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The devil made me do it. When I was promoting my book "Freethinkers," I agreed to appear on a right-wing radio talk show that attracts a large Christian fundamentalist audience (even though the host, Michael Medved, is an Orthodox Jew).
One of many naive American beliefs is that all we need to do is talk to one another and our differences will somehow morph into "common ground." But blind faith is impervious to evidence and cannot be swayed by argument--however politely conducted.
I don't accept the premise of the question--that "millions of Americans in mixed marriages are unsure about their conception of God." For the most part, what bothers parents in mixed marriages--if in fact they are bothered--is how to mediate between cultural traditions rooted in conflicting ideas not only about God but about history itself.
The United States is the most religious nation in the developed world, if religion is measured by churchgoing (or, to be more precise, by the claim that we go to church) and by belief in all things supernatural. Americans are also the most religiously ignorant people in the Western world. Call it blind faith.
The idea that anti-Catholicism is a significant force in American life today is a complete canard, perpetrated by theologically and politically right-wing Roman Catholics--a minority among the Catholic laity--and aimed at anyone who stands up to the Church's continuing attempts to impose its values on all Americans.
After only 180-plus years, Mormonism is indeed entering the world of American mainstream religion--that fatuous realm in which speaking ill of anyone's faith is considered positively
un-American.
When the open-hearted and open-minded Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in 1962, he welcomed Jewish observers with the statement, "I am Joseph, your brother." The pope was baptized Angelo Giuseppe (Joseph) Roncalli, and his moving words signaled his rejection of the Catholic Church's horrendous history of anti-Jewish persecution and his desire for a new beginning.
Last week, Pope Benedict managed to aggravate both Jews and Protestants--the former by encouraging a form of the mass that, on Good Friday, includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews, and the latter by reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church's traditional stance that it is the One True Church and all other are sub-churches. Quite a week's work!
I do not agree with the Dalai Lama that all religious traditions carry basically the same message of love, compassion, and forgiveness. The truth is that there is good and evil in all religious traditions--as there is in every other human institution and every individual human being. Sweeping statements of pro-religious propaganda, even (or especially) when they are made by men as admirable as the Dalai Lama, have the effect of smothering rational discussion about the pros and cons of any and all religion.
Let me get this straight. We have an American president making noises about World War III, wildfires in California, a record rate of home foreclosures, etc., etc., and somewhere in America, people are supposedly worried about the religious and satanic implications of Halloween. I suppose if you believe that ghosts and demons exist, you might actually stay awake at night mulling this over.
This annual nonsense about so-called political correctness "taking the Christ out of Christmas" must come from people who walk around this time of year with blindfolds over their eyes and plugs in their ears. I just came out of a plumbing supply store with the sounds of "The First Noel" and "The Little Drummer Boy," purveyed by one of those loathsome all-Christmas, all the time radio stations, ringing in my ears. It seems to me that there is a creche on every corner, although, since this is New York, there are also plenty of supersized electric menorahs.
'Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the House
Not a brain cell was stirring
Though non-Christians groused.
But Christians can revel with nary a care
For Congress hath spoken: elections are near.
The Pew Forum's survey of the American religious landscape, with its finding that one out of four Americans have switched religions--or switched to no religion at all--during their lifetimes (and 44 percent if you count defections among Protestant denominations) suggests that American religiosity is based more on the model of a shopping mall than on the Rock of Ages.
There is no legal line in this country between "acceptable humor about religion and offensive disrespect," just as there is no legal line between acceptable humor about ethnicity, race or politics and "offensive disrespect." The First Amendment grants religion no immunity from criticism or satire, however vulgar and insulting such comments may seem to believers. Satire-- from Aristophanes through Jonathan Swift, Monty Python, and Stephen Colbert--is inherently disrespectful, and its targets are always offended.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
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