By Donald B. Ardell – May 17, 2009
President Obama Is Wonderful But I Wish He Would Stop Asking
God To Interfere In Our Affairs
On April 27, 2009, President Barack Obama gave a splendid
speech to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering
and the Institute of Medicine. I'm
an unabashed admirer of the president and I'm delighted with his performance to
date. I confess - I'm a fan. Please take this into account when
reading my recommendation for better endings to future speeches.
In describing the complex set of challenges America faces
today, the president told the scientists that he will double federal
investments in science-agency budgets. He said science is essential for our prosperity,
security, health, environment and quality of life - more so than ever before.
The president promised to seek increases in medical and energy research. He said he would also urge tax credits
to encourage companies to pursue scientific breakthroughs. All this and more would amount to what
the president termed the largest commitment to scientific research and
innovation in American history.
It was no surprise that he got rousing applause throughout
the talk.
Mr. Obama also criticized previous administrations that
undermined scientific research by politicizing it because they cared more about
advancing predetermined ideological agendas. You might be forgiven if you suspect the president had the
Bush Administration in mind.
Overall, Mr. Obama's remarks were a testament to his
commitment to reason, evidence and free inquiry. It is clear he wants to advance the sciences of biology,
genetics, medicine, biomedicine, physics, chemistry, computer and environmental
science and engineering. The
president seeks to restore science to its rightful place. He stated, Under my
administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.
Our progress as a nation - and our values as a nation - are rooted in free and open
inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy.
All this was viewed as a welcome change from the recent
past, but there was more. In
closing, the president added this: At root, science forces us to reckon with
the truth as best as we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others
force us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every question;
indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the mysteries of the physical
world, the more humble we must be. Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles, or our
faith, but science can inform those things, and help put these values, these
moral sentiments, that faith, to work - to feed a child, to heal the sick, to
be good stewards of this earth.
Well, who could ask for anything more?
Not to be ungrateful or anything, but there is one
thing. I have a suggestion. Please
reconsider those endings. No, not
the next-to-last part (be good stewards of this earth) - no, not the parting
thank you to the assembled scientists (Thank you all for your past, present,
and future discoveries). That was nice. If only President Obama got off the stage at this point. Alas, he had one more zinger that he
just could not resist. Oh Lordie, here it comes. I can imagine the gasps that must have come from the
scientists: Here is the ending. Prepare to be dismayed: God
bless you and may God bless the United States of America.
Holy Spaghetti Monster! Great Zeus above! Oh Holy Baal!
Just what in the name of science does that mean - God bless
the USA? There are tens of thousands of gods. There are Norse gods, Roman gods, Greek gods, Celtic gods
and so on. There are gods of war,
of love and sexuality and everything else you could think of. There are even
gods of science.. Hermes was the god of science for the Greeks; Athena/Minerva
did the trick for the Romans. Since Mr. Obama was speaking to scientists, it might have been better to
end with Hermes bless you and may Athena/Minerva bless the United States of
America.
So, which god is the president summoning and what exactly or
even what more or less would a divine blessing entail? Even today, there are competing gods -
surely the god the Taliban invoke when beating women can't be the same god Mr.
Obama had in mind! (On the other
hand, maybe the Taliban god and the god of Pat Robertson might be related.)
How does the blessing thing work, anyway? The United States of America has been
around for over two centuries - if there's a god, and if he blesses nations,
isn't it likely he blessed us enough already? Does god pay special attention to US presidents who ask for
blessings? If so, how many times
does a president have to ask? Must
President Obama utter this line every time he makes a speech? (Congressmen and Congresswomen also do
it, as do governors, sheriffs, mayors, Rotary and all other service club
officers, VFW officials and so on). Can there ever be enough calls for God to bless the United States of
America? Does our blessing greed
have no limit? Please - can we consider
a moratorium or something on requests for god to bless the United States of
America, for God's sake if not for common sense?
Think of the irony here. The president spoke for nearly an hour extolling science -
and then ended with a call for supernatural intervention in the nation's
affairs!
Isn't there a bit of self-righteousness associated with
assuming a deity would favor the USA, or would not know when to bless or not to
bless, without being asked by politicians (or anyone else) to do so?
Why not ask God to bless every country, or at least our
allies? But not Iran, unless they
quit developing nukes. Then we
might ask God to bless them, too. Oh, one more thing - Iran's leaders have to promise to stop calling the
United States of America The Great Satan. Sheesh.
In this nation, what a citizen believes about one particular
god or many gods or no gods is none of the state's business. Likewise, what a president or any other
government official believes about one or more such entities is best expressed
privately, not as part of government functions. This separation of church and state and, in the speech in
question, science and faith, need not be linked.
If President Obama wants to call on his god to bless the
nation, he surely has every right to do so, but doing so is not necessarily in
the best tradition of reason, science and separation of religion and
government. If the highest
representative of the government wants to call for blessings or other mystical
favors, would it not be better to do so privately, or among fellow believers in
a church, synagogue, mosque or other believer gathering? A public office holder's plea to a god
seems wholly appropriate in a speech on public policy - and absurd in the
context of a defining statement about science to scientists.
God bless America is a modern affectation, like In God We
Trust on our coins and Under God in the pledge. Perhaps the president worries that if he did NOT invoke God
at the end of every talk, including so help me God added to the presidential
oath of office, the Christian Right would go nuts.
Well, that crowd is already going nuts, because they ARE
nuts. President Obama will never
please them, anyway, so why continue this irrational ritual?
If there is a god and if that god is even remotely like what
anyone can imagine he, she or it is like, that god will know who to bless, how
and when to do it. No need for
presidents and other public officials to ask - just focus on the work that is
truly our own.
Maybe the president should have earmarked some money for the
assembled scientists to study whether God blesses the United States of America
and if so, when and how does he do it and for what reasons.
In his Inaugural address, Mr. Obama referred to the country
as a nation of Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. In Turkey on April 6th, he noted that
the United States does not consider itself a Christian nation or a Jewish
nation or a Muslim nation but a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and
a set of values.
Please, Mr. President, consider concluding your marvelous
speeches with allusions to secular, democratic ideals and values - and save the
godtalk for non-governmental occasions. As JFK, one of your heroes (and mine) observed in his 1961 Inaugural
address, it's one thing to ask for His blessing and His help, but don't take it
seriously: To quote President Kennedy absent the above two phrases, With a good
conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let
us go forth to lead the land we love ... knowing that here on earth God's work
must truly be our own... 