God and Country:
From the Pledge to Armageddon

Religion is a powerful force. When human consciousness arose into awareness of the grim realities of life, it brought solace. It produced a magical world of created realities full of powerful gods that could protect, avenge, reward and comfort. It was a unifying force against outsiders, a rallying point for collective action ... and vulnerable to only one thing -- doubt.

Religion has great power to inspire its adherents to do good in the service of their god. But there is a dirty underside to this world where lurk the created realities of those whose god demands zealotry. It is their massacres, mayhem, bigotry and oppressions that have defined religion through the ages. Control of the apparatus of government allowed this. The American experiment in separating religion from government has kept the barbarians at bay. But they have always been there, awaiting their chance.

Now they have it. The religious authoritarians have once again gained control of government, including the judiciary. Our Constitution, a product of the Enlightenment, will soon be interpreted by the forces of darkness. It will mean only what they say it means.

God in the Pledge

This (and other state god-talk) is important to the religious right for symbolic reasons. It is the conqueror raising his country's flag to show he has taken possession. Our freethought community has fought this in many ways. Michael Newdow in California achieved a 9th Circuit Court ruling that "under God" in the Pledge is unconstitutional. An uproar ensued from the religious right and politicians who pander to it. In Minnesota, former Gov. Ventura opposed legislative efforts to support "under God." He signed a proclamation on behalf of Atheists For Human Rights declaring last July 4th "Indivisible Day." An uproar ensued by the religious right, but there was significant public support.

Then came the November elections, and the religious right takeover. The Pledge issue is back, and the Minnesota Legislature will have it in our schools shortly. Not legally mandated, of course, but that doesn't matter. Peer pressure will do it.

Still fighting, our local freethought community is doing its best to stop this. Steve Petersen and August Berkshire, of Minnesota Atheists, testified against the Pledge bill, and we hope they do more of this. One organization can't do everything. This writer has long urged Petersen to become a regular lobbyist because he is good at it, as shown several years ago when we worked together to get statutes that say faith healing is health care repealed after the death of a young boy from Christian Science medical neglect.

Meanwhile, we have been writing letters and responding to media questions, most recently from the Minnesota Daily. (Unfortunately, the reporter seemed intent on getting an acknowledgement that not passing the Pledge bill would be a denial of freedom of religion.)

With a federal court now upholding the 9th Circuit Court's ban on the Pledge, we can expect an uproar of major proportions and the issue will go to the Supreme Court. If the ban survives it will be only because Pres. Bush has not yet had the opportunity to add one more anti-separationist justice.

Iraq: Armageddon Beckons

As atheists concerned with state-church separation, we don't get into political issues unrelated to that. Until recently, we considered the looming war on Iraq in that category, but no more. There is no escaping the conclusion that Pres. Bush is driven by religious zeal to take the United States into a war that seems clearly avoidable.

Why wage war on Iraq? The official line is to stop Saddam from acquiring weapons of mass destruction and keep him from aiding terrorists. More skeptical observers cite control of Iraq's oil or the desire for political control of the Middle East. All of these motives are probably working on some rational level. But there is another level beyond the reach of reason. Its emotional grip can drive out all reality, replacing it with the created reality of religious belief.

The religious mindset can be difficult to understand by those who have never known the pull of a deeply entrenched faith, where the Bible is truly the word of God, where the Gospel events really happened, where one yearns to experience that great time of miracles and of seeing Jesus face to face, to experience it now but having to make do with seeing miracles in the most trivial events just to assure oneself that such things could happen, to look constantly for confirmation of one's beliefs and, oh, to be there for the Second Coming of Jesus!

Truth be told, religious faith includes an intense yearning for evidence, a yearning so desperate one can see the face of Jesus on a tortilla -- or the events in the Middle East as the run-up to the End Times.

Columnist Thomas Friedman has described two types of people in this war scenario: the deterrables and the undeterrables. People like Saddam, he says, are deterrable because they love life more than they hate America. People like Osama bin Laden are undeterrable because they hate America more than they love life. The Islamic terrorists' zealotry is informed by their religious beliefs. It may be that Pres. Bush, caught up in the Christian version of religious zealotry, is also undeterrable.

The Evidence

Judging from a great many media reports, Bush's religious statements and behavior reflect a genuine conviction, unlike the pandering god-talk common among politicians.

• He has surrounded himself with friends, advisors, and appointees who share his created reality, including Atty. General John Ashcroft (who starts his office day with staff prayers) and Secretary of Commerce Don Evans (with whom Bush attends Bible study), and professional religionists such as Franklin Graham (Billy Graham's son) and Pat Robertson.
  
  
• Bush's commitment to Israel has a solid religious base in addition to the political aspects. Fundamentalist Christians tend to strongly support Israel because they share the Zionist Bible-based belief that the land now being fought over was given to the Jews by God; therefore they have an indisputable right to it -- all of it.
  
  
• The Bible says the Jews must regain Israel as a homeland before Jesus can come again and bring on the End Times and Armageddon (the final battle between good and evil). Fundamentalists yearn for this. Books about it are best sellers.
  
  
• The term "axis of evil" in Bush's State of the Union address was originally "axis of hatred." Bush changed it to "evil" for the theological connotations. His speeches are full of fundamentalist-style god-talk.
  
  
• A third of Bush's statement following the Columbia shuttle disaster consisted of strong religious sentiments. He obviously sees and interprets the world through his fundamentalist, absolutist, self-righteous beliefs where there are no shades of gray.

Saddam is deterrable. He is no match for the military power of the United. States and he knows it. He knows that one use of mass-destruction weapons against us (or even against Israel) will mean the immediate obliteration of Iraq -- and him -- by our massively superior forces.

To settle this conflict one must be able to see shades of gray. But Bush seems neither thoughtful enough for that nor even interested. He sees only black and white, good and evil. He feels he is the agent of God, called to do God's will. He sees what to him looks like biblical prophecy being fulfilled in the Middle East. This is powerfully seductive for a Bible believer who envies those present at the first coming of Jesus and yearns for the promises of the Bible to be fulfilled. Could Bush be tempted to think he is God's agent for bringing the biblical End Times drama onto the world's stage? Armageddon beckons.