As an atheist, I can be a bit prickly on the issue of religion. That’s not terribly uncommon; most atheists I know have a bit of a short fuse on the subject.

One distinct advantage of being without religion, however, is that it makes it very easy to see a new one coming; we’re the canaries in the coal mine for irrational belief systems. So as the health care debate began to change from an argument on merits to an argument from faith, I got nervous.

The signs are everywhere.

Supporters of the bill fervently believe that the “Cadillac” Excise tax will ‘bend the cost curve’ without making existing insurance worse.

That is obviously false. Yet still, they believe.

Other true believers feel that, even if it does make your insurance worse, your employer will give you all the money they save on your premiums. Somehow, even though that money is taxed (and your benefits today aren’t), you will be better off, after healthcare dollars are turned into wages.

Only they won’t be.

So to review:
30% in the Towers-Perrin survey said if health reform increases employer costs, they would reduce employment
86% in the Towers-Perrin survey said if health reform increases employee costs for health care, they would pass those costs on to employees
9% in the Towers-Perrin survey and 16% in the Mercer survey say they would pass on any savings to employees in the form of wage increases

So employers are saying that the fundamental assumption that went into CBO’s and JCT’s calculations on the Cadillac tax are wrong. If the employers are right, it means that employees will get crappier health care–with more out of pocket expenses–but for the most part get no corresponding raise to help pay for those costs. Worse still, this means the revenue calculations will be wrong, because, while the government should be able to tax employers more (if the employers don’t find some other tax loophole), they won’t get any more taxes out of the workers.

Even the chief prophet of the Excise Tax himself, the very well-compensated defender of the faith Jonathon Gruber, admitted that his belief in the Holy Plan was based on the same quality empirical research you used to find in the Weekly World News:

Earlier in the day, I’d been talking to MIT economist Jon Gruber about this issue. “There are a few things economists believe in our souls so strongly that we have a hard time actually explaining them,” he said. “One is that free trade is good and another is that health-care costs come out of wages.”

Yes, it’s true because one man believes it. Also now determined to be true? The Loch Ness Monster, leprechauns, and Iraqi WMD.

Not to worry though; Jonathon Chait still has his ‘ardent’ faith in the excise tax… the fact that it conflicts with the real world doesn’t matter; with faith, the facts never do.

I guess if employers fail to turn the health care benefits they slash into wages, they’ll be transubstantiated into cold hard cash.

Yet other kool-aid guzzlers believe that the divine magic of the free market will bring down costs in a wholly private system. Yea, verily, the Exchange will deliver us from wandering in the health care desert lo these forty long years? Can I get an amen?

‘Amen!’ say the true believers. ‘Amen!’ says Ezra Klein.

Even as the data proving that the Exchange won’t help stares him right in the face.

For people, like, well, me, who think that the health insurance exchanges have a real shot at lowering health-care costs throughout the system, the graph above is difficult. For conservatives who believe that the key to constraining health-care costs is to encourage competition between insurers and give individuals the opportunity to choose, the graph above is difficult. Because what the graph above shows is that neither of those strategies has worked terribly well, at least as of yet.

Oh Most Benevolent and Powerful God of the Exchange, please, please forgive your humble servant for believing the data he can see with his own eyes, and not Your Wisdom, as revealed in the books of AHIP!

Finally, there are the saddest and most pathetic wretches of all, those who believe that if they pass this awful bill, then President Obama will come down from the mountain with his tablets of the Public Option, which he always supported anyway (except when it mattered).

Proven liar Lynn Woolsey (who really ought to practice a new signature, now that her original is worthless) swears to introduce a public option as soon as she votes for a bill without one.

Piecemeal tweaking of the health insurance system will not address this growing problem. We need to reform our health care system, and the public option must be included.

I will fight to include the public option in the final version of the health care reform legislation.

If it is not included, however, it will rise from the dead once again.

The day after the health care legislation is passed, I will introduce a bill calling for the public option.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Her original promise can be redeemed for less than a grocery store coupon. But not to worry; the public option, like any good mythic figure, will rise from the dead. In fact, thanks to Woolsey, we won’t even have to wait three days for it to shamble out of the tomb she’s digging.

How generous.

This morning, Nancy Pelosi, sounding like a true cult acolyte with stars in her eyes, stated that the bill is the most important thing anyone in Congress will do ‘in their legislative lifetimes’. She knows it will pass, not because of the vicious, slimy White House whip campaign, but because she has, you guessed it, faith:

I have no intention of not passing this bill. I have faith in my members that we’ll be passing this.

Hallelujah! Now let’s pass out the snakes!

Brother.

So here we are. The House of Representatives has been traded to the Senate for a pack of cigarettes, and our mighty so-called Progressive Caucus (excepting Kucinich of course) has been reduced to a worthless pack of gibbering fanatics, scourging themselves until the elections in the fall. If only they have faith. If only WE have faith.

Faith in the Senate, which has done so much to earn our trust.

Faith in the health care bill, which as I’ve shown is a pile of myths and lies.

Faith in President Obama, who will go right back to believing in the Public Option, as soon as he signs a bill that turns Americans into the chattel of the Insurance Lobby.

I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or vomit.

I was doing my best to catch up on the Sotomayor hearings, reading a transcript on the LA Times site (which is about a hundred times less damaging to your mental stability than listening to the audio of mouth-breathers like Jeff Sessions or Chuck Grassley).

It’s the horror show you’d expect, of course. Ignorant Republicans pressing Sotomayor on those nasty baby-killing doctors, on why anyone, anywhere, should ever be expected to give up their guns (one, I forget which, questioned her on why FELONS shouldn’t have the right to own whatever guns they like under the 2nd Amendment, which she noted even Scalia (or was it his clone, Alito) was sane enough to dispute.

It’s also mind numbingly repetitive, as time and again, on both sides, Senators ask her questions that she then refuses to answer on the basis that the topic is ‘pending’ in the federal courts. Apparently this is an ABA rule/in the code of Judicial conduct, not to discuss cases that might come up soon in your new job. Which rather makes these hearings pointless, as ANY case could come up before the Supreme Court (they are Supreme, durr.. more specifically, under judicial review they can take any case they feel like), thus.. she can’t answer anything of substance. All she can give are broad platitudes, anecdotes, and answer racist attacks, over and over, for days.

What the hell is the point? Really? I’d rather have them answer questions honestly, then recuse themselves for six months, or something. We desperately need a new process for confirmations, we really do.

But the thing I was getting at occurred toward the end of the day on Wednesday, when Cardin got to trying to nail her down on how much respect courts should afford to religious views. He brought up a case where she was on a panel that basically forced a prison to accomodate a Muslim prisoner’s dietary restrictions during Ramadan. All well and good, I suppose, but it got me to thinking about the myriad ways that government bends over backward for religious people, and a: how far you can go in that direction before it becomes hazardous or unreasonably costly, but also b: how these positive perks for faith aren’t awarded to atheists.

First, issue a. Ok, fine, someone needs a slightly special meal during Ramadan… I guess that’s ok. But what if that special meal required something really expensive? What if your religion requires you to eat caviar and drink fine scotch, single-malt, day after day? What if it requires that you eat human flesh? How far do you have to go to accomodate someone’s personal beliefs?

The second is more fundamental, I think. Religious people occupy a position of privilege over all atheists, who are second class citizens as a result, because they can resort to a religious explanation whenever they want, and get that explanation treated seriously, regardless of its real world merit or factual basis, and the sole criteria for determining whether to take it seriously is *whether they ‘sincerely’ believe it*

Take a look, see what I mean:

SOTOMAYOR: I don’t mean to be funny, but the court has held that it’s fundamental in the sense of incorporation against the state. But it is a very important and central part of our democratic society that we do give freedom of religion, the practice of religion, that the Constitution restricts the — the state from establishing a religion, and that we have freedom of expression in speech, as well.

Those freedoms are central to our Constitution. The Ford case, as others that I had rendered in this area, recognize the importance of that in terms of one’s consideration of actions that are being taken to restrict it in a particular circumstance.

Speaking further is difficult to do. Again, because of the role of a judge, to say it’s important, that it’s fundamental, and it’s legal and common meaning is always looked at in the context of a particular case. What’s the state doing?

In the Ford case that you just mentioned, the question there before the court was, did the district court err in considering whether or not the religious belief that this prisoner had was consistent with the established traditional interpretation of a meal at issue, OK?

And what I was doing was applying very important Supreme Court precedent that said, it’s the subjective belief of the individual. Is it really motivated by a religious belief?

It’s one of the reasons we recognize conscientious objectors, because we’re asking a court not to look at whether this is orthodox or not, but to look at the sincerity of the individual’s religious belief and then look at what the state is doing in light of that. So that was what the issue was in Ford.

(from the LA Times, located here)

Consider the implications of what she’s saying here. The relevant precedent to help determine whether or not you have to accomodate a person’s religious request is on the basis of whether or not they sincerely believe it is necessary. So if you sincerely believe something in a religious vein, a positive duty is forced on the state to help you. Atheists, having at best a negative belief that forces no particular action upon them (no ceremonies, no rituals, no commandments on stone tablets), can NEVER MAKE USE OF THIS STANDARD.

Thus, an extremely powerful, flexible, and subjective method of compelling the government to do something is forever closed off if you don’t believe in… something… mystical. A sky-wizard, a talking animal, a spirit guide, Zeus, Odin, Buddha, whatever.

Not only that, but a judge somewhere gets to decide if you do sincerely believe something.

That last part needs another look though, because it really makes this whole thing sick:

It’s one of the reasons we recognize conscientious objectors, because we’re asking a court not to look at whether this is orthodox or not, but to look at the sincerity of the individual’s religious belief and then look at what the state is doing in light of that.

In other words, you are more likely to be able to avoid a draft, to avoid going to war, to avoid being shot and killed, if you believe in God. Specifically, a God that the Judge in your case finds credible.

If you are an atheist, the state is inherently more likely to have you conscripted, sent off to fight in, say, Southeast Asia, and killed. It is official US policy that being religious confers on you a greater right to prevail in claims against the government, in a wide variety of situations/cases; you can get better jobs, better representation, more money from the state, pay fewer taxes, obey fewer laws, avoid criticism for poor performance (see abstinence education under Bush II), etc etc etc. Even better meals in prison, it seems. Being religious grants you myriad privileges denied to the faithless.

It also grants you a greater right to life.

Go to church, or we might kill you, some day, to advance our national interests.

God Bless America indeed.