fayfreethinkers.com

Good column today by Grady Jim at nwatimes.com:

My problem with "faith-based initiatives"is that my tax dollar is being used to preach religious beliefs to children - beliefs that I not only don't "believe "but feel strongly are harmful to children. Many of the beliefs being taught in churches across America today are anti-science. That alone should be enough to sound the alarm.

Kids believe anything they are taught by their parents and church. I did too. It's natural. I recall asking my Sunday school teacher where the wives of Cain and Abel came from. Were they the daughters of Adam and Eve ? Did they marry their sisters ? Yuk ! He said such questions were not important and I should not question the Bible. Apparently it was important enough for him to call my mother and inform her that I was asking too many questions in Sunday school and seemed to be questioning the truth of the Bible.

In America - where we have freedom of religion and freedom from religion - people can believe whatever they choose, no matter how anti-science. But I should not have to pay for the spreading of religious beliefs that I fear are harmful.

Barack Obama is going way too far. "Faith-based initiatives"was the scheme President Bush used to make sure the religious right remained in line. Basically he gave away billions of dollars - taxpayer dollars - to various churches, private schools and other religious institutions. The money was earmarked for social programs. Since it is unconstitutional for our government to preach particular religious beliefs, the money was supposed to be used for charities to feed the poor or house the homeless. Not a bad idea as far as it goes. That's closer to my kind of beliefs.

But that is not what happened. The different preachers, priest, ministers, rabbis, imams and con artists winked at each other when they arrived at the White House for their money and said," Oh, don't worry. We won't use it to promote our own personal religious beliefs. We'll feed the hungry and house the homeless. We would never think of teaching them our brand of religion. "Right !

Do you think it possible that the Bush billions to religious institutions of various kinds might have given them the opportunity to spread their own brand of religion ? It pains me to think my meager tax dollars are being used to teach harmful beliefs to children.

Let's look at some of the beliefs being taught to children by your tax money • Sex between married couples is forbidden unless the purpose is to have children. Birth control is a sin. (Roman Catholic )

• When you are 12 years old you will obey the prophet and be married off to your first cousin so he can have sex with you and you will become pregnant and be blessed by God. (Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints )

• The modern combustion engine is a tool of Satan so we will ride only horse-drawn carriages. We will wear funny clothing, funny hats and grow beards as God demanded in the book of Leviticus. (Amish )

• The world was created in six literal days and God rested on the seventh, which is why we cannot drive a car or turn on a light on Saturday, the Sabbath. We can purchase a light switch timer at the Temple for $ 19. 95. (Orthodox Jews )

• The Earth is about 6, 000 years old and dinosaurs were in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, the first two people. Those frightening looking rows of teeth in the TRex were designed to shred vegetation. (Bible literalists, including some Baptists )

• There is no such thing as disease, just negative thinking in weak people. We don't need doctors when our children get sick. (Scientology )

• Women must wear a veil and never be seen in public. She must be covered when walking behind her husband when traveling to the Mosque to be segregated away from the men who are more important to God. (Muslim. And, yes, they received some of your tax money. )

• Drinking, dancing and smoking are sins on campus but you may partake of these sins off campus. (Wheaton College )

• Sin came into the world when a snake "talked"Eve into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, thus causing "the fall"of humanity due to a woman's weakness. This "original sin"initiated 6, 000 years of disease, starvation, rape, killing, war, hate, greed, torture, pain, old age and finally death to every human being who ever existed. (Creationism and fundamentalism in general. )

• Jesus is coming back "soon "in the Rapture, floating from heaven, to save those who believe in Him. Believers will rise up to meet him; nonbelievers will be left behind to suffer terrible abuse and will be given one more chance to finally fall to their knees and beg forgiveness for not believing the preachers. For those who don't finally "believe," they will be thrown into eternal burning hell, which was prepared before time began to torture all those who were not smart enough to believe what their preacher told them. Jesus will rule for a thousand years and then some other terrible stuff will happen. (Pre-millennialism, including some Baptists, Pentecostals and many other denominations )

Scientific evolution is only a theory, and any science that differs with a literal interpretation of the Bible can be easily refuted. Beliefs are more reliable than science upon which to base the major decisions of your future life.

You are free to believe those things if you choose. I don't believe such stuff and therefore I refuse to send any more of my tax dollars to spread such harmful anti-scientific beliefs through "faith-based initiatives."


BETSY: I think Obama felt like this was a way to convince people he's really a Christian, and he put limits on the way the money could be spent - no preaching, etc. BUT, it is a shame that he feels the need to support it.

By Michael Jonas, Globe Correspondent | January 20, 2005

On the eve of the presidential inauguration, US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton last night embraced an issue some pundits say helped seal a second term for George W. Bush: acceptance of the role of faith in addressing social ills.

In a speech at a fund-raising dinner for a Boston-based organization that promotes faith-based solutions to social problems, Clinton said there has been a "false division" between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state.

"There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles," said Clinton, a New York Democrat who often is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008.
link

Edited by Savonarola, 20080709 1600: shortened link

Who began Faith-Based Initiatives?

Like the House UnAmerican Activities Committee which began under Demos in the 1930s and was later usurped by Rwingers doing commie witch hunts,
President Wm. J. Clinton began what has now morphed into faith-based intiatives

" Sunday, July 06, 2008
By The Columbian editorial board

Any mention of “faith” and “government” in the same sentence makes many Americans nervous, and understandably so. We don’t want churches running our government any more than we want government running our churches. But that doesn’t mean both factions can’t help solve America’s social-service problems, even together.

The concept of faith-based federal grants appears to be succeeding — nationally and here in Clark County — but only after a twisting journey that began more than a decade ago. President Clinton’s Charitable Choice program assured that faith-based groups could not be excluded from grants.

In the 2000 presidential campaign, both George W. Bush and Al Gore promoted the concept; later President Bush launched his Faith-Based and Community Initiative. Although that effort has not reached its funding goals, last year more than 19,000 federal grants went to nonprofits, many of them faith-based.

Making this journey more difficult was the resignation of Bush’s first faith-based initiatives director amid accusations of politics trumping policy, and a controversial book by David Kuo, another former director of the program.
The Columbian

The Clinton and now Obama "Faith-based" programs were designed to allow religious organizations to receive federal funding on an equal footing with those non-religious programs performing the same service. As with damn near everything else he's gotten his hands on, W twisted the program to his own ends. Grady Jim is correct as to what's being done with our tax dollars under W. Obama is trying/planning to return the program to its original intent. If, for example, a church or group of churches runs a food pantry that hands out food to any and all comers with no faith-based restrictions and no faith-based requirements then they will - and should - have the same access to federal funding as anybody else. That kind of thing has been in place for school lunches for decades - a private school, religious or otherwise, can receive federal funding for their lunch program as long as they don't have a "religious test" for the students they admit (also true of transportation and "special needs" programs) and keep their "religious instruction" outside the "regular class day" (which is why so few religious schools used to get that funding prior to W).