Attack of the Theocrats!: How the Religious Right Harms Us All—and What We Can Do About It by Sean Faircloth Read Free Book Online Page B

world where fundamentalism is on the rise, America must be made safe for the ideas of Einstein and Twain. Politics must be made safe for the ideas of Madison and Jefferson.
    Let us follow two “golden rules”:
    First
: “Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him.” Jesus you might think? Too recent. Pittacus, the Greek sage—who lived more than five centuries before Christ (c. 640–568 BCE)
    Second
: Officials “shall be bound . . . to support the Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” This comes from our Constitution—in particular, Article 6, Section 3.
    Our Constitution beautifully embraces the theory of evolution—societal evolution. As Jefferson said, “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”
    The Bible and the Koran reject evolution, not just in the scientific sense, but in the humanistic sense. The words of the Bible and Koran are unchangeable, no matter what compassion, science, or thousands of years of reason may reveal. Blacks? Women? Gay people? Too bad. Your applications were received centuries too late. The Constitution—and this was Madison’s original intent—is an evolutionary document by design. Madison’s genius was his humble belief that what he knew in the late 1700s wasn’t all there was to know and therefore our system must adapt and change.
    Darwin and Einstein offered real books of revelation, profoundly new to our eyes—elegantly explaining marvelous rules of our universe. Just as surely, just as dramatically, and just as importantly, Madison revealed new and marvelous rules for human interactions. Just as Einstein showed us that light bends, Madison showed us that the light of justice bends in beautiful and unexpected ways—toward compassion and justice. Our world is all the more marvelous for it. In both Madison’s and Einstein’s case, we see an ennobling sense of humbleness to their brilliant revelations. Einstein said, “I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.”
    The minds of Einstein and Madison make me very optimistic about the future. The trends arc toward science and compassion, inherently humble concepts, and, especially among the young, toward justice, secularism, and greater inclusion. However, those with the greatest and most absolute certainty can, at least at first, have a rhetorical advantage. Some people find certainty extremely comforting. Indeed, the seductive simplicity of certainty is the greatest rhetorical advantage of fundamentalism.
    Let’s give credit to fundamentalists. They sell the comfort of certainty, and many people have been buying, including our politicians. The Christian fundamentalists have secured special rights in Congress and the states. Fundamentalists have secured billions of tax dollars that are in turn used to help them achieve their political ends.
    Almost thirty years ago fundamentalist author Robert Simonds wrote
How to Elect Christians to Public Office
. Dismissing the fundamentalists asmere crackpots was not savvy politics. Their strategy was excellent and successful beyond what their numbers would warrant. Can nonfundamentalist Americans—those committed to the separation of church and state—be as committed to truth as fundamentalists can be committed to unbending, ancient documents? Can we be as committed to gentleness as they are committed to corporal punishment in school? Can we be as committed to justice and inclusion as they are to judgmental harshness? Can we be as committed to action