Or Maybe Not

You can bank on it. Every time one of these horrifying school shootings take place there will be those who, in effect, say: "See, we kicked God out of our schools and this is the result."

This letter to the editor in today's issue of Cleveland's The Plain Dealer expresses it this way:

But maybe, just maybe, if God were allowed back into our public schools -- after getting kicked out by liberal educators, judges and politicians under the false premise of the separation of church and state -- some of the chaos in our schools could be minimized.

The truth is that God was never "kicked out" of the public schools. The gods are still there, in the hearts of all the believers who attend, teachers, administrators, and students alike.

I was a child in the public school system back in the 1960s. I came along shortly after a series of Supreme Court rulings changed the way the Christian majority of educators did business in public schools. In no way was my ability to be a practicing Christian compromised by my education. I also came along as the public school system in my then home state (Tennessee) was limping along "with all deliberate speed" to enforce the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling (not accomplished until around 1970!). How "godly" was segregation? Don't answer that: we still have virtual Jim Crow churches down south and racism is widespread.

This God in the schools debate is one of those symbolic issues like the "In God We Trust" motto on our money. It's totally inappropriate in a land that (supposedly) guarantees religious freedom.

It never ceases to amaze me how our citizens of traditional faiths - oh, heck, let me just name the majority of folks in the United States, Christians (at least nominally) - don't understand what a good thing the separation of church and state is. Many, like the above letter writer, even think that separation is a myth and should be disregarded.

Getting Christians to understand is a very difficult thing indeed.

Dwelling On The Negative

A sure recipe for perpetual grumpiness and general despair is constantly looking at the bad side of life, of "happenings," of the people with whom we share this planet.

With just a little work one can find wide and delightful areas of agreement with those whose general outlook in life is different, even very different, than our own.

This past weekend presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich swung through my general vicinity, bringing with them a worldview drastically different that the one I hold. Watching coverage of this and listening to them expound ideas that can only serve to annoy me of course made my guts churn.

The truth is, I doubt either of these guys stand more than the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell of becoming president. Maybe it was because so many of my neighbors believe these guys are great thinkers. Sometimes I feel a bit threatened by all the small minds that live around me. However, if the conversations with my neighbors are carefully steered away from the subjects of religion and politics, there is a vast landscape of common interests and opportunity for harmonious fellowship.

I mentioned "small minds" earlier and yet many of those with whom I disagree think my mind is so broad that it lacks the capacity to form strong convictions. That's not so. But neither is it true with many of my neighbors that their minds are small on everything. In any case, firm convictions are often just biases and little else.

That's the problem with dwelling on the negative. It can easily permeate our general outlook.

Yesterday we had another of those terrible "senseless tragedies" in the form of yet another school shooting, this one in Chardon, Ohio. (I'm unable to understand how a tragedy could be considered sensible.) Enough of these kinds of stories can lead a person to the perception that the whole world is going crazy.

Bad news isn't hard to find. It is all of the front pages of the newspapers, is the lead story on television newscasts, and is splashed as headline all over internet news services. It reminds me of something the British wit G. K. Chesterton wrote:

Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.

Good point.

Others may have no problem recognizing this. I, however, seem to be inherently disposed to the negative side. I see that trait in my mom and realize that some of those negativity genes seem to have passed to me.

There are lots of good things in life. And even a lot of the bad things have a good side. If the eternal optimist is a fool, the eternal pessimist must be a damned fool. Proper perspective may be one of those damnable abstract concepts like perfection.

I just know that life goes on and that we seem to be better served by not becoming obsessed with the negative side of things.

Copulating Animal Crackers

It was many years ago on my job. Afternoon break had come and I was slightly hungry. I bought a bag of animal crackers from the snack machine and sat down at my desk to eat them. As I was nibbling away, my mind off in La La land, I pulled out the next cracker, which seemed larger and heavier than the previous ones. I held it up and looked at it and saw that I held two zoo animals copulating. Well, actually it was two of the animals that somehow in the process had been shuffled face-to-face against one another and had baked together. But to me they looked as if they were "doing it.

In my usual playful nature I showed it to my friends. "Bet you don't pull that out of a bag of animal crackers very often." Some saw what I saw, some didn't. And those who didn't see it looked at me and I'm sure thought something along the lines of "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

From my childhood I saw shapes in clouds, trees, rocks and faces of strangers I would meet who reminded me of certain animals. (About that latter thing, let's just say that a large portion of my childhood reading involved anthropomorphic animals, Aesop's fables being one example.) Mom always marveled at my vivid imagination. I always have been a serious daydreamer and at night my dreams have always been rich with symbolism and parabolic story lines. When my mind drifts into quiet distraction and especially as I enter a hypnagogic state I have both audible and visual hallucinations.

If only I could draw or paint I could be an artist!

Perhaps that why I understand and feel a certain kinship with those who think of the heavens as populated with deities; those imaginers who see ghosts, fairies, elves, dragons, unicorns prancing about and demons lying in wait; I understand those who have visions and bursts of enlightenment and inspiration; the music I compose on my guitar comes not from me, but seemingly is plucked from some ethereal preexistent state, I have but to concentrate and it comes to me piece at a time - and I again feel kinship to others who compose that way (evidently the masters are able to tap into a deeper level than I ever can!).

What is reality? I held in my hand either two cracker animals having sex or two former pieces of dough shaped like animals that had baked together. I prefer my interpretation if only because it breathed excitement into an otherwise humdrum incident.

That is my view of life.

God Might Exist

This is being broadcast today as an "admission" from well-known atheist spokesperson Richard Dawkins made last night.

Well, it's hardly news as it is something Dawkins has admitted before.

Newser is reporting the story under the headline Atheist Richard Dawkins: God Might Exist, with the subheading The Evolutionary Biologist Says He Isn't Totally Sure. Meanwhile the UK's The Telegraph reports on this under the banner: Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist.

Those of a theistic persuasion shouldn't get too excited. This is hardly a case similar to atheist Antony Flew's late life conversion to Deism. In fact, Dawkins said he still thinks "the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very, very low" (he says on a scale of 7 he is 6.9 doubtful). So despite all the hype this is a nothingburger.

As for me personally the question of the existence of the supernatural is a subject I lost interest in long ago. Now I dabble with trying to redefine for myself some of the concepts which make up the supernaturalistic worldview in order to have a more fruitful dialogue with believers. There is an enormous gap between people of faith and people of reason and I would like to bridge it. Sadly, most of my friends and family are on the other side of that chasm, over in the faith camp. Old and set ways of thinking die hard if at all.

Religion Poisons Everything? Really?

I never read more than excerpts from the books of the late Christopher Hitchens. I've read many of his essays and followed some of his debates against theists. A funny guy. A great mind. A powerful spokesperson for atheism.

Having said that, one of his books in particular caught my attention and has always been on my "books to read" list. Somehow I've just never gotten around to doing it. I think I already have a pretty good idea of his position on this matter. Probably I would agree with much of what he wrote there.

But that title: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Wow. Stamp it out everyone, it is the great bane of humanity!

If somehow religion could be killed off like a poisonous weed, then everything would be fine. Correct?

Interestingly, in the United Kingdom this book was released under the title: God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion. I wonder why that is the case. I think I know.

If I were forced to choose but one noun to describe the deadly poison of human existence, it would be this one: inhumanity.

A religion or philosophy that effectively combats that is the antidote.

Religion As A Force For Good?

For those like myself who grew up in a religion-heavy environment and who partook deeply of that environment, it is often difficult later to fully escape that empty feeling that comes from a later loss of faith.

No doubt personality plays a hand here as there are those who have rebelled quite strongly to their prior faith and seem almost determined to smash religion's hold on others.

Mignon McLaughlin, in her wickedly witty Neurotic's Notebook, suggested: "Don’t be yourself–be someone a little nicer."

For me that is the essence of religion.

I love science and learning. Those are important. But they alone will not push humans to what I think is our greatest capacity, which in my opinion is mutual compassion and respect. It is religion or spirituality that pushes us to that level.

I think that is often forgotten or overlooked in our efforts to combat superstition and irrationalism.

Just my two cents.

Reason And Grace

When I was a Christian grace was an all-important concept. God had made us humans, given us something called "free will," allowed our parents to disobey him and become "sinners," but then decided to allow us sinful humans a chance for redemption. Now that is something we cannot do on our own. We deserve hell and eternal separation from our Creator. We are wicked sinners. But by God's grace he tempered his justice and decided to let us off the hook and allow his son Jesus to pay for our sins so they would no longer be charged to our personal account. That, if we "accept" this divine sacrifice by faith. It really makes little sense. There seems to be no compelling reason for believing that God must have some elaborate system in order to forgive people instead of just doing it, say, the way we sinful humans forgive one another. But such is faith. It accepts what makes no sense. And that - more or less - is the conservative Christian concept of grace.

Or to neatly sum it up:

G - God's
R - riches
A - at
C - Christ's
E - expense

That's what they used to tell us.

When I got a bit older and was in a better position to think about this thing, I decided to opt out of that particular system. Upon reflection it just seemed to me to have very little to commend it to a sensible mind.

Philosophy then became something of a passion for me. I found more truth in a good-sized volume of philosophical quotes than I did in an entire library of religious works. That's purely a personal evaluation, I realize, but it's where I presently stand.

And the excellent and very readable French philosopher Denis Diderot, I discovered, made excellent sense and gave me a valuable perspective when he wrote the following:

Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian.

I was blind but now I see.

Phony Theology, Phony Issue

It's unsettling for me to hear a presidential candidate speak of "phony theology," not speaking as a private citizen but rather in the context of his presidential campaign.

In rapping the way President Obama has attempted to govern the country, Rick Santorum says it isn't

"...about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."

Now that might be proper if the United States were a theocracy, but it's not.

The truth, is, however, that our president has dabbled too much in theology, especially recently at the annual Prayer Breakfast. The down side of that being that no one human in this religiously plural society of ours could possibly speak for everyone - not President Obama, not Mitt Romney, not Newt Gingrich, not Rick Santorum, not anyone.

Theology is not an exact science (and many of us would suggest it isn't a science at all, being based solely on speculation). We don't - or certainly shouldn't - govern according to the Bible or the dictates of any religious system, but instead according to the Constitution of the United States. That is, after all, what the person taking the oath of office of president swears to uphold.

Said Constitution is rather clear on the matter of legislating according to religion. So Santorum's talk of phony theology is truly a phony issue. Unfortunately it will tickle the ears of certain voters.

Happy Birthday To Me

It was fifty-two years ago today that I emerged into this world. When I look back over the tough times of my life I think it has been a long journey indeed. On the other hand, I can easily think back to my late teen years and young adulthood - with most of my life ahead of me, full of hope and ignorance - and truly say that all that seems almost like yesterday.

It took me so long to figure out where I wanted to go and how I really wanted to conduct my life that I feel a good portion of it was misspent. Not wasted, for surely I have enjoyed the majority of my years. But oh to have those early years back with the knowledge I gained over the years. An impossibility that merits no further reflection.

I don't make much of my birthday. I will "celebrate" by going to work and performing my job duties. Every day is special and precious to me. My health is reasonably good and my spirit is as young as ever. My loved ones, both friends and family, are the ones who add the whipped cream to my sundae of life. I am happy and reasonably content.

Taking It To The Limit

It was Albert Schweitzer, humanitarian and polymath, who said

The highest honor one can show to a system of thought is to test it ruthlessly with a view to discovering how much truth it contains, just as steel is assayed to try its strength.

To fall in love with one's own opinions is human enough. But to take those ideas to task, to push them to their absolute limits searching for weaknesses and inconsistencies is something reserved for the intellectually daring.

There is a comfort to be had in pat answers. Adopting a system of thought or a philosophical worldview allows one to ride more or less on Automatic Pilot without a lot of in-depth thought.

For some people, their system of thought or worldview becomes a mental prison. They go through life trying to pound all of life's intricacies through one well-shaped hole. Life isn't so simple, however.

Just seriously exploring alternative theories forces one - or at least should force the honest investigator - to recognize his own biases and discomfort with challenging them.

And when a belief becomes a conviction, it is hard to present it without some measure of arrogance. A pause for humility should perhaps always be undertaken before speaking.

Yes, I'm A Cynic When It Comes To Politics (And Most Matters, Now That I Think Of It)

The older I get, the more I see and hear, the more apolitical I become.

I remember how I felt the other day when I saw the lineup of witnesses for the Congressional hearing on birth control.

Understandably the Democratic women on the panel walked out of the hearing after Rep. Carolyn Maloney's desire to know "Where are the women?"

Of course the Republicans are still trying to sell the Obama administration verses religious liberty angle.

Still, to see a Congressional Hearing on the issue of whether birth control should be covered by insurance plans with a lineup of religious leaders, without nary a woman or a medical doctor is just too surreal for words.

The picture, I think, speaks for itself:

A Poem To The Sun

Pantheist that I am, I greatly enjoy a good poem dedicated to nature. This has been a very mild winter in my area, with lots of mild, sunny days. Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous once an early morning drizzle passed, allowing that beautiful bright orb to appear in all its glory. Ah, the sun - worshipped as a god by many (if not most) of the ancient peoples.

Today I want to share with you O Patient Sun, written by Grace Ellery Channing (1862-1937), who was the granddaughter of well-known (at least at one time he was) Unitarian Minister (actually, he was the founder of the American Unitarian Church) William Ellery Channing.

It has a nice little humanistic tone that I like as well.


O Patient Sun

O Patient Sun that shinest daily down.
Such scenes, such lives, such levels of content,
And dost not yet disdain to shine,— shine on,—
And light a radiant world to high ascent!

Compassionate! Send thy warm beams abroad —
Kindle a generous fire in frost-chilled lands —

Nourish the hungry nations, give reward
Of harvest to brown hands! —

Lift up the drowsy lids of dreaming flowers! —
Burn in the rainbow tints of darting wings! —

Smite the dull earth with gladness !— Gild gray hours
Till winters glow like springs!

Send thou a laughing sunbeam through dark space,
Past leering roofs, in alleys dank and cold,

To warm a little child! — with glimmering grace
To dance above the mould!

Then send thy great sweet angels down, O mother,
Saying, "I poured my golden gifts for all:

Shall man for man do less? — brother for brother?"
O patient Sun! — for still thy sunbeams fall!

Payroll Tax Deal Compromise: Bipartisanship We Don't Need

Personally, I thought the payroll tax cut was a bad idea to start with. It was an administration dodge to avoid the fight for allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, which would have been the right thing to do.

These "temporary" tax cuts have a way of becoming permanent or at least highly politicized. Allowing the payroll tax cut to expire is now viewed as a tax increase. The longer it stays in place the longer the enemies of Social Security are able to rail about the program's insolvency. (Yeah, I know they will do that anyway, but defunding the program this way lends opponents credibility.)

But this proposed compromise is a troubling thing in itself. If it looks as if the Democrats have "won" because the Republicans have dropped their demand that the tax break be offset with spending cuts, a closer look at the ramifications needs to taken into consideration. The Democrats have caved to Republican demands that long-term unemployment benefits be cut.

Under terms of the compromise the states that have been hardest hit by weak job market would see benefits drop to 73 weeks, down from 99. Those states with better unemployment figures would get a maximum of 63 weeks of unemployment.

There are still nearly 13 million Americans unemployed and our representatives from both parties are agreed on cutting unemployment benefits. But don't let those Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire!

By the way, those Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest five percent of Americans take the staggering amount of 11.6 million dollars from the Treasury every day according to the National Priorities Project. Ouch!

Rick Santorum's Pay-Go Health Care "Solution"

I suppose Rick Santorum deserves a mention here inasmuch as his recent climb in the polls makes him something of a serious challenger to Mitt Romney. Conservatives seem to be flocking to him after a brief and somewhat mind-boggling flirtation with Newt Gingrich.

Regarding an issue that is much on mind, Santorum has decided that our current health care system isn't working well. Thanks, for that acknowledgment, Sherlock!

CBS News is reporting that Santorum assessed the matter as follows:

"How many people turn in your oil changes to your insurance company? Nobody," Santorum said. "How many people, if you had a $500 deductible insurance policy got in a little accident and it cost $700 to repair your car, how many people would turn in the $700 claim? Nobody. Why? Because your insurance premium will go up, right?"

He continued: "Then why do you turn your doctor bill in? Why do your turn your blood work in? Why do you turn your X-rays in and then say, 'Why are my insurance premiums going up?' Because health insurance isn't insurance anymore. You're paying the insurance company to pay your bills, and then you're wondering why it cost so much. We need to get the insurance company out of paying bills and back into insuring against high cost health care. Things that are unanticipated expenses, that is what insurance is for -- unanticipated costly expenses. It isn't to pay all of your bills."

Santorum, of course, isn't totally off the mark here. But it should be taken into consideration that health care costs have exploded in a way that is not comparable to automobile repair costs. He doesn't do that.

I'm one of the millions of workers who are now paying as much or more for high-deductible medical insurance than we did several years ago for low-deductible insurance. Which means, that we're already paying for our health care costs ourselves unless we are having serious problems. Heck, I don't even have any drug benefits in my plan.

So far as paying for medical care as we go, it should also be mentioned that "cutting a deal" with doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and labs to allow a person to pay on time is an extremely difficult thing to do. One would need a healthy savings account and good credit to make Santorum's idea workable.

In other words, the very poor would still be sh*t out of luck and the working poor like myself would still be left playing lotto with our health care, trying to decide how much care we really can afford to go into debt for and hoping we guess correctly.

Rick Santorum just doesn't understand.

Dear Lord, Bless Me

Dear Lord, bless me and my wife,
my son John and his wife,
us four, no more,
Amen.

I hope no one ever really prayed that prayer. A preacher who visited our church when I was a child used it as an example of selfish Christians. His point was that perhaps the most overlooked command for Christians is that they should love their neighbors as themselves. Actually Jesus was just quoting from the Pentateuch (Lev. 19:18), so you might say that is the second great commandment of the Judeo-Christian religion. The first, of course, is to love God.

Therefore, it surprises me as I watch the conservative voters embrace the politics of greed and selfishness - and they do this in the name of God and the Bible!

A frequent retort I hear from these religious right-wingers is that Jesus was a big believer in the separation of Church and State (Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's). That he did not expect the government to be involved in the care for the poor.

Buy they overlook - or perhaps aren't even aware of - the fact that the Messianic kingdom promised in the Old Testament and announced by Jesus was all about a righteous government on earth. They ignore that during Israel's monarchy as described in the Old Testament, the government had lots of legislation aimed at care for the poorest members.

Now I'm not personally a believer in the Bible, but if I were I don't see how I could ignore the plain force of the biblical commands.

Again it is amazing that these folks, many no doubt well-meaning, have actually espoused the atheistic philosophy of Objectivism and have flaunted their own Scriptures.

I would just expect Judeo-Christians to be more like the Jesus of the Bible or the God he worshipped than the moneychangers on Wall Street.

Health Lotto

I've written about this before. People have to put off potentially lifesaving medical care because they can't afford it. Because even working full-time and paying high premiums for health insurance, most of us still face the specter of financial ruin from a serious illness.

My older brother died nearly seven years ago because he literally gambled that the chest pain and nausea he was experiencing was not a heart attack. He had been hospitalized nearly a month prior to his death complaining about pain in his left arm and nausea. He was kept overnight and administered tests, including a stress test. No heart attack was occurring and no damage was found. They recommended keeping him for further testing but my brother gambled at that time and bypassed further expense.

Foolish? Maybe. But I have to say that he had other financial concerns pressing him as well. A mortgage. Daily living expenses for him and his family. A wife whose health was frail because of her diabetes and who had been laid off from her job. An adult son they cared for because of severe Chrone's disease. That disease, which had caused his son to lose his gut piece at a time, made working a difficult proposition. Every time he would get a job it wouldn't be long before the next attack, which would force him from his job. Of course my brother helped his son.

So with all those concerns on his mind and more, when his own health problem troubled him again a few weeks after his hospitalization, and having begun to receive the mountain of medical bills for his previous adventure, he unwisely gambled that it was another "false alarm."

He lost that gamble, dying of a massive heart attack in his bedroom floor.

Now my girlfriend is telling me about her sister's heart problems. For a couple of months now her sister has been seeing her doctor because of an irregular heartbeat. Turned out she needed surgery to address a faulty heart valve. She and her husband both work, she has health insurance. But she only had the surgery last week because she first had to raise the $2,500 her doctor required up front before he would perform the surgery. Fortunately it is tax time and she and her husband got a refund sufficient to cover this expense.

The "greatest health care in the world" (as certain politicians are calling it) is making gamblers out of most of us. Even being the possessor of one of the high-priced health insurance plans is not sufficient to protect us. The majority of us are one serious illness away from financial ruin.

This because we are supposed to believe that patriotic Americanism is about denying that health care is a basic human necessity and seeing it instead as a lucrative business opportunity which must be protected.

Talented Nobodies Live Longer

It's happened again. A famous talented musical superstar has exited life's party way too soon. Beautiful songbird Whitney Houston died over the weekend at 48.

Was it a relapse into her prior drug problems? Was it a heart weakened by prior party-abuse? A freak accident? Bad genes (her mom, famous but lesser-known songstress Cissy Houston, has sadly survived her and is still going strong at 78)?

How different might things had turned out for Whitney, Michael Jackson, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley - the list goes on and on and is too long to give here. And I'm not prematurely suggesting the exact cause of Houston's death. I'm just saying that the pressures of being famous contributed to a very destructive lifestyle for all these folks.

Yes, some music stars seem to escape that curse and go on into relative old age with only ravaged minds and bodies. But the life of a music superstar seems never to be trouble-free.

Our culture is obsessed with our musical heroes. They are - to borrow from a popular reality show title - our American Idols.

The struggle to get to the top and then stay there once there is a recipe for personal tragedy.

Whitney Houston's fall from superstardom, which coincided with her relationship with Bobby Brown, was a hard thing for her fans (of which I was one) to watch. The perennial question of why someone who seemingly has it all is not able to hold on to it was asked once again, just as always when one of music's icons self-destructs before our eyes.

Is this quest for fame and fortune worth it in the end? I think not. It is sad as I write this and think back to that first album she put out and which I listened to and enjoyed so much. The hits kept coming. Who would have thought then she would die so young? Her star kept rising. Then it suddenly burned out. And I can't help but wonder "what if?"

Thoughts On This Darwin Day

I'm not a big lover of days named in honor of individuals, no matter who they are; nevertheless, Darwin Day is a day set aside by some to celebrate the contributions to human understanding of naturalist Charles Darwin and of science in general. In this country of ours, where so many still question the basic idea of human evolution, I think it is a worthy effort.

My first recollection of hearing about the scientist Charles Darwin was a little comic book by the fundamentalist Christian cartoonist Jack Chick. How big a role these little comic books played in my childhood, growing up as I did in a very fundamentalist section of town where they were frequently passed out as an evangelistic tool.

It was probably in my eleventh or twelfth year that Chick's Big Daddy? fell into my hands with it's lampooning of Darwin and evolution. I knew his idea was plain silly because God, I had been taught, was directly responsible for the universe and humans in particular, who were made in God's image. As my parents used to say, "maybe the scientists' forefathers swung by their tails from a limb, but not ours."

Big Daddy is available to read online by going here. This isn't the version I first saw. It has been revised several times since it first appeared and - believe this or not - the original was even more crude! However, it is good for a laugh if you know any science at all.

I, like many fundamentalists, grew up thinking that Charles Darwin was some moral monster who had an ax to grind regarding religion, that he was an enemy of God, and that his theory was just plain nuts and an obvious attempt to avoid the obvious. Sad to say I was an adult before I ever set out to learn the true history of this humble genius. How far was truth from the fundamentalist Christian view of him!

Shortly after Darwin's death his son, Sir Francis Darwin, edited a book of his father's correspondence. The son knew that his father's religious sentiments would be a point of curiosity for many and so dedicated a small section to that subject.

Far from being an enemy of God and religion, Darwin seems not to have invested much thought in the matter after his youth. A thirst for knowledge was his first love and to obtaining it he dedicated his life. He dealt with religion but very little publicly. The following excerpt from a letter gives us a good idea of how Darwin viewed the matter:

What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to any one but myself. But, as you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates ... In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.

It is a well know fact today that many religionists, even Christians, do not find a problem reconciling human evolution with the Bible. Darwin himself was aware of that and in response to a letter from a German student he instructed a family member to write the following:

Mr. Darwin begs me to say that he receives so many letters, that he cannot answer them all. He considers that the theory of Evolution is quite compatible with the belief in a God; but that you must remember that different persons have different definitions of what they mean by God.

Of course fundamentalists such as my family couldn't achieve a reconciliation with evolution because the book of Genesis was to be read literally. Besides that, the Lord Jesus had testified to the truthfulness of the historical Adam, so that was that. All we really knew about Darwin and his ideas were the comic book version.

As for the larger God question itself, in the final decade of his life Darwin responded Dutch student in the following way:

I am sure you will excuse my writing at length, when I tell you that I have long been much out of health, and am now staying away from my home for rest.

It is impossible to answer your question briefly; and I am not sure that I could do so, even if I wrote at some length. But I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came, and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am, also, induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment of the many able men who have fully believed in God; but here again I see how poor an argument this is.

The safest conclusion seems to me that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect; but man can do his duty.

So much for the argument that he was a hater of God and religion.

The truth is that Charles Darwin was a careful thinker, upholder of reason, man of science. I heartily recommend to my readers that if they aren't familiar with him they get and read The Life And Letters Of Charles Darwin. You will be inspired.

What To Do About This Thing Called Religion?

Slowly over time my religious faith began to be replaced with human reason. My former religious impetus is now completely taken over by humanistic philosophy. I guess that makes me something of a religious humanist. I no longer care for the postulates of faith, preferring the saner efforts of logical thinking.

Religious culture has played too big a role in the development of humanity for us to think the day will come when religion will suddenly vanish from the scene. The best hope seems to me to be an effort to make peace with the human religious impetus and attempt always to steer it in beneficial directions.

That is a difficult thing, as the poet John Dryden (1631-1700) explains in verse:

All faiths are, to their own believers, just,
For none believe because they will, but must,
By education most have been misled:
We so believe because we so are bred.
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the boy imposes on the man.

Reprogramming is such a difficult and time-consuming enterprise.

A Vote Obama Is A Vote For The Guillotine

That is the warning sounded by surging GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum. This week while in Plano, Texas rallying his troops, Santorum said:

They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.

To view a video of Sanatorum's "inspiring" words click here.

God-given rights. There is a problem with that concept and it is this: If it is God who gives humans rights, then he may also withhold them. You see that for example in the struggle for gay rights. God doesn't approve of homosexuality, it is an abomination to God they tell us, therefore gays don't have rights. God does not extend to them the right to be who they are.

Obama is coming after the Catholics, as I wrote in yesterday's post, because his administration doesn't think Catholic employers have a right to impose their religious convictions onto others. But again, you must remember, their view is in accordance with God's plan for humanity, according to the Pope. And humans don't have the right to think differently.

Yes, I personally have a big problem with the idea of "God-given rights."

I can only sit back and shake my head in amazement at how well this "war against faith" idea will sell.

They came for the Catholics...

Religious liberty is under attack, they tell us, by our Christian president and his administration - the same president that the right-wingers were accusing just the other day of injecting religion into politics at the annual Prayer Breakfast (or, alternatively, of getting it wrong when quoting the Bible on the matter - take your pick of attack).

Having already made an exception for churches in the current controversy of forcing employers to provide contraceptives in their health coverage, it is now a matter of great debate that the administration doesn't want to extend that exception to church-related employers such as universities and hospitals.

There's your war. And the logic - slippery slope in nature - is that if the Government can force Catholics employers to do something that is against their religious convictions (or rather, their religious institution's official doctrine), it's just a matter of time before the government forces YOU to act in ways that violate YOUR religious conscience.

What often gets lost in this that the majority of Catholics seem to favor contraception coverage. Sure, the men who run that organization and the guy who claims to serve as Jesus' authoritative spokesperson on earth don't favor it, but you know....

I just can't believe that President Obama is threatening our religious liberty this way by forcing Catholics to use artifical birth control! Right?

Can the Apocalypse be far behind?

Poor Folk And Toenail Fungus

The fraudulent use of social programs intended to help those in need of a helping hand is a concern for those of us committed to the concept of the welfare state, the same as it is for those conservatives who would love to see the welfare state ended or at least seriously curtailed.

Perhaps the chief difference between conservatives and liberals on this point is that the former seem bent on portraying just about everybody in need as either a cheat or just plain unworthy of help. This was highlighted as I read a Media Matters For America article titled Right-Wing Media Aren't Concerned About Helping The Poor, But They Sure Want To Help The Rich.

That article contained the following "tweet" from radio commentator Neal Boortz:

Romney is right about the poor. When the heart of your country -- our economy -- is failing you don't concentrate on toenail fungus.

Lovely.

Are there things we could do to make our social programs more efficient and effective? I think so. Certainly it's a debate worth having? But how can dehumanizing a significant portion of humanity be considered anything other than heartless and cruel?

Israel Is Gonna Attack Iran: Woo Hoo!

Yeah, I know. That post title is silly as hell. And so is the attitude of many of my area's "finest" minds when they answered a question that was posted on the Facebook page of one of my local television stations.

WRCB Channel 3 asked the question this morning on their early news show:

Do you think Israel is about to go to war with Iran?

I collected several responses from my fellow Bible Belters, up until I had to leave for work. I guess you can consider this something of a supplement to my earlier post about the Second Coming of Jesus. I'm sure they have added to this section, but if you care to do some serious scrolling (because that post is quite old now) you can check it out at this link.

Ah, where to begin with this idiocy?

One lady added this comment in order to let us all know just how important this potential conflict is:

The Bible talks of the end times. if you're not a believer or not accepted Christ its a good time to catch this train, because He's setting up to spilt the eastern skies. Everything has been laid out just as the Bible said. what more evidence do we need?

All aboard! The evidence is in. What??? Is she serious?

How about all the evidence that the writers of the New Testament were dead wrong about a first century consummation?

She's never heard it, I bet.

Another viewer chimed in with an amen to the above sentiment:

If not now, actually they will in the future. Keep your eyes on the Middle East. It's all Biblical.

And another:

Read your Bible and you'll see they will.

How about you folks telling us exactly where that can be found in the Bible, okay?

Still another lady tried to be a bit more specific than the previous two:

The angel, Michael, will have his work cut out for him according to escatology in the books of Daniel and Revelations during the end of time wars. If the US ever decides not to help Isreal ... We will fallout of God grace's and will be doomed!!

I'm sure she probably meant "eschatology" (theology of the end times), but was, I think, much more accurate when she referenced eSCATOLOGY.

Another thing, maybe a bit nit picky. It always annoys me when people refer to the last book of the Bible as Revelations the way she did. It is singular, not plural. You see, it makes me think the person doing the talking really hasn't studied the matter all the seriously or they would know the correct title of that last book.

Further, I just bet you that if I offered that lady a crisp new hundred dollar bill for her service, she couldn't point out such a prophecy in Daniel or Revelation. She would probably refer me to her pastor, who told her it's there.

One lady wanted us to understand:

Israel is God's country. Iran cannot win, no one ever will against Israel. Iran can pray to all the gods they choose, however, they will see who the One True God is when they go after HIS people.

And still another chimed in with a like idea:

Israel is Gods territory. Remember the old commercial? It's not nice to fool with Father God. The word is quite clear on this subject. All eyes will be on them. Hang on to your hats folks were in for a great ride.

Um, yes, I do remember that old margarine commercial. But wasn't it "it's not nice to fool Mother Nature"? Don't know about her but I would prefer a thunderstorm like Mother Nature sent in that commercial to a war like her "Father God" allegedly has up his sleeve.

And what is that business about hanging on to our hats because we're in for a "great ride"? Oh, yeah, now I remember. You guys are all going to be "Raptured" to Heaven so that you can watch all the death and devastation by peeping through the port holes of Glory, right? Great ride, that. Isn't Holy War a great thing?

Meet my neighbors, dear readers.

Perhaps Today?

Jesus is coming soon, or as the above church sign I see every day on my ride home from work: Christ is coming; Perhaps today!

I've heard that all my life and I am 52 years old.

This is one of those ideas that Christian leaders insist is a part of the message of Christianity. It has been a part of it for more than two thousand years.

Does there come a time when believers might be justified in saying, "yeah, right"?

Anyone who will read the New Testament with an open mind cannot help but be struck by the many sayings that indicated that the writers thought they were living in the "last days" and that the end of the world and coming again of Jesus were near.

That was somewhat plausible in the early centuries of the Christian movement.

As the centuries dragged on it became more common to find "historicist" interpretations for the prophecies that allowed that a long period of time to lie between the first Christians and the consummation. But the "it could come at any time" interpretation has never gone away.

Signs of the times come and signs of the times go, yet Jesus does not come back.

Has the Second Coming been delayed or canceled? Was it ever anything more than a pipe dream?

The writers of the New Testament advised that believers in Jesus should "take no thought for the morrow," not worry about finding a mate or divorcing the one they have, not worry about gaining freedom from their slavery, to be content with having food and raiment - all which make sense if the time is short.

I don't see many Christians following such advice today. In fact, they conduct their lives as if they are in it for the long haul.

This question should be dealt with honestly: If the writers of the New Testament could be so clearly wrong about the soon return of Jesus, must any of the rest of their message be taken seriously?

Doug B: Humanist

Just there to the right of this post is a little explanation of my blog's purpose. Especially note that I say that my blog is "a place where I reflect back on my youth as a Fundamentalist Christian and the impact that has had on me, and also examine my efforts to construct a worldview to replace that of my youth."

To understand me is to understand that I was raised as a fundamentalist Christian and that my evolution from that into what I am today was a long, slow process. I am surrounded by fundamentalist Christians, have them for friends and family, work with them, encounter them daily when I go out into the world around me. I live in the Bible Belt, after all.

There is a verse of Scripture that best sums of the popular worldview around here and among those I'm closest to, and which provides the proper context for my professed humanism. That verse is Proverbs 3:5:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (NIV).

I do that latter thing. I use human reason, my own and that of those along side me, and also the collective human wisdom of those who have gone before me.

The fact is - and I point this out to religious believers - that God (assuming for the sake of argument a personal God exists) does not make himself available for questioning or to clarify his position on things. He is not here in person to direct us. Therefore, we are left with alleged intermediaries. And they all are humans just like myself.

My human reason tells me that they could very well be deluded about their perceived role. Their human reason tells them that other alleged intermediaries might be wrong wherein they differ with them and with each other. What their reason would tell them if they listened is that they can't all be correct, but they all may be wrong.

So absent God being here among us, we are all by default left to our "own understanding."

Whenever someone speaks about what God's will is or what God's position is about this or that matter, they are blowing hot air. There are many religions and many more variations on those themes. But we are left to the workshop of our own minds - if we choose to use it.

I do so choose.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has a definition for humanism that I like, defining it as

a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially : a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason.

Well, there I stand.

Granted, this position lacks the certainty and finality of "thus saith the Lord." That is why I chose the old parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant as the title for my blog of personal exploration. I don't pretend to be the final or even best word. But one thing about my approach: it puts us all on an equal footing.

The National God

Most of us want to do the right thing, but there is no universal concept of what is right. People try to evade that problem by invoking the gods. I've noticed, however, that gods tend to be tribalistic in their thinking. The gods often divide humanity into groups, assign to them land, and then keep their best interests at heart.

The God of the United States - the person in whom we trust, at least according to our currency - is supposedly the god of Judeo/Christiand tradition. Whatever that means. But from way back, even with our Founding Fathers our god chose us through his providence and protects us the same way. Some of those founders spoke of something they called Nature's God.

He is with us when we go to war against foreign countries and their gods, strengthening us and justifying our holy cause - which lately appears to me to be the furthering of our national religious ideals into the territories of the other gods.

Uncle Sam may be our national symbol, but spin him around and you will see rising between his coat tails and running up his back the hand of our national god.

Don't try to understand our national god's will. His spokespeople are too fragmented. They can't agree exactly about what he wants. Sometimes he is identifiable with the gods of the foreigners, only he is more of a believer in democracy.

Our presidents probably have the best grasp of our national god. They pretty much agree that he is something of a humanist - but again with a definite democratic and capitalistic slant. He has through our nation's history tended to be something of a Lord of Hosts, or god of the army.

At one time our nation was so divided about god's will for our nation that we almost self-destructed in a vicious civil war. The president at the time wasn't so sure exactly where god stood on the matter, but was certain our national god wanted us to remain a united people.

At one time our national god was biased against Catholics. That was until a young man named Kennedy convinced us otherwise. Now the talk is he might be anti-Mormon.

The national priests on our Supreme Court canonized the concept of Ceremonial Deism. That is that our national motto as contained on our money has "lost through rote repetition any significant religious content."

So in a sense, I guess, our national religion has little in the way of religious content.

But, boy, does our national god seem important in our nation's general discourse!

President Obama's Religious Outlook

Not that there is a single thing that President Obama could do that his bitter enemies will not contort into evil and use to call into question our president's character, but as soon as I heard reports of his remarks at the Annual Prayer Breakfast earlier this week, I knew the silly pettiness and hypocrisy from those politicians and Americans on the other end of the spectrum was about to hit like a tsunami.

And it has.

Funny, but as President Obama was opening his speech he said:

At a time when it’s easy to lose ourselves in the rush and clamor of our own lives, or get caught up in the noise and rancor that too often passes as politics today, these moments of prayer slow us down. They humble us. They remind us that no matter how much responsibility we have, how fancy our titles, how much power we think we hold, we are imperfect vessels. We can all benefit from turning to our Creator, listening to Him. Avoiding phony religiosity, listening to Him.

Well, it didn't slow us down for long, as one Republican lawmaker (one of those afflicted with the Tea Party mentality) walked out of the Prayer Breakfast because he was "offended by what [he] said was an injection of political rhetoric into an occasion of non-partisan reflection."

I've read through several of the editorials and opinion pieces written to "correct" our president's misappropriation of the Bible's message to our times. My impressions are that these "corrections" are much more grotesque that President Obama's view.

Now what it is funny about all this is that those who now are so grievously offended by the president's references to the teachings of Jesus, the Bible, or religion in general, are the very ones who brought this subject into the fray to begin with. The very ones who have made questioning President Obama's Christian faith a common theme of their loyal opposition are now crying foul the loudest when the man defends his faith.

When you have a problem with something so all-embracing as these Obama remarks:

Treating others as you want to be treated. Requiring much from those who have been given so much. Living by the principle that we are our brother’s keeper. Caring for the poor and those in need. These values are old. They can be found in many denominations and many faiths, among many believers and among many non-believers. And they are values that have always made this country great -- when we live up to them; when we don’t just give lip service to them; when we don’t just talk about them one day a year. And they’re the ones that have defined my own faith journey

chalk it up that you have become a partisan hack and have exited the arena of serious thought.

How can words likes the following be considered offensive?

Our goal should not be to declare our policies as biblical. It is God who is infallible, not us. Michelle reminds me of this often. (Laughter.) So instead, it is our hope that people of goodwill can pursue their values and common ground and the common good as best they know how, with respect for each other. And I have to say that sometimes we talk about respect, but we don’t act with respect towards each other during the course of these debates.

Okay, so maybe those of us don't believe in a personal God might say the God is infallible thing is perhaps off the mark. But even considering as I do that God serves as a symbol of mankind's highest aspirations, it makes sense enough. And the "common ground and common good" make profound sense to me.

Now personally I don't think these Prayer Breakfasts with the President of the United States is a good thing. And that for the simple reason that religion seems to be so divisive these days - because those who aren't so broad-minded in their approach to the subject attempt to hold a corner on "the truth." The whole subject of religion has been polluted by its politicization. At the same time, politics - which is ugly to begin with - has been made even uglier.

But if calls for respect, the search for common ground and good, and calls for the advancement human compassion are examples of political rhetoric, I say we need much more of it.

Okay, Let's Get This God Thing Settled Once And For All

Here's a letter-to-the-editor that I just had to share with my readers. It's not from around here, but rather from Muncie, Indiana. A lady writes to the The Star Press to confess that

I may not physically be able to prove that there is a God, but I can tell you that God is real. He has answered several of my prayers and I believe with all my heart that God is amazing.

Now fortunately she doesn't end there, but goes on to explain so that even a child can understand:

People tend to give up on religion because things don't go their way. Well, they aren't supposed to go your way. God knows what is best for a person. He only has your best interest at heart. He knows what needs to happen because he has a plan for you. You and I may not know what that plan is but he does.

Got that, dammit? Never complain, never explain. God knows what is best for you. Brain cancer? God figures it will do you good in the end. What, have a teenage daughter that has been abducted, beaten, and raped? God must be trying to teach you or maybe even her a lesson. Loved one murdered? God knows what's best. Don't question any of it.

Remember: Things "aren't supposed to go your way."

But there is more of this enlightenment:

They also lose interest in religion because they don't believe their prayers are being answered. This often also leads to them thinking there is no God. God works in mysterious ways, and he may not answer right away, but he eventually will tell you what to do.

Even if the answer is "just deal with it and don't ask why." Only believe. God has a plan for your life, even if it sucks to high heaven.

In summation:

People also believe there is no God when they keep getting bad news thrown at them. Instead of getting upset and not believing, you should just say, "God, I may not know why you are doing this, but I trust you." Trust God because he only has your best interest at heart.

So thank you, dear lady, for laying that out so clearly for us. I would love to hear what you have to say about the other problems we face.

And An Alabama State Senator Displays Some Idiocy

Tennessee has no corner on political leaders lacking in common sense. This story is too long for me to quote in its entirety, but I hope everyone will follow this link and read it with your own eyes.

In effect Alabama State Senator Shadrack McGill is arguing that politicians should be paid more in order to help them avoid being susceptible to bribes, but at the same time teachers should be paid less, because - get this!- "It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach."

In my opinion that is exactly ass-backwards. Our politicians, when you think about the quality of work actually performed, are some of the most overpaid individuals in our country. At the same, our national penchant for scrimping on investing in education has lowered the quality of teachers willing to peruse that career, and has made it extremely difficult to the truly good teachers who are trying to make a difference.

About Those Drone Attacks

One of the things our country does that drives me nuts is the way it publicly decries terrorism even as we practice a form of it ourselves. Our leaders demonize our enemies and this because their main evil is in disagreeing with what the United States thinks is right.

For example, this week our president, to the shock of many, openly discussed the so-called drone wars underway in Pakistan. According to this CNN story, in Monday's Youtube/Google forum our president said:

"I think that we have to be judicious in how we use drones," Obama said. "But understand that probably our ability to respect the sovereignty of other countries and to limit our incursions into somebody else's territory is enhanced by the fact that we are able to [execute a] pinpoint strike on al Qaeda operatives in a place where the capacities of that military in that country may not be able to get them."

One of of my chief criticisms of President Obama has been his continuation of many of his predecessor's policies, especially regarding this absurd war against terror (as well as continuation of Bush's tax policies regarding the wealthy).

Now it wasn't President Obama's administration that started this drone war in Pakistan. It apparently began in 2004 with a strike that not only took out Nek Muhammad Wazir, but two children as well. But it certainly has increased dramatically under President Obama, with 53 such attacks in his first year in office - a total exceeding the previous five years combined!

While statistics on death wrought by this drone war are notoriously difficult to assemble, the New America Foundation has made an impressive attempt at this and reports

Our study shows that the 283 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 70 in 2011, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 1,717 and 2,680 individuals, of whom around 1,424 to 2,209 were described as militants in reliable press accounts. Thus, the true non-militant fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 17 percent. In 2010, it was more like five percent.*

[The asterisk is to note that these figures are current up to 11/16/11.]

What this means is that nonmilitant deaths in this time span were something on the order of between 293 and 471. Just "collateral damage" and typical casualties of war? In an undeclared war, yet? It is difficult for me to understand exactly how these things are going to make us safer from retaliatory attacks.

So while there is a certain logic in our president's justification of the drone attacks, in the broader picture I believe it is seriously flawed.

Every terrorist death is a recruitment tool for Al Qaeda. Every U.S. intrusion into foreign sovereign nations is a dialing up of the overall struggle. What might help is a clean break with the neocon imperialism policies. It is as morally wrong for the United States to attempt to force upon the other nations of the world our ideal of democracy and way of life as it would be for them to force theirs upon us.

You Think It Isn't A Problem?

I've written before about the unjustness of churches and religious enterprises, which can generate huge sums of money, being exempted from taxation. And I feel "led" to do it again.

Look, these are hard times. Because so many people are out of work government revenues are way down. Social services are being cut at an alarming rate and to a stunning degree. Local governments are finding shocking ways to make the ends meet, including cutting off street lights, cutting back on police protection, not prosecuting domestic crimes. I've seen articles on all these things and more.

At the same time consider this. Yesterday the Daily Kos reported that in the great state of Kentucky

The Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, approves of the project and supports the huge tax break. Unfortunately at the same time they are cutting 286 million from education and cutting social services. Someone has their priorities out of order.

What project is this?

Only fundamentalist Christian Ken Ham's Creationist theme park. According to that article, Ham's little enterprise gets a 43 million dollar tax break for teaching that the Genesis "account" of creation is true.

This article at the above link well sums up this outrage:

A group that teaches that the earth is only a few thousand years old, a group that teaches that dinosaurs roamed the earth with men and were on Noah's Ark.....gets treated with respect and given financial favors while education and social services go begging.

This is a wrong that is going to continue to be ignored because our political leaders are more concerned about staying on the government payroll themselves than leading our nation. Let's face it. In our land of mostly mindless conformists, you aren't going to get elected or reelected to public office by standing up to the vast religious lobby.

This is a practical matter and has no bearing on our great nation's stance on religious freedom.