In discussions about atheism with friends, relatives, and folks in online discussion groups, I've noticed that the separation of church and state issue gets lots of attention.  I think it is the central issue.  It's one thing I always mention.  But I've noticed it doesn't seem to function for some of my associates in these dialogues the same way it does for me.  I think of it as a bottom-line shared value on the left, and I sense in these groups that we all place great importance on it.  But I ultimately hear it employed to say, "The problem with religion is that people want to base laws on it." But isn't that in fact a problem with people that want to base laws on it?

As long as we keep our dukes up and make sure that piece is protected, isn't whatever someone else believes sort of none of our business?  As long as they are not setting policy or writing curriculum, why is there such intense resolve on the part of some atheists to keep pressing and pressing the point that everyone else has stupid beliefs?  That seems like the height of bigotry, and I haven't heard anyone yet say convincingly why it isn't.  

On a personal level, I am getting so sick of people I respect and feel great affection for, whom I assume have similar feelings for me, stating over and over that my belief system - which they know nothing about except that it isn't atheism - is wrong.  That it's valid to use their metrics to evaluate my private intellectual system for organizing ideas about the mysteries of life.  I can't believe it sometimes.  I don't get why that isn't an egregiously prejudiced, snobbish response.

I personally have no interest in searching historical records for signs of miracles or accounts of the lives of prophets.  My eyes glaze over hearing about such things.  In terms of my own beliefs, there is no "proof," for or against them.  They are just how I picture what we don't yet know about life.  You can't really hold them up to a logical analysis any more than you could use a mathematical equation to measure exactly how much I love my husband.  Any more than you can study pride or envy or awe in a laboratory.  But to say "it's not supposed to be logical" to the evangelical atheist is like throwing yourself to the wolves.  "There you go!  If it's 'not logical," then it's faulty thinking by definition!"  

Meanwhile, it's my mind, it's my belief system, and it's a big part of who I am. I don't follow dogma, or worship a god, but I think about intangible things in the universe in a way that is open, curious, optimistic and...throwing myself to the wolves again...spiritual.  I love the word spiritual.  It signals ignorance to my friends.  But there is nothing ignorant about wondering why the sight of geese passing over autumn trees makes me feel melancholy in a good way. And why thunderstorms both scare us and attract us. Yes, dears, they scare us to trigger the adaptive response of taking shelter.  But why do they captivate us too?  It's a rhetorical question; please don't send me the evolutionary reason.  I don't picture thunder as God bowling, but I think it is magical and mystical and it would bore me to hear why it also promotes the survival of the species.  So does minding your own business about what's in someone else's head.  Dears.

And as far as people who do believe in things like Jesus or Allah or rain dances or holy books - I can't believe the way they are condemned wholesale by some atheists.  It is so surprising to me sometimes.  There is a terribly culturally-insensitive aspect to this, so shocking to see played out in liberal discussions.  Some seem to feel comfortable mocking whole cultures; whole groups of people who have for generations woven ritual and talismans and rosaries and prayers and holy water and clergy into their lives and communities.  And the lip-service paid to the idea that religion "can play an important role in society" or "sometimes helps people feeeeel better" is so dismissive and superior it makes me a little ill.  

If the spiritual beliefs of others aren't being forced on you, why does it destroy your day to be aware of them in public?  I get that it is ubiquitous, but so is body odor, if you live in the city.  I get that it is symbolic to some people of their own traumatic childhood upbringings.  To some victims of sexual violence or child abuse, every male with a certain hair color and height does that too. I am not a Christian, but I have the social skills to get through a Christian funeral or wedding.  I may roll my eyes when people think there's praying in football, but I don't spend any time on it.  I'm more turned off by brightly-painted belly flab than by the sign of the cross from the kicker.

Now, I did have a she-Hulk fit, and lodge an official complaint, when I heard a Christian invocation used to open a county-wide meeting when I worked in the public school system.  Although surprised, I stood and bowed my head because I prefered that to noticeably sitting it out.  But I'd have completely respected anyone else doing the latter, especially in that setting.  I made a mental note to email someone to say that even this ecumenical prayer I was hearing should not have been included at a school system meeting.  But when they closed it with "in Jesus' name we pray," I almost flipped the table over.  Even in rural NC you'd think they should know about Jews from TV.  I didn't break anything, but they heard from me later, formally and emphatically.  

But I didn't get bogged down picking apart the contents of the prayer.  The prayer shouldn't have been there at all.  It is beside the point whether I believe Jesus is magic.  I had no interest in pronouncing everyone at that meeting who had crossed themselves to be intellectually bankrupt, superstitious or wrong.  If you try to worm it into public policy or curriculum, you're all mine.  Otherwise, go for it.

It is not true that you have to choose between believing in evolution and science, and having abstract philosophical ideas that are inconsistent with what science knows now. If you think it is, you aren't thinking deeply.  I have been told that believing anything could exist outside what can be proven is by definition superstitious - an ignorant tolerance for the concept of the supernatural.  But doesn't my thinking reflect my love for science when I ponder to myself, "I wonder if there could be a force of love in the same way there is a force of gravity?"  Saying that certain of your ideas exist outside of science and aren't subject to proofs, is not saying you don't believe the proofs we have.  That just sounds obtuse to me!

I will put out a challenge to my readers: please, be the first person who can convincingly explain to me why the following words sound better coming out of one mouth than another: 

• "Your beliefs aren't just different from mine; they're wrong."
  
• "Instead of believing what you believe, you should believe what I believe."
• "You teach your kids that???"
• "I must go out and convince others that this is the only right thing to believe."

Personally, I don't want to hear that mess from anyone.

I think the atheist movement has been brilliant, incredibly important, and exciting.  In an amazingly short time the very idea of vocal, activist atheists has gone from 0 to 60. Just a few years ago, people thought an atheist was some crank father who didn't want his child saying the pledge.  Well that turned out to be a worthy and seminal cause, and now it's a whole movement led and followed by countless intelligent, witty, creative and accomplished people.  This is the perfect time for people in the movement to figure out how to define themselves in a way that doesn't reflect everything they hate about organized religion.

Yes, liberals are giddy.  After eight years of Bush, and many more during which the very word "liberal" was considered slander, we gloat too much about our victories.  We appear to wish death upon the GOP.  In our less realistic moments, perhaps we do.


But we also know that a robust two-party system is vital to the integrity and effectiveness of the democracy.  We know that the push-pull of different political orientations; the vigorous debate that must transpire to get at a truth; and the balance created by having a variety of viewpoints represented over time - those things comprise the genius of the great American experiment.

That is why the failure of the current Republican Party to offer intelligent and helpful debate is felt by some of us as a loss. 

Liberals do feel giddy about this uniquely gifted president, his improbable success, and his ability to brilliantly, unapologetically promote bedrock liberal principles.

But contrary to popular conservative opinion, we don't worship President Obama.  Governing is a human endeavor.  We don’t expect or perceive perfection.  It is a task too complex and critical to leave subject to the fallibility of one person's leadership, or to ask one party to shoulder alone.

At no time has everyone on the left been unified in evaluating the president's effectiveness or judgment.  Even amongst ourselves we have a diversity of opinion on matters of national importance.  We don’t have all the answers.  So it’s actually a matter of unfairness for the entire Republican Party to get so bogged down in wound-licking and reactionary dogma that even its smartest members cede the voice of their party to the wing nuts.   It isn't fair.

Gun violence is complicated.  Poverty is complicated.  Drone use is complicated.  Questions about the ideal purview of government are complicated.  Questions about the proper role of the Intelligence community in Defense endeavors are complicated.  The modern economy is complicated. 

So when particularly sobering problems emerge, forcing our giddiness to evaporate, even those of us on the left who are generally highly partisan and self-righteous about our ideas recognize the need for all hands on deck.  It then becomes infuriating to see the disarray, shallowness, and nastiness that presently rule the GOP.

On Monday, NBC investigative journalist Michael Isikoff broke the news about a memo that reveals the Obama administration’s communication failures and programmatic ambiguity regarding its use of drones to combat homeland security threats.  Critical questions about how and when drones may be used against American citizens are unanswered.  
Questions like, how exactly is it determined that an American citizen has become an enemy combatant?  Would such a person have an opportunity to surrender before being assassinated?  Can such a person be killed on American soil?  As Isikoff pointed out Monday evening on The Rachel Maddow Show, the administration has been effectively unable to say that current guidelines don’t allow for an American citizen, living in a US city, to be killed in bed at night by government operatives.  But because what passes on the right these days for reason is actually a paranoid, lunatic fringe-type thinking, we can’t have a real discussion about it.

The most obstinate partisan must acknowledge the fact that no matter how much you trust the people in power now, within a few years the people in power will be a whole new group of folks, with the same power. 

I have tremendous faith in this administration.  I trust Barack Obama.  But participatory government is our duty in this country, so we should ask these questions, and they should answer.  No administration can get everything right.  I believe the President when I hear him express his intent to improve the transparency and codification of these processes.  I believe him when he describes the challenge of managing on-going and imminent threats while simultaneously trying to draft publicly vetted rules of engagement for a frontier mode of defense.  (A mode of defense that, in my mind, has great promise as a tool to help us delay or avoid full-scale war.) 

I have found it hard to broach this topic outside liberal zones, in politically-mixed groups.  I am stopped by a feeling of protectiveness about the President that springs from the relentless, unwarranted, vindictive scrutiny of him by the right.  I'm not talking about the honest pressure for transparency and ethical rigor that can and should come from an opposition truly loyal to the cause of democracy.  That kind of pressure is good. That kind of pressure is what we need.  

A party that has allowed high-ranking members to go uncensured for meeting the very night of Mr. Obama’s first inauguration to strategize ways to oppose him at every turn, including voting against his favored legislation even if it is in sync with their own positions.  A party still represented by both elected and unelected officials who openly, repeatedly vowed during his first term to put the welfare of the republic at temporary risk if it helped the cause of "making Obama a one term president."  A party that recently reelected a national chair who claimed during his first tenure that Obama's presidency would cause "an end to our way of life in America." 

These examples illustrate the hyper-critical and one-dimensional Republican view of Mr. Obama; they don’t even touch on all the other Stupid Republican Tricks that expose a readiness to abandon our time-tested system of judiciously prosecuting policy proposals.  Tricks like putting creationists on the House Science Committee, proffering "self-deportation" as a legitimate immigration reform device, employing a willful misinterpretation of the "you didn't build that" Obama campaign quote as a major campaign theme, or deeming the taunting of Iran a useful foreign policy approach.  

These doings, along with many others, all demand that countless hours of pointless, inane, mental energy be spent on faux issues or backwards policies while pressing problems are at hand.

Shouldn't thoughtful criticism be the responsibility of everyone?  

Yes, citizen members of the party in power should be expected to push themselves to critique and challenge their chosen administrations, publicly and forcefully.  But we should also be able to rely on the opposition party to be constructively skeptical and civilly unsympathetic.

Republicans.  Pull your selves together.  We need your help on this drone thing.