Onward Christian Lawyers: Pat Robertson's law school grads fill Dept. of Justice

More than 150 attorneys hired by the federal government during the Bush administration have been graduates of Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," the Boston Globe is reporting.

The story opens with this chilling paragraph:

The title of the course was Constitutional Law, but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks were opened, a student led his classmates in a 10-minute devotional talk, completed with "amens," about the need to preserve their Christian values.

Monica Goodling, a Regent graduate and until last week top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, recently resigned. She was one of a handful of officials who oversaw the firings of U.S. attorneys in what has become another Bush scandal.

She recently refused to testify to Congress, citing the Fifth Amendment.

Regent University's 21-year history is that of a school that has turned out a high number of graduates unable to pass the bar exam. It was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1996.

"It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The New Republic website. "...[T]hat a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ."

Monica Goodling's undergraduate work was done at Messiah College, a Christian school "committed to an embracing evangelical spirit." Her entire higher education has been steeped in evangelical tradition and beliefs.

Shortly after Bush became president, he picked the dean of Regent's government school, Kay Coles James, to be the director of the Office of Personnel Management, and she has since packed the upper echelons of the Dept. of Justice with attorneys with Regent degrees.

"We've had great placement," said Jay Sekulow, who heads a non profit law firm based at Regent that files lawsuits aimed at lowering barriers between church and state. "We've had a lot of people in key positions," the Globe reports.

Regent University is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place.

Sixty percent of the graduates in Goodling's 1999 class failed the bar exam on the first attempt. It has improved, according to the Princeton Review, to a 67% pass rate today.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is the university's newest instructor. He co-teaches a course called "Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and National Security."

Creeping theocracy, or just typical of Washington politics?

UPDATE, Wed., April 25: The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday 32-6 to authorize a grant of immunity for former Justice Department official Monica Goodling.

Image: Karl Rove and Monica Goodling

Theocracy | Politics | Evangelical | Regent University | Monica Goodling | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

List of blogs that participated in the Blogswarm Against Theocracy

If it accomplished nothing else, this past weekend's Blogswarm Against Theocracy has given me quite a few new blogs to read. Here's the latest list, as of this morning, of blogs that participated in the swarm by posting one or more articles. I understand there are at least 200 more blogs to be added.

In this list you'll find liberals and conservatives, Christians, Jews, Pagans and atheists. So far I've even found one by a Christian minister.

I hope you find some new and interesting reading material among them.

From Kristim (at MPS)
The Aristocrats
Montag at Stumplane
life's journey
Chip Berlet (at T2A)
Frederick Clarkson (at DKos)
A poetic justice (several poems)
Driftglass
The Quaker Agitator
Balls and Walnuts
Zaius Nation
Birmingham Blues
Lihan161051
Brian
Chaotic Good
Dangerously Subversive Atheist Penguin
Northgate Science
Austin Atheist
The Greenbelt
Essential Saltes
Knight of Pan
Evil Bender
I doubt it
Xark
Abnormal Interests
Tengrain (at MPS)
Omnipotent Poobah
Orcinus
A Whore in the Temple of Reason
The Cylinder
Austin Cline
Thorne's World
WMD Actual
Witches and Scientists
Explicit Atheist
Yikes!
Flatbush Gardener
The Truffle
I am the Lizard Queen
Neal Rauhauser (at dKos)
Lost in the Underground
Atheist Experience
Indignant Ahole
So Queer
Sanguine in Seattle
Sepherim
The Burning Taper
Wishing for wisdom
Independent Bloggers Alliance
One North Dakota Woman
Derek Timothy
Deep Subject
Paul Hutchinson's Blog
Diario de bordo (Portugal)
Lord J-Bar
Big Daddy Malcontent
Brahmin Colorado (at dKos)
Brainshrub.com
The Front Page (Canada)
Chris Rodda (at T2A)
April Reign (Canada)
Immoral Logic
Pambolita
Rational Revolution
Deleted Items
Bratfink
Religious Right Watch
IseBrand
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub
Timeline of Theocracy (at T2A)
Hypnocrites
ProgressiveU
The Skeptical Alchemist
Dark Christianity
The Rational Christian
Another Ravan Perch
Unrepentant Old Hippie
Cycle
AP Lawrence, Blogger
Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes
God is for Suckers!
There are no Barking Sparrows
Beep Beep It's Me
Cause for Concern
The Jaded Skeptic
Cassandra Waites (at T2A)
Hot Cup of Joe
Big Brass Blog
Dawne Gee at Clean Cut Kid
xcsharpshadowx
Cross Left
Ten Percent
Killing time, making noise
Phillip Allen
Live and times of an ex(2)-pat Yank
Darwin's Dagger
Les Enrages
Laelaps
David 2's Brutally Honest Random Thoughts
Runesmith's Canadian Content
Nonsensical Ravings of Finely Tuned Insanity
Barefoot Bum
No More Mister Nice Guy!
do not read this blog
Pandagon
commander others otherwhirled
Journeys with Jood
Fitness for the Occasion
after the bridge
Reconstitution
Hard-boiled Dreams of the World
The Daily Pulse
Midget Queen
The Jewish Atheist
Fetch Me My Axe
North of Center
Doing My Part for the Left (podcast)
Liberal Street Fighter
Blue Wren
Laughing Goo
Robert Colgan (at MPS)
Flatus the Elder
Progressive Historians
Virus Head
Club Lefty
Blue Gal
Recovering Liberal
Blast Off!
Ordinary Girl
The Neo-Skeptic
Not Soccer Mom
Hullabaloo
Mock Paper Scissors
A Blog Around the Clock
An American in Melbourne
Everything and more
Atheist Revolution
About Kitty
Half Nixon
I Speak of Dreams
Feminists Don't Bake Bread
Americans United Blog
Dog Emperor
At Center Network
God Vs. Darwin
Action Skeptics
Creekside
Rascality
Frank L. Cocozzelli (at T2A)
Biblioblography
The Largest Minority
Facilitate Wonder
Reconsititution
From Sorghum Crow (at MPS)
Mauigirl's Meanderings
Chris Rodda (at T2A - Bible Curriculum Series)
The Spiritual Humanist Blog
The Stormy Days of March
The Springy Goddess
The Shikon Jewel
Clyde the f-ed up cousin of Jimmy Dean (at MPS)
Vagabond Scholar
Ron's Blog
Journeys with Jood
The Learning Curve
Pissed in NYC (at MPS)
This *is* it.
Tangled up in Blue Guy
A Stitch in Haste
One Act in the Eternal Play of Ideas
commander other (at MPS)
Thoughts in a Haystack
We Are All Giant Nuclear Fireball Now Party
Coffee Messiah
RadRobin
Fitness for the Occasion
Peace, order and good government, eh? (Canada)


Image: The Grand Lake theater in Oakland, California, which regularly makes political statements on its marquee. Photographer unknown.

Blog Against Theocracy | Blogswarm Against Theocracy | Blogs | Christianity | Fundamentalist | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Get your theocracy off my democracy: America is not a Christian nation

After reading more articles spawned by the Blog Against Theocracy campaign, I was musing ("musing" is such an overused word on blogs these days) thinking about the Radical Right's continued dead-horse beating of their mantra "America is a Christian nation."

A few miscellaneous and random points to ponder:

• George Washington wrote into the Treaty of Tripoli, later signed into law by John Adams, the phrase "...the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." [A comment on a forum about this article says this is "a myth being spread across the Internet." And this website, which posts the text of the entire treaty, indicates that Joel Barlow, not Washington, wrote the Treaty.]


• Thomas Jefferson wrote in "Notes on the State of Virgina, "It does me no injury for my neighbors to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."


• The days of the week are named after gods or goddesses or things-in-the-sky that were once considered gods. Sunday and Monday are named in honor of the Sun and Moon; Tuesday is named after the Nordic god Tyr, who was the equivalent of the Roman war god Mars. Wednesday is named for the Germanic god Woden (Wodan), who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons, equivalent to the Norse Odin and akin to the Roman Mercury. Thursday is named after the Germanic Thunor, or Norse Thor, akin to the Roman Jupiter. Friday takes its name from Frigg or Freyja, the Germanic goddess of beauty, roughly equivalent to the Roman Venus and Greek Aphrodite. Saturday, of course, is named in honor of the Roman god of agriculture and time, Saturn.


• The planets in our solar system are all named for Roman Gods: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, Charon, and Eris. Earth's other name, Gaia, was a Greek goddess.


• Many of the months are named for non-Christian gods: January is named for Janus, the Roman two-headed or two-faced god of the doorway. One face looked back to the past, the other to the future, just as we still do in the month of January. February was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual Februa held on February 15 in the old Roman calendar. That ritual probably was related to February 14 as well; the "love" rituals we go through every Valentine's Day are hardly a Christian thing. Even if St. Valentine did begin it (he didn't), he would hardly be considered a Christian by today's standards. March was called Martius in ancient Rome, and was dedicated to Mars, the god of war. It has been suggested that the name April (Latin aprilis) comes either from the Latin word aperire, "to open," referring to the new growth in springtime, or, more likely, from aphrilis, which referred to the Greek equivalent of Venus, Aphrodite. The month of May may have been named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman goddess of fertility, Bona Dea, whose festival was held in May. June is named after the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter and equivalent to the Greek goddess Hera, Zeus's wife. July and August were named for the Roman emperors who were proclaimed a god and son of a god. In 42 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was formally deified as Divus Iulius ("the Divine Julius"), and Caesar Augustus henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a god").


• Early American space missions were named for gods: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo; it was even mirrored in the fictional Lost in Space television program with the spacecraft Jupiter II.


• American (and foreign) automobile brands and models have been named after gods: Mercury, Roman messenger of the gods; Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and of time, equivalent to Cronus in the pre-Greek pantheon; Taurus, associated with the Greek myth of Zeus taking the form of a bull to seduce Europa; Mazda (full name Ahura Mazda), the Zoroastrian god of light; Thunderbird, a mythical creature common to Native American religion; the Dodge Odyssey reminds us of Odysseus, released by the goddess Athena only to have his raft destroyed by Poseidon. Dodge also had a car called the Aries, which was a mythological ram which carried Athamas's son Phrixus and daughter Helle to Colchis to escape their stepmother Ino. Dodge also had a car called the Phoenix, named for the mythological bird associated with Egypt's sun gods, as far back as the 1950s.


• Our favorite sinking ships are named for non-Christian gods: Poseidon, named for the Roman god of the sea, and the Titanic, named for the Titans (Gaea, Uranus, Cronus, Rhea, Oceanus, Tethys, Hyperion, Mnemosyne, Themis, Iapetus, Coeus, Crius, Phoebe, Thea, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, Metis, and Dione), who ruled before they were overthrown by the later Greek pantheon we're more familiar with (Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite, et al). The NFC football team from Tennessee is named for these gods, too.


• American culture and products are rife with pagan god names: Canon cameras are named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy. Trident chewing gum is named for the pitchfork-like staff carried by the gods of the sea, Neptune and Poseidon. There are Venus razors and a Venus Bridal brand of bridal accessories. There are condoms named for Ramses II, a pharaoh-god of Egypt. The popular Disney characters Snow White and Cinderella, taken from folklore, are veiled archetypes of European goddesses, and Pocahantas, though she was a real woman, is also a goddess archetype of Native American religion. The Allman Brothers originally recorded for Capricorn Records. Sirius Radio is named for hunter Orion's canine companion. And don't forget Mickey Mouse's dopey dog Pluto. Even our weapons of war are made by a company named after mythology: Raytheon, maker of missiles such as Patriot, Maverick, Sidewinder and Tomahawk, means "light of the gods."


• America even has her own goddess, Columbia, who graces the top of the Capitol, New York Harbor, the old Liberty Head dimes, and the start of every movie by Columbia Pictures. She is based on earlier goddesses Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar and Isis.


• And that overused word, "musings," comes from the Muses, fifty goddesses, water nymphs, or spiritual guides who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music and dance.


• Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter, and even our favorite anti-Christian holiday (since the Christians abandoned All Hallow's Day), Halloween, are pagan in origin. The word Easter derives from the name of the Germanic Goddess of the Dawn, or spring, the dawn of the year. She was called Ēaster, Ēastre, and Ēostre, in various dialects of Old English, and may go back as far as the similar-sounding middle eastern Astarte and Ishtar. Easter eggs and bunnies represent new life at springtime. Many Christmas traditions have their origins in the deep past, long before Zero A.D.


• The American Superman saga is a loose re-telling of the Jesus story. But then, the Jesus story — a virgin birth, ascensions, miracles — is a re-telling of savior myths that predate Christ by hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. Learn more about Tammuz, Bacchus, Osiris and Isis. And those stories, just like the legends told in Masonic lodges, ultimately lead you back to man's fascination with what happens in the sky.

Yes, America is anything but a Christian nation. Our culture is steeped in polytheistic paganism. Even if we're not always consciously aware of it, these archetypes live in our subconscious, reminding us that, as they say in the movie Magnolia, "we may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

Christianity is only 2,000 years old; it's simply today's most popular Western religion. The modern American version of fundamentalist Christianity is even younger, and in many ways would be unrecognizable to Christians of the past, and totally baffling to the billions of people who lived in pre-Christian times.

Spirituality and religious belief in things greater than and beyond ourselves is timeless.

Neither Christianity nor America is ultimately cosmic, or universal, or changeless. Like everything that has come before, both will change, adapt, mutate, and eventually fade away. Or perhaps become the brand name of a toothpaste or an automobile.

We're all only here for a short while, and while we're here, we've got to co-exist — all of us — Christian, Jew, Muslim and pagan. Christianity and other religions and spiritual practices and beliefs have their place in people's lives... even in mine. The one you follow, if any, is a matter of one's consciousness and conscience. One size doesn't fit all, and no one religion is the "only one," no matter what your Bible or other Volumes of Sacred Law say.

Let me take this down to a common denominator we all understand — bumper stickers: "Get your theocracy off my democracy."

Or simpler still: "My karma ran over your dogma."

I say no to theocracy in America, and yes to religious tolerance.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wilson's Almanac, and my mind

Image: Sunrise, taken by the crew of Apollo 12 on their return trip from the Moon.

Masons | Religion | Astrotheology | Freemasonry | Blog Against Theology | Christianity | Theocracy | America | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Blogs against theocracy: 'We're not gonna take it!'

Bro. Don Tansey of the blog Movable Jewel has already said it better than I could. He said it politely. I'm more prone to ranting when it comes to this subject.

I stand with him and other bloggers this weekend in putting Christian fundamentalists on notice: We're not gonna take it!

Keep your hypocritical, overzealous, ultra-conservative, paranoid religious hands off the U.S. Constitution, the judiciary, federal, state and local governments, our schools, our kids, our bedrooms, our lodge rooms, and every other aspect of our lives you would like to control. Your twisted theological views do not represent the views of the majority of Christians or Americans, and your actions certainly aren't what Jesus would do.

The United States of America is not a theocracy. It will never be one.

Keep your church separated — stand way back! — from our state.

• Jesus is not a Republican. Or a Democrat. Or even an American.
• The Bible ain't science. Don't try forcing teachers to teach creationism in public schools. Take your own kids to that silly dinosaur park Kent Hovind created to teach that dinosaurs roamed the earth a couple of thousand years ago, but leave my kids out of it.
• Decisions about health and the use of medicines, alcohol and plants, abortion, and how to end your own life are personal decisions, not decisions to be made by your groups.
• All people are God's children... "red and yellow, black and white," as the Sunday School song goes. "Love one another," as Jesus said. "All you need is love," sang the Beatles. Stop being racists, sexists and homophobic. You're not any more special than the rest of us.
• God didn't tell George W. Bush to invade Iraq, and He damn sure doesn't support the war.
• God doesn't "hate fags," no matter how many signs you wave at soldiers' funerals.
• All families should be respected, no matter what form they take. It's none of your business who someone marries, or what someone does behind closed doors.
• Art is art. If you don't like it, don't watch it, read it, or look at it. Quit trying to keep the rest of us from watching it, reading it or going to museums to see it. (I thought the Chocolate Jesus was a minor masterpiece.)

Inside the dome of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., is a quotation by Thomas Jefferson: "I swear upon the altar of God eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Let his words be a warning to those who would replace American democracy with a Calvinist theocracy. Millions of us agree with Jefferson.

I have one suggestion for the fundamentalist Christians who want to rule America using eye-for-an-eye, hateful, vindictive, archaic Old Testament rules and practices and Paulian propaganda: Rip every page out of your Bible and burn them, except for one verse.

1 John 4:8 — Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Related websites: Blog Against Theocracy, First Freedom First, Journeys with Jood, Center for Inquiry, American Humanist Association, and many more.

Theocracy | Church and State | Religious Intolerance | Freemasonry | Fundamentalist | Christian | Fundamentalist |Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com