

On January 1, 1925, in Washington, D.C., Edwin Hubble announced his groundbreaking discovery that the universe is expanding.  What a great theme for next year’s winter celebration.  I would not think it too hard to find someone to appear and discuss this exciting moment from a hundred years ago.  Solstice, Schmolstice, give me a lecture on the day we found the universe.  

Next, Sir Isaac Newton was born December 25, 1642. I could envision a pot luck with speakers who can explain the laws of thermodynamics.  They are some of the most elegant expressions of reality ever propounded.  I think a professor of physics could give a talk which would leave the listeners intellectually intoxicated.  Who could ask for more.

A third idea,  the James Webb Space Telescope was launched December 25, 2021.  We put a telescope a million miles from earth powerful enough to “see” all the way from here to the big bang.  If that doesn’t make your spine tingle, I don’t know what will.  

These are three ideas for winter celebrations commemorating events based solely in reason and science.  We’ve thrown out both the baby and the bathwater, if we want to fill the tub again, lets fill it with water of knowledge, not from the shadows of the past.  A god by any other name smells just as odious. Let’s throw open the windows, throw out the bathwater of gods, by whatever name, and let in the fresh air of reason and science.  It’s so much more elegant and poetic.

Did I mention that atheists celebrating the winter solstice is just a feeble attempt to celebrate Christmas by substituting Sol for baby Jesus, or frosty the snowman.  Give me a break, A god by any other name…

Mike Messina

Most Religious Exemptions Exist Only to Protect Bigotry

Christian Nationalism has seen so many victories with the makeup of the highest courts at both the state and federal levels. Time and again right-wing courts seem poised to enact theocracy by privileging religious belief over equality under the law and even basic human and civil rights.

These rulings and opinions are never based on reason or evidence but rather are special pleading for some vague “sincerely held belief” that seems to act as a get-out-of-jail-free card for religious individuals and organizations that circumvent civil rights laws. There are many examples in the not-so-distant history that point to this creeping assault on equal treatment under the law, but also rulings just this year that many people would likely be surprised to hear about.

Recently, a Virginia school board agreed to pay a high school teacher $575,000 to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit and purported free speech violations. In this case, said high school teacher refused to use the pronouns and name of a student because they were different than what was printed on their birth certificate.

The teacher, Peter Vlaming, cited his religious and moral objections to using the desired pronouns as that would be a “lie,” despite the school policy of using preferred pronouns to ensure all students felt safe and respected. Because of his repeated refusal to follow this policy and refer to a student by their desired name and pronouns, the district terminated Vlaming in 2018. He took the school board to court and his case was dismissed, as this was a clear-cut case of failure to follow school policy and to show respect to all students.

However, after some publicity and a renewed effort by the Alliance Defending Freedom (a theocratic legal organization), the Virginia Supreme Court reinstated the lawsuit. The school district then settled with Vlaming to avoid codifying this kind of religious supremacy into law, since they were now operating in a more hostile legislative environment under a rightward shift in the state legislature.

In this case, there was no threat against any religious creed, nor was the teacher singled out for his faith. The school had a reasonable policy—one the teacher had followed prior to this incident—that everyone should be called the name they wish to be called by and not have to attend a public school in a hostile environment.

The interesting thing is that the teacher, citing his faith and placing it above the respect of his students, ensured that he was in violation of the policy. He would rather cause distress and harm to children than exercise empathy and adhere to the school policy of equal treatment to all students. These facts were not in dispute in the case on either side. Yet right-wing judges felt compelled to protect this kind of behavior, not because it results in better schools or better outcomes, but because there was insufficient deference for Christians to ignore laws they may not like.

The judges saw fit to rule that Christian faith ought to be protected over secular policy because they inherently believe that it should be. This is how Christian Nationalism operates and how the wall between church and state is eroded: by using sectarian faith-based grievances to carve out equal or greater protection of theocratic and faith-based doctrine over the success, access, and well-being of our public institutions.

I am not the only one raising alarm bells regarding this kind of theocracy. To cite the dissenting Virginia justices in the case, this ruling “establishes a sweeping super scrutiny standard with the potential to shield any person’s objection to practically any policy or law by claiming a religious justification for their failure to follow either.” Essentially, once we open the door to a religious excuse from observing the law, we will not be able to close it. If religious belief is equal to or greater than any secular law passed, then there is no law that can’t be ignored in favor of religious belief.

Historically, the main avenue to avoid civil rights laws has been citing religious exemptions or “sincerely held beliefs.” We more recently saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic as churches used religious exemptions to continue holding Sunday meetups, refusing to take precautions against the spread of the deadly virus. How many more people fell ill or even died because religious groups were exempt from some pandemic orders?

In states like Arizona and Iowa, we see religious exemptions for public school attendance, that provide public dollars for sectarian private schools. If students see their public school closed and are required to attend a private institution specifically founded to avoid observing civil rights laws, what happens to those protected by those laws? Does it not raise an alarm that organizations and politicians are perfectly fine with revoking the rights of the public in the name of protecting and privileging religious belief? Remember, an entire denomination (Southern Baptists) exists largely because of a desire to avoid observing integration laws.

Where do these carve-outs end when we have a judiciary that privileges faith over facts? Every time we see an expansion of the rights of faith, why does it seem to always come at the expense of other groups, public institutions, or the public at large? Why do activist religious legal groups seek out these rulings? Why is this all coming to a head now?

The answers seem to lie in the judiciary and with stories like that of the Virginia school teacher. Religious groups know they will not be able to persuade the majority to support their right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ groups or defund public schools. But they can get their arguments in front of sympathetic judges who do not have to justify their decisions. Their goal isn’t to win every case. The goal is to stymie a small school district here, a state-funded program there. The goal is to throw out the use of reason and instead enshrine faith as a last resort of discrimination by attempting to codify it beyond reproach.

This is how Christian Nationalism takes root and why it is extremely important to call it out, stand against it, and vote against it. We must take notice when faith is being used as both a weapon and a shield in undermining the rights of our society and our ideals such as freedom of and freedom from religion. We must take notice when our courts seem more and more willing to give in to empty arguments from religious groups that if they can retreat to faith then they can retreat from observing the law.

Secular governance is the cornerstone of our democracy, and we must keep our government secular if we want to keep it a democracy.