Language wars: it all begins with subtle early skirmishes

Recently on Huffpo,George Lakoff has written an important piece on the ongoing political battle to define words.

I’m keenly aware of this battle.  Here’s one way it affects me.  I do not believe in a sentient Creator.  Some would label me an atheist, but that would be horrible unfair.  Why?  Because that term has been successfully loaded with far more than lack of a belief in a traditional God.  The conservative movement has successfully defined “atheists” as strident, immoral, untrustworthy and threatening to America’s families. 

This ugly baggage is why I have embraced the term Bright. I am a “bright.”  I have a naturalistic worldview free of supernatural and mystical elements.  Does that make me threatening?  I don’t think so.  Does it make me prone to mob violence like members of many religious groups?  I would think the opposite—I have to cut my own philosophic path thorough life.  I doubtless have different politics and beliefs than many other Brights.  Narrowly construed, I’m an organization of one.  But there are certain people are perturbed with me, I’m sure, because I refuse to claim allegiance to the insecure God of the Bible and we just can’t have that.

The word battles, however, are taking place on many other fronts.

As Lakoff writes, such word battles comprise “the struggle to define our democratic principles and values. The right wing has worked for decades to alter the meanings of concepts that define our way of life.”  For instance, consider the word “liberal.” …

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Actors, athletes, tell us not to try to save lives using stem cell research

Here is a video of the latest bit of fundie propoganda, airing in Missouri, where voters will soon have the opportunity to vote "yes" to allow the full range of stem cell research.  These anti-stem-cell actors and athletes should be made to walk through hospitals and hospices.  They should be made to…

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The Real Issue

Debate goes on, seeming forever, about the issue of religious belief in a secular society.  The validity of sacred texts becomes grist for the mill and sides line up over What Would Jesus Do bumper stickers.  We see competing fish on cars–Darwin fish with feet in answer to the unembellished christian fish symbol, then a bigger fish labeled Truth swallowing the diminutive Darwin fish, and on and on.

What is really at issue here hasn’t got one thing to do with who believes in god or evolution.  Belief is a self-contained, private matter.  The issue that gets lost in all the polemic is very simple: behavior.

Those who would sap the poison from the “inerrant word” crowd are defending their assumed right to live the way they want.  One might argue that belief in god doesn’t really limit people, and as far as it goes, that is true.  If you, as an individual, choose to believe in god, then you have elected to reform your life according to the tenets of your new faith.  You may adopt whatever modest or byzantine traditions and habits you wish.  After all, you have chosen this, you get to do it.

What you don’t get to do is tell everyone else to behave accordingly, and that’s where the meat of the issue lies.

Because fundamentalists–and we’re talking about fundamentalists here for the most part, of any stripe–do not adopt such an extreme view of faith out of intellectual curiosity or even spiritual need.  They …

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Huh? Bush says “We’ve never been stay the course”

Check out this article and video posted on Think Progress.  Don't forget to read the citations to "stay the course" and the comments.   Hey!  Somehow, this man is still in charge of our country.   Really, time kick this fratboy out of the oval office before he accidentally (or intentionally) launches a nuke.

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Read more about the article Who changed the Bible and why? Bart Ehrman’s startling answers
Who Changed the Bible's Narrative Ehrman's Findings

Who changed the Bible and why? Bart Ehrman’s startling answers

How often do we hear people “explaining” religious beliefs by stating “The Bible says so,” as if the Bible fell out of the sky, pre-translated to English by God Himself?  It’s not that simple, according to an impressive and clearly-written book that should be required reading for anyone who claims to know “what the Bible says.”

Bart Ehrman’s Exploration: Who Changed the Bible and Why?

The 2005 bestseller, Misquoting Jesus, was not written by a raving atheist.  Rather, it was written by a fellow who had a born-again experience in high school, then went on to attend the ultraconservative Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.  Bart Ehrman didn’t stop there, however.  He wanted to become an evangelical voice with credentials that would enable him to teach in secular settings.  It was for this reason that he continued his education at Wheaton and, eventually, Princeton, picking up the ability to read the New Testament in its original Greek in the process.

As a result of his disciplined study, Ehrman increasingly questioned the fundamentalist approach that the “Bible is the inerrant Word of God.  It contains no mistakes.”  Through his studies, Ehrman determined that the Bible was not free of mistakes:

We have only error ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.

(Page 7).  At Princeton, Ehrman learned that mistakes had been made in the copying of the New Testament over the centuries.  Upon realizing this, …

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