Category: Religion

Taking the time to contemplate the vast amount of right-wing smears that have been either facilitated, advanced, or concocted by conservatives over the past several months is an overwhelming task.  Within each of these petty, partisan, often nonsensical parries and thrusts I am reminded again of the excesses of the Pharisees.  Wishing to have everything on their own terms and in accordance with every selfish demand, modern day Pharisees are found not merely in the opposition party, but regrettably sometimes among our own ranks, particularly in the form of people who fail to neither understand nor respect the vast amount of indignation felt when crucial reform legislation is watered down or vaguely outlined due to nothing more than political expediency and self-preservation.  If this sort of thing was limited to politicians, it might be more easily challenged, but one sees it everywhere.  Most recently, those well-connected business types who long ago lost their souls in selling the whole world are also guilty as charged.

The Parables of Jesus were spoken in symbolic language which lends them to a variety of different, though often interrelated interpretations.  Indeed, the very structure of the words which form them make any one sole meaning impossible.  It is this fact in particular that has made me skeptical of any church or any faith which stakes a claim to the “real” way.  Biblical scholarship has revealed nuance and even irony in the original text itself, both of which must be taken into account before forming any one-sided reading.  Jesus often spoke indirectly to avoid persecution by both Roman and Jewish authorities, but beyond the obvious, I have always seen the Parables much as I would an excellent work of poetry, one which provides a new, helpful, before unseen resonance with every subsequent reading.  The intrinsic thread remains constant, but new permutations arise as I age and depending on what frame of mind I am in at that particular juncture in my life, I always glean something brand new.

When we talk about our own complicity in a system where those at the top dictate the course of action for those subservient to them, I return to the Parable of the Talents.  In this day and age where we often believe that our own power, income, and sphere of influence owes its existence to making compromises with unethical major players, this Parable address our messy moral dilemmas.  Here, the version in the Gospel of Matthew, which is cited most frequently.    

Most of us, I suspect, go through our lives with this niggling little feeling of “if only” we had our act together, we could really do something with it.  Or do something better.  If only we were more organized, had more energy, better tools and gidgets, or had taken a different course of study, or if our parents didn’t hate us, or if we hadn’t gotten sick, or if the car hadn’t come over the center line….

Other times, like a Phoenix, we arise from what should have just been one flat out disaster that we should not, no way, no how, have survived, and yet we did, leaving us puzzled as to why.  We had a chainsaw and gas when the tree hit the car, we trusted our instincts, our tracking skill, and our horse and found the trail back, we came up to the edge of the cliff and… didn’t fall off, the seat belt held and the embankment wasn’t too steep, the life jacket worked and somebody pulled us out.  Or we pulled them out.  We traded for firewood and didn’t freeze to death.  We found a job or received a gift unexpectedly, just in time.  We were in the depths, and bounced just so, and came back up gasping.

And still, have this little insecurity. It could be better, right?  We got through the week, clawing, kicking, and screaming, resigned to just surviving the dreadful thing…  the ogre bosses, the obligations, the whiny relatives,  the disappointments, the crazy destructiveness of our political system, waking up at 4am exhausted, now,not having to do that soul killing monotony for a day … What if…

What would Jesus Do about Health Care?

Good Question.

Well it sounds, like he understood how Sick People need Doctors:

Mark 2:17 GWT

When Jesus heard that, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor; those who are sick do. I’ve come to call sinners, not people who think they have God’s approval.”

(emphasis added)

GOP Health Care Obstructionists, are you Listening???

The Pharisees, thought they were doing God’s work too.

Imagine their surprise when this upstart Carpenter, from the old neighborhood, dared to stand up to their blatant self-righteousness … and dish back to them some cold, hard truth …

Bullying is the act of intentionally causing harm to others, through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods of coercion such as manipulation.

[…]

In colloquial speech, bullying often describes a form of harassment perpetrated by an abuser who possesses more physical and/or social power and dominance than the victim.

[…]

The harassment can be verbal, physical and/or emotional.

[…]

Bullies hurt people verbally and physically.

[…]

There are many reasons for that. One of them is because the bullies themselves are or have been the victim of bullying.

[…]

Bullying can occur in any setting where human beings interact with each other.

[…]

Bullying can exist between social groups, social classes and even between countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B…

As soon as Linda, one of the girls in our group, saw the dead body slide out from behind the steering wheel, she started to cry and hid behind two of the boys.  A strangled cry.  A young plainclothes officer grabbed the cadaver by the hair and spit in his face.  Then he turned to us and said:

“No, what are you crying for?  This guy was a real shit.  Nothing happened, everything’s okay.  Nothing happened.  Don’t cry.”

Crossposted at Daily Kos

h/t to Ek for the FP

NEW RULE:     Cults are NOT allowed to caucus  

    GAME OVER for Democracy if one of these fucks gets to be President. We already saw what it was like under Bush when a POTUS thinks he was appointed by God, and not the Supreme Court.

    It’s as if they remade Jesus into a free market capitalist!

   Because the minority occupying the high places are stronger than a majority that are irrelevant.

~snip~

    “How do we take back the gates of commerce which the enemy guards so closely?”

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what (from my rabid-atheist perspective) appears to be a firm grip by the churches of America on those who attend church. I’m beginning to understand something: it isn’t that the church has a grip on the parishioners, it’s that the parishioners have a grip on the church. See, down here in the US South, “church” isn’t just a building you go to one hour a week, it’s the centerpiece of the local people’s entire culture. It’s where you see your friends and neighbors, it’s where your kids go when they’re Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts (you’d be amazed how many Scout troops are hosted in church basements), it’s where at least two people I know met and wooed their spouses (and where at least one person I know met the person he cheated on his wife with), and at the end of it all, it’s where the living go to bury their dead, knowing with certainty that they too will someday be buried there next to generations of their own people. Vacation trips, charity drives, study groups, knitting circles, art classes, the church is at the center of all of it for the majority of Americans, and not just down here in the South.

What do we secularists have to offer in place of this richness? The sad, barren truth, without even the dubious comfort of an uppercase “T” on the word? The truth that there is no God and when you’re dead, you’re dead and you’ll never see your loved ones again? And we wonder why we have, shall we say, a bit of a “PR problem”.

Secular humanism will overcome “church” the day that secular humanism offers something better. And to be perfectly blunt, “the truth about how the world is” just isn’t perceived by most people as “better”. We need more than just “the truth”, much more. I’m not sure that secularism as currently constituted even has the potential  to replace “church”, if for no other reason than the fact that it simply isn’t set up structurally to answer the same set of human needs that “church” answers.

Apologies for making this a quickie. I have “company coming” this afternoon and I have to superclean  cleara path prepare. :-/

So. My daughter is 12.5, just finished 6th Grade. For a variety of reasons, I’m feeling like… well, it’s time. I’d like to take her to “Church” at least once in a while and so I’ll be doing some Church Shopping. More important, I’ll be talking to her, more than I have thus far, about all things God.

I’d love to hear from any of you who might have, uhm, an opinion, some experience, suggestions, or just stories if you feel like it. It’s Sunday after all.

A few more details below the line.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

My wonderful phone company, Credo, sent me the following:

“Tiller the Baby Killer.”

That’s how FOX News host Bill O’Reilly referred to Dr. George Tiller who was murdered in cold blood Sunday while he attended church.

Tiller’s crime? He provided healthcare to women. Including abortion.

Salon.com reports that FOX’s “O’Reilly Factor” has  featured attacks on Dr. Tiller on no less than 28 episodes:

“He’s guilty of “Nazi stuff,” said O’Reilly on June 8, 2005; “a  moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida,” he suggested on March 15, 2006. “This  is the kind of stuff happened in Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet  Union,” said O’Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.

What happened Sunday was devastating. And it might not have happened if it wasn’t for the hate mongering of Bill O’Reilly and others.

There are two things you can do.

  1. Sign our petition to Bill O’Reilly. Ask him to take responsibility for creating an atmosphere in which the assassination of Dr. George Tiller comes as no surprise. And tell him to stop spreading hateful rhetoric which encourages violence against doctors who provide reproductive healthcare for women.

2. Make a donation to Medical Students for Choice in honor of Dr. George Tiller. We must lift up a new generation of doctors who are willing and able to provide reproductive healthcare to women.

This Epistle to the Subscribers made sense to me.  I signed petitions and I sent $$.  I thought about it. It made sense, sort of: Billo spews garbage, crazy persons ingest garbage, garbage in garbage out, crazy person kills doctor who provides abortions.  So it might go. But, alas, it didn’t make that much sense, because if somebody believes that the life of a fetus is precious, how much more precious is the life of a doctor?  Even a doctor who allegedly commits cardinal sins.  Have we gone insane, I wondered.

Religion and science are both practiced by humans, therefore they are not as unlike as many argue.  There is much overlap in the skills of emotions and of understanding required to practice either productively.  Both fall disappointingly short of realizing their ideals in practice.  Both are corrupted by the common human flaws.

Faith is one foundation of most religions.  All religions also involve practice.  It’s not so obvious how to master one’s anger and violent tendencies.  Selfishness is a persistent human trait.  And greed, and so on.  But practice tends toward perfection.  Not being a good person for some future reward, no.  I am talking about practicing behavior which will bring happiness to oneself and to others.  Christianity is in alignment with every major religion in placing the golden rule at it’s center.  Treat others as you yourself would be treated.  This simple guide defines a human technology which could actually prevent warfare and end torture.  It is a much more effective approach than simply being right-which is where science, or being reality-based, rears it arrogant head.

I stress arrogant, as opposed to confident in oneself as a result of disciplined practice of rationality.  For science entails practice as well.  No matter how deep one’s knowledge of the heuristic methods of science, acquiring the skills of a practicing scientist requires years of practice-as in religion, the acquired skills are never fully mastered.

Oops, did I call science arrogant?  And I was so wanting to be nice.  Sigh.  If it makes you rational ones feel better, pretending to have co-powers with god is rather breathtaking in its audacity, not to mention claiming to know the unknowable.  So let’s call it a tie.  Okay, go ahead, give religion the black mark on this one.  The over-riding point is that humans tend to be arrogant.  Add that one to the list of human afflictions.