Jesus Picture Loses in Religious Freedom Fight

Howard

Two years ago, Jackson City superintendent of schools Phil Howard was determined to keep a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall of a local middle school.   After all, he noted angrily, it had been there for 66 years.  

"I'm certainly not going to run down there and take the picture down because some group from Madison, Wisconsin who knows nothing about the culture of our community or why the picture is even there, wants me to take it down," Howard barked at a television station.

To him, the picture had “historic significance.”

This week, the picture was removed.

Historic significance has no standing when competing against religious freedom.  To someone like Howard, that’s the freedom to impose his faith on others.  To the courts, the opposite is true.

The Warner Sallman print, titled “the Head of Christ” came off the wall of Royster Middle School with little fanfare after the school’s legal counsel agreed its presence violated the principle of separation of church and state.

"I conferred with legal counsel and both of them told me to be in compliance with state and federal law that we had to have it removed," Chanute Public Schools Superintendent Richard Proffitt said in a published report.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Wisconsin-based organization that pushed the case, pointed out that courts have been clear: Religious symbols don't belong in public schools.

Does it matter?

Absolutely, particularly considering the statements of Republican presidential candidates who want to impose their religious views on the rest of us.

Bush

Jeb Bush,a convert to Catholicism who is actually the front-runner despite his current malaise, noted that religion informs his actions.  He pushed for new abortion restrictions during his reign of error as governor of Florida, highlighted by his efforts to keep a dead woman in a vegetative state for 15 years on life support. When Terry Schiavo’s husband wanted her feeding tubes removed, in accordance to the woman’s expressed wishes, Bush ordered the tubes reinserted only to be overruled by a federal court.

Ohio Governor John Kasich announced his candidacy by claiming he has a “calling” and by citing Bible verses.

Cruz

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said, “I’m blessed to receive a word from God every day” through the Bible. “We can turn our country around, but only if the body of Christ rises up,” he claimed.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said God doesn’t give him a to-do list, but He “calls me to live by His will.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said, “Faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.”

Christie

“No rights are given to you by government. All our rights are given to you by God,” insisted New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Mike Huckaby added, “Spiritual convictions should certainly be reflected in one’s worldview, approaches to problems and perspective.”

In answer to a question, surgeon Ben Carson couldn’t decide if as president he would be sworn to uphold the Constitution or the Bible.

Here’s the response to all of them:  American culture has no religion.  No one in this country, of any faith, can be forced to participate in the belief system of someone else.  That is the basic tenet of this country and the golden aspect that separates it from any other.

One more thing to think about: according to studies, only 34 percent of registered Republicans today can be classified as "highly religious Protestant Republicans.”

That should create an entirely different picture for candidates chasing the ever-shrinking religious right vote.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His most recent book is Passover in Prison, which details abuse of Jewish inmates in American prisons.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Obama Predictions For the Birds

Obama

Ancient prophets had the right idea.  They really could teach modern pundits a few things.

For starters, the old guys never made a flat prediction.  They tempered with words like, “if this doesn’t happen… then …” That way, there was always an out.  Then, they made predictions far into the future so that they wouldn’t be around to explain why they erred.

Today’s seers should really consider following that direction.  Many of them are eating so much crow these days that the bird should be placed on the endangered species list.

Romney

Consider these predictions about what would happen if President Barack Obama won re-election in 2012.

For starters, his losing Republican opponent Mitt Romney assured the public that unemployment would stay above 8 percent.  He promised to bring that number by 6 percent by 2017 if elected.

Unemployment now stands at 5.8 percent in 2015 and dropped below 6 percent in September 2014.  Meanwhile, Obama’s economic policies have generated 5 million new jobs in the last two years alone.

Lee

Utah Senator Mike Lee was sure that with Obama in office, gas prices would be more than $5.45 a gallon by 2015.  He was also convinced that gas would top $6 a gallon by 2017.  Actually, it’s around $2.65 a gallon on average nationally and dropping.

Forbes columnist Charles Bilderman predicted a stock market crash if Obama continued in office. Bloomberg TV rep Marc Farber foresaw a 20 percent decline in stock value.   “Republicans understand the problem of excessive debt better than Mr. Obama who basically doesn’t care about piling up debt,” he claimed.

Market progress

In reality, the New York Stock Exchange has hit record highs and stands around 17,500 now, up 35 percent since 2012.  Even the recent decline because of China's misfortune has not erased the gains.

Radio pundit Rush Limbaugh, whose repeated failed predictions could fill a tome, went far beyond a dip in the stock market.  He foresaw a collapsing economy. “There’s no if about this. And it’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be gut wrenching, but it will happen,” he said. Limbaugh claimed California would declare bankruptcy, and Obama would force other states to bail out The Golden State. 

As of the moment, California has a $4 billion budget surplus.

As for the economy, it grew 5 percent in the third quarter of 2014 and shows no signs of declining. As market analyst Myles Udland noted in August 2015: “Two things are true about the U.S. economy: It is adding jobs and growing.”

Udland

There are many other failed predictions if Obama won.  The Supreme Court didn’t disband Boy Scouts or require Christian churches to close.  Religious broadcasters haven’t been forced off the air nor are churches mandated to hire lesbian clergy.  Gun laws haven’t changed; no one has confiscated a single gun.

Even predictions about Obama’s opponents were wrong. Newscaster Chris Matthew was sure former Rep. Michele Bachmann would carry the GOP banner in 2012.  Washington Posts’ Jennifer Rubin argued that Romney wouldn’t get the nod because he instituted a healthcare law in Massachusetts, an anathema to Republicans.

Rove

Florida Gov. Rich Scott, who is spending these days trying to counter convincing evidence that he’s the worst governor in the state’s history, was positive that whoever won the Republican Florida primary would head the 2012 ticket.  Herman Cain won the primary.  Heard of him lately?

As for the election, political pro Dick Morris said Romney would win in a landslide.  So did one-time party leader and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.   Republican adviser Karl Rove saw a tighter race, but a Romney victory nevertheless.  Former Bush speechwriter Peggy Noonan said, “All vibrations were right for a Romney win.”

Long-time newsman Michael Barone was sure that all the “fundamentals” favored Romney.

All were wrong, and many more like them.

Obama won 61 percent of the popular vote and easily swept the Electoral College vote 336 to 206.  Under him, the economy has continued to grow.  This country has improved its standing in the world, made an unprecedented agreement with Iran to end that country’s production of nuclear weapons, resolved the 50-year battle with Cuba, withdrew troops from Iraq and expanded health benefits to an estimated 17 million Americans.

Jackson

Of course the negative predictions have continued.  Seer Glenda Jackson, who has her own prophetic ministry, predicted Obama would win two terms.  Now, she says, “God showed me that if Christians don’t start praying more than they ever have and even the churches become the house of prayer this next presidential election is not going to take place … The president is not going to be removed. He is going to stay in.”

That’s nothing compared with what an on-line prophet insists will happen:  “There are at least seventeen biblical reasons why Barack Obama may lead the United States to fulfill the predictions in the Apocalypse.  There are many older writings that indicate that Barack Hussein Obama may set the United States up for utter destruction…”

Based on the correct number of similar predictions to date, none of that is going to happen either.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history with an occasional foray into American history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.com.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His most recent book is Passover in Prison, which details abuse of Jewish inmates in American prisons.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Fighting Evolutionary Battles Again

For no apparent reason, friends on Facebook are deriding evolution again.  I find it comical, mainly because the idea of God is a theory with no proof.  They accept that theory and deny evolution, which has accumulated more than 140 years of testing and study.

Opponents to evolution, of course, insist that there’s no evidence to support the theory.  That’s ridiculous. As famed Brown University biologist, noted: "Evolution makes testable predictions."  For example, “when it comes to chromosomes, the prediction of evolution is that if we have 46 chromosomes and our closest cousins have 48, then  somewhere in our genome should be a chromosome formed by a recent fusion, and that chromosome should have telomere DNA, and it should have two centromeres. That is a prediction made by evolution, and bingo, you look and there it is."

That’s just one in the chain of proofs that support evolution.  Here are a few more.

All lifeforms on Earth, whether a plant or an animal, can share DNA.  That’s why our DNA is loaded with DNA from viruses and other sources.  That supports the evolutionary argument that everything evolved from one life form.

If evolution were wrong, such exchange of DNA would be impossible.

In the same vein, humans have about 96 percent of the same genes as chimpanzees, 90 percent of cat genes and 75 percent of mice.  We didn’t arise from these animals, but all animals arose from the same source and diverged.  The differences in our genomes match when the separations took place in historical time.

The parallels continue in uteri where all animals have gill slits, tails, and specific anatomical structures involving the spine during development.  In humans, the gill slits in fetuses become bones

Fetal similarities

of the ear and jaw before birth.  However, all embryos resemble each other, something only possible if all animals came from the same original creature.

Another proof comes from fossils.  While fossils are relatively rare, they consistently demonstrate how life moved from simple to complex on an evolutionary ladder.  That is a hallmark of evolution.

A simple examination of human fossils will

demonstrate that, even to the untrained eye.

Other evidence is right in front of anyone every day in the form of bacteria.  Anyone getting treated for a disease quickly learns that the disease has become immune to one treatment.  Doctors are continually trying to keep up.  The reason why the drugs stop working is that bacteria, as with all life, evolve defenses. 

A few bacteria among millions are immune to the treatment because of the random nature of evolution.  Those that aren’t die out, leaving those that survive to multiply.

The same thing happens in the visible world, where a particularly valuable change allows one species to prosper while its less-endowed relatives become extinct.  As a result, over 95 percent of all creatures are extinct.

Darwin

That fact is what caught Charles Darwin’s attention in the Galapagos Island where one type of finch had mutated to fill various niches.  He realized then that a process of natural selection had eliminated some birds while helping others survive.

It is definitely not true that biologists doubt evolution.  Most of the Nobel Prizes given in recent years are based on research derived from evolution.  Thousands of articles have been written in various aspects of the theory.

In contrast, research studies based on creationism are nonexistent.  Researchers began searching for any articles on that topic starting in the mid-1990s through 2014 and failed to uncover a single scientific study.  Editors of Nature, Science and other leading journals report receiving only a handful of submissions, which only attack evolution without providing any scientific evidence in support of their beliefs.

Evolutionists and creationists actually agree on one point. Evolution has too many variables to be 100 percent provable; that’s why it’s a theory.  On the other hand, no valid scientific research has ever disputed evolution.  The research has just demonstrated how complex the subject is.

None of this, of course, was known to the authors of the Bible or any religious book.  In fact, no religion has a single mention of evolution.  After all, the technology to prove it was not available centuries ago.  Who knew bacteria existed until the invention of the microscope?

As a result, religion has focused on a single creator, a God, who formed the heavens and earth. 

That still may be true, but there’s no question that evolution has changed those creations.

There is one consoling thought for doubters: since they believe God created everything, why couldn’t He have created evolution?

 Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His most recent book is Passover in Prison, which details abuse of Jewish inmates in American prisons.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1