This is not a post
- February 13, 2009
- By Dale McGowan
- In humor, myths
- 15
(Mustn’t post today. Bad juju. Shoo.)
Jesus on the jury
I’m sitting in the jury pool in downtown Atlanta, trying not to splash too much. Eavesdropping on conversations around me, mostly devoted to what we have to say to be disqualified.
(Commies.)
Favorite overheard conversation:
GUY 1: I was here two years ago. Got on an assault case. Got all the way to the questioning part. The “voy dear,” something like that, where the lawyers figure out who they want on the jury.
GUY 2: Huh. Wha’d they ask?
GUY 1: They asked if there’s any reason you couldn’t hear the evidence and pass judgment on somebody if they broke the law.
GUY 2: Huh.
GUY 1: This one lady said, “I follow Jesus, who said, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.'”
GUY 2: Really.
GUY 1: Yeah.
Pause.
GUY 2: They booted her?
GUY 1: Hell yeah. Gone.
The question of peremptory challenges based on a prospective juror’s religious views is a lively topic in the legal community.
The Supreme Court outlawed peremptory challenges based on race in 1986 and on gender in 1994. Some argue that the same protection should be extended to religion.
In the wonderfully-named case United States v. DeJesus, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals created an interesting distinction: “Assuming that the exercise of a peremptory strike on the basis of religious affiliation is unconstitutional, the exercise of a strike based on religious beliefs is not.”
So you can’t be dismissed for belonging to (say) a Baptist church, but you can be dismissed for holding Baptist beliefs.
Anthony Foti, author of Could Jesus Serve on a Jury?, explains — and objects:
Attorneys fear deeply religious people. Defense lawyers worry that deep religious beliefs signal a conservative, law-and-order orientation, while prosecutors are concerned that intensely religious jurors will be overly compassionate and hesitant to sit in judgment of others.
So defense attorneys worry about the Old Testament, while prosecutors worry about the New.
“Heightened religiosity” has become a proxy to allow lawyers to exclude jurors based on their religious affiliation. For example, few lawyers would challenge a non-practicing Catholic or Protestant on a jury, but issues will often arise with Orthodox Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims. By definition, these groups exhibit “heightened religious involvement,” and now, according to DeJesus, a lawyer may exercise a peremptory challenge against nearly any member of these groups on the basis of heightened religious belief.
This effectively destroys any protection for religious affiliation because the groups most in need of protection are the same groups that can be excluded [on the basis of] “heightened religious involvement.”
I’m sure my atheism would also be considered a “heightened” thing. It’s a Goldilocks situation, then: In God We Trust, but only if you’re not too serious about it.
As for Jesus — who Foti calls “a definitive example of ‘heightened religiosity'” — he would almost certainly be headed home in time for Oprah. In that way, I’m hoping to be Christlike today.
(Commie.)
Our show of shows
Six months ago, our family got cable TV for the first time. In addition to learning that it actually wasn’t always snowing on every channel, my kids quickly discovered a favorite show.
The show is Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. Just in case you aren’t familiar, in each episode, two former special effects guys named Jamie and Adam set out to test several of “those” stories. You know the ones: Can a person who is buried alive punch out and dig up to the surface? Can a glass be shattered by singing? Is it easy to shoot fish in a barrel? Does a bull charge at the color red? If you sneeze with your eyes open, will they pop out? Is it possible to survive an elevator freefall by jumping up at the last second? Are the moon landing conspiracy theories legit?
The answers to these, by the way, are no, yes (the shattered glass), no, no, no, no, and no. But even more interesting to me than the answers themselves is the unstated assumption of the show: that knowing the truth is always better than believing even a really cool but untrue thing.
It helps that they test these things in the most entertaining way possible, and that they seem to find a way to blow something up in every show. But that basic assumption that knowing the truth is always better—that, I think, is the most powerful thing in the show.
Also interesting is the fact that the vast majority of the myths are busted, debunked. And the show’s popularity is still huge. Part of that, of course, is the fact that once in awhile, they confirm rather than bust a claim. And because they’ve willingly busted so many others, those confirmations are cool and meaningful.
So the whole show can be seen as the systematic attempt to get the right answer–which, by the way, is my favorite definition of critical thinking.
These are the same premises that energize science. It’s hard to think of a better motto for the scientific enterprise than “Knowing the truth is always better than believing a fiction.” It gets at what I see as the essential difference between traditional religion and science. The religious point of view is often premised on what I have called the conditional love of reality. Science is premised on the unconditional love of reality.
I’m thrilled if there is a god, for example, and I’m thrilled if there isn’t. Same with charging bulls and shattering glasses and popping eyeballs. The truth is automatically more attractive to me than either possibility by itself. And I’m thrilled that there’s a show, and a popular one to boot, that embraces the same love of reality.
So when an argument among my 7, 11, and 13-year-olds about what to watch is settled (as it almost always is) by Mythbusters, I pull up a chair myself and chalk up another point for the real world.
The other shoe
I mentioned last time that I’m getting a sudden flurry of conversion attempts in my inbox.
One is particularly persistent. It began last November:
Dear Dale,
I’m writing an essay on the negative effects of spanking children and while researching I couldn’t help but come across your web site. I skimmed through it and I’m kinda confused; you mentioned your religious beliefs and I can’t help but wonder if you are an anesthetist or a Christian?B___
I amazed myself by foregoing about 37 different wiseguy responses to “anesthetist.” Instead, I replied Here are some useful links to corporal punishment studies. And I am an atheist. All the best to you.
The reply:
Thanks for replying Dale and just to let you know, you and your family will be in my prayers. Maybe one day soon you will open your hear to God.
I sure hope you do
God Bless
B___
Fair enough. On Thanksgiving I received this:
Dale,
I just wanted to wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope that one day you and your family will find God in your lives.
God Bless and your all in my prayers
B___
I haven’t the slightest objection to this kind of thing. But I knew, from long experience, that the other shoe would drop. It took less than thirty minutes:
Just wanted to say one more thing, I know you don’t believe in God, but one day he will return and when he does it will be God, who you will explain yourself to God. Not me or anyone else.
This is the carrot and stick — first the appeal to love and comfort or high principle, and then…The Stick.
One of my favorites happened in May 2007. After a profile about me and my work appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I got a letter:
Dear Dale,
I’m sending these booklets to you so that you know God loves you. When you die, you don’t die like a dog. You will go on forever!I’m 74, & received Christ into my life at age 11. I’ve never regretted it for a minute.
Love, & Rejoicing in the Lord Jesus,
Virginia H—
Again, very nice. But enclosed were two signs of God’s (shall we say) burning love for me: a Jack Chick tract, including this panel:
…and a second pamphlet:
YOUR FIRST SIX DAYS IN HELL.
As I said — I’ve seen that second shoe drop too many times to be surprised anymore.
I’ve always found it curious, and telling, that Christianity offers release from our greatest fear — death — but is so factually implausible that it’s been necessary to back up the gift with the threat of eternal hellfire if you don’t accept it.
Morality works in the same carrot-and-stick fashion. I saw this at work last summer as I stood in an endless line at Six Flags Over Georgia. A teenage scamp with a Christian day camp T-shirt ducked under several of the rails and cut in front of us in line.
Two minutes later his bright pink tie-dyed Jesus-fish shirt was spotted by one of the camp counselors. The counselor sidled over and reasoned with the lad, using the reciprocity principle:
“Michael, what are you doing? How would you like it if these nice people all cut in front of you?”
Wait for it, now…
“If I see that again, you’re out of the park.”
Whenever somebody insists that anyone who lacks the guiding example of Christ in their lives will quickly arm himself and bloody the streets, I
1. Note that I, though bereft of Jesus’ influence, have (so far) resisted this temptation, and
2. Note that street bloodying has actual, legal consequences beyond the Tsking of the Christ.
In other words, even if all positive appeals to principle failed to reach me, there is an earthly stick ready and waiting right behind that carrot.
What’s most interesting to me, though, is how effective the appeal to principle and conscience generally is — how well, on balance, we tend to behave. But when we don’t — and sometimes we won’t — there’s another shoe.
Conditional joy in my inbox
I’m the sudden subject of a flurry of email conversion attempts. Not sure why that is. There was a bit of that when Parenting Beyond Belief launched in April ’07, but it’s been mostly quiet on the saving front since then.
Maybe it’s the release of Raising Freethinkers that’s put me back on the proselyscope.
I’ll share one of the more persistent correspondents sometime soon. But one recent message was less a conversion attempt than (I guess) a matter of content confusion — much like the Australian reporter who interviewed me for ten minutes about Parenting Beyond Belief before asking, “Now, you do believe in God, right?”
This one happens to be from the same corner of the world:
Dear Dale,
I am a preacher from Manila, Philippines. Aside from holding pastorate I am teaching in a Bible School. Quality books hone my life and ministry. Can I request your book PARENTING BEYOND BELIEF as a compliment? I know that there are generous authors that give books as complimentary copies. Your book could be the best gift this 2009.
Touching lives for Christ,
Pastor David
I thanked him for his interest and apologized for the need to decline. At this point in a book’s life, comps go out only to reviewers or media, if at all. I gave him the Amazon link. His gracious reply:
Hi,
Thanks and God bless! Celebrate life because God is amazing.
Pastor David
Now on most days I would let that go entirely, if only to avoid gumming up my already gummy inbox. But in certain moods, on certain days, I just can’t seem to leave well enough alone:
You are most welcome! And I celebrate life because life is amazing.
Dale
The easy ones and the hard ones
- February 02, 2009
- By Dale McGowan
- In death, morality, My kids
- 20
“Omigosh. Some of these things are soooo easy, but this one is totally hard.”
“What things?”
“These Question Book questions. Some are just so easy they’re dumb.”
Delaney (7) has been reading Gregory Stock’s The Kids’ Book of Questions on and off for a few weeks now. Two hundred sixty-eight questions to ponder. And she’s right — some are so easy they’re dumb.
“Like this, listen,” she said. “Number 110: ‘If it would save the lives of ten kids in another country, would you be willing to have really bad acne for a year?’ That’s so dumb!”
“So what’s your answer, then?”
“Of course I would do it. I mean, it’s their lives, Dad.” She paused, crinkled her brow. “What’s acne?”
“Pimples.”
“WHAT?! That’s even stupider. I thought it was a bad sickness or something. Who would let ten kids die just to not have pimples?!”
I thought back to junior high school, trying to recall how many strangers I’d have whacked for clear skin, and decided her question was rhetorical.
“But this one is really hard. Listen — Number 50: ‘If everyone in your class but you would be killed unless you sacrificed your own life, would you save everyone else or save yourself?'”
Long pause.
“I don’t know! That’s soooo hard! I really love to be alive. But so do they!”
She seemed genuinely tormented by the dilemma. It’s precisely the sacrifice that makes the Christ story so compelling. The willing sacrifice of one’s own life is just so hard to fathom. Until you add the heavenly out, at which point I suppose Christs and hijackers alike gain a decided advantage in nerve.
Laney, having no such advantage at the moment, prefers to live.