Maddox had strong convictions about what he referred to as states’ right:

These included the view that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, that integration was a Communist plot, that segregation was somewhere justified in scripture and that a federal mandate to integrate schools was “ungodly, un-Christian and un-American.”

His opinions were no less fixed on other issues. He was opposed to drinking, smoking, liberal clergymen, atheism, socialism, the press, civil rights workers, “do-gooder foundations” and the wearing of miniskirts in the state Capitol. He advocated short haircuts for men, the Baptist Church (at least, its more conservative members), the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the singing of “God Bless America,” a tune for which apparently he had an insatiable appetite. He liked it so much that at one public event, he ordered that it be sung no fewer than three times, and people in the crowd could see tears in his eyes.

If you believe in God, and in our ability to feel of his spirit, would you think a man with the above opinions capable of feeling it? Of being inspired by it?

Considering how he probably interpreted the song, “God Bless America,” would you expect God to infuse Maddox with his spirit at the level of moving him to tears?

In 1966, Georgia elected Lester Maddox as state governor. The Times article explained, “Mr. Maddox, who had never before held elected office, explained that God had been his campaign manager.”

If you believe in God and his inspiration, do you imagine God would inspire and bring to office a man like Maddox?

From the same article: “Mr. Maddox explained his segregationist views to The New York Times in November that year, saying his position stemmed from “a love for my people, because I believe it to be Christian and . . . American.”

How do you explain his definition of love? Of being Christian and American? I am sure every one of us here (and most Americans, for that matter) despises Maddox’s beliefs. But Maddox truly believed them. Maddox had convictions. And he thought the strength of those convictions meant they were godly.

I remember the semester I went back to school, just a week after returning home from my Mormon mission. I was at the top of my spiritual game. I decided to do a cultural history research paper on the Quran. If you are not familiar with Mormon missionaries, you need to realize that having immersed ourselves in religion, religion, religion for such a long period of time, our way of thinking when we get back is . . . let me just say it is skewed.

Somehow my cultural history paper turned into an attack against a point of religious doctrine in the Quran. In my reading of the book, I got “inspired” about a flaw I saw in the doctrine. This inspiritation, which I felt as a fervent message from the mind of God, himself, practically pushed the keys on the keyboard as I wrote a paper I was sure would transform the perspective of my professor. Never noticing that my “inspired paper” had gotten completely off-subject, I turned it in.

It wasn’t until I got the paper back with a big “C” at the top, after I’d had distance from the religious fervor of the writing moment, that I began to question my experience. Did God actually direct me to write a misguided paper on a subject different from the assignment? As time went on, I began to sense that my paper was a product of my own religious arrogance.

So my final question, as you consider Lester Murddox and the passions he was sure came from God:

How do you know that your inspiration from God,or your beliefs from God, aren’t just the power of the human mind to have enormous, emotion-driven convictions?

The government succombed to intense pressure from westerners to free Abdul Rahman in spite of angry demands from Muslim clerics and citizens to execute him. For the Afghan government, it came down to politics: which action would do the least harm to them?

A reactionary take on this situation from our secular stance would be to blame religion. Indeed, religion is at the heart of the situation, but if it were really the sole cause, billions of people all around the world would be facing execution since many change religions every day.

Talk show host Dennis Prager made an interesting distinction with regard to this situation. I think he was partially correct. Prager played an audio clip of Rahman’s father. It was not the government, nor the clerics, who identified Rahman as having broken the law by converting. It was Rahman’s family. His parents, ex-wife, and children turned him in.

On the audio clip, Rahman’s father made a comment about honor and how his son had shamed his family and is now worthless to them.

Prager then made the assertion that the current event is a result of a culture who values honor more than morality. Think about it.

Prager is mostly correct. There are numerous instances where parents in a society that upholds family or parental honor as the highest value abuse their children when they feel shamed. In fact, it even happens in the U.S. among some families. In our case, we refer to it as ego and narcissism, rather than honor.

The weakness in Prager’s argument is that there are many Asian countries that uphold honor as their highest value. While we do see some abuse as a result, we don’t see them acting as a country with the level of violence and intolerance that we are seeing from many of the Islamic countries.

Is it the combination of honor and monotheistic religion? I specify monotheism because there is a level of tolerance for other gods among polytheistic cultures that does not exist within monotheistic ones. Honor combined with monotheistic religion is a part of it, but still not the complete story.

It is too easy for us secularists to blame religion for problems. As I have stated before, I do not believe religion is the “root of all evil.” Religious abuse is the symptom of some humans’ need to wield power and authority of others. Religion is also a handy tool for manipulation. Where humans have less desire to control others, religion is less harmful. Among people who have a stronger desire to control others, it becomes dangerous.

There is one more element that is older than Islam, separate from honor, and distinct from the thirst to control others. It is violence. It was the already existent violence among much of the mideast that put commands of violence into the Koran. It was the already existent violence among them that enabled them to accept the writings of the Koran with its commands to kill non-muslims and apostates.

Put all four elements together and we have the volatile situation we see today.

The problem in Afghanistan is a combination of (1) an excessive valuing of honor; (2) fundamental monotheistic religion; (3) a human desire to control others; (4) a culture that accepts and uses violence.

Silence filled the space that my loss for words left. I stared at Blake for a minute. What other heroes have I introduced to him? Rosa Parks died not long ago, and we discussed her. Black again. I searched my brain files for any other heroes I must have introduced to him.

A-ha! Benjamin Franklin! We have a video about Benjamin Franklin learning how to harness electricity. In the movie, Franklin had to battle a religious fundamentalist who was trying to impede his research. It took much perseverance and faith in himself to finally prevail. Blake loved that video.

“Well, they’re not all black, honey. Benjamin Franklin was a hero, and he wasn’t black.” It was a step in the right direction, but clearly I had failed to provide my son with more than three or four examples of excellent human beings.

Growing up, the hero of my childhood was Nephi from the Book of Mormon. Nephi was a perfect person, with the exception of one tiny flaw. Nephi’s one sin was that he sometimes felt anger toward his wicked brothers who were trying to kill him. No wonder I have overwhelming and unrealistic expectations for myself: the biggest childhood hero of my life was AT LEAST as perfect as Jesus.

When I had kids, and especially when I left my church and all of its out-of-this-world heroes, I vowed I would expose my children to the world’s many great real heroes. I am now facing the reality that I haven’t done so well.

Yesterday, as I analyzed, and over-analyzed, the situation, I realized what is missing. I realized one of the reasons we, as agnostic parents, are feeling such a great need for a guiding source. We are missing a system for imparting our values to our children, that religious families normally get from their church.

The Mormon Church is the master of systems for teaching children. This is why the community is so tight, their familes are so strong, and such a large percentage of them actually make it to marriage in pure and complete innocence!

Let me show you how structured the Mormon community is in regard to teaching their young:

• Weekly church and Sunday School lessons
• Weekly Monday night Family Home Evenings (lessons)
• Daily family prayer and scripture reading
• Monthly visits from Home Teachers (each family is assigned two men who come to the home to give a lesson.)
• Weekly activities for teens, monthly activities for the children
• Monthly children’s magazine with lessons, stories, and learning activities
• Multiple free handbooks for family lesson plans on various moral and doctrinal topics

It was SO EASY to be a Mormon parent. The church put material directly into our hands. Agnostic and athiest parents have to conceive our own system for providing “lessons” to our children. Even more difficult, we have to do our own research to find the material. No one is giving us free handbooks with activities to demonstrate our values, arranged in formats that appeal to children of all ages.

I actually have been developing a system of timing. I’ve been using holidays as a sort of schedule to trigger ideas.

Some examples of holiday-triggered values:

• New Year- goals, ambition, ability to change and improve
• Civil Rights Day- courage, accepting others, forgiveness
• Easter- nature, spiritual rebirth
• Independence Day- patriotism, democracy, liberty and freedom
• 9/11- awareness and gratitude of our local firefighters and police officers and their families, community

I think the holidays, regular reading time, play groups, and other day-to-day experiences provide an adequate scheduling system to cover all the important things we want to share with our children. The difficulty is coming up with the tools for sharing the ideas, such as activities and books. That is the part that requires so much research when you don’t have a handbook given to you from church.

Civil Rights Day was so easy, because the school recommended books. The other holidays will require much more research. And since many of those other holidays also demand planning for giant feasts, extra shopping, and other activities, that just doesn’t leave as much time for educational research, does it?

I am going to continue what I started this month, which is to share my ideas and resources for educational and values-sharing activities and books for our children. They will mostly happen around the holidays, but I will add some other topics in here and there. I hope some of you will share your ideas as well.

At some point, my parents began listening to Rush Limbaugh. He was on two different stations at different times of the day, so we had Rush for 6 hours every day. My parents played him on every radio in the house. No matter where you were, you could hear.

I really can’t live my life without these voices, at least at some point in my day. But I’m not into hearing Rush tell me that my rejection of a belief in God is because I want the ability to be immoral without guilt.

So I have found a more tolerant host. Although I disagree with him seventy percent of the time, I love Dennis Prager. He “prefers clarity over agreement.” And that is what I get from him. Clarity. Not as much agreement.

So this is my third time referring to his show. He provides me much brain food, therefore, you can expect to hear of him more in the future at AgnosticMom.

Dennis Prager spoke of a man who apologized to his son for “giving a worse America to you than my father gave to me.”

Although there may be some truth in the statement, I have to wonder if it is really so, overall. I mean, I’m sure the African Americans who, at one time, had to drink from different water fountains and go to different schools would disagree. And I’m sure the women who weren’t allowed to vote would disagree. I’m sure the hispanics in my hometown, who were not allowed in the public pools, would disagree.

I bet the girls who were blamed for their own rapes would disagree. I bet the parents of depressed suicidal teens, who were told their children had lost their seat in heaven, would disagree. I bet the children with ADHD, who were smacked with a whip in school for not controlling themselves, would disagree.

I wonder if the “love children”, the bastards, who were labled dirty for coming too soon, would agree? Or what about those permanently paralyzed by polio, before there was a cure? How about the single mothers who couldn’t get a decent enough job to feed their family?

We could go back a few more generations, to the lawlessness of the old west,
the ruling gangs of New York, the slaves of the south. Child labor? Public education by way of the Bible? Or what about NO public education?

Yes, there may be spots where America has done a nose-dive down a slippery slope. But does it really balance out to a net loss? I don’t think so. I’d say, for many, America is a much better, safer place.

My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up With the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I chose this book because Blake’s teacher read it to his class, and Blake really enjoyed it. He liked it enough to tell me all about it after school. The author is King’s sister, and she shares stories of family life, childhood pranks, friends, being ostracized, and eventually the inspiration that led to King’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement.

This book is written for Grades 2-4. I plan to use it with my kindergartner also, by focusing on the pictures, and telling her some of the stories in my own words.

The Story of Ruby Bridges
This is a story about a six-year-old black girl who was was allowed, by way of a court decision, to go to a white school. The local community rebelled, pulled their kids out of school (all of them), and harassed Ruby to the point that federal marshals escorted her everyday to protect her safety, because the local police would not.

Everyday Ruby walked past the angry, screaming parents of Frantz Elementary School, attended alone with no friends to play with, and prayed, before and after passing the mobs, that God would forgive them.

I read this to my kids last year, when Trinity was still in Pre-K, and Blake was in first grade. Because the idea of mobs, prejudice, and segregation are foreign to them, it required and inspired a lot of good discussion and explanation.

My children loved the story about Ruby. It appealed to them because her heroic act occured around their same age. They relate to her. We have, at times, referred back to Ruby, throughout the year when topics of courage, teasing, or prejudice came up.

Trinity liked it so much, she said she wanted to be like Ruby, and she asked if she could keep the book in her own room because it is “so special.”

I recommend reading Ruby’s story, along with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s because, in addition to Ruby being a child-hero, she is, more specifically, a heroine. I think it is important that both boys and girls be exposed to female heroes, in addition to the many typical male ones.

As an additional act of respect, we will also be lighting a candle at dinner in honor and recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you have other ideas or books to recommend, please post a comment.