Weekly Groper Poll: How Would You Respond To Epicurus?

One of my favorite old time philosophers is Epicurus. For today's Weekly Groper Poll I am going to ask you to pretend you've just stepped into a time machine.

You are now traveling back in time, going back more than two-thousand years, back to ancient Athens, back to the time when Epicurus flourished.

The door of the time machine has now opened and you step out of it to find yourself in Epicurus' famous Garden, where his followers regularly gather to listen eagerly as the wise old teacher imparts his wisdom.

He is speaking now. You listen as the great teacher speaks and hear him say:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

His eyes now meets yours and he waits as if he expects a reply from you.

(I know, ridiculous scenario and his question was rhetorical; but play along anyway.)

My poll question this week is: How would you respond to Epicurus' famous riddle?

O Father, Where Art Thou?

As I lay in bed last night waiting for sleep to overtake me I was reglancing through Rabbi Harold Kushner's book, Who Needs God. Randomly I found myself at one of the last chapters, Why Is God So Hard To Find? Why indeed? I wondered to myself as I began to read.

He started with a Hassidic story about a sage who came home one day and found his young daughter crying. Upon investigation the sage found that his daughter had been playing hide-and-go-seek, and when she had hidden herself from her friends (evidently doing such a good job they could not find her at all) she became upset to learn that they had eventually given up and went on to other games.

Then Kushner writes:

As the sage comforted her, he mused to himself, "I wonder if this is how God feels. He threatened that if we abandoned His ways, he would hide His face from us and deprive us of His presence. I wonder if God has managed to hide from us so successfully that we have given up looking for Him and have gone off in other directions. And I wonder if God feels lonely and abandoned."

I didn't stick around much longer to get the good Rabbi's answer as somewhere around that point my eyes grew heavy and the book fell to the bed. I was sound asleep.

But it's morning now, and even though I didn't pick up the book again, that story and question are still on my mind as I start my day.

I would have asked the sage "Why - if God now feels lonely and abandoned - does he not come out of hiding and rejoin us?"

What is sometimes called the Hiddenness of God is probably the biggest difficulty I have in conceiving of God in personal terms. That and the problem of evil. Really, in my mind the two are connected. If God were good and God were not in hiding, could this sad old world look the way it does? It isn't the problem of pain per se that does it for me. We could perhaps explain a bit of it, or at least the fact that some evil is going to occur if freedom is allowed. But my problem is the unrestrained amount of evil, the fact that the evil of severe suffering goes on and on and on and on....

In The Expanded Quotable Einstein one of my favorite sages writes a letter in which he bluntly suggests:

Why do you write to me "God should punish the English"? I have no close connection to either one or the other. I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.

Sounds about right to me.

When I was in business school I became friends with a fellow student who was a Baptist pastor and former missionary in the Philippines. He and I used to kick around religious ideas a lot. He was some twenty years my senior but felt someone still older and more experienced than he might be able to help. He invited a theologian (who had founded a local theological seminary) friend of his to preach at his church one Sunday morning and invited me along to hear the message, which it turned out was inspired by me and offered in no small part for my personal benefit.

Though it has been quite long ago, I still remember well the event and the message my friend's friend (who went on to become my friend too, despite my skepticism) was titled: Where Is The God Of Elijah, And Where Are The Elijahs Of God? The message was not so different from that of Kushner's sage: God has hidden himself from us because of our lack of faith.

Personally, I think if a personal God exists, he could come out of hiding and cure unbelief rather quickly and decisively. But I tend to think the problem is that we have been misled by anthropomorphic thinking.

That All Important Faith Question

There was a good response to this week's Groper Poll: Agree or disagree: Faith gives us assurance about things we cannot see?

That theme inspired my next few posts, especially the one about what I call the Elevator Of Reason.

While most of you expanded on your "yes" or "no" answers, I'm just hitting the highlights here. I invite everyone who hasn't done so to go back and read the full answers. But, in brief, here is what was generated in response to my question:

Sammy: Yes, faith can give us assurance about things we cannot see, but that faith must be questioned rigorously.

Georgia Mountain Man: I agree. Faith can be assuring.

Anonymous: Once I lost my faith I lost my peace of mind. Now I just live with the many, many questions.

Don: I would agree that it gives assurance to many. But, is it appropriate for faith to do that?

Erika: I guess I agree for those who have faith, it gives them assurance. I naturally don't think like that; I prefer to examine all possibilities than to have blind faith in anything.

Rainlillie: I disagree. Every day I see the results of my faith in my marriage and my faith in God.

Diane: I agree a bit with everyone. Faith is very closely tied to hope.

My policy is not to directly respond to the comments in answer to poll questions. I want these polls to be a completely open forum. I like getting to know my readers a little better and this is a fun way to do it. And also it stimulates my own thinking process.

I didn't post a response of my own because I think my position fairly comes across in my setup of the question.

When I write about "people of faith" I'm speaking about those who, as the Apostle Paul put it, "live by faith, not by sight." I'm referring to those folks who make faith the basis of their worldview as opposed to reason. For my part, I completely reverse Paul and live by sight rather than faith.

A complaint I often get comes from those who believe they do both. They imply they walk by faith AND sight, using reason AND faith.

Using that same New Living Translation that I used in forming my poll question, let's drop down to verse three in Hebrews chapter 11. There we read:

By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.

Now that may be exactly the truth. There is no way I can prove it didn't happen exactly that way. The person of faith can stand on the above statement of faith and how can they be refuted?

But the person who sees no need to make leaps of faith is free to use reason and the scientific method to investigate the matter. Even if we go as far as we can and still end up with "I don't know" as an answer, it doesn't prove the above proposition is the correct one. Filling in points of ignorance with "God did it" is what has been sarcastically called "The God of the Gaps."

If it gives people assurance or comfort to believe things they cannot logically prove, so be it. I can't live that way, but that's just me.

What concerns me the most, however, is when these people of faith attempt to impose their views on everyone else as is done in many countries in the world, and as some would love to do here in our own country. The voice of reason must never be stifled by the faithful.

The God Question: Why Ask Why?

In a way I envy those who say they never think about the God question, never question whether this amazing Cosmos was designed for a reason, whether we humans might not have been made for a purpose. Those are religious questions that the majority of us grapple with, or have grappled with at some point in our lives, if for no other reason than we were raised from our earliest times to think of existence that way. It sure saves time and mental fatigue to ignore such questions.

One of the questions I've been asked and one that I see posed to flat-out atheists (of which I don't consider myself one) is: Why spend so much time on a subject you don't believe in?

Why indeed?

Since the overwhelming majority of us do grapple with these questions, I would turn this around on the underwhelming minority who just take things for granted. Why do you never ponder that lure of the transcendental? Maybe you once did at some point in your life and just dismissed the matter as unworthy of further thought and consideration. Maybe you were raised to believe such things just aren't so and don't matter.

One of the great philosopher/theologians from days of yore was Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in a prayerful meditation: "Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."

That may be so or it may not be so. But there can be no denying that religion, religious philosophy, spirituality, are matters of great importance in this modern age, even as they always have been. Although science has conquered ignorance and has provided many answers for us, it has not banished religious faith from the scene.

Whether humanity's restless search for God or the Ultimate Answer comes from God (as Augustine thought) or solely from within, the result of our complex minds and the human brain's propensity to connect dots, it is something that most of us simply can't ignore.

I started with "[i]n a way I envy those who never think about the God question," but mostly I don't. The matter is there still, even if one chooses to ignore or suppress it. Other philosophies, even those that aren't explicitly religious, still serve the purpose of filling the void.

Even the staunch atheist Richard Dawkins, whom I mentioned in posts earlier this week, could say in agreement with something another scientist - Ursula Goodenough - wrote about in The Sacred Depths Of Nature, namely, that science itself can be a "a wellspring of solace and hope": "If that is religion, then I am a deeply religious man" (A Devil's Chaplain, page 146).

I think most of us are, even if we don't admit it.

"He Is Too Open-minded"

The "he" in that sentence is me. A good friend of mine who is on a spiritual quest of her own discusses religion - mainly her Christianity (which she is struggling with) - with me all the time. Her brother, a Baptist deacon, often gets needled with further questions, the direct result of some of our those conversations.

The reason I don't try to proselytize or convert people to my way of thinking is because - for one thing - it couldn't be done. My views are the results of my own spiritual journey. I encourage people to travel fearlessly on their own. I do like to encourage people to think. I will ask them what they think and why they think that way. If they have questions I will often point to resources I think might be of help.

In my friend's case, I gave her several books that compared the various strands of Christian thought. She wanted to understand a little more about other religious viewpoints so I gave her some books to help on that. Her children - who go to her deacon brother's church - all get bent out of shape if their mother is reading something "questionable."

She tries to avoid mentioning my name anymore, because that will always, without fail, elicit the response: "There you go listening to Doug again." We always laugh about that. And she goes right on "listening to Doug," or in other words, asking me questions that I try not so much to answer as to show her how to answer for herself. Of course when she or anyone asks me for my opinion, that is freely offered as well. But always with a qualifier like "here's the way I look at."

Her brother has warned her not to listen to me because - get this! - "he is too open minded."

I remember from youth the older Christian folks in my church warning me: "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

Open and honest questioning just isn't encouraged by the faithful of many religious traditions. One reason, as I suggested before, is that faith is valued above reason. And with revealed religions - religions that claim to have a direct revelation from God - there is nothing to question. Here is what God said, now believe it. Period.

When people ask me about my religion or religious philosophy I often tease them with "I'm a member of the Church of the Open-minded." That's a religion I can unreservedly recommend. It is a path built around the things YOU have discovered for yourself as either true or approaching truth, after having fairly investigated. And with this approach, your mind is always open to further light that may emerge later.

Too open-minded? Nah, I don't think so.

Riding The Elevator Of Reason

Update: One of the hazards of writing blog posts hurriedly in the wee hours of the morning before I have to be at work is making annoying errors because I'm still half asleep. I've corrected this post title. It was meant to be Riding The Elevator Of Reason, not Riding The Elevator Or Reason. That latter really made no sense, did it?


In today's post I want to go back to the article I linked to yesterday and look at another impression from Dawkin's visit to that university.

During a question and answer segment Paul Copan, a philosophy and ethics professor, asked Dawkins the question: “Why should the atheist believe his thoughts are more rational than a theist?” It will be Professor Copan's turn next week when he delivers a talk entitled “The Fact of God.”

I point out that in the debate between Atheism (non-belief in a personal God) and Theism (belief in a personal God), there is an often overlooked middle ground that I and perhaps some of my readers stand upon. That is the idea that there is a non-personal conception of God as an organizing power or principle, or a "ground of all being," or maybe just as a symbol of the ultimate goal of spirituality. While technically speaking I suppose I could be categorized as an atheist in that I don't have a belief in a personal God, I choose not to wear that label because it would be widely misunderstood as an indication that I believe religion and spirituality are not important matters. I assure you that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Now I am also an agnostic in that my position is that I believe it isn't possible to definitely prove that a personal God exists. I don't believe that we have access to that knowledge. What you need is a leap of faith in order to claim to get there, and many of us are unable or unwilling to make that leap.

While I would be as eager to hear Copan as I would be to hear Dawkins speak on the subject - no wait; let me change that. I would more eager to hear Copan speak of the Fact of God than I would be to hear Dawkins lecture. If someone claims to be able to objectively prove the fact that a personal God exists, I would be most eager to hear them explain. I've spent my life until now seeking that knowledge.

As for Copan's question to Dawkins, I found early on in my own personal quest that believers in a personal God are going to lose the logical argument every time. I think it is a mistake for believers to attempt to wage their war on the grounds of reason instead of resting solely on faith. I'm not saying that it is illogical to believe in God. What I'm saying is that logic IF CONSISTENTLY APPLIED has a way of redefining your beliefs about God (think back to my remarks about a middle ground).

I noticed something after reading from the greatest theistic philosophers. They all share something in common, besides their belief in a personal God. It is this: they attempt to take a ride on the elevator of reason to prove the existence of a personal God. But they every one step off once they reach their desired destination. This personal God, they tell us, is the Supreme First Cause and Intelligent Designer that conceived and put everything in motion. Ask them who designed God and the conversation ends. The elevator has stopped and a "not in order" sign has been hung hung upon the door. We are encouraged to ask why - but only up to a point!

Faith ends there. Faith can "assure" you that the trail ends with a personal God. As Blaise Pascal wrote: "The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." Faith tells you there is nothing more to see, just go on home, folks. Faith is the ultimate destination.

Now some of us just can't rest there so contentedly. If you tell me you believe in God solely based on faith, there is not much more that can be said except that some of us don't stop there. Some of us believe reason is the best path to understanding. Maybe I would ask, why get on the elevator at all if you don't plan to ride it all the way up?

How Rude To Call Me A Fool

No doubt the best known and most prolific spokesperson for the non-theistic worldview is biologist Richard Dawkins. He terms his view, appropriately enough, scientific rationalism.

Recently he spoke at southern Florida's Nova Southeastern University.

To call the man controversial and blunt in his assessments of the views of others would not be understatements. In one of his books he calls my religious philosophy (pantheism) "sexed-up atheism." He suggests that those who believe in a theistic God are delusional (as in his book The God Delusion). Some folks don't appreciate such directness.

One of the attendees at Dawkins' Nova appearance was a 22-year-old business student who said:

We respect him, but he's not respectful of my beliefs. I don’t like his manner. We believe in what the Bible says.


By extension the reverse must also be true. She isn't respectful of Dawkins' views, either.

Many believers in God are troubled by those of us who don't share their beliefs and, while allowing us our right to think as we like, would prefer we just shut the hell up.

Dawkins might be blunt, even rude, but he is no more so than the Bible believer who would point to Psalms 14:1 and echo that one who denies God is a fool. Even Jesus is reported to have upbraided as fools those who didn't believe what the Jewish prophets of old had spoken (Luke 24:25).

This blade of alleged foolish belief cuts both ways. There seems no way to disagree on such a basically important worldview issue without at least somewhat insulting your opponent's intelligence.

I'm sure my blog comes across that way, as insulting to some well-meaning folks. I really regret that. I have great sympathy for those who hold religious beliefs in such a way that honest examination is nearly impossible for them. The opposite of faith is doubt, and the faithful are taught that doubt is very wrong. I understand. I was there once.

But according to my mature thinking, doubting and questioning are twin pillars of wisdom.

Weekly Groper Poll - Agree or Disagree: Faith

Religious skeptics and freethinkers often get bad press and negative reactions for their insistence on rigorously questioning authority. At the same time religious believers or "people of faith," as they are sometimes called, often get loftily praised for "keeping the faith."

Whenever I write something negative about "people of faith" I will inevitably get a comment or two defending them. Which is fine with me. That's what this forum is for: to grope the elephant. But it seems that I'm always explaining that the faith I'm criticizing isn't hopeful optimism, but rather blind acceptance.

For example, we have many recorded instances of people willingly going to the flames or the lions in order to cinch their heavenly mansion, and suicide bombers willingly forfeiting this life in order to gain paradise and x-many virgins, or whatever. That type of thinking always fascinates me. Here you have people willingly giving up the only life they know they are in possession of and exchanging it for a life they can only "know" to be true by seeing through the eyes of faith.

Most folks wouldn't buy a used a car or house this way - sight unseen and totally at the word of another who also has not seen the seen or examined the goods - yet they will drastically alter or even forfeit their life for such glitterings.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that Christians should "live by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). The Epistle to the Hebrews - which many Christians feel was penned by Paul (but that point doesn't really matter for my purpose, for it is still part of their "inspired" writings) - gives the biblical definition of faith as follows:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb 11:1, NKJV).

The New Living Translation also puts it well:

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

My Groper Poll for this week is:

Agree or disagree: Faith gives us assurance about things we cannot see?

Hello. My Name Is Doug. I'm Not Fully Human

Now this is something I never realized until I read the United Methodist Church's website page on Our Christian Roots.

Under the section on Human Beings they say:

We believe that God created human beings in God’s image.

We believe that humans can choose to accept or reject a relationship with God.

We believe that all humans need to be in relationship with God in order to be fully human.

Ouch! What a very unnice thing to say about those of us who aren't into relationships with a Trinitarian God.

According to Wikipedia the United Methodist Church is the "largest mainline denomination" in the United States with some 7.85 million members (12 million worldwide). Interestingly enough, it is the denomination to which Pastor Mark Theilen of Ten Things Christians Do Not Have To Believe fame belongs. Incidentally, the tenth item on Theilen's Ten Things list is: "It's OK for Christians to be judgmental and obnoxious." Ahem!

I'm reminded here of the old Greek philosopher Xenophane's words:

If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen would draw them to look like oxen, and each would make the gods bodies have the same shape as they themselves had.

I think it much more likely that we humans have made our gods in our own image. I'll draw a bigger circle here - one large enough to take in my fellow humans who would deny to me full humanity for begging to differ with them about who is cast in whose image.

Thinking Like A Fundamentalist

Quite simply, I was raised from the very beginning to accept the Bible as the very Word of God, absolutely true in every detail and with no hint of error. That was the faith of my parents and the church we attended when I was growing up. This is the view of millions of Christians living today.

The modernist Bible scholars were deluded, I was taught to believe, and totally untrustworthy with regard to the things of God. They compromised by doubting God's revelation to man. They had mingled human reason with Divine truth. They were "wolves in sheep's clothing." They spoke the lingo of Christianity, but reasoned according to their sinful human nature.

The above cartoon is a good illustration of the way we believed. It was drawn by Christian cartoonist E. J. Pace early last century, as the modernism versus fundamentalism battle was in full swing and just before the famous Scopes' Monkey Trial, where a science teacher in my old home state of Tennessee was prosecuted for teaching evolution in his science class. Famous agnostic attorney Clarence Darrow and four-time presidential candidate and Christian Fundamentalist blowhard William Jennings Bryan descended upon the state to duke out the philosophies of humanism versus Judeo-Christianity.

The bottom line is and always has been: Is the Bible the product of man or God?

In the above cartoon we see a fellow I will call Billy Bible. That's what everyone in my neighborhood called religious nuts like me and my parents. I was at one time Billy Bible. Dressed in my Sunday Best for church and carrying my "marching orders" for this life tucked comfortably under my arm. When I was thirteen years old my mother bought me a nice Bible and wrote a little message in its front leafs. She told me it was my "road map to Heaven." And that when she was gone and no longer around to guide me, it would lead me into all truth and to a right relationship with God.

And then I made the mistake of actually reading - no, of studying - the contents of the book for myself. Not only that, I was forced to admit to myself that the message it brought seemed at odds with modern scientific knowledge.

You can watch as cartoonist Pace traces this - what I call an - awakening but which he terms a descent. It starts with Billy Bible questioning the infallibility of the Bible. Today the popular term is inerrancy. Evolution is the next step, for teaching that we evolved from lower life forms rather than having been rolled out like modeling clay humans, fully formed in God's image. Well, evolution implies naturalism (although some Christians attempt to embrace it, it does undermine the miraculous intervention of God into history). So the next thing to be questioned is miracles. And, hey, no miracles, no virgin birth of Jesus of Nazareth. If that goes, so does Jesus as God in human form.

At this point you will notice that Billy Bible has become one of those robed and educated Doctors of Divinity my mom always warned me about. These guys went to seminary and found out that through the study of ancient religious history and comparative religion, the Bible can be explained and understood quite nicely as a product of an emerging religious community, quite narrow in its scope.

As the "descent" continues the blood atonement of Jesus as a sacrificial lamb for the sins of the world is cast off as just so much primitive thinking. That is what damns you, folks. Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. Deny that he was who he said he is and did what the Bible says he did and you are in trouble. You are lost and on your way to Hell.

If all that is true it follows that Jesus was a man just like every other man and lived and died and is still dead. The resurrection of Jesus could only have been a myth or a hoax. The robed, liberal Bible-scholar preachers might give sop to the would-be believers in Jesus in teaching that the resurrection accounts found in the gospels are the idealized "visions" of Jesus' fervent followers, but this is strictly at odds with what the Bible clearly teaches.

Now you will note that Billy Bible has become ... what? ... isn't that Sigmund Freud, the well known atheist? The man who taught that religion is an infantile fantasy? Well, whoever he has become he is finally seen stepping from the stair of agnosticism onto the bottom floor, atheism. And many liberal Christian Bible scholars are every whit as atheistic as I became - in the sense of not believing in a theistic God, not in the sense of denying that God as a concept is valid.

Well, for me it meant being honest enough to surrender the label "Christian." While I appreciate what liberal Christians are trying to do in modernizing the Bible's message, and find myself in much agreement with them, I still fault them for being fence-straddlers. They don't fully believe their Bible, interpret it with light provided by human reason, yet will not let it go as an authority and embrace the humanism that is in truth the basis of their worldview.

I suppose there is more money to be made in being a professional Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. That a humanist (or, to be blunt, an infidel) can make more money teaching and preaching a Bible they no longer accept as truth than in just stepping out and saying "hey, folks, sorry to say but I believe that religion is fully and completely the product of human minds."

Then there is that great mass of humanity, those who are at least nominal or cultural Christians and who just don't recognize what the issue is, who depend on their priests and pastors for their learning, who keep Bibles in their homes more as a good-luck charm than as a book to be studied, believed and obeyed (or rejected altogether as a divine revelation). I believe these are the folks who misunderstand me the most.

Again, it comes down to: Is the Bible the Word of God or the words of men? Shall it be obeyed or examined honestly?

Groping With Jesus

I have to say that - at least in the United States - there is no more influential religious figure than Jesus of Nazareth. In my library are many books about him. I have read many others besides these down through the years. I know I have not even skimmed the surface of books written about him.

Of course my main information source for making my own personal assessment of the man and his teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. My approach is from a historical perspective (speaking of historical approaches, I hope everyone reads Don's helpful post item about the birth of the historical Jesus) and represents an attempt to place the man and his message in their proper time and setting.

My idea is that the religious leaders of our day have ignored this proper foundation and have instead created a bogus gospel of Jesus. Instead of preaching the gospel Jesus preached, they spread a false gospel. No doubt many do this ignorantly, only following what was handed down to them. Others, I am convinced, knowingly distort Jesus message in the interest of doing good business. Jesus and his message wasn't popular in his day, and it would be even more unpopular in these materialistic times.

But I asked what you guys think about Jesus and received some very thought-provoking responses from you. Here are the highlights:

Sammy: I believe that Jesus was an actual historical person and obviously was a wonderful teacher of morality.

Georgia Mountain Man: I think that Jesus, or someone who was ultimately given that name, probably existed. He may have been executed for his declarations or because he was thought to be a lunatic. No matter what, he became a martyr and all of the stories of his divinity, ultimately, resulted in what we have today.

Don: He was a son of God as we are sons of God. There were many sons of God in the Bible.

Diane: I'm afraid I don't have enough facts to say who Jesus was. His story, told by others, shows a decent, caring man, who greatly impressed others with his calm assurance of right and wrong. Love personified.

MS Day Dreamer: My viewpoint is pretty much that the bible is a collection of stories written by man. A collection of Myths. As such one of the biggest myths is the myth of Jesus being the son of god.

Shannon: [U]nless I'm directly asked, it's not something that is on my mind or that I think about.

Rainlillie: Jesus is the son of God. An example of what mankind should be. My savior and a great source of inspiration, wisdom, hope and as Diane said: "Love personified."

If You Don't Believe In My God, Keep It To Yourself

Not all the religious nuts live down here in my beloved Bible Belt. Here is a story from Pennsylvania about an inconsiderate, probably well-meaning but obviously misguided fellow who has chosen to show his faith in Jesus by erecting crosses on his property. One rather large, lighted cross shines directly into his neighbor's home. She has complained to the authorities and now the man, Carl Behr, has been ordered to take down his cross. Of Course Mr. Behr is spinning this as persecution of his Christian faith.

Mr. Behr's viewpoint is that:

In today’s age, what have we come to where we can’t even say ‘Merry Christmas’ to somebody without offending somebody’s rights? Or, a manger scene can’t go up on county property because atheism is just getting too strong.

And:

You know, if you don’t believe in the Lord, keep it to yourself. It’s almost like the faithful people can’t even talk about their faith anymore because they’re going to offend somebody. It’s not right.

In other words, if you don't see things his way, just shut up about it.

For a group of people who are allegedly being silenced, some of these Christians sure do make a lot of noise and create a ton of friction with their arrogance.

But beyond that there is also this issue of atheism allegedly becoming so strong. Well, sure, if you take the approach that a disbeliever in Christianity is an atheist then Behr is correct. But it is a big world out there. Not only are there atheists, there are believers in other Gods and other forms of spirituality. Modern men and women are increasingly coming to recognize the basic human right of mental freedom. If that attitude is atheism, may it spread like wildfire throughout the whole world!

Waiting For A Miracle

I have a friend whose mother has been desperately ill with congestive hisart failure and other sufferings related to that. She has been hospitalized since right after the elections in November. My friend is about the same age as I, single and living at home with his parents. This has really been emotionally taxing on him and his family. Thanksgiving and Christmas were both spent with the absence of the mother from their home. Very sad.

I was speaking to him yesterday, listening, trying to be encouraging. He is a nominal Christian. I never even knew he believes in God or religion at all, even though I have known him for almost two decades. It was just something he never talked about and not something he is known for or that defines him in any way.

As he was frankly telling me that his mother wasn't going to make it, explaining that her organs are slowly shutting down, that a machine is doing her breathing for her, that she is rarely and then only briefly conscious (somewhat), that the doctors have called the family together to explain there is nothing more they can do and advised unhooking her and allowing nature to take its course - "but we will do whatever you decide," they added - the decision was made to leave her on the machine.

After all this explanation my friend tells me that the family is holding out hope that God will heal her and restore her to some semblance of health. "He can do that; he has the power." And as my friend told me this he gestured with his finger pointed towards the sky.

The doctors, he tells me, has given her from three or four days to three or four weeks to live.

I know that my mother, a devout believer in the Bible and Christianity, would never unhook me or my brother from life support if the decision were hers. She would pray and go on hoping for a miracle. She could never live with the thought that maybe she hastened the death of a loved one whom God might have raised up from their deathbed in his own time if only she hadn't stepped in to "play God."

I think my friend and his family are there, in that situation.

If it were my mother in that shape, I think I would not let the matter go on for too long before I allowed nature to take its course and allowed her to slip out of her suffering. If I became convinced the situation was hopeless or that expectation of a realistic recovery was not possible, I would let her go.

In fact, I did have to make a decision something like that about my father. He was severely damaged and disabled by strokes, a 72-year-old invalid. He was a high risk for any surgery because of atherosclerosis. And then they diagnosed his lung cancer. I thought about it and made the decision to have the doctors administer palliative care, rather than aggressively attack the disease. As it turned out, he lived for nearly another year in apparently no worse health than he had endured for the past several years, and then suddenly succumbed to a massive heart attack in his sleep.

For my friend I could only offer him emotional support and a sympathetic ear. Advice that isn't asked for is meddling, so I decided to keep my opinion to myself. He is under and has been under enough stress, with more yet to come.

Whereas I might once have been conflicted about a matter like this, especially when I was deeply into a religion that regards death - in the words of the Apostle Paul - as "the last enemy," I now realize that sometimes death is our friend. As Jud Crandall in the movie Pet Sematary said, "Sometimes dead is better." Death is perfectly natural and a part of life itself. I don't deny that death can indeed be untimely in some situations. I'm just suggesting that sometimes it can be very timely ... if we allow nature to take its course.

But a most sad situation is having faith in a God who intervenes and occasionally works miracles, sometimes in direct answer to prayer, and then having to come to terms with why he didn't step in for your case. Personally, I don't miss that.

That Pesky National Motto Of Ours

Rep Randy Forbes of Virginia is sponsoring a bill, Reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions. It is now in the House Subcommittee on the Constitution. It is H.Con. Res.13. The text of the bill as it now stands is as follows:

Reaffirming `In God We Trust' as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions.

Whereas `In God We Trust' is the official motto of the United States;

Whereas the sentiment, `In God We Trust', has been an integral part of United States society since its founding;

Whereas in times of national challenge or tragedy, the people of the United States have turned to God as their source for sustenance, protection, wisdom, strength, and direction;

Whereas the Declaration of Independence recognizes God, our Creator, as the source of our rights, `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.';

Whereas the national anthem of the United States says `praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation . . . and this be our motto: in God is our trust.';

Whereas the words `In God We Trust' appear over the entrance to the Senate Chamber and above the Speaker's rostrum in the House Chamber;

Whereas the oath taken by all Federal employees, except the President, states `I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.';

Whereas John Adams said, `Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.';

Whereas if religion and morality are taken out of the marketplace of ideas, the very freedom on which the United States was founded cannot be secured;

Whereas as President Eisenhower said and President Ford later repeated, `Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor, an American way of life.'; and

Whereas President John F. Kennedy said, `The guiding principle and prayer of this Nation has been, is now, and ever shall be `In God We Trust.': Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress reaffirms `In God We Trust' as the official motto of the United States and supports and encourages the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions.

Whereas we have no more seriously pressing matters or problems facing these United States it makes perfect sense to waste time on a feel-good measure such as this. Right?

At what point does religious belief morph into superstition? Maybe at the point of needing to have "In God We Trust" on our money, in our federal oaths, posted in public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions?

Groper Poll #4: What Do You Think About Jesus?

Without a doubt Jesus of Nazareth has cast a long shadow across the religious landscape of United States history. In fact, more Americans claim to be Christians (followers of Jesus) than followers of any other religion, roughly three out of four of our citizens.

Having reported that, it is fair to go on and suggest that opinions about Jesus vary somewhat among us, even among those claiming to be his followers.

The highly readable Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, made the following startling argument:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

So he give us, basically, two choices. Either Jesus was mad or he was divine. He absolutely disallows the view that Jesus is simply a moral teacher, but that is based on the assumption that one has studied and understood Jesus' teaching. In my personal experiences I have found that a whole lot of folks are grossly ignorant about Jesus' message.

But there is also this thing known as The Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars who have made it their mission to go over the words attributed to Jesus in the Bible (and even a few extra-biblical sources) and attempt to decide which are authentic sayings and which aren't. So I am allowing something that Lewis doesn't seem to take into consideration: Jesus may not have said every thing he is quoted as having said.

Then there is also a body of work from scholars such as George A. Wells, that interprets the Jesus of the gospels and popular Christianity as a mythical character. This doesn't seem to be a widespread belief, however.

My Groper Poll question this week is: What is your view about Jesus of Nazareth? Was he:

a) Divine (God or the Son of God)

b) a teacher of morality

c) a lunatic

d) a myth (or legend)

e) something else

And please feel free to explain the reason(s) for your answer. As always, I will go over what my thoughtful readers think in a post later in the week. My answer to the question will appear later in the comments section.

Wanting It To Be So

If I had to hazard a guess I would say that of those who have a definite belief in a personal God, the main reason for doing so is probably because they wish it were so; no, I had better say it is because they want it to be so.

I do believe there is some mental conditioning and foundation for this. Many of us are raised to believe in a personal God. Many are impressed with the intricate (apparent) design of the universe and feel - using human analogies, I might add - a purposeful designer (God of Creation) must be back of it. Finally, if either or both of those two ideas are in place, a large number of people go on to experience what they think of and classify as a personal experience (sometimes epiphany) of God. For them they know there is a God because they feel it inside, down to their very core.

I did have the proper mental conditioning to believe in a personal God, and did accept that as completely as I did my belief in self. This works quite fine so long as you only travel in circles of folks that also believe in a personal God. When I began to encounter atheists and agnostics, I wanted to develop a more rational foundation for my belief in God.

Discussions and exchanges I had with unbelievers left me with something of the same feeling I had when as I child I used to talk about how I had the best mom and best dad in the whole world. Completely heartfelt, but hardly built upon the rules of sound logic. And even more hardly accepted by the others I spoke to about it.

The problem as I see it is that God's existence is not apparent. Having read the best thinkers on the subject, I have come to the conclusion that the most that can be said is that belief in God is not in and of itself unreasonable. But even that statement gets more problematic the more we attempt to define our concepts of God.

In my heart of hearts I wish there was an all powerful, kind and loving heavenly Father, who watched over us, protected us, granted us the desires of our heart through the power of our prayer, who noticed the good and bad things we do with an eye towards one day rewarding or punishing us accordingly, and then in the end will grant us everlasting life.

You could say I want that to be so. I haven't enough faith to reconcile such a view with the universe as I conceive it. I haven't even enough faith to pray "help thou my unbelief."

As I said, I have the proper mental conditioning. I was raised with a belief in God. The majority of humans throughout history have believed in God and I believe that is because our brains work in such a way as to produce such beliefs. I am as awed as anyone by the apparent "fine-tuning" of our universe. That is why I do believe in some type of organizing spirit within it. God as the laws of nature, as I tend to think of it, simply put. And, finally, I do have the personal spiritual feeling of a deep connectedness with the cosmos.

That is why, despite my attacks on what I think are unreasonable excesses in the belief in God, I do have a certain sympathy with believers. Beyond that there is that shared human hope that God does exists and does care. Really, I just don't know. I guess "I don't know" isn't a cop-out when it is sincerely uttered.

What Would Doug Do?

Okay, this is going to be one of those long, rambling personal essays of mine. Look. I even included a picture a friend snapped of me while I was looking out the door and philosophizing one winter day. I don't remember, but I think I was talking about the neighborhood animals who come visit me for handouts. I'm always ready to oblige. Food for my animal friends, I meant. But now that I think about it, I'm just as always ready to put my two cents' worth into just about any meaningful discussion.

Yesterday's post was about that idiotic question I keep hearing: What Would Jesus Do? This is supposed to be some profound way of deciding the proper or moral course of action. Perhaps the only question I find more annoying is What Would Reagan Do? Well, we'll never know because both of these gentlemen are dead now. So what we are really asking is "What do I think Jesus (or the Gipper) would do?"

I suggested we could feed any thinker, leader, or prominent person's name into that equation and get the same thing: an opinion about what we think so-and-so would do under similar circumstances. But so what? The bottom line, as my commenters Diane and "Mildred Ratched" suggested, really is, what would I (or you) do.

Mature adults should be able to think for themselves and sift through the market place of ideas and find useful rules to live by. And if you come up with some novel twists or something truly original (which I kind of doubt, because "there's nothing new under the sun" this far along in our evolution) - hey, so much the better. Put it out there. It might help someone else.

What would I do? What do I do when I navigate my way through life? I live according to what I call The One Commandment. Religious people sometimes smile at me when I say that, especially when they are used to long and challenging lists of do's and don'ts, acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

But I think the Golden Rule - treat others the way you want to be treated - is the true picture. Getting out a three-haired paint brush and trying to paint finer and finer details is overkill. The Gold Rule is straightforward enough, and anything additional is either commentary or bad advice.

Doug would and Doug does try to get the facts as best they can be discovered. It amazes me, it astounds me, it literally blows me away when people will pick up what Richard Dawkins has dubbed a meme and subscribe to it because ... well, I guess just because it sounds good and "seems" right. People love simplicity. Heck, I love simplicity when it is possible to achieve. But some things are less simple than others. Some things aren't simple at all.

Take, for example, the controversy in our nation over the extension of equal rights to gays. I keep hearing the same silly arguments ad infinitum. "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." "Homosexuality is against nature." "God condemns homosexuality as an abomination according to the Bible." "The acceptance of the gay lifestyle will threaten traditional marriage." And on and on it goes. These aren't considered opinions and arguments. They are slogans, memes.

What about abortion? "God forbids murder." "A fetus is a human life." "All those who are in favor of abortion have already been born." "Abortion is the taking of an innocent human life." I could on, but I'll stop here.

To be sure there are counter slogans and counter memes. But when one makes the effort to unpack the issues totally and start from scratch, one should be able to defend one's position without having to resort to simplicities. In the case of the above examples, the argument really is one of authority: God said it is wrong, so it is wrong. Period.

Again it brings us back to that question of a moral foundation. Is God the author of morality or is it something that has developed and evolved right along with humans? Make no mistake, humans are the authors of morality, and the book is still being written. I also think humans are the creator of God - as popularly conceived, I add - and not vice versa.

It seems that God has evolved right along with us. He no longer favors patriarchy. He no longer thinks slavery is a good idea. He is no longer a jealous God but is now himself a religious pluralist. Why, God has even become a capitalist according to some folks.

Or maybe as I believe the case to be, the change isn't with God but rather with those who believe in God.

Some of my esteemed readers misunderstand my motivation, I believe, when I rail against people of faith (here I mean blind, unquestioning religious faith, not reasonable hope and expectation) and those who "find comfort" in the belief in a personal God, a loving Heavenly Father. They seem to think I'm being intolerant or cruel.

That's not it, guys.

First, isn't there something a little smug about claiming to be tolerant? Of, in effect, saying "I think you're wrong as hell, but I, in my magnanimity, am going to be tolerant of your idiotic viewpoint"? I'm going to step out on a limb here and tell you people that I'm not really that tolerant of groundless, hurtful, or idiotic beliefs. Does that make me a bad guy?

NOW LET ME HASTEN TO ADD THAT I DO BELIEVE THAT EVERYBODY HAS THE SAME RIGHT I HAVE, TO FORM THEIR OWN OPINIONS AND TENACIOUSLY CLEAVE TO THOSE OPINIONS, EVEN IN THE FACE OF A MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE AGAINST THEM.

But I just am not, AM NOT, tolerant of harmful (against the One Commandment) and stupid ideas. I will speak out against them when given an opportunity and will encourage everyone who will listen and is able to think just a little deeper and separate the wheat from the chaff of their ideas.

And it goes without saying that there are those simple souls who need the comfort of an authority, who feel that to go against authority is "throwing out the baby with the bathwater." As, for example, my Mom and our opposing religious views. And I know many others who are like her. I am gentle with them and their viewpoints. They are usually the ones that at best will do what Pastor Thielen has done and come up with lists of things they don't really have to believe in order to be whatever they are claiming to be. In that case, a Christian. They, in effect, try to mitigate their authority. To them I try to be understanding, but I tell them frankly that I simply disagree. I even tell my mom that. I just don't don't badger her. I don't see the point.

Oh, well. Those who need a cane will probably appreciate the smooth handle and slip-reducing rubber tip. But to the rest I say: Throw away that cane and walk boldly on you own two feet!

What would Doug do? Doug will and does encourage everyone to think deeply and freely; to challenge and investigate; to turn over stones and look underneath; to look for evidence and not just the absence of evidence; to get all sides of an issue; to not be afraid to ask the difficult questions; to rid your intellectual barn of any sacred cows. In short, I urge and encourage everyone to rise above the thundering herd of followers. You've got this life, now live it to the fullest. And in the words of Ricky Nelson's song, "you can't please everyone, so you've gotta please yourself."

Okay, What would you guys do?

The Confusing Question Of Moral Foundations

Perhaps I should have just asked "how do you determine right from wrong in your actions." Everyone has a personal ethical system, even when they allegedly subscribe a popular system of morality.

My Groper Poll question for the week was:

Do you agree or disagree with the proposition: "Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction"?

I was contrasting the moral absolutism of Judeo-Christian ethics with the more situational ethics of humanism. Stacy said my question made her head hurt. Perhaps the setup, with the long quotations, was confusing and perhaps not the best way to go about this. I noticed my reader participation was down a bit for this one too. So Monday's poll question will be more straightforward.

As for those elephant gropers who did give this one a go, the highlights of their thoughts are below. Their entire comments are certainly worth going back to look over, but here they are in brief:

Georgia Mountain Man - Yes. One can know right from wrong without having been influenced by religion on ideologies. Obviously, religion has little to do with ethics.

Don - I would have to disagree with the proposition. It seems to me that the creation and use of "ideologies" is a natural process for we humans.

Diane - Only a fool could believe ethics needs any sort of sanction. There are right thing to do, wrong things to do, kind things to do and cruel things to do.

MS Day Dreamer - In my opinion, ethics and morality, can be very situational. Much like the law of physics. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Actions have consequences.

I didn't comment, so I'll weigh in now. In my mind it seems unquestionable that ethics is a totally human enterprise. Even Christians - with their What Would Jesus Do? - filter that through their own minds, so it really becomes "what do they think Jesus would do?"

And I've found their Christian ethics can be quite flexible. If they don't like something Jesus said - for example, when he told the rich young ruler who was wanting to know how he could enter God's Kingdom to give away all his money to the poor - Christians choose to either ignore that bit of advice or "interpret" it in a more consensus-friendly manner. Ahem.

Anyway, stay tuned. I'll do better with the next poll question, which will concern yet another controversial matter.

What Would Lao Tzu Do?

Or what would Confucius do? How about Epicurus - one of my favorites among the old-time philosophers - what would he do? Coming closer to our age, what would Thomas Jefferson do? I think he was one of the wisest of men of his era.

I once owned a book titled What Would Buddha Do? I read it, enjoyed it, then passed it along to a friend who was curious about Buddhism. That book was clearly a take off on the popular Christian mantra What Would Jesus Do?

If there are such books about Lao Tzu, Confucius, Epicurus, or Jefferson, I'm not aware of them. Neither do I hear the question what each of these or other great thinkers would do.

Because the Bible holds such a revered place in our nation's fabric, the question is very relevant to many folks here. In other parts of the world, the question What Would Jesus Do? would net you a confused look.

According to Christian theology Jesus is unique. He is the "only begotten son of God." He is God who left Heaven to come down to earth and take on the flesh of humanity. Very mind-boggling stuff. However, I don't believe a person reading the gospels the way you would read any other book and without "light" from the early Church Councils would reach such a conclusion.

Jesus himself, at least according to the Gospel of John, is the only way a human can reach God. And if that were so, it certainly would be very, very important to ask what he would do. He is, the gospel says, THE way, THE truth, and THE life.

The other fellows I mentioned above were just men like me. People who liked to think and to freely offer the fruits of their labors. None of them threatened you with Hell for ignoring their ideas.

It absolutely amazes me that a tyrant could be so influential, especially in this "land of the free, and the home of the brave."

If the preachers of the world preached Jesus' message the way Jesus preached it, I assure you they would mostly be preaching to empty seats.

The truth is, if Jesus were walking our streets today, preaching his "good news" of old, he would be regarded as an extremist fanatic - just as he was in his day. He might not get himself killed, but he most certainly would be ignored by the freedom-loving capitalistic masses.

What would Jesus do? Who cares? The other fellows, and scores of others worthy of mention, are very helpful in giving practical advice.

Evangelism Mom-style

My mother, whom I adore very much, is a very spiritual, very religious person. Those two things don't of necessity go together, of course.

With a mother's heart she steadfastly hopes for and in her way attempts to execute my return to the faith of my childhood.

My efforts to try to explain to her why that just isn't going to happen never get anywhere. For one thing, I don't try to deconvert Christians. If they want to press their views on me, I will resist. I will answer their questions about my worldview. I will answer their questions as to why I reject theirs. But with Mom, it just isn't worth it to me to press hard.

So here lately I notice our conversations are more about her faith, her beliefs about God. No Bible-thumping. Just this assumption of hers (and millions who think that way) that God has a master plan and has his reasons for everything he does or fails to do. That was a large portion of my conservation with her yesterday. I just listened without comment.

I don't believe in Hell, in a God who tortures his creatures there for eternity, in the need for "salvation." But it isn't worth it to me to upset her by explaining why. With a son's love I guess I will endure her evangelism and accept it as an expression of her love and concern for me. I haven't found a way to set her mind at ease without causing further emotional pain for her.

If she ever read my blog she would probably faint.

A Lazy Person's Guide To Spirituality?

Yesterday's post was about a book written by a United Methodist pastor. I took a list he made up of things Christians don't have to believe and changed the title to reflect things spiritual people in general don't have to believe. That, I believe, is more to the point.

I remarked that the title of the book itself is a little humorous to me. I'm in supervision and can only imagine how nonplused I'd be to find one of my employees reading a book with the title What's The Least I Can Do And Still Hold On To My Job? Or you married folks try to imagine coming home and finding your spouse eagerly reading and underlining a book with the title What's The Least I Can Do And Still Be A Good Husband (Wife)? I doubt a book with a title like What's The Least I Can Do And Still Be A Good Parent? would sale many copies (at least I hope not). I could go on, but I my point is that most of us consider halfhearted efforts something to be ashamed of.

In this Huffington Post article by the books author, Pastor Martin Thielen, he gives, in his third paragraph, details of his efforts to convert an atheist friend to his brand of Christianity. I get the impression that "Danny" is a confused person who is probably seeking acceptance and community more than hard answers. It is the struggling atheist who finally asks "what's the least I can believe and still be a Christian?"

That story smells fishy. I've known and still know many atheists, have read many books, articles, and blogs written by atheists, and I've yet to run across any who are more concerned about the bottom line of believability of Christianity than that it is filled with intolerant teaching and credulity-straining propositions.

What is the attraction to Christianity that is causing this fellow to want to know what the least is he could believe and still be entitled to wear the label? Thielen says that atheist Danny had an "epiphany" that made him realize that it wasn't Christianity he rejected, but just the way it has been packaged by "intolerant Christians." If that is a true account, Danny wasn't really an atheist but merely a non-Christian. At the least, he wasn't well versed in religious matters but was most probably just a confused and lonely soul.

My opinion is that one needs not be a Christian (or insert the religion of faith tradition of your choice) in order to be a spiritually minded, moral person. The problem Thielen writes about wouldn't exist at all if he (or anyone) didn't look to the Bible as a moral guide. And my response would be the same if leaders of other religious traditions wrote books attempting to water-down their system's teachings.

My focus isn't to waste valuable time trying to persuade people about what to believe. I would rather promote intelligence. And the most intelligent thing we all can do is to work together. If any lack wisdom, let them get to the library. Check out the history section. See how our world has been scarred by senseless wars caused by people who can't agree and want to impose their will on others. Check out the sciences and discover the advantages of learning about what we do know about our universe over what must be accepted by faith. Be a sport and check into comparative religion and discover for yourself that where religions all agree, it is because they state what is obvious to the person of common sense; and where they differ, it is because they have drifted into the esoteric and unverifiable.

Wait a minute, Doug ... that isn't a lazy way to do it. No, it isn't. Anything truly worthwhile surely is worth the effort invested. It is to our peril and sorrow that instead of each person taking the trouble of going forth to honestly investigate and do original thinking in constructing a personal worldview, so many instead prefer to get preconstructed viewpoints from opinion sources.

Ten Things Spiritual People Do Not Have To Believe

Here is a list of things spiritual minded folks don't have to believe in order to be spiritual:

1. God causes cancer, car wrecks and other catastrophes
2. Good Christians don't doubt
3. True Christians can't believe in Evolution
4. Women can't be preachers and must submit to men
5. God cares about saving souls but not about saving trees
6. Bad people will be "Left Behind" and then fry in Hell
7. Jews won't make it to Heaven
8. Everything in the Bible should be taken literally
9. God loves straight people but not gay people
10. It's OK for Christians to be judgmental and obnoxious

Actually I took a list Pastor Martin Thielen, of First United Methodist Church in Lebanon, Tennessee, made up in his book What's the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian? A Guide to What Matters Most.

All this would go without saying if people didn't take the Bible as a moral guide. Most of the problems in this list find a basis in the pages of that book.

What a difficult position to defend: Sometimes the Bible means what it says, sometimes it doesn't.

Groper Poll#3: A Question Of Moral Foundations

Another of our nation's Ten Commandment Judges, this time Ohio Judge James DeWeese, has been ruled against by an appeals court for making "an explicit endorsement of religion" in his court. DeWeese was displaying a poster which supposedly (I say supposedly because I think he does a poor job of it) contrasts the moral absolutism of the Judeo-Christian tradition with the moral philosophy of Humanism. A PDF file of DeWeese's chart can be read here.

From DeWeese's chart I produce his argument in favor of Judeo-Christian Moral Absolutism:

The cases passing through this courtroom demonstrate we are paying a high cost in increased crime and other social ills for moving from moral absolutism to moral relativism since the mid 20th century. Our Founders saw the necessity of moral absolutes. President John Adams said, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." The Declaration of Independence acknowledges God as Creator, Lawgiver, "Supreme Judge of the World," and the One who providentially superintends the affairs of men. Ohio's Constitution acknowledges Almighty God as the source of our freedom. I join the Founders in personally acknowledging the importance of Almighty God's fixed moral standards for restoring the moral fabric of this nation.

In contrast to that I now present one of two paragraphs specifically dealing with the subject of ethics as found in the Humanist Manifesto II:

We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life, here and now. The goal is to pursue life's enrichment despite debasing forces of vulgarization, commercialization, and dehumanization.

Today's Groper Poll question is this:

Do you agree or disagree with the proposition: "Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction"?

God Is...

Last week's Groper Poll asked "How would you finish this sentence: According to my way of thinking, God is ___?" The answers I received from those of you who chose to participate were fascinating, and each one is worthy of in-depth consideration. Here is a summary of what you guys think:

Eruesso: God is a verb not a noun.

Webster: God is the vibrational energy that is in every atom and/or prion of the universe to infinity.

Georgia Mountain Man: God is a nebulous entity that represents different mores for different people.

Diane: A word used to mean different spiritual perceptions to human beings.

Mildred Ratched: God is a mere figment of one's imagination...like Superman, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.

MS Day Dreamer: [G]od is an enigma.

Erika - God is an existentialist.

Don: God is the vibrational energy everything in the universe imminent and transcendent.

It probably would have been just as fun to ask what God is not, but I believe the above gives plenty of food for thought. Personally, I believe I agree with every one of those statements. Only the dogmatist, it seems to me, could nitpick or find fault.

I also believe that God and religion are forces to be reckoned with because such concepts appear to be hardwired into our brains. God isn't going away and humans aren't nearly ready to agree about him/her/it. The so-called New Atheists certainly have their work cut out for themselves, and I can't foresee their campaign being successful - at least not in my lifetime.

Tomorrow I will be back with another Groper Poll. At that time I will be polling my readers about the subject of ethics. I invite all my readers to join me and participate in the discussion.

God In Tucson

Astronaut Mark Kelly, who is the husband of Congresswoman Giffords, said a few words last week at the National Prayer Breakfast that seemed to be an attempt to understand the recent horrible shooting tragedy in Tucson, Arizona within the context of God's plan:

When something like this happens it's natural to think "How, why could this happen? Why were six people killed?"

We can't ever know the answers to these questions. We won't. But thankfully, miraculously, Gabby survives.

I was telling Gabby just the other night -- two nights ago -- that you know, maybe this event, this terrible event, maybe it was fate. I hadn't been a big believer in fate until recently. I thought the world just spins and the clock just ticks and things happen for no particularity reason.

President Lincoln was a big believer in fate. He said 'The almighty has his own purposes.' He believed that there was a larger plan. I can only hope and I told Gabby the other night, that maybe it's possible that this is just one small part of that same plan: that this event, horrible and tragic, was not merely random, that maybe something good can come from all this. Maybe it's our responsibility, maybe it's your responsibility, to see that something does.

I've tackled this subject many times on this blog. Oh, make no mistake, I can well understand the attempt that is being made with this type of thing. I was raised in a religion that while not Calvinistic in its view of predestination, or "fate," as Kelly seems to be calling it, still strongly believed that God was sovereign over everything and merely (somehow) incorporated human free will into his overall plan; that God knew everything in advance, from all eternity, all the future free acts of humans, and so laid out his plan accordingly.

The believer in a personal God, when being gored by the horns of this dilemma, will eagerly live with the contradiction of a supposedly good God employing evil for his purpose rather than let go of a personal God who might - IF IT IS HIS WILL - answer prayers and see one through life's turmoil.

This puppetmaster God is an idea I find objectionable. I object to the idea that we were brought into existence merely to be playthings, game pieces moved around the board in the game of life. That all this is some divine morality play, the outcome of which God already knows because he planned each detail in advance.

If this is so, God must love tragedy, pain, wickedness, and moral failure.

But Doug, how dare you question the faith that brings comfort to so many?

In this way. It is repeatedly put out there by believers as an explanation, a life-preserver to help folks survive the stormy seas of life. It's put there for our consideration, and I simply choose to consider it. I have an alternative view that I think if not capable of bringing comfort will at least give us the strength and determination to make the most of the situation we all find ourselves in.

When Mr. Kelly (speaking for other believers) says "we can't ever know the answers," I counter that that is not necessarily true. Most may not be willing to accept the answer, but that is another matter. What if there is no fate or predestination, no divine plan mapped out in eternity past by an omniscient and omnipotent deity?

You only have to grapple with "why did God allow this to happen?" if you believe in the God of the above paragraph. If it is true, as they say, that "sh*t happens," you already have your answer, and with no contradictions.

If I read Kelly's words correctly he seems to be saying that once he more or less held my view ("the world just spins and the clock just ticks and things happen for no particularity reason") but that somehow Tucson may have changed his beliefs about fate (predestination). Maybe, he is willing to concede, "this event, horrible and tragic, was not merely random, that maybe something good can come from all this." And he adds that it is our responsibility to see that something good does come from it.

I agree with that, yet totally fail to see why or how that should be connected to the idea that God planned that horrible thing. It isn't a sacred Scripture that tells us that when we are given a lemon we should make lemonade. Just good practical thinking.

There is, in my way of thinking about religion, a dehumanizing factor in the idea that God has his picks. That he favors some nations over others, chooses some peoples over others, blesses some individuals and withholds blessings from other individuals. I suggest it is dehumanizing because it upsets the equal footing we all share as human beings. When you look at the world as being divided into God-blessed saints and God-damned enemies, it really isn't a nice thing to behold.

We are all in this thing together. The fewer divisions among us, the better it would be for all of us - and perhaps the more progress could be made. That is what I like about humanism. A personal God going around causing or allowing this or that to happen only muddies the water. Believing that "the Almighty has his own purposes" distracts us from the things we can do and should be doing to make the world a better place. It was true in Lincoln's time, when our nation was falling apart over the idea that human slavery was a divine institution, it is true in our modern society, where God and Guns seem to go together like bread and butter.

Too much talk about God and his mysterious ways and too little emphasis on the human factor. Does it seem as if I ended in a different place than I started? Really all I'm saying is that instead of looking to Heaven for help, we should be looking in the mirror. Mark Kelly said something like that, but for some reason chose to bring in all that baggage of a personal God and his purposes. With all due respect to the man and the ordeal he and his wife are going through, I just can't see prayer as being of any real benefit to the problems we all face.

Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex

Do I have your attention?

Sex sales, we all know that. Advertisers have exploited that fact for as long as public morality has tolerated it. In fact, I suspect it more or less has always been the case, perhaps just in a more subtle manner in less liberal times.

But I did a double take on the book cover I highlighted here. I found that book listed - in of all places - the 2011 Christianity Today Book Awards.

Now I'm no prude or anything, but I did find the soft-porn attempt to promote a book which "is a comprehensive account of the symbolic role of the serpent in both the biblical text and the surrounding cultures" just a tad shocking.

I'm well aware that there is quite a bit of salaciousness to be found within the pages of the Bible (have you read the Song of Solomon lately?). But I found this book's cover, featuring a nude woman with a huge snake strategically positioned, quite titillating.

I guess this really isn't a religious book as much as a scholarly tome, written by a bona fide Yale theologian. Still, clocking in at 744 pages, it is surely quite a read. The perfect "bathroom book," I suppose. If it gets a little dry and long-winded as we are sitting there reading, some of us might still find that cover picture useful. And I think I'll leave that right there.

Could It Happen Here?

I've been intrigued by the mass protests going on in Egypt. It sure is taking a long time to get things resolved, but in the end it looks as if Hosni Mubarak will soon be finished. No doubt it's past time for that, even if he has been a political expedient for us in that troubled area of the world.

According to this report by Media Matters For America, the far-right of our political spectrum is seemingly attempting to stoke the fires for such a thing here - aimed, of course, at our "socialist" president, Barack Obama.

We know it was hoped by many that the current "Tea Party" would lead to something like what we are now seeing in Egypt. They've made a lot of noise, had a lot of help from the shameless promotion of their "movement" by the despicable Fox News, brought to the front some certified loonies within their ranks, but it seems that the majority of President Obama's detractors are not sold on the idea that he is trying to destroy the United States or are ready to take the streets en masse.

We don't have that problem here because every voter has an opportunity at regular intervals to express their choice for representation.

President Obama will face the electorate in a little less than two years, and at that time the people can speak. The "birther movement" with its inane lawsuits - in reality just an attempt to undo the last presidential election - and those who are now fomenting for a rebellion against our democratically elected government are a disgrace to the United States and all we have stood for these past two hundred plus years.

The "Religion" of Evolution And Atheism

I just finished reading Thomas J. Ritter's recent complaint against the Blue Mt. School District concerning its alleged teaching of Atheism in its curriculum. It is a short read and can be found here. The "meat" (chuckle, chuckle) of his argument is:

The teaching [of evolution] is unscientific.

The teaching is actually Atheism (no Creator = no God).

Objectively, Atheism is a religion, albeit a silly and unscientific one.

This is like teaching Jesus is Lord.

Well, that's really deep, isn't it?

I would have to take the negative on every one of those propositions.

Of course evolution is scientific. On the other hand, how could direct, supernatural creation by God be construed as a scientific idea? So-called Scientific Creationism has been tried in our courts and found wanting.

The idea that evolution = atheism is contrary to fact when you consider how many Christian theologians have for well over a hundred years incorporated evolution into their worldview. Inasmuch as there are evolutionists among people of, I suppose all, if certainly not most, religions, Ritter's point is absurd.

Atheism a religion? Maybe in a figurative manner of speaking. Not in the sense that Ritter is attempting to portray it. Actually Atheism is just a lack of belief in a theistic God. Therefore, there are in fact atheistic religions.

That last point, that teaching evolution is like teaching Jesus is Lord, is really a restatement of his overall argument that evolution equals Atheism and Atheism is a religion.

According to the pages of the Bible Jesus asked those who heard him preach to believe, to accept by faith, that he was the Son of God. Jesus' apostles appealed to the principle of faith when they promulgated his teaching.

On the other hand, I have never known the teaching of evolution to be presented in such a manner. I know it is common for Fundamentalist preachers and Bible teachers to misuse the word "theory" in this connection; but no one who has ever troubled themselves to read a little science can be swayed by this nonsense. Evolution should not be accepted on faith, but on the mountain of evidence that points to its truthfulness.

Of course this case is going no place. It's just a rehash of old arguments that won't stand up to scrutiny. But the blind, wanting an excuse to remain in darkness, will no doubt be impressed.