He brings destruction to people and lands
Women and infants are slain by his hands

He is called great by those who would follow
But those who resist in his wrath he would swallow

He oppresses the mind, the will, and desire
Those who would think he consumes with hell fire

As god of darkness he rules men
For investigations of wisdom are unlawful to pen

He offers confusion rather than light
Adherents destroy knowledge for fear of his might

Under confusion his power is strengthened
Holding dear to his lies men never awaken

On bended knee they serve their master
In belief he will save them from some fearsome disaster

They enslave themselves to he who was born in a stable
losing their lives to service only a fable

Most people find their religion because they were raised with that religion form birth, it being the tradition of their parents, while others are introduced to a new religion later in life. In both these cases however the thing that binds someone to their religion is the same: the thing that is generally called a spiritual experience.

I was raised in the Mormon faith, and Mormonism is a religion that strongly emphasizes the importance of the spiritual experience; it even has a scripture in its cannon that states you may know the truth of all things by the power of the Holy Ghost. I’ve had powerful spiritual experiences with Mormonism; I served a mission and felt the rush of the spirit as I testified of it or when I gave a blessing to the sick. I prayed to know the truth of the Book of Mormon and had a strong feeling enter into my heart telling me that it was true. I know what it is like to remember some scripture like a flash of light at a time when it was needed for the person whom I was teaching. I have felt the warmth and comfort gained from praying when I was troubled. I have however had spiritual experiences outside of the Mormon faith, some of which come into conflict with the teachings of that church.

When I first came out as being gay I was implored by my parents to resist the urge to engage in homosexual activity. For their sake, and the sake of my belief in God, I obliged them for a time. However after a few weeks, the pain of loneliness set in once again and I searched out someone online to try dating. It wasn’t long before I had found someone to go out with and not long after that we met and went on a date. I was anxious yet excited.

During the date I felt comfortable and natural, as if this was the way my life was meant to be. By the time I got home however the reality of what I had done set in. I became immediately concerned about my standing with God, and being a good Mormon I decided to kneel down and pray so that I could ask God what to do.

I started by explaining to God my feelings, and how I felt dead without even the option of pursuing a relationship. I then asked if it were right for me to seek after a relationship with a man. When I asked this question immediately I was filled with a warm good feeling. Just as I had before I had prayed and received an answer. Indeed it felt the same as it had when I prayed to know the truth of the Book of Mormon, or of any other religious principle.

This was odd to me because I knew that homosexuality was against the teachings of the Church which I also knew by the spirit was true; a church that supposedly had the teachings of an unchanging God. While this contradiction of spiritual witnesses troubled me, I continued knowing that I had an answer from God.

When I told others of my spiritual witness about homosexual relationships, they told me that I must have been deceived. However I was unable to judge one as true and the other as false, for I could not tell the difference between the two witnesses. I was left to believe that they were either both true or both false together. Someone then suggested that I felt good about having homosexual relationships only because I wanted to feel good about them.

I have since explored many other religions and I have had the same or similar experiences with other gods as I did with Mormonism. I have felt the power of god while taking part in pagan rituals. The feelings produced by these rituals were so strong and powerful that I could not tell the difference between them and the experiences I had with Mormonism. Similarly I felt as if I had a spiritual connection to the divine as I pondered the teachings of the Buddhists or of Taoism.

All this time I reflected on the fact that these new spiritual experiences conflicted with those I had when I had been an adherent to the Mormon faith, and I was reminded of the suggestion that I only felt good about pursuing homosexual relationships because I wanted to. Had I only wanted to feel good about having a same-sex relationship and therefore made myself feel as if I had a spiritual experience? If so could all of my spiritual experiences be explained the same way? This introspection held me for some time but eventually I came to the conclusion that I could not know if a god had influenced my experience or if the feelings I had during spiritual experiences only came from myself.

In the end a witness from the spirit is really just a good feeling, and a feeling is not a way to know the truth of something. You may let your feelings guide you, but in the end is that really substantive evidence of a claim? Can we expect someone to believe the claims made because we tell them we have a good feeling about them?

I am often asked something similar to the question, “How can you know a god didn’t create the universe? Can you prove gods don’t exist?”

The fact is we don’t know; however, we have no evidence that there are gods, and a claim that can be made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Why should we assume that anything happened by supernatural means; especially when everything that our sciences have probed have functioned by natural means? On top of this, simply attributing something to a god doesn’t answer any questions. It might give us a who, an assertion that is made without evidence, but it doesn’t give us a how.

When a claim is made of the existence of something it is left to the one making the claim to provide evidence of that thing’s existence. When no evidence is found, the claim can be dismissed. Aside from strong emotional “spiritual” experiences I have no evidence of any religion I have investigated. The spiritual experiences can’t be shown to have come from anywhere but myself, so I have no evidence to even prove to myself that any religion I have followed is true.

Could some new information come along that may be conclusive evidence of some sort of a god? Sure, but the idea of a possibility of new evidence coming sometime in the future is still not evidence and is not a reason now to give credence to any claim that is yet unfounded.

So the question for all those who encounter the idea of a god, or some other supernatural concept is: do I have enough evidence to prove to myself that this is true? If not, why then should you believe it? When we are searching for truth it is only safe to believe things that can be shown to be true by evidence of their truth. Otherwise we would be left open to following after any fairytale.

Many people have brought to me stories of miracles reporting them as evidence of a god, such as an item being found or arriving in time to prevent a tragedy shortly after being prayed for, or events seemingly playing to the advantage of someone after a prayer or blessing, and many more similar stories can be brought forth upon asking most faithful. Many would tell you that such a miracle was nothing more than coincidence, but the faithful will tell you that these stories are nothing short of evidence of the divine.

I’ve never seen a miracle—most miracles I’ve heard of are unverifiable, and beyond that, all of them are unspectacular. Never do I hear about a flashy grand miracle like those in the bible or any other holy book. Instead I see people clinging to any story that remotely validates their way of looking at the world.

Not only are these miracles unspectacular, but they are the same types of miracles reported by the people of any religion, and people who follow any god. Why would the Christian god perform miracles for a Wiccan or a Hindu when this would lend evidence to the gods that they follow? Or would a god purposely try to confuse people? Even people who don’t believe in a god but still practice some sort of other supernatural belief report similar miracles. Above that this same sort of pleasant happening still happens to atheists and agnostics regardless of their disbelief in a god.

No, these trite happenings are not a reason to believe in a god, especially in a specific god. Show me the power of god in a substantial repeatable testable way. Does any god have power to do that?

Like I said before if we do not have the evidence to know the truth of a claim, but believe it anyhow, we may as well be chasing after myths or fables, and that is no way to know truth.

If a god wants us to believe in him he should provide evidence of his existence, but he does not, and we have no reason to follow any of the supposed gods or mythologies. If a god would then punish someone for not believing in him when he hasn’t provided evidence for them to know him he is an unjust god.

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Health care reform: Saving American lives

While it is true the government can’t produce for itself children we must remember:

People are not for the benefit of government; government is for the benefit of people. A government is instituted to provide for the protection and well being of the people, and to insure that the rights of people are not infringed.

Therefore a law limiting the rights of people cannot be justified on the merit that it benefits the government.

While I originally didn’t see that taxing of church properties as infringing on the separation of church and state, or rather freedom of belief. I have however changed my view regarding such taxation.

I however do not view this as a matter of if you tax one you have to tax them all, for it is possible to draw distinctions into law that would that allow such distinctions even distinctions that would not target churches specifically but still leave them open to taxation.

In considering this matter I considered many things which a church or religious group is not. First a church or religion is not a humanitarian organization. While many churches participate in humanitarian efforts this is not part of the definition of what it means to be a church, and because of the diversity of religion we should not expect them to be such; by law or any other measure.

A church is also not a library or a school. Many churches may run libraries or schools but like the humanitarian organizations this is not part of what it means to be a church or religion. Libraries and schools are places where one my go to receive education on many subjects while a church is only a place and organization that facilitates devotion to one mythos or another.

Finally we come to what a church is. A church simply administers the religion that its practitioners believe in. The question is then, how does taxing a church interfere with freedom of belief? Cannot people still believe in a mythos regardless of their churches taxpaying status? The answer came as I pondered the consequences of subjugating a church to taxes though the night.

Though a large church would likely deal with taxes well enough, a small church may be utterly crushed by even a light tax. Now the purpose of a church is for people to practice their beliefs which they must be free and to hold up their beliefs as an alternative world view those of people around them. However if a church disappears because of a tax burden then the devotees that practice the religion of that church have lost a needed facility to fulfill their beliefs. This is especially distressing to people whose beliefs were specific to their small group and cannot find a place for their devotion elsewhere.

Also if small churches were to fail under the burden of taxes large churches would overrun the land and people would be hard pressed to find an alternative spiritual belief system to what the larger churches have to offer. This would make it difficult for people who are not satisfied with a “main stream” religion to explore other religions because places and organizations for practice would not be available for investigation thus diminishing diversity of belief and thought. Therefore in my view freedom of belief requires that organizations practicing those beliefs be free from tax to insure that the place and organization that facilitate the belief is available to those who would choose to believe without the crushing burden of tax.

By endorsing religion even in general the government insinuates that the religious are preferred over the unreligious. It is my opinion that governments should not favor the personal beliefs any group or groups of its people, nor should it encourage religious acknowledgment. Rather governments must be neutral toward religion; not interfering with religious practice so long as that practice does not infringe upon the rights of others, and also in no way should governments promote or require religious practice.

Because the acknowledgment of a god even, a generic one, is a religious practice such acknowledgments must be omitted from our legal patriotic mantras for government neutrality in matters of religion to be maintained.

If in the United States such neutrality is not maintained the meaning of the first clauses of our Bill of Rights comes to naught, and if this first among rights has no meaning how long can our other rights also retain their meaning?

If there is a single principle or ideology that defines what it means to be American that principle would be liberty: liberty to our own beliefs or to speak freely, and liberty to act according to our own conscience so long as we do not infringe upon the liberties of others. These liberties are however meaningless without the right to be free from arbitrary, and wrongful detainment.

The founders understood that liberty was dependent on freedom from arbitrary bodily restraint, and in framing our Constitution ensured that the writ of habeas corpus, the right to contest illegal restraint or detainment before an impartial judge, could not be suspended except when the public safety requires it in times of invasion or rebellion. Again, further protection was extended when the constitution was amended to include, “Nor [shall any person] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”.

However, despite these laws and ideals the right to habeas corpus and due process of law has been significantly curtailed since the commencement of the so called “War on Terror”.

On September 11^th, 2001, terrorists high-jacked American passenger planes and executed attacks in three different areas of the country infringing on the human rights of thousands of Americans. (Amnesty International USA) Two months later on November 13^th 2001 the Constitutional rights of every American citizen were violated when President Bush passed Military Order Number 1 or Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism. (Amnesty International USA) This act is a blatant denial of habeas corpus and essentially allows the United States government to arrest, capture and or hide anyone in the world purely by claiming they are a threat to the United States. 

Then on December 28^th 2001 the US Justice Department realized they would have to allow the rights of habeas corpus review to any suspect they detained on American soil. (Amnesty International USA) Realizing this, the Justice Department advised the Pentagon that holding foreign detainees in the non-sovereign territory of Guantánamo Bay should prevent habeas corpus review by US courts. It warns of “potential legal exposure” if a US court was ever able to exercise habeas jurisdiction over the detainees. So in other words the government realized that they would have to allow constitutional rights to detainees if they held them on US soil, thus Guantánamo Bay provided the loop hole they needed. Then on January 10^th 2002 the loop hole came to fruition and the first detainees were transferred to Guantánamo and litigation began soon after. (Amnesty International USA)

One of the better known cases is Rasul v. Bush. This case began when Shafiq Rasul of Great Britan filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus on February 19^th, 2002 as he was being held as an enemy combatant in Guantánamo Bay Prison. (Amnesty International USA) Then on July 31^st 2002 the District Court for District of Columbia (DC) ruled in Rasul v. Bush that it has no jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus appeals from Guantánamo detainees on grounds that it did not have jurisdiction because Guantanamo Bay is not a sovereign territory of the United States. (Amnesty International USA) The ruling was appealed, but on March 11^th 2003 the district court ruling was upheld. (Amnesty International USA) The case was appealed to the Supreme Court on September 2^nd, 2003 and heard a few months later. (Amnesty International USA) On March 9^th , 2004, two years after he was detained Shafiq Rasul was released to the United Kingdom with no charges filed. (Amnesty International USA)

Less than a year later the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) was signed into law on December 30^th 2005. (Amnesty International USA) This law contained habeas-stripping provisions in relation to Guantánamo and providing for limited judicial review of CSRT decisions by the DC Court of Appeals. About six months later the US Supreme Court issues its ruling on the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. It holds that the DTA did not strip federal courts of jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions pending when the DTA was enacted.

On October 17th 2006 the Military Commissions Act (MCA) was signed into law stripping the US courts of jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petitions from foreign nationals held as “enemy combatants,” and limiting judicial review to that enacted under the DTA of 2005. (Amnesty International USA) This Act essentially says that the US courts have no jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petitions from Guantánamo detainees.

Then on September 19^th 2007 the Habeas Restoration Act was presented to the Senate. This legislation was intended to repeal habeas-stripping provisions of the MCA, but failed in the Senate after Senators vote 56-43 to break a Republican filibuster, four short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and bring the legislation to a final vote. (Amnesty International USA)

On December 5^th 2007 the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments from the detainees on a consolidated Guantanamo Bay detention camp. (Amnesty International USA) Then on June 12, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in the Boumediene v. Bush case, the court recognized habeas corpus rights for the Guantanamo prisoners. (Amnesty International USA) Finally on October 7, 2008, the first Guantanamo prisoners were ordered released by a court considering a habeas corpus petition. (Amnesty International USA)

At the very onset of the detention program established by the November 13^th 2001 Presidential Military Order the rights of the detainees were significantly restricted. Not only were people captured and detained on hearsay evidence, but the order placed them solely under the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch; not allowing access to a court justice or attorney, as stated in the order:

Military tribunals shall have exclusive jurisdiction with respect to offenses by the individual; and the individual shall not be privileged to seek any remedy or maintain any proceeding, directly or indirectly, or to have any such remedy or proceeding sought on the individual’s behalf, in any court of the United States (Military Order of November 13, 2001).

 This is significant because the detained were being held as enemy combatants rather than prisoners of war. During war time a prisoner of war is an enemy soldier who was captured in the battle field and is held as a prisoner for the duration of the war to prevent the solder from returning to the ranks of the opposing nation. These enemy combatants however were not soldiers, and many of them were not captured in combat zones, or were even citizens of nations that the United States is currently at war in; as found in the Boumediene v. Bush Supreme Court case:

 Some of these individuals were apprehended on the battlefield in Afghanistan, others in places as far away from there as Bosnia and Gambia. All are foreign nationals, but none is a citizen of a nation now at war with the United States. Each denies he is a member of the al Qaeda terrorist network that carried out the September 11 attacks or of the Taliban regime that provided sanctuary for al Qaeda (Boumediene v. Bush).

Some may feel that the imprisonment of enemy combatants is justifiable for the protection of our national security. The War on Terror however is a war with an indefinite goal, aside from the continued protection from terrorist activity, and therefore may be viewed as endless. Because the war may be seen as endless simply holding a suspected enemy combatant without the ability to contest their confinement before an impartial judge requires us to also view their detention as endless or indefinite. However a certain respect for the basic rights of human beings demands that we must afford the right to those being detained by the United States to contest their status as enemy combatants.

The function of habeas corpus is meant to be seen as “the appropriate process for checking illegal imprisonment by public officials” (Boumediene v. Bush). Yet in an attempt to legalize the president’s indefinite detainment of enemy combatants Congress suspended habeas rights for people determined to be enemy combatants by the government with the, Military Commissions Act of 2006 which reads:

No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination (Military Commissions Act 2006).

This legislation bared any judicial action on behalf of detainees accused of being enemy combatants, and instead gave the Executive branch of the government unilateral control over the detention of anyone deemed to be enemy combatants; bypassing the separation of powers inherent in the Constitution. One of the significant problems with it was not only did it allow for the military to detain foreign nationals as enemy combatants, it also left the question of what would happen if a United States citizen was captured and labeled as an enemy combatant. While only aliens or non-citizens were to be held as enemy combatants, how could citizenship be proven except in a court? Yet being deemed an enemy combatant the citizen could not be granted a writ of habeas corpus to contest their imprisonment in a court.

This detention is of course only possible because Congress suspended habeas rights for enemy combatants, but is this suspension constitutional? As stated before the constitution does allow for the privilege to be suspended, but only “when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it”. These limited conditions however have not been met, and the government has no justification for the suspension of the writ. The Bush administration claimed that because enemy combatants were being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, territory outside of United States sovereignty that the constitution could not apply to detainees held there. While Cuba dose maintain sovereignty of the territory, the United States holds full military and civil control of the base that the prisoners are detained at, nor is it ever within the power of the government to act outside of the bounds of the Constitution, or to quote the Supreme Court, “To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say ‘what the law is’” (Boumediene v. Bush).

 The actions of the government taken to facilitate the indefinite detention of prisoners have raised many moral and ethical questions, and the suspension of habeas corpus calls into question our nation’s commitment to human rights, and shakes our values of liberty and justice to their core. These sobering questions should have however been answered before they even arose, for the founders also understood these questions and framed a constitutional legal system whose safeguards were disregarded by both the Executive and Congress. Fortunately the safeguards have been reestablished through the actions of our judicial system, and the rule of Constitutional law has restored an essential liberty.

So I’ve been reminded that I haven’t written anything new for some time. To tell the truth this made me happy because I wasn’t sure if anyone read this thing I call a blog any longer. In all actuality I was feeling a bit of a burnout from last semester, but now I think I’m recovered enough to do a regular posting schedule again. I think I’m going to aim for once a week again.

A lot has happened since I last time I made wrote a more personal article. Let’s see if I can bring you all back up to speed. In January my car was broken into, and to help me cope with getting it fixed and paying tuition my parents invited me to move back home. I accepted and lived in there guest house (ok it’s a shed) from February to June.

One of the upshots was that not only did I live there rent free, but I also lived on my Mom’s exquisite cooking. The down side was that I also gained over five pounds shortly after moving in (My mom’s cooking is very good).  I have since moved back out of my parent’s home, and of course promptly lost five pounds.

While I enjoy living away from home, living with mom and dad had its highlights, for one I loved spending time talking to my dad about politics, history, and philosophy. Also enjoyed the conversations I had with my mom, and spending time with my brothers. Living next door to my older brother and sister-in-law (Girl Next Door) was also fun, and I’ll miss all the time I spent with my family. That said it’s not like I moved to a different state, or even out of town. In fact I live within walking distance still form my parent’s house; that’s if you count three or four blocks as walking distance.

So I’ve been moved out for about a week now, and still haven’t got all of my things unpacked, though I’m mostly done. I also again live in a place without a TV, but I use the internet to watch shows I like anyhow. This will also keep me from developing any new TV addictions.

This past weekend was Utah’s annual Gay Pride celebrations, which were fun. Of course for me the best part was talking to the protesters outside of the festival and being told that I was “one of the more enlightened of my type”. I should surely hope not, I would hope there are plenty of gay people more enlightened then me, but it was interesting to hear from a conversation with a protester.

Anyhow that brings you up to speed, just so you know I will also be posing my last essay from school soon. I hadn’t posted it yet because it was a group paper, but I think I will go ahead and post it anyhow.

Until next time,

XR4-IT