UK government: Christians do not have right to wear a cross at work

Tom sent me this article from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Christians do not have a right to wear a cross or crucifix openly at work, the Government is to argue in a landmark court case.

In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross.

It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work.

A document seen by The Sunday Telegraph discloses that ministers will argue that because it is not a “requirement” of the Christian faith, employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so.

[...]The Government’s refusal to say that Christians have a right to display the symbol of their faith at work emerged after its plans to legalise same-sex marriages were attacked by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain.

A poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph shows that the country is split on the issue.

Overall, 45 per cent of voters support moves to allow gay marriage, with 36 per cent against, while 19 per cent say they do not know.

However, the Prime Minister is out of step with his own party.

Exactly half of Conservative voters oppose same-sex marriage in principle and only 35 per cent back it.

There is no public appetite to change the law urgently, with more than three quarters of people polled saying it was wrong to fast-track the plan before 2015 and only 14 per cent saying it was right.

The Strasbourg case hinges on whether human rights laws protect the right to wear a cross or crucifix at work under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

The Christian women bringing the case, Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin, claim that they were discriminated against when their employers barred them from wearing the symbols.

They want the European Court to rule that this breached their human right to manifest their religion.

The Government’s official response states that wearing the cross is not a “requirement of the faith” and therefore does not fall under the remit of Article 9.

Lawyers for the two women claim that the Government is setting the bar too high and that “manifesting” religion includes doing things that are not a “requirement of the faith”, and that they are therefore protected by human rights.

They say that Christians are given less protection than members of other religions who have been granted special status for garments or symbols such as the Sikh turban and kara bracelet, or the Muslim hijab.

I think that many of the people in the UK who push for the marginalization of religion from society are probably the same people who decry the decline of moral standards. It is a secularist fantasy that people will act as they ought to act when people think that there is no way that the universe ought to be. The UK is self-destructing because they are cutting themselves off from the ground of morality, and one of the pillars of Western Civilization.

Filed under: News, Atheism, Authoritarianism, Britain, Bullying, Christianity, Coercion, Fascism, Force, Freedom, Freedom of Religion, Intolerance, Liberty, Militant Atheism, Religion, Religious Liberty, Secularism, Socialism, UK, United Kingdom

What atheists think about religion and how should Christians respond?

Here’s an article from radically left-wing anti-Christian New York Times that talks about what militant atheists are doing for Christmas in order to annoy Christians. (H/T Mary)

Let’s see what atheists want to say.

Excerpt:

Just in time for the holiday season, Americans are about to be hit with a spate of advertisements promoting the joy and wisdom of atheism.

Four separate and competing national organizations representing various streams of atheists, humanists and freethinkers will soon be spreading their gospel through advertisements on billboards, buses and trains, and in newspapers and magazines.

The latest, announced on Tuesday in Washington, is the first to include spots on television and cable. This campaign juxtaposes particularly primitive — even barbaric — passages from the Bible and the Koran with quotations from nonbelievers and humanists…

[...]Relying on the largess of a few wealthy atheists, these groups are now capable of bankrolling efforts to recruit and organize a population that mostly has been quiet and closeted.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation in Madison, Wis., one of the groups running advertisements, said, “We feel the only way to fight the stigma toward atheists and agnostics is for people to feel like they know them, and they’re your neighbors and your friends. It’s the same idea as the out-of-the-closet campaign for gay rights.”

[...]“We must denounce politicians that contend U.S. law should be based on the Bible and the Ten Commandments,” said Todd Stiefel, a retired pharmaceutical company executive who is underwriting most of the ad campaign that cites alarming Scripture passages. “It has not been based on these and should never be. Our founding fathers created a secular democracy.”

[...] On the confrontational end of the spectrum, American Atheists, which was founded in 1963 by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, will just before Thanksgiving put a billboard on the busy approach to the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey heading into New York.

It features a Nativity scene, and the words: “You Know it’s a Myth. This Season Celebrate Reason.”

David Silverman, the president of American Atheists, said that the idea of the campaign is to reach people who might go to church but are just going through the motions. “We’re going after that market share,” he said.

The United Coalition of Reason, a group in Washington, is sponsoring billboards and ads on bus shelters in about 15 cities that say, “Don’t Believe In God? Join the Club.”

The ads by the Freedom From Religion Foundation take a more inviting approach, with big portraits of some famous and some workaday people, listing their hobbies and professions and giving a punchy, personal declaration of independence from religion. The group, which has been running advertisements on and off since 2007, has spent about $55,000 this year to put up 150 billboards in about a dozen cities.

One, featuring Barbara Wright, a restaurateur in Madison, says: “It’s not what you believe, but how you behave.”

Wow! I’m impressed by these one-line catch phrases on billboards! So persuasive and rational! So focused on making propositional claims about the external world! So concerned with reason and evidence, not emotions and community! Such a careful investigation of the facts on both sides! The “Join the Club” argument! The “Celebrate Reason” argument! The “Be Nice If You Feel Like It” argument! Wowie wow wow! I’m impressed.

I note that the atheists are not funding formal debates, because that would require a discussion with two sides, and atheism is not something that performs well when the other side is well-represented. So, flashy sound-bite advertisements are used by atheists to present atheism to the public. It’s not rational, it’s marketing.

So how should Christians respond to this?

One group of Christians thinks that apologetics is the answer to this atheist plan. They think that Christians should learn the good scientific arguments for the existence of God from science (the Big Bang, the fine-tuning, the origin of life, habitability, Cambrian explosion, irreducible complexity, etc.) and the good philosophical arguments (moral argument, defense to the problem of evil, defense to the hiddenness of God, defense to religious pluralism, defense to postmodern skepticism, etc.), and the good historical arguments that don’t ASSUME the inerrancy of the Bible (1 Cor 15, minimal facts, responses to Old Testament violence, etc.).

I think that it is also important to have the money to be able to sponsor debates and conferences, as well. Nothing much would be made known the public unless deep-pocketed Christians were able to sponsor these debates and conferences. So Christians believe in choosing good degrees and getting good jobs and saving money to be able to invest in debates and conferences and such.

That’s one way to combat the sound-bite ads of the new atheists, and their rich backers.

But lately I have been having second thoughts. I talked to some of the Christians in my church, and they recommended alternative solutions to these challenges from the new atheists. They claim that these alternative solutions are superior to apologetics, so I thought I would list some of them out and you can see whether you agree with them or me.

Here they are:

• the argument from doing yoga
• the argument from becoming a vegetarian
• the argument from getting body piercings and tattoos
• the argument from reading trendy theologians whom non-Christians have never even heard of
• the argument from reading  fiction like “The Shack”, “The Da Vinci Code” and “Conversations with God”
• the argument from watching television shows like “American Idol”, “The Amazing Race” and “Lost”
• the argument from short-term mission trips to Bolivia to take pictures and then tell stories (not like Neil’s)
• the argument from having emotional experiences by singing about things we don’t know are true
• the argument from not talking about our beliefs at work because people won’t like us
• the argument from watching popular movies so many times that you memorize the dialog
• the argument from listening to popular music so many times that you memorize the lyrics
• the argument from watching sports teams play so many times that you memorize the rosters
• the argument from breast enlargement surgery
• the argument from turning worship into entertainment
• the argument from telling people that things that are wrong are not really wrong so they like us
• the argument from reading teenage vampire romance murder mysteries
• the argument from treating cats as if they were people

And so on.

Anyway, I am not sure whether apologetics or these other church arguments are better. Can anyone help me to decide?

I actually think that William Lane Craig used a new argument in his recent debate in Mexico against Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer. I think he called it the argument from “watching the Home Decorating Network obsessively and creating detailed home renovation projects and decorating your home with expensive tacky crap and then showing it off to your neighbors”. I am not sure if that worked on Dawkins, we have to wait for the video to see what Dawkins’ response was.

Come on people. We can beat atheism like a bongo drum. We just have to be serious about out-thinking them. They have nothing. The only way they win is if we put down our apologetics and amuse ourselves with narcissism and hedonism.

UPDATE: Excellent comments here from Laura (Pursuing Holiness) about the important of good works IN ADDITION TO apologetics. She is a real culture warrior and understands all the connections between Christianity and politics.

Filed under: Commentary, Apologetics, Atheism, Bible, Catch-Phrase, Christianity, Christmas, Church, Extremeist Atheism, Infidel, Marketing, Militant Atheism, New Atheism, One-Liner, Radical Atheism, Slogan, Sloganeering, Unbelief, William Lane Craig

Augusta State University orders student to abandon her faith to graduate

Story here from the leftist Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (H/T Wes Widner)

Excerpt:

A graduate student has filed a lawsuit accusing Augusta State University officials of violating her constitutional rights by ordering her to change her views opposing homosexuality.

Jennifer Keeton, a graduate student in the school of counseling, says in her court filing that the school threatened to expel her if she didn’t complete a remediation plan that includes diversity sensitivity workshops. Keeton had said in and out class that, according to her Christian beliefs, homosexuality is immoral and a lifestyle choice, according to her suit.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court in Augusta. The university has not been served with the lawsuit and officials declined to comment on the case, spokeswoman Kathy Schofe said Friday. She did say that the university does not discriminate and has policies in place to protect students if they believe they have been discriminated against.

Keeton is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian attorneys. The suit accuses Augusta State officials of violating Keeton’s First  Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

“A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here,” David French, senior counsel for the defense fund, said in a news release. “Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree.”

Keeton, who is pursuing a master’s degree in the education college’s counseling program, was told her beliefs are incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession, her attorneys said in a news release.

[...]The defense fund has filed similar lawsuits against Missouri State University and Eastern Michigan University.

It’s good that the ADF is on the case, as usual.

Filed under: News, ADF, Alliance Defense Fund, Atheism, Augusta State University, Campus, Constitution, Fascism, Free Excercise of Religion, Free Speech, Freedom of Speech, Gay Rights, GLBT, Homosexuality, Lawsuit, LGBT, Militant Atheism, Militant Secularism, Secularism, Speech Code, Student, Suit, University

What do left-wing Democrats think about Christianity?

Did you see this video of Fox News anchor Brit Hume recommending that Tiger Woods consider whether Christianity has more to offer someone who needs forgiveness than Budhhism? (H/T Neil Simpson)

Brit Hume is my favorite news media person. Actually he’s the only news anchor I watch when I’m traveling. (I don’t have a TV in my apartment)

The left-wing media responds

Here’s a story from NewsBusters describing how the secular leftists on MSNBC responded to Brit’s words.

Excerpt:

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann slammed FNC’s Brit Hume for advising Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity while appearing on yesterday’s Fox News Sunday panel, where Hume has regularly appeared for years and contributed his opinions to the discussion in a way that differs from his manner of moderating discussions in a more neutral way when he used to host Special Report with Brit Hume. Although Olbermann later backed away from likening Hume to radical Muslims, during the show’s opening teaser, Olbermann did make such a comparison: “An organization proselytizing, trying to force others to convert to its faith alone, you know, just like Islamic extremists.”

At one point as the Countdown host plugged a segment in which he discussed Hume with author Dan Savage, the words “Hume’s Holy War” were shown at the bottom of the screen as Olbermann spoke: “So Brit Hume tells Tiger Woods he can be forgiven, but only if he converts to Christianity. Fox has given up all pretense, hasn’t it?”

As Olbermann and Savage went on to make fun of Christianity, the MSNBC host at one point quipped: “‘WWJDIHS,’ which is: What would Jesus do if he strayed?” Savage brought up fringe religious figure Fred Phelps, who has become infamous for holding protests at the funerals of American soldiers, and lumped him in with Hume, Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer.

Click through for a partial transcript. This is really revolting stuff, and it shows what Democrats like Olbermann think of Christianity and authentic Christians.

Neil Simpson also noticed that secular leftists were not too thrilled about Brit Hume’s authentic Christian activity in the public square.

Drew also has a post defending Brit Hume on the Drew Blog.

Filed under: News, Anti-Christian, Atheism, Bigotry, Brit Hume, Censorship, Christian, Christianity, Evangelical Christian, Evangelism, Fox News, Free Speech, Humanism, Intolerance, Media Bias, Militant Atheism, MSNBC, News Media, Religious Liberty, Religious Pluralism, Secular Humanism, Secular Left, Secularism, Witness, Witnessing

UK’s Chief Rabbi blames atheism and Darwinism for falling birth rates

The article is in the UK Telegraph. (H/T MercatorNet via ECM, Big Blue Wave)

Excerpt:

The leader of Britain’s Jewish community claimed the continent’s population is in decline because people care more about shopping than the sacrifice involved in parenthood.

He blamed atheist “neo-Darwinians” for Europe’s low birth rate and said religious people of all denominations are more likely to have large families.

[...]The Chief Rabbi warned that secular Europe is at risk, however, because its moral relativism can easily be defeated by fundamentalists.

And he claimed that its population is also in decline, compared with every other part of the world, because non-believers lack shared values of family and community that religions have.

Lord Sacks said: “Parenthood involves massive sacrifice of money, attention, time and emotional energy.

“Where today in European culture with its consumerism and instant gratification – because you’re worth it – where will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet born?

“Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying.”

“That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.

I blogged about the UK’s looming demographic crisis previously.

So the Chief Rabbi seems to be in agreement with my views on atheism and morality. Logically speaking, atheism simply doesn’t meet any of the minimum requirements for rational morality. The problem for atheism is that the decision to commit to a marriage for life and to have children involves massive self-sacrifice. But on atheism, life is just about having happy feelings before you die – so they cannot rationally ground the decision to marry and procreate.

Filed under: Commentary, Atheism, Babies, Christianity, Crisis, Darwinism, Demographics, Evolution, God, Goodness, Grounded, Grounding, Hedonism, Judaism, Marriage, Militant Atheism, Moral Values, Neo-Darwinism, Ontological Foundations, Parent, Parenting, Rationality, Reason, Sacrifice, Self-Denial, Self-sacrifice, Selfishness, Sex, Theism