On the surface, the bill would seem to skirt any potential violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by ensuring that all religions are represented fairly and neutrally, as in a comparative religion class. Only students would be allowed to give the prayers, which would be required to include a message of inspiration. The definition of what is inspirational would be determined by the state, and school districts would not have the authority to change this definition. Additionally, in order to prevent public officials from endorsing a biased view of religion, public school employees would be barred from vetting or in any other way revising or changing the students’ prayers. Ostensibly, under the proposed law, any religious message could and would be accommodated.

It isn’t certain that this is the case, though, and there are some serious logistical problems with any attempt to accommodate religious prayers and messages in public schools. To be fair, the religions of all students must be accommodated, without a single exception. But how do we accomplish this? With some sort of special list or roster? Only so many students can be accommodated, and most students are Christian, so by the time a non-Christian student has the chance to get their name on the school’s special “prayer list”, it might be too late because every space is filled in with the name of a Christian student. Florida schools might have to start turning away non-Christians if and when Christians gain the upper-hand. Also, it’s hard to believe the average Florida school administrator would accommodate a Satanist or voodoo practitioner, so all religions probably wouldn’t be represented. The consequence is that the vast majority of prayers would represent a Judeo-Christian perspective, while some would most likely be flatly rejected or, at the very least, discouraged. And that isn’t exactly fair. So even if the stated intent is to represent a fair and neutral perspective on religion, it won’t necessarily turn out that way.

Besides, even if we were able somehow to bring together all religious viewpoints in the public school classroom, there is no guarantee that these viewpoints will meld together harmoniously and peacefully in an environment of mutual respect. People are passionate about their religious beliefs because, by habit, religion tends to be less concerned with calm philosophical reasoning. This is perhaps even truer for the male-dominated Abrahamic religions, which have been the source of much violence and terrorism in the world. Imagine if a Christian student said a prayer, and a fundamentalist Muslim student was offended by the Christian’s message, or, equally, if a Muslim said a prayer and a fundamentalist Christian decided he deserved to be harassed or beaten on the playground to punish his spiritual infidelity. Given their minority status, Muslim, pagan, atheist, and other students will be especially vulnerable to harassment and bullying in school if stormy, emotional debates about religion are opened up in public schools. This is particularly worrying due to the fact that schools are supposed to be places where students have access to education in a safe, peaceful environment. Creating opportunities for religious tension and, potentially, bullying, doesn’t seem like a good idea, then, especially given the growing cultural diversity of the United States.

The problems with Florida’s school prayer bill do not end with the difficulties of trying to accommodate every religion, or the tensions created by opening up the classroom to religious instruction; they include the assumption that all good moral and inspirational messages are necessarily rooted in religious instruction. One supporter of the Florida bill, Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, suggested that opponents of the bill didn’t want children to be inspired at all, as CBS Miami reports: Storms expressed her bewilderment over the mounting opposition to the bill, asking, “[d]o you suppose that opponents want, instead of to inspire little first graders, maybe they want to demoralize them?” But this is a fallacy. What Storms does here is create a false dichotomy, which states that only one of two options are possible when in fact there is a third (and, probably, many more), perfectly good option. Storms assumes that only religious inspirational messages or demoralizing messages are possible when in fact secular inspirational messages are possible, too. Nobody is arguing that children shouldn’t be inspired, but the inspiration of our nation’s children needn’t be rooted in religion; it is this secular inspirational message which is appropriate for public school situations. It almost seems as though Storms knows this but deliberately creates the impression that it isn’t the case. So, no, the people of Florida – as well as the rest of America – doesn’t have to settle with a bill that permits religious prayer in public schools.

All of this public school prayer legislation is a bit tiring, especially in a country which is supposed to be a secular democracy, but separation of state and church is a principle worth fighting for. Florida’s proposed school prayer measure is simply a bad idea: it’s unlikely that all religious viewpoints will be accommodated, it opens the door to religious tension and conflict, and secular messages offer a perfectly legitimate and neutral alternative for inspiring and electrifying students in a spirit of solidarity and harmony. When we reflect on these observations, legislation like the Florida bill begins to look more like an incrementalist attempt to insinuate religion into public policy, an ominous prospect indeed. This is something the Universal Life Church Monastery treats with extreme caution, because it is a fine line between letting students express their religious beliefs, and endorsing those beliefs through preferential treatment.

Source:
CBS Miami

With regard to the first of these, creationism shouldn’t be taught in public school science classrooms because, well, it simply isn’t science. Naturally, the senators backing the bill, Senate Bill 89, will contest this. According to Dan Carden of NWI.com, “[s]tate Sen. Scott Schneider, R-Indianapolis, who voted for the measure, said if there are many theories about life’s origins, students should be taught all of them”. This, of course, assumes that the theory is scientific to begin with, and should therefore be compared with other scientific theories. But it isn’t scientific, says John Staver, professor of chemistry and science education at Purdue University: “Creation is not science”, Carden reports him as saying. “It is unquestionably a statement of a specific religion.” Staver is right: creationism is the doctrine of the legally ordained minister, not the research scientist. Evolution is a scientific theory, which means it follows the principles of the scientific method, while creationism is not. The science classroom is supposed to teach students to compare scientific theories with other scientific theories, not to compare scientific theories with religious theories. Therefore, the public science classroom should not be teaching students to compare evolution with creationism.

Besides, even if we do teach creationism in public school science classrooms, whose creation story should we teach? The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America bars Congress from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion, and decades of judicial opinion have interpreted this to apply to individual state legislatures as well, the reason being that conflict arising from religious preference can occur at either the state or federal level. Besides, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution requires states to provide every citizen the equal protection of the law, so it is unfair as well as unconstitutional to ask students to study the Christian creation story, but not the creation stories of Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American religions, paganism, indigenous religions, or any other world religion. This is why people choose to become a minister, not a public school teacher. We might resolve this dilemma by teaching all religious creation stories in public schools, but this is logistically impractical, if not impossible, so it is simply more realistic to bar the teaching of any religious creation story in public schools. Passing a bill to teach creationism in Indiana would be unfair and unconstitutional, then, because it would violate both the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

This last point begs the question, how, then, does religion fit into public school curricula? After all, we might argue, it is impossible to avoid any mention of religion, because it is such an intimate and influential part of the human experience. To understand ourselves better as human beings, then, we must address issues of religion in some form or another. It is true that a discussion on human nature requires mention of religion, but it is not true that it requires the subjective endorsement of religion, as many people who get ordained online in a nondenominational church will already agree. For example, a history lesson on the profound social transformation taking place in Europe in the sixteenth century would be incomplete without mentioning the role of religion, but this does not require the teacher, school district, or government to endorse religion. And while it is unrealistic to teach all religious creation stories in a science classroom, we might still be able to find a place to do so in a comparative religion classroom–the only caveat is that no religion must ever be endorsed over another religion, and religion must never be endorsed over non-religion. So, even if Indiana does find a way to weasel Christian creationism into public school social science classes, it cannot be subjectively endorsed.

To sum up, creationism cannot be taught in public school science classrooms in Indiana or anywhere else in the United States, because it isn’t science to begin with, it is unfair to teach one creation story and not another (and unrealistic to teach all of them), and it belongs in comparative religion classes, where all religions are treated equally and objectively. As many of our own ULC ministers and pastors already know, the Universal Life Church Monastery has always held the position that religion should never have any legal or official influence in any tier of government in the United States, in order to prevent religious conflict and to show respect for the unimpeded advancement of science in its own right. Perhaps you agree, but perhaps you don’t. We are always open to hearing your thoughts on these issues, so feel free to make them known on the ULC Monastery Facebook discussion page or our social network for ministers.

Sources:

National Center for Science Education

NWITimes.com

WSBT.com

Mayor Oscar B. Goodman

Former Las Vegas mayor and notorious lawyer for the old mob, Oscar B. Goodman has repented and seen the light! The spirit has compelled him to get ordained with the Monastery and begin his new heavenly career as a Universal Life Church wedding minister. His Honor will officiate his first wedding on St Valentine’s Day 2012 at the new Mob Museum, formerly the old  federal courthouse and U.S. Post Office in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. It was there that mob lawyer Goodman made a name for himself representing such reputed mobsters and bad guys as; Meyer Lansky, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Anthony Spilotro.  Today, Brother Goodman joins the ranks of celebrity ULC Ministers, including Conan O’Brien, Kathy Griffin, Jeff Probst, and Rob Dyrdek (who has just finished officiating his sister’s wedding on his upcoming Fantasy Factory MTV series).

Seven couples will have a chance to have the new “Mob Minister” marry them inside of the old historic downtown courtroom.  The couples will be chosen on February 1 via a random drawing and promotion hosted by Vegas.com, The Mob Museum and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.   For details and to enter the MARRIED AT THE MOB MUSEUM contest, visit www.vegas.com/weddings.

Brother Goodman enjoyed an exciting career as a young public defense attorney who later rose to become Las Vegas’s most popular Mayor of all time, an office he held from 1999 to 2011.  In 2007, he was re-elected for a third term, winning 86% of all votes!   He is also the first Mayor in the country to be succeeded by his wife, Mayor Carolyn G. Goodman.  During his career, Br. Goodman also worked as a spokesperson for Bombay Sapphire Gin for which he was compensated $100,000 and donated entirely to charity.  He currently serves as chairman of the host committee for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Mayor Goodman is a key visionary of The Mob Museum and oversaw the purchase of the building many years ago for $1 from the federal government with the promise to preserve its historic nature.  The Mob Museum, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, is a $42 million dollar project a decade in the making.  Recently named by Travel and Leisure as a “Las Vegas best new attraction”, The Mob museum was designed by the same team that created the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C.  It includes iconic one-of-a-kind artifacts and interactive, themed environments, and even a short film hosted by Hollywood producer Nicholas Pileggi (of the movie Casino fame).  By way of interest, Mayor Goodman appeared as himself in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino.

The interactive exhibits include getting a chance to use the same type of wire-tapping gear as the FBI to listen in on conversations and a chance to go up against the bad guys in a hands-on Tommy gun exhibit. It is purported to be “as close as you can get to the Mob without being asked to wear a wire.”  The exhibit includes an insider’s look into some of the Mob’s biggest players including Al Capone, Whitey Bulger, Bugsy Siegel, John Gotti and many more.  Rumor has it that Whitey Bulger is trying to attend the affair but the Boston authorities are turning a deaf ear to his pleas.

To show the other end of the spectrum, in 1950 the former federal courthouse and U.S. Post Office was the site of one of 14 nationally televised Kefauver hearings to expose organized crime.  The hearings gained the highest ratings of any television show of their day. The nation was glued to its televisions as mobster after mobster took the Fifth Amendment, denying any association with the Las Vegas hotels they built and ran. The Mob Museum is also working with the FBI and many famous undercover agents who made a career of fighting the mob, including legendary agents Joe Pistone who infiltrated the Mob posing as a small time jewel thief, Donnie Brasco, Cuban-born Jack Garcia and others.

As “Hizzoner” has become an ordained minister, the Universal Life Church Monastery prays everyone will come to understand – we are all children of the same universe – no greater than the trees and no lesser than the stars. We all have a right to be here.

Contact the Monastery or follow us on Facebook and Twitter, video of the ceremony to follow.

It was uncertain whether Haugen, a moderate Democrat who chairs Washington State’s Senate Transportation Committee and seldom deals with social issues, would vote in the spirit of the Senate bill’s proponents, or that of its opponents. Her support became clear at the end of Monday’s hearing when she gave a speech about trying to balance her personal religious beliefs with the rights of other Americans, deciding ultimately that it was wrong to impose those beliefs on others:

I have very strong Christian beliefs, and personally I have always said when I accepted the Lord, I became more tolerant of others. I stopped judging people and try to live by the Golden Rule. This is part of my decision. I do not believe it is my role to judge others, regardless of my personal beliefs. It’s not always easy to do that. For me personally, I have always believed in traditional marriage between a man and a woman. That is what I believe, to this day.

But this issue isn’t about just what I believe. It’s about respecting others, including people who may believe differently than I. It’s about whether everyone has the same opportunities for love and companionship and family and security that I have enjoyed.

For as long as I have been alive, living in my country has been about having the freedom   to live according to our own personal and religious beliefs, and having people respect that freedom.

Not everyone will agree with my position. I understand and respect that. I also trust that   people will remember that we need to respect each other’s beliefs. All of us enjoy the benefits of being Americans, but none of us holds a monopoly on what it means to be an American. Ours is truly a big tent, and while the tent may grow and shrink according to the political winds of the day, it should never shrink when it comes to our rights as individuals.

Do I respect people who feel differently? Do I not feel they should have the right to do as they want? My beliefs dictate who I am and how I live, but I don’t see where my believing marriage is between a man and a woman gives me the right to decide that for everyone else.

The rest of Haugen’s speech can be read at The Capitol Record. It may not be a ringing endorsement for gay marriage or the modern wedding ceremony, but it is sufficient for LGBT people fighting for marriage equality. Haugen sounds like a woman struggling to decide how far to apply her personal religious beliefs to the lives of others, and how to integrate the more progressive values of much younger generations (she is 70) with those she grew up with. What is important is that deep down inside (as much as we can tell, at least), Haugen seems to realize that she cannot, in her right conscience, pick and choose which loving, consenting adult couples get to enjoy married life. It is probably an extremely hard decision to make for somebody whose life-long worldview has been shaped by the assumption that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. Those of us who support marriage equality should be grateful for her charity of spirit. She could have said “no”.

Speaking of which, naturally, since this is all happening in the United States (although a case could be made that Washington is barely part of the U.S.), the bills have stoked the ire of some of the nation’s most vociferously anti-gay priests, pastors, and other ordained ministers, as well as many anti-gay lobbies. The National Organization for Marriage has pledged to donate $250,000 to primary challenges against any Republican who backs the bill. Others include Rev. Josh Fuiten, pastor of the evangelical Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell, Wa., the Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain, Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, and Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Wa. To give people a taste of what Hutcherson is made of, in a recent ThinkProgress article, he said, “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end”, apparently expressing his own understanding of “Christ-like” masculinity. In the same article, he also compared Washington state governor Christine Gregoire to John Wilkes Booth–Abraham Lincoln’s assassin–for announcing her support for the bill. So, no, it’s not a pretty bunch of knuckle-dragging troglodytes that await gay marriage supporters at the marriage equality battleground.

Some of these marriage equality opponents plan to fight the bills with a public vote on the issue. According to a Seattle Times article, they plan to file a referendum to place the issue on a ballot by November, but by state law Governor Christine Gregoire must sign the bills into law before they can do this. She has already promised to sign the bills into law when they reach her desk. No marriage equality bill put up to a public vote has ever been approved, but there is always a first time for everything: a study conducted by the University of Washington last October indicates that if a gay marriage referendum were put on a ballot in Washington state, 55% of voters would uphold marriage equality. Thus, it may not be so easy for people like our warm, friendly, Christ-like Ken Hutcherson to count on the will of the people to get his way, but it does signal hope for the bills’ proponents.

Sen. Haugen’s decision may have clinched the last vote necessary to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington state once and for all, but it is very possible that, once signed into law, the bills will be put up to a public vote through a referendum challenge spearheaded by religious conservatives. As mentioned, though, given recent findings on the growing acceptability of gay marriage, Washington state voters may be the first in the United States to uphold the law and support marriage equality for lesbian and gay people. We’ll have to see. At any rate, it goes without saying that the Universal Life Church Monastery fully supports Washington state House Bill 2516 and Senate Bill 6239, since this legislation would protect, affirm, and respect the family and the institution of marriage, regardless of sex. Let’s hope marriage equality becomes the highlight of 2012 for Washington state, and that those who get ordained online in the ULC will be able once and for all to legally officiate weddings for all loving couples, and to have each and every one of these recognized by the state.

Sources:

The Capitol Record

FamilyScholars.org

The Huffington Post

The Seattle Times: Gay-Marriage Bill Draws Crowds for Hearings, Rallies at Capitol

The Seattle Times: Gay Marriage in Washington: Legislature Has the Votes

ThinkProgress

Brethke claims to reject religion, yet in almost the breath seems to embrace it. Watching the video, the viewer might think to herself, How refreshing—a critique of organized religion, but about midway through his video, Brethke reassures the listener that he does, in fact, believe in the church and the Bible: “Now, let me clarify: I love the church, I love the Bible, and I believe in sin…”. The problem with this statement is that, essentially, the church is synonymous with religion—it is an organized institution that teaches people what and how to believe with regard to spiritual phenomena. And the sacred text of that religion is the Bible, from which ordained priests and ministers teach lay members how to think, act, and behave in accordance with religious laws and doctrines which they themselves have invented but proclaim to have received from God. this is especially problematic given the extreme violence committed in the Bible on behalf of God’s “chosen people”. Brethke’s little Freudian slip here makes his video begin to look more like an excuse for religion—religion of the most violent kind—than a critique of it.

But Brethke’s inadvertent endorsement of religion does not end with a vague proclamation of his love for the church and the sacred text which contains its teachings; he actually endorses specific doctrines found in the church’s sacred writings and taught by those who decide to become a minister in the church. The teaching Brethke invokes again and again to illustrate his position is called the doctrine of grace, a concept which is especially important for Protestant Christians:

Religions might teach grace, but another thing they practice: / They tend to ridicule God’s people; they did it to John the Baptist. [...]. If grace is water, the church should be an ocean. [...]. I don’t have to hide my failure, I don’t have to hide my sin, because it doesn’t depend on me; it depends on him. [...]. Salvation is freely mine, and forgiveness is my own, not based on my merits, but Jesus’s obedience alone.

This screed on religionists’ failure to emphasize grace over judgement is actually quite orthodox, because it simply reinforces grace, a religious doctrine promulgated by the church, an organized religious institution. For those unfamiliar with American Protestant Christianity, the doctrine of grace basically states that salvation is possible only through the mercy of God, never through good deeds, and the mercy of God can only be earned by believing that he became a human being and committed suicide to atone for human sin. But wouldn’t a truly radical critique of religion involve a critique of religion’s doctrines, including the doctrine of grace? Wouldn’t a truly radical religious critic attack this doctrine as morally reprehensible? After all, it teaches that no matter how much good you do you’re worthy of eternal torment, so doing good deeds (like feeding the hungry) doesn’t matter to God, and only by accepting God’s suicide on behalf of humanity will humans ever earn salvation. Sucking up to a manipulative deity, a critic would argue, does not produce nearly as much moral improvement in the world as do good deeds, so the doctrine of grace has mixed up priorities. Thus, Brethke’s insistence on the centrality of grace further betrays his loyalty to religion.

If this still doesn’t have you convinced that Brethke is secretly religious, there is still the fact that he relies on a tu quoque argument, or an appeal to hypocrisy, to create the false impression that he’s challenging religion. He makes this argument repeatedly throughout his video, which seems to focus on the church’s failure to “practice what it preaches”, as if what it preaches may still be perfectly fine and dandy:

…just because you call some people blind doesn’t automatically give you vision/…[i]f religion is so great, why has it started to many wars, built huge churches, but failed to feed the poor, / Tell single moms God doesn’t love them if they’ve ever had a divorce, but in the Old Testament, God actually calls religious people whores. / Religion might teach grace, but another thing they practice: / They tend to ridicule God’s people; it happened to John the Baptist. / [...]. / Now I ain’t judgin’, I’m just sayin’, quit puttin’ on a fake look, ’cause there’s a problem if people only know you’re Christian by your Facebook.

The problem with these pronouncements is that they don’t actually refute anything (although we certainly invite you to do so as a minister ordained online). By pointing out the church’s hypocrisy, Brethke doesn’t actually refute the church’s teachings; he merely points out the church’s inconsistency in following those teachings. In doing so, he deftly avoids having to attack the teachings themselves. But perhaps that has always been his intent—merely to hold the church accountable for failing to abide by religious beliefs which he and the church both share. At any rate, he ends up failing to refute any actual religious beliefs being promulgated by organized religion.

Brethke’s “critique” of religion is well-meaning and derives from a pure, heartfelt source, but it isn’t exactly clear that it is a critique in the first place. He ends up admitting that he still loves the church (an organized religion) and the Bible (a holy book which lies at the heart of that religion), endorses the very orthodox and morally questionable doctrine of grace, and avoids actually refuting religion by focusing on the hypocrisy of the church rather than the teachings of the church themselves. Ultimately he paints a picture of himself as a modern, relatively liberal religionist, but not necessarily as a critic of organized religion.

As a ULC minister, what do you think about Brethke’s video? Does he give the false impression that he rejects religion?

Source:

The Huffington Post

Because younger university students tend to be poorer than middle-aged adults, online ordination provides a suitable financial alternative to spending years and thousands of dollars on obtaining a traditional minister credential. One University of Georgia student to realize this fact is Michael Bryson, a third-year English major from Watkinsville, Ga. “I found out I could be legally ordained online“, Megan Ingalls of Red and Black, the UGA student newspaper, quotes him as saying. “One of my friends got married and spent around $400 on an officiator. I found out online it was very easy and free”. As Bryson shows, for students and other low-income people who want to perform wedding ceremonies, baptisms, funerals, and other sacraments, getting ordained in an online ministry works because the applicant is not judged by his or her financial status.

But financial considerations are only one reason students at the University of Georgia are deciding to get ordained online in the Universal Life Church Monastery and other churches. Another reason young, well-educated people are turning to online ministries is the fact that they tend to be relatively liberal and open to new and different lifestyles. One of the weddings Bryson has performed since getting ordained was “for a former employee. The preacher refused to perform the ceremony because she was pregnant”, Ingalls reports him as saying. It’s not an uncommon complaint among people who want to find a wedding officiant, but that’s what churches like the ULC Monastery are for. People turn to internet churches because of their tendency to embrace nontraditional couples, such as same-sex couples, interfaith couples, couples who choose to have premarital sex, or interracial couples (yes, there are still bigots out there who refuse to marry people who have different skin color) without judgement.

And, of course, like everybody else, a growing number of University of Georgia students are discovering that online ordination makes it easier for people to marry their friends and relatives. This is one of the reasons why online ministries are such a desirable alternative to traditional ministries, as ULC Monastery spokesman Andy Fulton tells Ingalls: “Easily the best aspect of the ULC Monastery ordination for college students is that it allows them to perform informal, fun and inexpensive weddings for their friends and family”. In other words, students and faculty members at UGA becoming online ordained ministers not only to save money and marry people from marginalized groups who are turned away from more traditional ministries, but also to make it easier for people to marry those they know and love, rather than send them off to a stranger who happens to have a piece of paper that says they’re ordained. So, there is also the level of intimacy and meaningfulness university students and professors are taking advantage of.

More young, smart people like Bryson are rejecting the restrictions imposed on couples by traditional churches and joining nondenominational congregations, where they can fully realize their desire to recognize loving, committed unions. More and more, they are realizing that sex, race, nationality, and even faith are insufficient reasons to deny a couple recognition of their love. And that’s where churches like the ULC Monastery step in–to provide a platform for young, fresh minds with their own access to spiritual wisdom to pay tribute to these loving couples without having to face unfair and unrealistic financial and doctrinal impediments. After all, as the ULC Monastery believes, we are all children of the same universe. So, here’s to the student minister.

Source:

Red and Black (University of Georgia Student Newspaper).

Perhaps you are one of these people.

Empathic and shared death experiences differ slightly, but share certain fundamental characteristics. Empathic death experiences might be described as events in which a person suddenly senses the feelings of a loved one on the verge of death many miles away, whereas shared death experiences might be described as events in which a person partakes spontaneously in the subjective experience of a loved one dying in their presence. Both types of phenomena involve an emotional and experiential connection between the dying and the living. They are not yet entirely explained by current mainstream scientific assumptions about the nature of physics, reality, and the universe, yet scores of people, like ministers ordained online and others on their own spiritual quest, are coming forward to share their stories, maintaining that the experience was so real and coherent that it cannot be dismissed as an hallucination.

But many scientists cite hallucinations, as well as coincidence, to explain empathic and shared death experiences. Empathic death experiences, they argue, might be mere coincidence: a loved one is on the verge of death, and for no reason other than chance, a person happens to feel concern for that loved one at the very same moment. Shared death experiences, they propound, may be the result of hallucinations caused by stress, anxiety, and grief. A common form of hallucination invoked by skeptics (and, indeed, even some ULC wedding officiants and other clergy members) to explain empathic, shared, and near-death experiences is anoxia—lack of oxygen in the brain. Anoxia often results from cardiac arrest, when the heart stops pumping oxygen-rich blood to the brain, resulting in strange sights, sounds, and emotions. Sometimes chemicals such as endorphin, serotonin, and enkephalin, some of which become secreted in moments of great distress, have also been cited by skeptics to explain such phenomena.

Other scientists and philosophers, however, have challenged the soundness of these claims. Among these individuals are Raymond Moody, author of Glimpses of Eternity: An Investigation into Shared Death Experiences, Sam Parnia, author of What Happens When We Die: A Groundbreaking Study into the Nature of Life and Death, and Pim van Lommel, author of Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near Death Experience. Anoxia does create hallucinations, but it is not clear how a perfectly healthy, uninjured person with normal oxygen levels in the brain standing at their loved one’s bedside can suffer hallucinations induced by anoxia. Nor does anoxia explain the fact that some people report having their shared or near-death experience as a result of depression, or immediately before suffering an injury which causes anoxia. Additionally, anoxia doesn’t explain how patients can be revived only to report incidents in minute detail that took place in the room while they were brain dead. (See the case of Monique Hennequin in van Lommel’s book). The above researchers have also argued that hallucinations differ fundamentally in nature from empathic, shared, and near-death experiences. They point out that drug or chemical-induced hallucinations generally involve chaotic, irrational, semi-lucid arrangements of sights, sounds, and emotions, and people who experience hallucinations often forget them soon after they occur, but death-related visions are highly organized, coherent, and extremely lucid, and patients tend to remember them years after they occur, remembering the minutest of details. In other words, such visions are not the stuff of hallucinations—in fact, they feel so real that they seem to be the direct opposite.

The bandying back and forth between cynics and believers can certainly be productive, but insight can also be gleaned by listening to individual anecdotes themselves, which provide more detailed, personal accounts of empathic and shared death experiences. (Undoubtedly, some people ordained online in the ULC Monastery will have their own anecdotes to tell.) Annie Cap, of Canterbury, Kent, shared her story in a recent article in The Daily Mail. Cap was sitting in her home one day when she suddenly felt a sensation of blockage in her airways, as if she couldn’t breathe. She felt a sudden urge to call the hospital where her mother lay gravely ill, several thousand miles away, and she spoke with her sister. Still gasping for breath, she was astonished to find out not only that her mother was dying, but that she, too, had been coughing and struggling for air for the past half an hour. Fortunately, Cap was able to tell her mother good-bye before her mother died.

So how do we explain such a phenomenon in scientific terms? A recent article in the BBC News reported that a group of psychologists from Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council in Cambridge reviewed research on near-death experiences, concluding that they were a by-product of a dying brain. But, as mentioned above, this is not corroborated by the story of Monique Hennequin, whose brain was already dead when the incidents she described took place. Moreover, Cap’s experience could not have been the result of a dying brain, since her brain wasn’t dying when she had it, and yet, like many of us who decide to become a minister to guide others on their journey, somehow she shared an uncannily similar experience to that of her dying mother. Besides, a neuro-physiological correlate to death-related experiences does not constitute a neuro-physiological cause of such experiences. So, research which attempts to explain death-related experiences in terms of the dying brain hypothesis does not wholly account for these experiences.

Perhaps a broader framework for understanding the relationship between the brain and consciousness is needed. While current research by individuals such as van Lommel, etc., does not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the survival of consciousness after death, or the existence of a sixth sense, it does provide tantalizing evidence that these are possible. Certainly the subject remains open for debate, and eternally mysterious and fascinating for spiritual and scientific seekers alike. A step in the right direction might be to dismantle the artificial division created between scientific and spiritual insight, and consider how the former might inform the latter. We also need to listen to people’s stories and validate their need for opening up a dialogue. For this reason, we want to hear your empathic, shared, and near death experience stories. Have you ever had the uncanny urge to call a loved one you felt was in need? Did you experience any kind of synchronicity when you picked up the receiver, dialed the number, and got an answer?

You can get ordained online and share your stories by visiting the ULC Monastery Facebook page or our social network for ministers.

Source:

The Daily Mail

An example of Cosby’s light-hearted interpretation of Biblical myth is his version of the story of the Great Flood and Noah’s Ark from the Book of Genesis, which has already successfully elicited roaring laughter from audience members. In his version of the story, Cosby imagines an exhausted Noah awkwardly trying to build an ark while gathering pairs of animals and cubits of wood. “Am I on Candid Camera?” Cosby has Noah asking. And in his book I Didn’t Ask To Be Born (But I’m Glad I Was) he tackles the story of Adam and Eve, asking why God had to make a woman out of a rib, and how Adam and Eve were able to cover their genitals with those little fig leaves if they didn’t have a needle and thread.

This delightfully innocent take on the Bible points to the comedian’s real thoughts on the stories he parodies. And some of these seem pretty fair to the modern rationalist thinker, as well as the average minister ordained online. Cosby tells Adelle M. Banks of Religion News Service about a Christian proselyte he recently met on the street in Syracuse, New York, who offered him a miniature Bible, repeatedly asking the comedian if he knew Jesus Christ loved him, even though he said he already did. Cosby told the man, “It seems that you are more interested in conquering someone, and if you would read more about Jesus as he walked and talked and what he represented, you’ll find that he is not what you are” and that “[t]hat’s, as far as I’m concerned, not a model for the way Christ behaved.” This type of response is perfectly understandable from the point of view of a person who sees incessant religious peddling as a sign of desperate pride, and not genuine interest in the well-being of others.

But some other things Cosby has said about the Bible and religious faith cause one to raise one’s brow in skepticism. Consider Cosby’s thoughts on the American football player Tim Tebow’s open displays of religious devotion at football games. Many people have criticized Tebow for being a disingenuous show-off rather than a devout Christian, but not Cosby. “I have no problem with his outspokenness about his faith…. Let him speak about it”, said the comedian, coming to the football player’s defense. But is this really the proper response? Perhaps as a minister in the Universal Life Church Monastery, you’ve asked this same question. If a person claims to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ (as Cosby seems to do), she or he should take a more critical stance on Tebow’s showy displays of piety, because Christ himself criticized such behavior:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Nobody is saying that Tebow shouldn’t have the legal right to express his beliefs in public; they are simply saying that it is obnoxious and hypocritical for him to do so, as Jesus Christ himself teaches (and, undoubtedly, as many of our own ULC priests, rabbis, and ministers have concluded), so, really, there is little reason for a Christian to come to the rescue and defend the man. Such actions scream, “Look at how holy I am, y’all!” more than “I genuinely wish for God to help me win this game”. Besides, how petty is it to think that God should help you win your football game, as if your team deserves divine favor over the other team, or, more important, as if a football game deserves greater attention than, say, world hunger?

Certainly, humor is a salve for the soul–including the soul that seeks so long and hard to be “saved” (whatever that entails)–and Cosby does a superb job of turning age-old Biblical myths into lighthearted parodies, causing even the staunchest of puritans to crack a smile, but the “man behind the mic”, as it were, also has some serious things to say about religious faith and the Bible, as we’ve seen. Some of these make more sense than others. The comedian is very able to call Christians on their hypocrisy when they try to peddle Christianity on the street as part of some sort of pride-driven spiritual conquest for the souls of “infidels”, but this doesn’t quite extend as far as calling show-offs on their hypocritical public prayers. Maybe one day it will.

What do you think about Cosby’s comments on the Bible and religious faith? Become a minister and make your thoughts known on the ULC Monastery Facebook page or our social network for ministers.

Source:

The Washington Post

The wedding vow renewals will be held during a performance of the musical play Let’s Pretend We’re Married, created and performed by Philadelphia comedians Jennifer Childs and Tony Braithwaite, at Act II Playhouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As hinted at in the title, the play will follow the domestic exploits of a number of famous married couples from film, television, and radio, including Edith and Archie Bunker, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, Sonny and Cher, and Burns and Allen, all of whom will be played by Childs and Braithwaite themselves. Sally Henry of Broadway World calls the play a “delightful, musical comedy celebration of the world’s greatest, and most complicated institution”.

Braithwaite, who decided to become ordained online in the ULC ministry, will be performing the wedding vow renewals, whilst Childs will be the flower-girl (albeit a grown-up version). Adding to the unconventionality of the occasion, the comedy duo will be offering different themes for each couple’s ceremony: a Las Vegas theme, a Hawaiian theme, and a traditional theme for those who wish to play it safe and stay “classic”. And apparently every couple is welcome. Braithwaite and Childs will also be offering wedding vow renewals to same-sex couples, as Henry notes: “All married couples are welcome (including visitors from New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa!)”.

It’s quite an unusual combination, to be sure. Fans of both musical theatre, situation comedies, and alternative wedding and wedding vow renewal ceremonies should have plenty to look forward to. According to Henry, the score for the play will include selections from George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, and Tom Lehrer. So, not only will audience members have the chance to watch couples renew their vows of love and commitment to one another with the help of a ULC wedding officiant, but they will have the opportunity to revel in the sweeping soundscapes of classic musical scores, with each ceremony set to a different theme: gambling “glitz”, tropical “paradise”, or good, old-fashioned, whitebread traditional. Certainly not a performance to write off as boring, from whatever angle you look at it.

As Braithwaite and Childs show, alternative ceremony ideas aren’t limited to just weddings, but apply to wedding vow renewal and commitment ceremonies too. After all, to create truly lasting memories, sometimes it is necessary to buck the trend and do something a little bit off-the-wall. Perhaps we can apply the same principle to performing funerals, performing baptisms, or performing other sacerdotal rites. Of course, the trick is how to strike a balance between spontaneity and reverence. Of course, all that’s required is to get ordained online and do a little digging around about the do’s and don’ts of performing ceremonies as a minister in an online church. (But that’s what we’re here for.)

Tickets to Let’s Pretend We’re Married can be purchased by visiting http://www.act2.org, or by calling the Act II Box Office at 1 (215) 654-0200.

In other musical entertainment news, three time Tony award-winning music theatre legend Carol Channing gave a very warm and charming video message at Broadway Sings for Pride: the Winter Holiday Concert. The event is an organized effort by music theatre artists to show support for the LGBT community through the performing arts. As anybody who watches the video can tell, Channing’s support for the community is evident in her heartfelt message of love, solidarity, and inclusion, a message which nicely echoes the Universal Life Church Monastery‘s own motto, which is that, male or female, black or white, gay or straight, young or old, we are all children of the same universe.

Source:

Broadway World: Carol Channing on Broadway Sings for Pride

Broadway World: Act II Playhouse Presents Let’s Pretend We’re Married Limited Engagement 1/11-22

The first problem is with Rick Perry’s claim that children are not allowed to celebrate Christmas or pray openly. The plain fact is, they are, and Perry is simply fabricating the “truth” to incite a reaction in a paranoid audience. Most likely, Perry’s claim about celebrating Christmas stems from efforts in American public schools to avoid explicit endorsement of religion during the Christmas season. But Perry is creating a straw man: nobody is restricting students’ right to celebrate openly their religious holiday of choice, nor are they restricting students’ right to pray; they are restricting teachers’ right to endorse religion in their capacity as government workers. So, Perry doesn’t actually prove that children aren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas or pray–he is simply stirring up hysteria by making outright bogus claims.

The second problem relates closely to the first, and it deals with the contrast Perry creates between gays serving openly in the military, and children being allowed to celebrate Christmas and pray openly. The former, he suggests, is the antithesis of the latter. In the video, he laments in his inarticulate drawl that “there’s something wrong with America when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.” By contrasting this with gay serving openly in the military, he creates an artificial contradiction between the two that need not exist. It is not the case that gays serving openly in the military and letting children pray in school and celebrate Christmas represent two separate, mutually exclusive agendas–a liberal versus a conservative one. Liberals aren’t taking away children’s rights to do these things while letting gays serve openly in the military. As shown above, of course children can openly celebrate Christmas and pray in school if they want; meanwhile, gays are allowed to defend their country. But Perry doesn’t care, because he has his warm, inarticulate cowboy “charm” to work with.

But why, one wonders, should Perry so vociferously oppose gays openly defending their country in the first place? Let’s go back a few years to 1993, when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because law in the United States. Bill Clinton signed the bill into law despite the consensus in the scientific community that gays serving openly in the military does not compromise unit cohesion. Here are just a few statements by the American Psychological Association reflecting this consensus:

Empirical evidence fails to show that sexual orientation is germane to any aspect of military effectiveness including unit cohesion, morale, recruitment and retention (Belkin, 2003; Belkin & Bateman, 2003; Herek, Jobe, & Carney, 1996; MacCoun, 1996; National Defense Research Institute, 1993).

Comparative data from foreign militaries and domestic police and fire departments show that when lesbians, gay men and bisexuals are allowed to serve openly there is no evidence of disruption or loss of mission effectiveness (Belkin & McNichol, 2000–2001; Gade, Segal, & Johnson, 1996; Koegel, 1996).

When openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals have been allowed to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces (Cammermeyer v. Aspin, 1994; Watkins v. United States Army, 1989/1990), there has been no evidence of disruption or loss of mission effectiveness.

The U.S. military is capable of integrating members of groups historically excluded from its ranks, as demonstrated by its success in reducing both racial and gender discrimination (Binkin & Bach, 1977; Binkin, Eitelberg, Schexnider, & Smith, 1982; Kauth & Landis, 1996; Landis, Hope, & Day, 1984; Thomas & Thomas, 1996).

So, never mind that Perry falsely claims that children aren’t allowed to pray in school or openly celebrate Christmas, or creates a false dichotomy between religious expression on one hand, and gays serving openly in the military on the other (as if you have to choose between one or the other because they’re inherently mutually exclusive and belong to separate political agendas, which, as shown above, they aren’t); his argument is problematic because his opposition to gays serving openly in the military is empirically unfounded in the first place. But Perry needn’t worry about academic insight, because he has the raging fury of the masses on his side.

And, last but not least, Perry’s advertisement fails in the fact and reason department because he erroneously assumes that the strength of the United States rests on religious faith. He makes this clear near the end of his message, as he trudges up a hillside in a scene steeped in folksy masculine ruggedness: “Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.” In fact, the United States was founded by people who held a deep suspicion and wariness toward religion. Consider the following passages by a variety of figures who played a role in the country’s founding:

“Whenever we read the obscene stories [of the Bible], the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the Word of God.”

— Thomas Paine

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva     in the brain of Jupiter.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of   clergy.”

— George Washington

“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the     System of Morals and his Religion…has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy,     ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

— James Madison

“…the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian   religion….”

— John Adams

Contrary to Perry’s claim that America’s strength lies in its Christian heritage, and that its foundation is essentially Christian, the founding fathers, who consisted more or less of agnostics and deists, openly criticized Christian beliefs, drawing largely from the principles of French Enlightenment philosophy to craft a secular government free of the strife and suffering caused by religion. America’s strength, then, lies in its roots in rationalist philosophy, not in religion, and its political heritage is defined by it. Now one might argue, “but most Americans are Christians, hence America is a Christian nation”. This is a bad argument, though, because there is a difference between the religion of the private population and the policy of secular government. That most Americans are Christian in private practice does not make their government Christian in public policy. And we know why–government religion just causes trouble. Again, though, Perry needn’t worry about this, because he’s just so darn folksy and charming, in that down-home kind of way. And that, sadly, proves sufficient to soothe his constituency.

To sum up, Perry makes a desperate stab at persuading the audience to adopt the view that Christians are being persecuted, and LGBT people, privileged. He does this by creating the false impression that Christian children are suffering from widespread religious oppression, that liberals are fighting for gay rights while neglecting children’s religious freedoms, and that gays serving in the military somehow threatens military effectiveness. But, as we’ve seen above, he fails to provide any convincing evidence, rational, empirical, or otherwise, to prove these points. Perhaps what we are seeing here is a last desperate attempt by Christian dominionists to maintain its diminishing social control by clinging to the vestiges of old-time religion and resurrecting old-fashioned attitudes about things like sex, sexuality, and social class. However, as the internet media backlash against Perry’s bilious ad shows, their plan doesn’t seem to be working very well; indeed, it has incensed even Christians, who criticize it as dividing people, misrepresenting the teachings of Jesus, and abusing religion as a political platform. So, let’s cross our fingers and hope to God they fail.

Source:

The Washington Post