Thou Shalt Not Think For Thyself

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.  -- Thomas Paine

Religion is growing so narrow and dogmatic that churches are censoring or ex-communicating members who question or criticize the institution. There is little room left for individual freedom of thought in today's religious congregations.

This nonsense heated up last year when Catholic Bishops mandated that pro-choice Catholics are in a state of grave sin and cannot receive communion. Right-wingers had a field day with that one--they even organized a Kerry Communion Watch to see if he would eat those yummy wafers at Sunday mass. 

This week we've seen some interesting and scary developments in this front of The Culture War®. First let's take a look at the Catholic Church where one of the current pope's opponents has been silenced. Father Thomas Reese, a widely known Catholic writer and pundit, has resigned as editor of the Jesuit magazine America under pressure from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Ratzinger, who was elected Pope Benedict XVI last month, headed this Vatican office during its battles with the magazine. It looks like Father Reese was guilty of thinking too progressively:

In an editorial that ran in its April 25 issue after John Paul's death and before Benedict's election, the Jesuit magazine said, "A church that cannot openly discuss issues is a church retreating into an intellectual ghetto." Among those issues, it listed birth control, divorce, women priests, married priests, homosexuality, the selection of bishops, and the centralization of decision making in the Vatican . . . Father Drew Christiansen, 60, whom Reese recruited in 2002 and who will succeed him June 1, said Friday he hoped to build on Reese's accomplishments. Asked if the magazine's voice would be muted in view of developments, Christiansen said: "We'll try to be a voice for the whole church. There needs to be a place in the church for intelligent discussion of issues that face the church and the world, and we'll continue to try and provide that."

Meanwhile, Reverend Chan Chandler of East Waynesville Baptist Church in Waynesville, North Carolina has excommunicated nine church members who were guilty of not voting for President Bush in 2004. Was Reverend Chandler following the little known Eleventh Commandment that states If Thou is Not With Us, Then Thou is with The Atheists? All Spin Zone has a link to a news report video on this story. Pam at Big Brass Blog also has additional information on this story.

World Nut Daily gives us this:

Church member Lewis Inman said to the Asheville station: "[Chandler] told us that if we didn't support George Bush we needed to resign our position and get out, or go to the altar and repent, and support George Bush." Among the ex-communicated were leaders who had been in the church 30 or 40 years. "The members that were there even stood up and applauded that we left," an outgoing church member said. Former member Frank Lowe told WLOS: "He says if we supported John Kerry, we have supported abortion and homosexuality."

In Kansas, eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, science and rational thought are being persecuted once again. Conservatives who dominate the local school boards and are trying to push through new science standards which challenge evolution and advocate theories of "intelligent design".

The Chronic has the story:    

Even as they described their own questioning of evolution as triggered by religious conversion, the experts testifying Thursday avoided mention of a divine creator, instead painting their position as simply one of open- mindedness, arguing that Darwinism had become a dangerous dogma . . . But the debate was as much about religion and politics as science and education, with Irigonegaray pressing witnesses to find mentions of the theories they were denouncing, like humanism and naturalism, in the state standards, and asking whether they believed all scientists were atheists.

"These people are going to obfuscate about these definitions," complained Jack Krebs, vice president of the pro-evolution Kansas Coalition for Science, whose members filled many of the 180 auditorium seats not taken by journalists from as far away as France. "They have created a straw man. They are trying to make science stand for atheism, so they can fight atheism." 

What these religious conservatives don't realize is that science does not seek to invalidate religion. Science is a method to explain the physical world, not a grand fundamentalist metaphysical theory claiming to explain everything. The Culture War® of Christo-Fascism is not only purging the free-thinkers out of their own churches but is now invading the public educational system with prayer and religious teachings.

I happen to believe that politics, science and religion can co-exist peacefully in their separate spheres. The religious fundamentalists, on the other hand, want to diminish science, and merge politics with religion.