Under Attack!

Ouch! Nature lover that I am, I still can't help having an aversion to some of her creatures. The lowly (rat bast--d!) mosquito being one of them. They make my summers less fun. They swarm around the water I leave on my deck for the neighborhood cats. Even if I didn't leave water for the cats, I live just down the road from a creek. Even a moment on my deck at dawn or dusk leaves me with itchy welts. I love sitting on my deck with a cool drink while playing the guitar, but forget that during most of spring and all of summer. And did I say, those little boogers just looooove me?! So for those of you who are thinking "Doug! They have chemical compounds to thwart the problem," let me say: One, they are expensive, two they are sticky and uncomfortable on my skin, and, three, the mosquitoes love me so much I'd have to cover every inch of myself, including eyelids and ear canals, because they seem to find my vulnerable spots anyway when I do use "protection." I opt instead to try to avoid them by keeping on the move when I go outdoors.

Well, our little unfriends are known carriers of disease (West Nile Virus, anyone?). In fact, the American Mosquito Control Association has an interesting website from which I quote the following:

Mosquitoes cause more human suffering than any other organism -- over one million people die from mosquito-borne diseases every year. Not only can mosquitoes carry diseases that afflict humans, they also transmit several diseases and parasites that dogs and horses are very susceptible to.

Now that shocking claim, if true, is reason enough for our animosity toward the bloodsucking little pests. Add to this the fact that they do all this while having an average lifespan of one to two months, and you can see why they are considered a major pest. I sure am glad they don't live as long as humans do!

Now I hate snakes, too. But when I see them around I know they do some good things for me like eating the rats and mice that might find their way into my home. I'm no expert or anything, but I'm having trouble coming up with any positive benefits of the mosquito's existence. Thus, I consider them a huge pain in the epidermis, just another of life's bloodsuckers, of which there are already too many.

One last thought. The Christian apologist C. S. Lewis expressed this wicked thought in his book The Problem Of Pain: "...if the worst came to the worst, a heaven for mosquitoes and a hell for men could very conveniently be combined."

Perish the thought!

Postscript: While I was preparing to put this post online I stopped to go to the bathroom. While there, what do you think flitted by my face but one of these varmints. I swatted at it, hit paydirt with the second attempt, leaving a bloody mess on the wall. Doubtless the critter came in when I went outside this morning to feed the cats. I was bit twice while petting the cats. Damn, I hate these pests! I will be fighting these stray pests that slip inside when I open my front door until September at least.

Fly Me To The Moon

Early the other morning I was driving to work while it was still dark and happened to notice the moon, almost in a full phase and beautifully tinted a bright orange. Dang! I thought. If only I had my digital camera with me. Actually, that would have done little good as the batteries are dead. Oh, and so are the spares. I don't know why I've allowed that to happen, and I've been telling myself for months that I need to remedy the situation. Somehow I never do and never think about it again until the next time I have an urge to take a picture.

The moon has always had a mysterious appeal to me. Perhaps one reason is due to my childhood. My mother and older brother loved science fiction. The strange tales from the TV show The Outer Limits was a fixture in my childhood home, as was the various Saturday and Sunday television cinemas devoted to sci-fi tales of space travel and strange alien worlds. Of course my brother and I were big into comic books and science fiction played a big role in that medium as well.

My fascination with tales of flying saucers and the man in the moon left me standing agog many nights on my front porch as I took in the night sky. I never saw The Big Dipper, although I was shown it many times. Even the vivid and wild imagination of a small child wasn't sufficient to allow me to see it. I never understood about the moon phases until I was a bit older. And eclipses fascinated me as well once I was old enough to understand what was going on.

My childhood love of horror brought me face to face with Lon Chaney Jr.'s The Wolfman with its ominous but enchanting little poem:

Even a man who's pure in heart and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf, when the wolfbane blooms,
and the Autumn moon is bright

That came to mind every time I saw a full moon. And of course there were all those tales about lunacy caused by a full moon.

Not to mention the apocalyptic teachings of the Bible, with its moon turned to blood and such that I was exposed to on a regular basis in church. Well, I did just mention it, didn't I?

I watched in utter fascination in July of 1969 as man walked on the moon for the first time. I couldn't believe it. It seemed like one of those science fiction movies coming true. Shortly thereafter I sat in church and listened as a preacher pounded the pulpit and yelled about how God would have to destroy the moon as well as the earth since it had become contaminated with sin after man's visit.

But I incline more towards what Timothy Harley wrote in his Moon Lore:

Man adores what he regards as higher than he. And if the moon is supposed to affect his tides, that body becomes his water-god.

All I can say is my fascination with this heavenly orb is as great today as ever, and my love of its beauty and symbolism is still something that inspires me to drone on and on and on...

Guess you noticed, huh?

A Real Horror In Amityville?

The folks at PETA have come up with a novel idea upon learning that the famous Amityville Horror house is on the market:

The animal rights group has asked to lease the famed haunted home in order to transform it into an exhibit that would scare people out of eating meat and using animal products.

The idea is to have such fun things as the sounds of slaughterhouse blades grinding away while animals screech and groan being piped in over a PA system. Simulated displays of animal torture would make up a large part of the exhibit, and visitors would also have a chance (I presume only if they want!) to try out one of those small pig crates used to contain the poor creatures while awaiting slaughter. To round out the experience, an "on-site Cruelty-Free Cafe would feature delicious vegan food, such as protein-packed mock chicken and faux ribs." Oh, I almost forgot the Ronald McDonald doll that would be available for purchase, complete with knife and wild-looking facial expression.

I'm almost certain the neighborhood would not care for this idea. I think it's stupid if well-meaning. I'm an animal lover (some animals more than others, though) and don't believe in unnecessary cruelty towards the animals that wind up on our plates. The mass production of meat and the evils associated therewith is just another sad result of overpopulation. Slaughterhouses have always been unsavory institutions, but the need to produce more, more, more and faster, faster, faster has no doubt allowed great sloppiness and an uncaring attitude into the process.

Having said that and even expressing some sympathy for PETA's efforts to bring an awareness to the plight of consumable animals, I must go on to say a little something about the greed of those who would bring us these "tasty" meat analogs; and trust me if you haven't tried them yourselves, most of them range from unpalatable to downright nasty. Anyone who has ever tried to eat healthy and support the food manufacturers who bring us these healthy treats knows that prices for these are nothing short of ridiculous.

For example, if meat is as wasteful and expensive to produce as we are told, why are plant and grain based substitutes even more expensive? Slap the words organic or all natural on a label and that seems to give manufacturers a license to price gouge. Who could imagine something as basic as a package of beans and rice could be so expensive as when produced by the health food industry? It's hard for me to avoid the conclusion that the health food industry is just another part of the capitalistic greed machine.

If PETA really wanted to make a horrifying display they could arrange a couple of supermarket isles with these vegan substitutes priced and lined up side-by-side with their animal counterparts for comparison.

Shouldn't our ethical concerns extend to the human animal as well?

Sacred Shenanigans

They done it. The Texas School Board scandal culminated in a vote to revise American History. In this hilarious account from Liberty Counsel the forces of common sense opposed to this measure are branded as the revisionists and the revisionists are lauded as restorationists!

Revisionist leader (the real revisionists, I mean) Cynthia Dunbar seems to have attempted a sucker punch by incorporating the words of the late Chief Justice Earl Warren in her opening prayer:

“I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses. Whether we look to the first Charter of Virginia or the Charter of New England or the Charter of Massachusetts Bay or the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the same objective is present – a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it: freedom of belief, of expression, of assembly, of petition, the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of the home, equal justice under law, and the reservation of powers to the people…I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.”

And then the Liberty dispatch goes on to crow:

After this invocation, the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), which promoted historical revisionism, exposed its ignorance of history by writing a scathing article against Dunbar, saying, “She offered the board’s opening prayer this morning and removed any doubt about what she and other far-right board members want students to learn: America’s laws and government should be based on the Christian Bible.” TFN’s faux pas was to overlook the fact that Dunbar was merely quoting the words of the late Chief Justice Earl Warren from a Time magazine article. Warren was a liberal activist Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who served on the High Court from 1953 to 1969. Some other liberal media that made the same mistake immediately removed similar articles upon learning the source of the prayer.

I don't know how true that last sentence is, but I think a few observations are in order. First, unlike our conservative counterparts we have no need to genuflect before supposed ideological icons. For all his liberal credentials, Warren was simply wrong and was overstating the case about the Bill of Rights. Second, even so it's hard to imagine that Warren would have agreed with the sweeping changes the TSB have wrought. And lastly, inasmuch as Dunbar used a rather lengthy quote without attribution, passing it off, apparently, as her own words, is she not guilty of plagiarism?

These underhanded tactics coming from these fine Christian folks don't surprise me a whit.

A Sad End

I knew ... I JUST KNEW ... there was some reason I loved tv's Law & Order so much. Silly me, I thought it might have been the great acting, the well-written scripts, the gritty true-life drama - but apparently there is more. Something I never thought about.

But Business & Media Institute did with a great piece that I'm sure had the opposite effect (at least on me) than was intended. Check out their story: Goodbye to 'Law & Order:' 20 Years of Attacking Businesses, Conservative Ideals. Cop/courtroom drama frequently puts corporate-types on trial, attacks traditional values and conservative views.

I swear, I didn't know it was that way. Can we get to together and start a write-in campaign to get NBC to reconsider their cancellation of this excellent show?

What's not to like about a show that featured a character spouting off:

“Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, all of ‘em, they are like a cancer spreading ignorance and hate … They’ve convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system …”

Bravo!

And BMI's story also has this tidbit:

The Business & Media Institute examined “Law & Order,” along with other television dramas’ treatment of businessmen in 2005. BMI found that you were 21 times more likely to be kidnapped or killed by a businessman that a mobster.

Now isn't that true to life? I don't about you guys but I've been screwed over by businesses far more than I've had problems with mobsters.

Want more? How about this:

At least two of the final season “Law & Order” episodes were distinctly pro-gay...one about torture was anti-Bush, while at least four were anti-business. With character Anita Van Buren’s struggle with cancer and difficulty paying her medical bills, there was anti-insurer vein to the entire 2009-2010 season.

Now this was television worth viewing.

Holy Men Do The Darndest Things (So They Say)

Some people will believe anything, especially if there is a spiritual connection. This story is one I first heard about on my local morning news (when oddball filler material is frequently used). Check out his amazing claim here.

Prahlad Jani claims "he was blessed by a goddess at a young age, which gave him special powers" and so has not had to eat for 70 years. But of course!

Anyone who knows even a little about the laws of nature will find Jani's claim more than a little bit hard to swallow. So obviously this medical test had some elephant-sized flaws.

Let's see, Jani has some three decades on me, so I suspect I will live to see entropy have the final say in his case, goddess or no. But whether I do or not, nature will have the last word we can be sure.

This story is tabloid stuff. But under the guise of human interest it gets wide play. And no doubt many will suspend belief (or maybe not in our scientifically ignorant culture) and accept this bizarre and illogical claim.

I wish the goddess would touch the BP oil leak and plug it! Why do "holy men" never do anything practical or of lasting value with their alleged powers?

Do Conservatives Like to Titillate Or What?

I'm on Laura Ingraham's email list to receive her all-important updates. This is a carryover from back when I had a politics blog. I know I should remove myself from her list, but hey, I'm a glutton for punishment.

Anyway, yesterday I notice her Monday's Fix in my email box with the subject heading: The rise of nude tennis. Certainly an attention getter! When I opened it it contained a rundown for the day's show. Hour three was

Nude tennis?

Tennis star Venus Williams mooned everyone at the French Open. We don't
think it was intentional, but we can't be sure. It's hard to tell when she's
basically wearing nothing.

You decide: Here are the newswire photos. Be careful: they are graphic!

I kept her link so you can, if you like, go and see what all the
fuss was about.

When I checked it out I right away thought that Ms. Williams was wearing a pair of flesh colored shorts, perhaps with a thong underneath. I'm sure I wouldn't call that photo graphic and certainly honesty should have kept anyone with decent vision and common sense from calling it "basically wearing nothing."

Here is another photo she linked to that confirmed my first impression.

Actually, Ingraham notwithstanding, I've seen much more flesh from other women's tennis players, lady figure skaters, and certainly from cheerleaders. So why did this incident warrant coverage on her show?

My theory is that conservatives really like this stuff under the guise of suffering righteous indignation.

Weekend Paranormalist

I think it started when I was a child and our local television station featured a scary movie every Saturday night at 11:30 p.m. It was called Shock Theater and was hosted by one of the station's personalities, all made up to look rather vampirish and carrying a skull-head walking stick, dubbed Dr. Shock. The program lasted into my teenage years and then was phased out, as was a lot of local programming.

This was a ritual and even though after a while we had seen about every one of the classic horror movies (this was before the day of the slasher genre), it still left Saturday nights empty when it ended.

One of my hobbies is collecting DVDs, especially cartoons and horror/sci-fi/fantasy shows. So it wasn't long before I devoted a portion of my Saturday nights (and often Friday nights as well!) to the supernatural.

Reading my blog, with its tendency toward scientism (I try to avoid that, but do find a universe of law and order more sensible), might lead you to think I have no place for the paranormal in my worldview. Long time readers might remember the series of paranormal posts I did last October for Halloween - always with an effort to rationalize them. And my Pentecostal religious upbringing, which I write about from time to time, was filled with the supernatural: angles, demons, the demon possessed, and of course God and his Holy Spirit.

The question for me has been: how to understand it all? I'm drawn to the scientific method and feel it has given us the best results in understanding the Cosmos. But I'm also drawn to Jung and his idea of Synchronicity. I like the studies of Rupert Sheldrake and Dean Radin who do try to reconcile parapsychology and science. I love to read about anomalies, but haven't found anything yet that makes me want to chuck my science-oriented worldview. I find the quantum mystics interesting with their attempts to reconcile eastern philosophy and science.

Like most of you, I've had my share of creepy and hard to explain happenings in life. Most often I chalk these up to tricks my brain plays on me. Some times I have hints of precognition that are freaky, and my mom likes to point out that she named me after the biblical prophet Nathan (my middle name) because she tells me God told her he had a special purpose for me. Nice story, but nothing unusual for a loving parent to think. (Still the precognition troubles me most.)

Perhaps most interesting to me (and a good avenue to travel to understand religious and paranormal phenomenon) is Berkeleyan idealism, the idea that everything is mental rather than material. This is difficult for me to submit to because everything seems quite real and physical. There's something uncomfortable for me in attempting to do away with an objective reality. But as I said, this idea interests me and is one that always simmers on one of my mental back burners.

I guess when all is said and done I do believe that things, even weird things, have rational explanations. But that needn't be a materialistic, reductionist answer. Perhaps it is, but we don't know enough about reality to declare it so dogmatically. Dreams are real while they last, as has been said. And as Dickens' Scrooge pointed out to Marley's ghost, the senses can be greatly affected by physical disorders.

In the meantime, I guess I'll go on living enjoying my weekends with monsters, ghosts, and other paranormalities and in a sense living my life with a foot in each world. However, most of my weight is on the foot in the scientific world. Perhaps it a left brain versus right brain thing. The mysterians among us might just be more in tune with their highly creative and imaginative right brains. But that logical left hemisphere of the brain won't go away!

Strange Advice From The Catholic Church

According to Yahoo News: Church warns cell scientists not to play God. Monsignor Rino Fisichella, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, states "We look at science with great interest ... We can only reach the conclusion that we need God, the origin of life."

Of course the Catholic Church has in effect played God (or attempted to, shall I say) all these many centuries by claiming to be THE divine authority on earth. Even making the bold claim to hold the very keys to the kingdom of Heaven.

Personally, I have much more faith in the scientific enterprise than that of revealed religion. Time and again science has run counter to revealed religion, leading to Galileo's suggestion (following Cardinal Baronius) that the Bible is concerned with how to go to Heaven rather that with how the heavens go - or something like that.

Again, just speaking to my personal view of it, scientists are not attempting to "play God." They might be said to be attempting to understand God by understanding the laws back of this thing called life.

Do some of these scientific discoveries have grave moral implications? Of course they do. But again, I feel more comfortable with the ethical issues being debated among reasonable humans than religious priests with an ax to grind.

Thinking Today Of A Special Friend

Yesterday I learned of the sudden and serious illness of Doug Robertson, a blogger much esteemed in my little circle of blogging friends. His comments have not only been an integral part of my blogging experience, but he holds a special place in my heart for having the distinction of being the first person to list me on a blogroll. That came at a time when I was new to blogging and was about to quit from discouragement. It gave me the pickup I needed to carry on. Besides all that, his blog, filled with his witty and often irreverent takes on life, has been a constant source of inspiration and entertainment for me along the way. When he was forced to take a hiatus from the internet awhile back, we all missed him sorely. I well remember how elated I was when I checked my comments one day and out of the blue found one from the long absent Doug. How great it was to have him back!

I'm dedicating today's post to my dear blogger buddy and sending out my deepest wishes for his full and speedy recovery. Hurry back, my friend!

Could It Just Have Happened?

Photo Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech


It seems that the number one reason people give for their belief in a theistic God is the fact that there is something rather than nothing at all. I literally can't count the times someone has said to me some variant of "just look around at all this ... and you think it just happened?"

Well yes, that is what I think is the case.

To say "God did it" presents another thorny question: Who made God? In other words, it is not an explanation but an evasion.

It seems to me that as astounding as it is that something so wondrous as our Universe could have come about because something very simple developed over vast ages into something extremely complex, it is more reasonable, more understandable, more subject to scientific scrutiny than the proposition that a personal being has always existed, and without causation.

In Illinois there is particle accelerator called the Tevatron. Time magazine has a nice report of some recent findings using Tevatron that sheds some light on the subject. The question is, why did not the massive explosion known as the Big Bang produce, as might be expected, equal amounts of matter and anti-matter that would have canceled out each other resulting in nothingness? Instead we got an imbalance of matter over antimatter that allowed for us and all we see to exist.

Time explains it this way:

Physicists have been trying for years to identify the mysterious process that led to the initial imbalance. Now, finally, the DZero people may have glimpsed it in action. Accelerators are essentially extremely expensive ways of conducting tiny demolition derbies, propelling particles to near light speed, forcing them to collide and then analyzing the energy and subatomic debris that results. On an infinitesimal scale, those collisions replicate the conditions that prevailed at the dawn of time. The Fermilab team found that in the collisions they conducted, the number of muons (a sort of heavy electron) that resulted exceeded the antimuons. The difference wasn't much — maybe 1% — but that might have been enough to get the universe started. Now the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, designed to be even more powerful than the Tevatron, may be able to probe the phenomenon more deeply, leading to a brand-new, unconventional theory.


While particle physicists are nowhere near completely explaining the big picture (it is likely they never will), they have shed enough light on the way nature works to provide us a reasonable alternative to superstition.

Why I'm Burned Out On Politics

The people seem to be in a throw-the-bums-out mood right now and few incumbent members of Congress can take their positions for granted.

Heck, we're big on retribution here in the US so this isn't surprising.

Frankly, I can't blame everyone for their dissatisfaction with the way our lawmakers don't get things done. And when they do manage to accomplish anything it's pathetic and half-assed, like the recent healthcare legislative freakshow. Sure, toss 'em out on their ears. Send them packing. Make them "pay"! Ride them out of on town on a rail. No complaints from me.

I do have one question, however. What will this accomplish in the long run? Will the new kids on the block make a difference or will they go to Washington and become a part of the problem themselves?

Politics is corrupt - rotten to the core. Anyone who has read history knows this has always been the case. And it always will be. It may be a necessary evil, unless we want a return to monarchy (and how great does that usually turn out?), but it is an evil.

For example, all this hoopla about the Tea Party coming to take back the country. Now me, I can't take seriously any politician who wants to become a perk-laden member of something they say is the problem. If the wealthy want so badly to rule our country, why don't they do so at their own expense as volunteers? Even Saint Reagan, so far as I know, accepted his government pensions (even though he said he thought government was the problem!) and all the benefits he was entitled to. For all the yapping about the Social Security, as another example, I haven't noticed many politicians lining up to decline SS benefits as a matter of principle; although most would be in good financial shape and could afford to do it. After all, I'm not aware of many hand-to-mouthers in Congress. The people defeating incumbents aren't anti-big government. They like it to be big enough to accommodate them and their wants. They just disagree with some of us about what should be government's priorities.

Psssst: here's the problem. Government is big because our nation is big. The world is big. The problems we face are big. I'm sorry but the world has changed quite a bit from what it was two centuries ago. If people running for elected office don't understand that, why should we vote for them? Hey, now that I think about it, the people who are buying into all the anti-big government sentiment don't seem to understand it either.

Stop and think, folks!

In the meantime I can have fun looking at the beleaguered faces of those pols who have been rejected and turned out. They had it coming; justice was served. Then I can settle back and watch more of the same ol' same ol'. It's the American Way.

I know I probably should care, but somehow I'm getting to where I mostly don't. Not much to do now but just watch it play out.

Paganizing The Dead

Last night before I turned off the light to go to sleep I was reading the May-June issue of Robert L. Sumner's The Biblical Evangelist. I've followed his ministry for thirty years or so and still do, mainly because I find his thought process so interesting. He is so cranky he makes of think of what Andy Rooney might be like if he were a fundamentalist Christian.

Anyway, Sumner had a book review about the subject Cremation: Is It Christian? (Here is a link to the online version.) This my preferred method for dealing with my remains, for a number of reasons that aren't important for this post. It doesn't really matter to me what the Christian position on this is (actually, there is no one position as many Christian do find cremation acceptable), but it is a matter I have been attacked over by some Christians who believe I would be "dishonoring God" by following through with it.

This paragraph in his review jumped out at me:

Some today argue that “dust returning to dust” happens with cremation just as surely as with burial, which is no doubt true (there is a portion of every body which neither fire nor decomposition can destroy; both result in simply a change of form in the body). However, one is the action of God in the process and the other is man taking over God’s duties. One is God at work and the other is paganization at work.

I proudly admit being a Pagan. And I really have no problem with the natural process of decay being described as the "action of God" - so long as it is understood that God and nature are one and the same (which is my view). I just find it amusing that a serious mind could offer this as an argument against cremation. Probably that last sentence carries the weight. You shouldn't cremate because it is a Pagan practice! Of course what Sumner doesn't mention is that a good portion of Christianity borrows from paganism.

Okay, one more laugher from his piece, wherein he quotes the author of the book he is reviewing:

“When the heat becomes intense, the body appears to be very much alive as it jumps about, which is the result of the contraction and expansion of the muscles. To me it is a rather gruesome and unkind thing to do to the body of a loved one. Can you imagine yourself being responsible for the cremation of the body of your mother, your husband, your wife, or your child? To a person of refined Christian culture, it must be most repulsive to think of the body of a friend being treated like a beef roast in an oven, with all its running fats and sizzling tissues. The body is reduced to ashes in a white heat of 2,000º F.” He also noted, “The remains of a body weighing about 140 pounds would be no more than three to four pounds of ash.”

I had my father cremated, as I will my mother when she dies, just as I plan for myself, and this morbid thought had never crossed my mind. I don't I see how I am being more unkind than if I plant my mom to rot over time, to shrivel and liquefy and slowly be consumed by worms. Perhaps I'm not refined, but I don't see how treating the dead "like a beef roast in an oven" is more unkind than treating them as household garbage that is sent to the landfill for burial and a slow. repulsive return to the elements.

Ah, typical fundamentalist nitpicking.

Netanyahu Goes Biblical

[Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday's quiz. More about the correct answer at the end of today's post.]


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went biblical the other day in Parliament with a little bit of holy trivia. He says Israel and its alternate name Zion are mentioned 850 times in the Old Testament. Then he recommended they check how many times it is mentioned in other religious Scriptures. But he made it easy for everyone:

Because you asked: Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times in the New Testament, and none of the 16 various Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran. But in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem.

This wasn't just a show of religious knowledge. Netanyahu was bolstering his point that that Jerusalem is Israel's "eternal and indivisible" capital.

Needless to say, Palestinians are about as nonplused about this as their ancient ancestors the Canaanites were when Joshua and crew arrived with a claim that God had promised them all their land. If Netanyahu went into any of this I failed to find it in the various reports of his Bible lesson.

But we must suppose God can do whatever he wants with his footstool, as demonstrated in our own history when European Christian settlers came to these shores and shortly thereafter began the struggle to wrest the land away from the "savage pagans" who inhabited it.

Blessed be the name of the Lord! (Ahem!)

Now about my little quiz yesterday. Some of my sharp eyed readers spotted number four as the fake. One reader with a Reformed (Calvinistic) background right off recognized it as passage from Jonathan Edward's immoral (no, that's not a typo) sermon Sinner In The Hands of an Angry God. ( Here's a link to the Wikipeida article on the sermon, which includes a Wikisource link to the actual text for those who want to read it for themselves.)

Number 1 can be found in the book of Numbers chapter 31. And you probably thought a book devoted to accounting would be boring! Number 2 is from Second Chronicles chapter 15 and shows the logical outcome of believing God has given your group all truth and a special relationship with him. Number 3 is from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 4. In some translations it actually appears as if God requested Ezekiel use human crap as one of the ingredients of the bread, but I think it more likely it was as translated here. Either way, quite nasty. Number 5 is from the book of Hosea and was God's way of impressing on his prophet how he felt about Israel's spiritual adultery. That's a commentary on what God thinks of the idea of all religious paths being equal.

Is That In The Bible?

The Bible, the most published book in the world, is largely a book of unknown lore. Most followers tend to allow their clergyfolk to do their reading and interpreting for them. Popular devotionals cherry pick the "good passages" while ignoring the shocking. And children's Bible stories? Nothing challenging to be found in those.

Here's a little challenge. I've used a modern translation of the Bible, The Message, to somewhat avoid familiarity. The following passages are from the Bible except one. The challenge is for you to pick the non-biblical passage from among the biblical.

1) Finish your job: kill all the boys. Kill every woman who has slept with a man. The younger women who are virgins you can keep alive for yourselves.

2) And they agreed that anyone who refused to seek God, the God of Israel, should be killed, no matter who it was, young or old, man or woman.

3) Also measure out your daily ration of about a pint of water and drink it on schedule. Eat the bread as you would a muffin. Bake the muffins out in the open where everyone can see you, using dried human dung for fuel.

4) The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.

5) Find a whore and marry her. Make this whore the mother of your children.

Sorry, no prize if you guess the right answer. But if you can identify the non-biblical passage AND identify its source, I salute you as a real student of the Christian religion. I'll be back tomorrow with the answer.

God As Metaphor

I've reached a point in my intellectual development where I feel a metaphorical understanding of God is the only view that satisfies both my rational and spiritual inclinations. My understanding is that a religious awe of the universe is a natural result of the evolution of the human species.

One of the ladies of freethought from freethought's Golden Age, Elizabeth Edson Gibson Evans, simply explained it this way:

There is as yet no proof of the existence of any personal intelligence behind the system of law which regulates the universe.

The idea of a God originated from the fears of man in the presence of natural forces which he is unable to control.

As man became developed in the capacity to think and to reason, he naturally associated a personal form with each of the impersonal agencies in action around him, and classed these imaginary beings as friends or enemies, according as their functions resulted in benefit or in injury to himself.

The number of superior powers would gradually be lessened as man observed that many phenomena were due to one and the same source.

In time, and under certain modifications of character, the conception of a sole ruler of the universe would become possible.

It is not yet known whether the adoration of the creative function in man preceded or followed the worship of the powers of external nature. Both cults originated at a very early stage of human development, and the ideas pertaining to each were often intermingled.

Well said.

My chief criticism of religion is that certain of its adherents, unfortunately it seems the majority, have not kept pace with the advance of human knowledge, preferring instead to canonize the mythic stage as the eternal truth. It then becomes the cause of much religious strife when one mythology seeks to assert itself as absolute truth and dismiss all others. Because any one myth is as valid as another, this is an exercise in futility.

The Logos behind the universe are the laws of nature. Even the phrase "laws of nature" is a metaphor, or statement that things are what they are. The creative powers, the controlling powers of the universe are these laws. There is an element of mysticism in such a position. How did these laws originate? Perhaps they just are; perhaps just a brute fact of reality. Why is there something rather than nothing? Perhaps something rather than nothing is the natural state of things. Deep questions unworthy of shallow answers.

The popular conception of God is the shallow answer. The metaphorical understanding of God as being itself and existence itself is the deeper notion.

A Problem Of Their Own Making

I ended yesterday's post with "I'm glad to be done with the whole mess (the Christian worldview) and find fulfillment of my spiritual sensitivities in a broader worldview."

The whole problem of a narrow road versus some broad road to destruction (Matt. 7:13,14) is a view that I reject out of hand.

Eternal life and eternal punishment in Hell are conjoined twins. Slay one and the other dies. I personally can deal with the fate of a final death. It is well worth it to me to give up the belief that I can have life everlasting just to be rid of the idea that others will burn in Hell for all eternity.

The biblical view is that death is a punishment (on everyone) for disobedience to God; that death is the last enemy to be destroyed and that eternal life is God's gift to the chosen few.

Leaving the world of religious myth and studying the universe in an unbiased manner leads to the conclusion that death is a normal and even necessary part of the overall scheme of nature. Death, like disease, is not a punishment for anything, but a part of the way things just naturally are.

This life with all its trials and tribulations is tough enough without the "prophets" attempting to burden us with post mortem concerns. Living this life to the fullest and helping out each other is surely enough to concern us.

Not long ago I was behind a van that had bumper sticker that read:

It's your Hell, you burn in it!

How to the point. A problem of their own making. Let them deal with it.

The idea that death will one day come to each of us and that a dreamless sleep is all that follows may not be a pleasurable thought, but it isn't one that should lead us to absurdities in an attempt to evade our fate. The Tree of Life which features prominently in the Bible from beginning to end is a myth. The mature mind will seek as much enjoyment and fulfillment as possible from every day and not waste hours worrying about when he returns from whence he came.

Is That Narrow Minded?

Here is a letter to the editor writer who well understands the implications of the religion he follows. David Kaul writes:

The truth is: "There is but one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ"; and upon his return, "every knee will bow (whether by choice or by force) and confess that he is Lord."

And he adds:

So I say, "Go ahead, abolish the National Day of Prayer!" A group of unbelievers attempting to find favor with a holy God by making everyone feel good about themselves is a mockery anyway.

Is that narrow-minded? Sorry to say, but yes. Jesus said, "I am the way," and "the way is narrow."

I catch a lot of flak in my personal life because I don't have a high regard for Christianity as a religious worldview. Some might think it is rebellion against my oppressive upbringing - which is partially true. However, in fairness I must point out that I desperately tried to remain in the religion of my youth. I studied the Bible really hard. As a result of my efforts I became confused, then outraged. Most Bible believers never allow themselves the luxury of gathering all the pieces of the big picture and putting them together into ... well, the ugly mess that it is.

It amazes me to this day that most so-called Christians have allowed themselves to be sedated with a religion about Jesus, to accept a Gospel about Jesus, rather than troubling themselves to go to the source and discover what the religion of Jesus actually was and what his Gospel actually was (at least according to sources we have).

Some moderns have attempted to pare off the rough edges of Jesus' message. A word I frequently hear is "interpretation." Different people, we are told, interpret Jesus' message in different ways. Well, sure they do. But why? Did he speak in such a cryptic manner that his point is easily missed? (Even his parables, often explained by Jesus himself, were not profound but quite basic.) Or is it that some people just don't like what he had to say and want to bring it more into line with the inclusiveness of a modern liberal age?

Mostly I think people just don't understand and haven't studied the matter.

The majority things Jesus taught don't make a lot of sense when removed from the proper context. Jesus was a historical figure who spoke to events of his own day and of events he thought (though mistakenly as history has proved) were close at hand.

When liberals point to his teaching against wealth and wealth accumulation, they miss the point that he saw such things as unnecessary (not wrong, per se, as the biblical trappings of the Kingdom were such things as pearls, jewels, precious stones, and gold) because God's kingdom, with all its abundance, was soon to appear on earth and at that point the poor and meek, quite literally, were to inherit the earth.

It would be most immoral for a teacher of any kind of religion or system of ethics to teach people not to take any thought of or make any preparations for tomorrow, that tomorrow will take care of itself, as Jesus did. It made sense for an apocalyptic prophet who thought the end of the then world system was at hand and soon to be eclipsed by God's Kingdom to say such things. But what sane person would advise others in this day and age to not save and invest their money, to forego insurance coverage, to give away homes and possessions, etc.?

Jesus was a theocrat, pure and simple. His message about God's Kingdom governed by God's laws and statutes (as contained in the Old Testament) do not sit well on modern, democratic ears. Not the political party, but those who believe that governmental authority should come from the people rather than a king, those who value the freedom to choose to live life according to one's own dictates so long as that doesn't compromise the freedom of others.

Jesus' message was quite exclusive. Like his mentor John the Baptist he set out to call Israel to repentance in preparation of God's kingdom and its imminent arrival on earth. Israel was, according to Old Testament theology, chosen to be a light to the Gentile nations.

The things that happened after Jesus' prophecies of an imminent Kingdom of God fizzled, after his message was corrupted by Paul the Apostle, and even after that when Christianity (Paul's take on Jesus' message) became a political force in the Roman empire, were clearly never in Jesus' mind or teachings. Moreover, it surely doesn't take a genius to see that what passes as modern Christianity (actually Christianities because they are legion) bears practically no resemblance to Jesus' teaching, especially in the way that most Christian sects teach that God's Law has been done away with by Jesus' death. God's Law was the very cornerstone of Jesus' teaching!

Take away Jesus' theocratic views of a Heavenly Kingdom on earth and there is, quite literally, nothing left.

For my part, I'm glad to be done with the whole mess and find fulfillment of my spiritual sensitivities in a broader worldview.

Hi. I believe the Bible is the Word of God, that every single word of it is true, and I'm running for Govenor

Ah, as if I needed to make yesterday's point any clearer, here is a little bit about the governor's race in one of my neighboring states, Alabama.

Republican Bradley Byrne felt compelled to clarify a few things about his political stance:

I believe the Bible is the Word of God and that every single word of it is true. From the earliest parts of this campaign, a paraphrased and incomplete parsing of my words have been knowingly used to insinuate that I believe something different than that. My faith is at the center of my life and my belief in Jesus Christ as my personal savior and Lord guides my every action.

As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state.

I quoted these things in full from his website because I didn't want to inaccurately present his views.

Let me tell you, these are strong selling points here in the Bible belt. While I personally favor having well educated individuals represent me in government (Byrne is a lawyer and was recently Alabama Community College System's chancellor!) and especially those who know a bit about the U. S. Constitution, for others the main thing is whether a person believes the Bible is the word of God.

In this modern age I would think that fighting for the advance of teaching of creationism in public schools would be on par with advancing the flat earth theory, but no. Here in the Bible belt (and I'm sure in other areas of the country as well) it is a badge of honor.

Isn't it more than likely that a lot of politicians just pay lip service to religion for political advantage? Isn't it sad that an unreasoning citizenry needs that pap?

Man's Eternal Regress

I've had a quote by German philosopher Immanuel Kant set aside for some time for commentary in a blog post. It comes from his essay What Is Enlightenment?, written in 1784. Here is the quote, which serves as the first paragraph of his essay:

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Dare to know! Have courage to use your own understanding! -- that is the motto of enlightenment.

Written during a time when priestcraft was losing its grip, scientific knowledge was growing by leaps and bounds, and philosophy was more rigorously than ever analyzing popular assumptions, Kant considered those who rebelled against this movement towards reason to be lazy and cowardly.

More than two hundred years later, two hundred years brimming with the increase of knowledge, I feel immaturity is hardly much of an excuse. True, there are still many minds left (by laziness and cowardice) to stagnate in immature thought processes. But more troubling to me are those who have embraced sophistry in order to cling to outdated modes thinking.

In the long war against science, creationism, for example, is still a popular doctrine among many religious believers. As "creation scientists" lost more and more of their credibility trying to prove the universe is extremely young and geology is consistent with the myth of Noah's deluge, creationism was retooled into a more respectable form, known as Intelligent Design. It still, however, is a theory which attempts to use science to justify a preconceived conclusion.

Religious philosophers are as busy as ever employing the old arguments stated in new ways in an attempt to prop up the old ideas. New books regularly appear which say nothing new. Their biggest flaw seems to be not carrying their logic to its full extent.

In my estimation, the move towards reason that seemed so promising in Kant's day seems to have settled into a mire of faith AND reason in our day. Which somehow winds up being more the former than the latter. In our country religion actually seems to set the agenda for political discourse. Consider the harm done when efforts to slow down man-made global warming or prevents the treatment of diseases through stem cell research, because religious faith gets in the way.

I don't for a minute think religion is incompatible with scientific knowledge. But blind adherence to ancient religious faiths is a detriment.

Washing Away Doubt

Well, this is more interesting than practical, perhaps, but a recent study suggests that hand washing may lead a person to become less likely to justify a decision they have made. At least I'm certain this has its limits.

The human mind certainly is a curious thing.

The report tells us:

If you have made a difficult decision and want to stick to it, go and wash your hands.

A study has revealed that hand washing, long associated with absolving the mind of guilt, can also erase any doubts about everyday choices.

I am drawn to reader comments and found this one for this story particularly interesting:

This kind of explains why abortion is rife then. The so called doctors routinely wash their hands & have no problem constantly hacking millions of preborn humans to pieces.

While I find that observation kind of goofy, it does make me think.

Does it seem likely that one could continue a course of action contrary one's sense of right and wrong just by periodic hand washing?

Frankly, doubt is and has always been my constant companion. I try to make the best decisions I can based on the most complete understanding of matters I am able to arrive at. I'm not the least bit afraid or unwilling to change my mind if more light convinces me a previous decision was not best.

Decisions of consequence should not be made lightly. And I doubt they can be made and just forgotten about. I also doubt this study even begins to tell the whole story.

Blaspheming God

G. W. Foote (1850-1915) was an English secularist magazine editor from the so-called Golden Age of Freethought, whose work was so influential that some of his titles remain in print to this day. His efforts bought him a year in prison for the "crime" of blasphemy, but that setback let him totally unrepentant and undeterred.

Those who spend the most time yacking about the Judeo-Christian religious tradition are usually wildly ignorant about the outrages that are found within the pages of the Bible. Foote made the following observation about the Bible:

Whatever the Bible contains of truth, goodness and beauty, we prize as well as its blindest devotees. But this valuable deposit of antiquity would be more useful if cleared of the rubbish of superstition.

But touching the rubbish in the Bible Foote was merciless. As for blasphemy, he wrote:

The real blasphemers are those who believe in God and blacken his character; who credit him with less knowledge than a child, and less intelligence than an idiot; who make him quibble, deceive, and lie; who represent him as indecent, cruel, and revengeful; who give him the heart of a savage and the brain of a fool. These are the blasphemers.

The following cartoon appeared in his magazine The Freethinker and illustrates his point with the biblical story of Elisha and the bears:

On Faith Healing

Reading this article about a faith healer took me back to my childhood. Being raised in a Pentecostal church environment, I recall how prayer was always used before medicine. In fact, I can honestly say that the doctor was the last resort.

As a rather humorous example, I'll give a little story about our pastor. She was a very nice and sincere lady, kind of a grandmother figure to my brothers and me. Once when returning to her home from some pastoral errands, she tripped getting out of her car and fell down hard against the curb. My mother, who had gone along for the ride, inspected Pastor's lower leg and suspected a broken ankle. Our pastor jumped up off the ground shouting "No, no, in the name of Jesus I'll not have it!" But as the swelling became severe my mother was finally allowed to drive her to the hospital where it was found she did indeed have a broken ankle.

I could give a number of examples where people I knew well laid claim to having been healed by faith, only to later have to seek medical attention. On the other hand, I know many instances where people with minor illnesses "got better" later after prayer. Like the old joke: A cold takes about seven days to run its course on its own, or about a week if you seek medical treatment.

You can follow the link above and read about "the healing touch of Father Richard McAlear" of Burlington, Kentucky. He quipped to one of his congregations: "I've waited longer in doctors waiting rooms than you're going to wait here tonight."

Uh huh. Very funny. Or is it?

Here is something that bothers me. This story states:

It would be an exercise in futility to attempt any kind of statistical analysis or investigation of father McAlear's results. It is quite literally a matter of faith. You either believe it or you don't.

But why? It's been done before. A book I read many years ago, but unfortunately no longer have, Healing: A Doctor In Search of a Miracle by William Nolen, is an exhaustive attempt to verify the miraculous claims of faith healers. It was hardly a futile attempt. But what Nolen did find in case after case was that the diseases which afflicted the recipients of the prayer of faith continued on their natural course.

Is this sort of thing dangerous? Of course it is. Tammy Faye Messner was a well-known example of someone afflicted with a life-threatening disease (cancer) who waited too long in seeking treatment while relying on prayer and faith. Embarrassment was a big factor in the delay (she was bleeding out her rectum), but her prayers in lieu of medical attention proved insufficient. Actually, she waged a courageous battle against her disease, and seemed never to have lost her faith that she would be healed. But prayers aside, the disease ran its course and she died.

To me it really seems a simple matter: if diseases have a natural cause, shouldn't a natural treatment be sought? And which has the better track record, faith or medicine?

National Day Of Controversy

James Dobson, whose wife is chairperson of the National Day of Prayer, is, as you might imagine, outraged about the recent court ruling that the NDP is unconstitutional.

"How can something be unconstitutional when it was passed by both houses of Congress unanimously and signed by Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman and implemented by all those Presidents back through the years?" He incredulously asks.

Perhaps he has forgotten how long human slavery was considered Constitutional by many citizens, presidents, judges, and elected officials. His question is just totally beside the point.

In a little Q & A with Christianity Today he makes the following ridiculous observation:

Since 1775, when the first Continental Congress called for a national day of prayer, there have been such events called for by almost every President. I saw the figures—34 out of 44 Presidents have called for a national day of prayer. Some of those who didn't have died in office.

The National Day of Prayer website actually clarifies this a bit in one of its "Fun Facts":

33 of the 44 U.S. Presidents have signed proclamations for National Prayer. Four of the Presidents who did not sign a proclamation died while serving in office.

Let's see, that means 7 out of 11 who didn't sign such proclamations didn't die in office. It's reasonable, I believe, to not see the correlation Dobson hints at.

Dobson drones on:

My prayer is that Barack Obama will instruct his justice department to appeal that ruling. If he doesn't, this country has lost an extremely valuable tradition and a relationship with Christ.

Who said the United States has a relationship with Christ? Only the Theocrats. Our Constitution says no such thing.

And I would ask those who think like Dobson to explain exactly how the NDP tradition has been "extremely valuable" to the United States?

Is this a sectarian day or no? If it is sectarian, it clearly is unconstitutional. If it isn't sectarian, and the purpose is to get people among the many different religious traditions to at once pray to their differing gods for blessings and protections, isn't that a rather silly and pointless exercise?

The God of the Judeo-Christian tradition is anything but tolerant of other gods, and in fact he insisted that none others be worshipped alongside him. So a nonsectarian Day of Prayer could only be a stench in his nostrils, a denial that our nation worships the supreme God.

Certain Christian leaders went on television to point the finger at the secularists for the horrible attack against us on 9/11/2001. The finger could just as easily be pointed at them for having angered God by allowing our presidents and elected officials to proclaim a national prayer day while at the same time recognizing the legitimacy of other religious faiths -- at least it could if we used Bible logic.

It is a very old notion that every time there is a flood or earthquake that causes widespread destruction and suffering, every time a volcano rumbles and shakes the ground as it spills its molten destruction onto a hapless city, every time the moon passes in front of the sun and creates an envelope of darkness in the middle of the day, there is an angry deity behind it. But we know more about science now. We understand more fully the operation of causes and effects today.

A quick examination of our nation's history, especially since 1952, when the modern notion of a National Day of Prayer was written into our laws, does not reveal a period of extended divine protection. We have suffered wars, economic recessions, the rise of terrorism attacks, governmental crises and international humiliation, as for example the Iranian hostage incident, which lasted for more than a year.

It is an outrage for our government to attempt to foist this prescientific world view -- that God can be appeased, making our way easier -- onto our nation. For most of us this appears to be as pointless as our "Ceremonial Deism" that serves no purpose other than to keep strife and controversy stirred up. Or perhaps it continues to provide hope for the Theocrats.

Count me as a secularist who would like to see God banished from government once and for all.

Franklin Graham: All Religions Not Equal

Reiterating the biblical position, the position of Jesus and the Apostles, Franklin Graham stated there is only one way to God and that is through Jesus. Feeling left out, Graham decided to go to the Pentagon on his own to pray and make a little noise. And to say that some Americans

feel we are losing our freedoms while people of other faiths are gaining their freedom. It's a perception, whether it's right or wrong.

This whole brouhaha over the National Day of Prayer is another example of why we need a secular government that protects that rights of individuals to hold whatever religious convictions their conscience dictates to them but endorses none.

I suspect Graham would not be so troubled if he thought his religion was gaining freedom while other false (in his opinion) religions were losing theirs.

And make no mistake: those who believe America should be a Christian nation and governed according to the teachings of Jesus would abuse the freedoms of non-Christians if they were in power.

The problem with most religions is that they lay claim to having THE truth. That is the reason I agree that all religions aren't equal. They can't all be true. Not a good basis for government. The authority for our government comes from the consent of the governed, not from some God.

Science Superior To Theology

It was a little known proponent of freethought by the name of Caleb Marshall Landers who wrote these words more than a century ago:

When we attempt to compare the teachings of science, which reveals nature's laws to the comprehension of the average human intellect, with the teachings of revelation, as they are unfolded or explained by the so-called science of theology, we perceive how much more satisfactory the laws and movements of nature are, than is the entire system of theology, with all the absurd twaddle about angry gods and devils, heavens and hells, that theologic priests have been able by the revealed word of God to invent and endeavor to substantiate, or make real, we easily see there is no comparison between the two, for nature is all that is grand and great and true, and can be, and is so proved by science, while theology, based on revelation, is the quintessence of ignorance, imagination and falsehood.

Nature, as taught by astronomy, for one example is the great reality, the great truth, and the same is true of mathematics, and other of the sciences, while theology is wholly fiction, invention, and absurdity, one is real and free as air to any who will study it, while the other has an excessive price, and when that is paid, you have simply guess work and arrogant assumption, and it results as it is easy to see, in an immense difference, there is in favor of nature over revelation of the Bible, as we have it.

This was written not too long after Darwin rocked the religious world with his startling ideas about evolution; not too long after the science of geology made the story of Noah's Ark indefensible; for that matter, right about the time science developed the germ theory of disease, thereby exonerating imps and demons.

It is a bit shocking that in our enlightened day theologians still have so large an audience. Every time there is a catastrophic natural disaster such as a volcano, flood, hurricane or earthquake the "debate" about God's role in nature begins anew. Well do I remember when AIDS was beginning to get wide coverage in the news media how the fundamentalists had a field day pronouncing it a curse of God sent to punish the "Sodomites"!

I believe Landers would be quite shocked and disappointed if he were alive today and could see how -- after all the advances the scientific method has made and the astounding amount of practical information about the human body, life on earth, and the universe it has revealed to us -- theology still holds sway over so many minds.

It seems the need to believe is greater than the need to know.

Why Worship God?

That Groping The Elephant type of question arrived in my e-mail box yesterday. The attempted answer comes from Frederica Mathewes-Green of Kyria.

The first observation was this one:

But in the Bible, the main thing people who've encountered God say is that he's the opposite of ordinary humans. He's holy.

Interesting. My chief beef about the traditional understanding of God is that it makes him either cruel or at the least uncaring. To say God is the opposite of us humans does make sense if we consider that it would be considered wrong for humans to stand by idly and allow evil to flourish even as we had it within our power to prevent it. But we are told this holy God does this, and usually we are told it is necessary he do it in order to preserve freewill. Of course we see no problem with law authorities preventing crime and thus thwarting the criminal's intent. So I consider that an evasion.

So, okay. Maybe this idea of God makes him the opposite of us humans -- but hardly my idea of holy.

The Epicurean riddle still seems as daunting as ever:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

Back to the article. After alluding to such biblical witnesses of God such as Isaiah and Peter and their fearful reactions, Mathewes-Green writes:

That's what people who have "been there" report: God is "other," he's inexpressibly wonderful. When you experience him, you suddenly see how much you need to change. And that's worship in a nutshell. God doesn't command us to do this; it's more like he warns us that this is what will happen. Get ready, because his presence is going to knock you over.

Personally, I'm not convinced by such hearsay evidence and certainly have never "been there" in God's presence. Even the lady I wrote about the other day in my post on near-death experiences who claimed God actually tapped her on her shoulder did not report such a reaction. Perhaps that's because modern theologies tend to make God more a friend than a King.

The short answer to the question Why Worship God? seems to be: because that is what tradition tells us we should do.

No Faith Required

I confess I don't understand the allure of religious faith. What's wrong with being religious about something that is known and understandable -- the cosmos, for example?

The Pope's recent performance praying before an admitted (even by the Catholic Church) fraud -- although, I suppose, a pious one -- is something a bit hard for me to understand. A CNN report of the event contains this paragraph:

The Catholic Church's official position regarding the shroud is that it's an important tool for faith regardless of its authenticity.

But how, why?

Pope Benedict says the message of the famous shroud is about Jesus' victory over death and sin. Why a piece of humbuggery would be considered an appropriate faith-building symbol for this is beyond my ability to comprehend.

But perhaps that is just what we should expect from religions built upon events that allegedly occurred centuries in the past.

On the other hand, religious humanism and naturalism are always fresh, always relevant. And best of all, no faith is required.

Naked Truth About The Afterlife

The problem I have with near-death experiences as proof of an afterlife is that they are just that. They come from people who came close to dying, maybe briefly qualified as being clinically dead before rallying back to the land of the living, but they were not dead dead.

I've had a deep interest in the subject ever since my mom's former cardiologist, Dr. Maurice Rawlings, wrote a couple of books on the subject detailing his experiences with the revived. I followed those with books by other experts, Moody, Ring.

One thing struck me about these experiences. They mostly seem to have a dreamlike quality to them. They seem not unlike hallucinations - which I think is a better explanation than that they are evidence of any type of post-mortem reality.

Even if you don't believe in an afterlife you should get a kick from this story, Near death experiences help some believe without seeing.

One lady, a nudist, had a NDE and met Benjamin Frankilin. Yes, that Benjamin Franklin. There he stood before her "naked except for belt, socks, boots and watch fob." Nothing strange about a disembodied spirit being so attired, huh?

If that isn't strange enough, another lady had the experience of meeting God personally. When asked to describe what God looked like, she replied, "Well he was very good-looking and very, very tall. He was just an average man."

Well, that's very nice to know.

But I Can't See Any God

In my post for yesterday I wondered "aloud" why God put so much stock in our seeing what is invisible. Truth be told, I was expressing my wonderment at those who by faith choose to believe elaborate theologies, even about God himself. What I had in mind when I wrote that was actually a quote from the New Testament book of Hebrews: "It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king's anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27 in the New Living Translation).

Diane wrote in with a good observation: "...electricity and micro waves are invisible too, their actions are visible; air---can't see it, but a tornado proves it exists, etc. Mankind might get bored if everything were visible."

Perhaps. Yet the evidence of electricity, micro waves and air are readily apparent and easily tested and understood with the scientific method. God is another matter.The cause of so much of the disputation about the subject seems to be that faith allows that just about anything can be thrown into the mix when discussing the invisible God.

What isn't as frequently discussed is whether this invisibility and the lack of testability of the God hypothesis doesn't instead point to God not existing, or perhaps being something of a metaphor for the laws of nature (my view), or at the very least something vastly different from the popular conception.

A story I have frequently encountered in Christian literature is that the first man to fly into space, the late Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, made the statement: "I don't see any God up here." That seems to be a myth, anti-Communist propaganda spread during the heat of the Cold War. But it seems to represent something of a sore point with believers. As far as our current state of knowledge goes, we don't know that God exists; at most we can only believe based on faith.

Doesn't that make all the warring over the subject a very sad commentary on human behavior?

No Doubting Thomases Allowed?

Paul the Apostle: "For all that is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23b, Douay-Rheims Bible).


The Evangelical Magazine Christianity Today is currently conducting a poll concerning the question: Is doubt sinful? This aroused my curiosity, because in my opinion it seems the more educated a believer is, the more likely they are to admit "I may be wrong." It seems to me that the weaker minds are the ones that cling tenaciously to the security blankets of their faith. Interesting it is when we find religious icons such as Mother Teresa who were plagued by doubt. But it happens. So I am interested in how CT's reader's poll will turn out.

The poll answer choices are:

Yes, it denies what God has revealed about himself through Christ and Scripture.

Yes, persistent doubt is sinful.

Maybe, it depends on what the doubt leads a believer to do.

No, it is a natural human response to having faith.

No, doubt helps us test and strengthen faith.

Religious faith is one of the most difficult subjects to discuss with a person of faith. It really isn't very open to discussion. It seems to be as much a conviction as a belief. The more one involves their emotions, the less likely they are to give conflicting evidence a hearing. And true believers tend to be very emotional!

Religious faith is something that does involve deep emotions. God is considered by many folks to be the "last hope" when their lives get topsy-turvy or seem to be crumbling down around them. As a drowning man will grasp at straws in an attempt to remain alive, so will a troubled soul often turn to God for help. At such a time intellectual difficulties just don't seem to factor in.

Because so many people do derive hope and comfort from their religious beliefs, it is seen as bad manners to critically analyze religion. I can't help but wonder why God would be so elusive, so seemingly absent in what is purported to be his creation, why would he want people to put so much stock in seeing what is invisible?