Wednesday, August 31, 2011

What God Wants

Warren Jeffs, convicted leader of a breakaway polygamist group, says he is only following God’s Word. According to God, in a message delivered to the court through His disciple Jeffs, “I, the Lord God of heaven, call upon the court to cease this open prosecution against my pure, holy way.” If the court continues its prosecution, God will “send a scourge upon the counties of prosecutorial zeal to make humbled by sickness and death.” While I am not certain I understand this last sentence, it doesn’t sound good. Thank God it doesn’t really come from God.

Or does it?

How do we know when God speaks to us for real, and when it is just a con? The answer is simple: When God says what we want God to say, we believe it is God who is saying it. When God says what we don’t want God to say, we believe it isn’t God saying it.

For example, Jews believe (or used to believe) that God told them not to eat pork; St. Peter, himself a Jew, heard God say we can eat whatever we want. The Jews think Peter was simply a pork-loving Jew who wanted to eat ham without guilt. The Christians think Peter was God’s vehicle for ending a dietary code no longer valid now that the Messiah has come. How can we know which of them is right?

We can’t. So we don’t even try. Rather we simply do what we want to do, and call our doing an act of faith. I’m not proposing polygamy or kashrut. I’m simply pointing out that if we are going to call the latter an act of faith, we have to accord the same right to the former.

Polygamy is, of course, against the law. And, if anti-Sharia laws go into effect, kashrut too will be a felony since Muslim and Jewish dietary laws both outlaw pork. But the fact that the state can dictate to God what is godly simply suggests that when it comes to religion the Founding Fathers’ Constitution trumps the Almighty Father’s Commandments.

Again, we don’t mind this when the court rules in our favor, but we hate it when it rules against us. Many of us want the state to rule against Sharia and for Christian norms as they understand them. But when that same court violates those norms by allowing the teaching evolution rather than Intelligent Design or disavowing prayer in public schools (by which is meant prayer to Christ not Krishna) they claim the court is acting against God.

You don’t have to an atheist to see that God wants whatever believers in that God want. Anyone who rejects the word of God coming to us through His prophet Warren Jeffs is proving that point even as most would deny doing it.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

$kin Deep

I’m not wealthy, nor did I ever think I would be, but I always felt I should have more money then I do. Now I know why I don’t: I’m not pretty.

According to University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh in Why Attractive People Are More Successful, pretty people average $230,000 more in earning over one’s work-life than unattractive people. If you were smart enough to save that $230,000 as it came in, it could amount to millions. And all because you’re pretty.

Is this fair? Should there be an Ugly People’s Disability Act that boosts the income of the unattractive to match that of attractive people? I look the way I do because of my parent’s genes and because I never met a hot fudge sundae I didn’t like, and that too can probably be blamed on my parents’ genes; can I sue my parents for lost wages?

I checked into this with a lawyer I know who makes more and looks better than me, and he said no. I simply have to compensate for my looks with competence. He wasn’t kidding. What is the ratio of competence to beauty? He didn’t know.

I watch the folks on Fox & Friends (I would now change the name of their show to Foxy Friends) who seem to excel in looks while being a bit on the lighter side of competence, and wonder how I can compete. Then I watch Rev. Al Sharpton who makes up in decibels what he lacks in looks. Maybe that’s the way to go: loud and proud.

I’m really at a loss. And worse, I’m in my sixties so my level of attractiveness, as low as it is, is only going to get lower. Well it may be too late for me, but there are millions of Americans for whom some redress is possible. Here is my suggestion:

Take a look at yourself in the mirror and decide if you are pretty or not. If you are, print up some cards that read, “I’m sorry you’re not as pretty as me; here’s $100.” Put fresh $100 bills in each card, and start handing them out to the unattractive people on the street or in the office. After you’ve given away 2300 cards you can stop and just go about your business.

I look forward to getting your cards.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Sunrise, Sunset or Galileo Shmalileo

Just when you thought we’d put the Dark Ages behind us, the Chicago Tribune reports that the Society of St. Pius X (no relation to Malcom) is urging the Catholic Church to once again reject the findings of Galileo Galilei and abdandon it belief in heliocentrism, the notion that the earth revolves around the sun. Galileo had his telescope to prove his findings; the Society has the Bible:

"And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, while the nation took vengeance on its foe.… The sun halted in the middle of the sky; not for a whole day did it resume its swift course." (Joshua 10:12-14)

The group’s concern is that by admitting the Bible is wrong with regards to astrophysics, the Church is losing its capacity to rule our lives. This is from the Tribune:

"Heliocentrism becomes dangerous if it is being propped up as the true system when, in fact, it is a false system," said Robert Sungenis, leader of a budding movement to get scientists to reconsider. "False information leads to false ideas, and false ideas lead to illicit and immoral actions — thus the state of the world today.… Prior to Galileo, the church was in full command of the world, and governments and academia were subservient to her."

I for one am always nostalgic for the Dark Ages, so bring it on Pius X! But as always there are those who just have to disagree. Take for example Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY (the state, not the jelly). Now Ken believes there is scientific proof that the earth is less than ten thousand years old, and that humans coexisted with dinosaurs, and even has a triceratops in his museum with a saddle on it! Ken says that the Bible is mum about the structure of the solar system.

"There's a big difference between looking at the origin of the planets, the solar system and the universe and looking at presently how they move and how they are interrelated," Ham said. "The Bible is neither geocentric or heliocentric. It does not give any specific information about the structure of the solar system."

Now when you have people who think the Flintstones was a documentary claiming that your biblical notion that the sun revolves around the earth isn’t biblical, you know you’ve got a problem. But don’t laugh. In a couple of years Texas science books will teach the heliocentric controversy right next to a short biography of the paleontologist who found the triceratops with the saddle.

America our future is bright, but only because we are so dim.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Pewless in Seattle

Americans love God, but according to the new Barna Group survey on religion in America, we don’t care to visit him all that often. According to Barna while the number of Americans attending religious institutions went up for a moment after 9/11, the number of those who eschew houses of God has increased from 24% in 2001 to 37% today. Holding steady at about 95% is the number of Americans who claim to believe in God.

While the Barna people didn’t survey me, they certainly have me pegged. I believe in God, but I rarely attend worship services. Why? Because the God I believe in has little or nothing to do with what goes on in most houses of worship.

I experience God as Mother and understand God as the ungendered source and substance of reality. My God is unconcerned with religion and the things that many religious people care about: who wins, who loses, and whom God loves best. My idea of God is closer to the ideas of Spinoza, Emerson, and Ramana Maharshi, then it is to the theologies I hear articulated in most Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu houses of worship. So I rarely attend worship services, and yet I cannot shake my experience of God.

The truth is, however, even if I found a community that promoted an idea of God similar to mine, I still wouldn’t attend all that often. While I benefit from and enjoy ecstatic chanting (kirtan in its various forms), and find extended periods of silence in contemplative communities valuable (I just spent a rich and wonderful week at Wisdom House in Litchfield, CT, a spiritual retreat sponsored by the Daughters of Wisdom), I don’t find myself drawn to regular community gatherings. I seem to be less and less in need of an on-going spiritual community. I have my friends, my books, my practice, and my dog, and that seems to be enough. At least for now.

So before clergy and laity start advocating for change in response to the Barna numbers, they ought to find out what the unchurched are doing instead of church. If they are like me, the future of spiritual retreat centers is bright, but that of formal houses of worship is troubling.

Let me know: Do you go to a house of worship regularly? Why or why not?

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Pretty? Pay Up!

I’m not wealthy, nor did I ever think I would be, but I always felt I should have more money then I do. Now I know why I don’t: I’m not pretty.

According to University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh in Why Attractive People Are More Successful, pretty people average $230,000 more in earnings over the course of one’s work life than unattractive people. If you were smart enough to save that $230,000 as it came in, it could amount to millions. And all because you’re pretty.

Is this fair? Should there be an Ugly People’s Disability Act that boosts the income of the unattractive to match that of attractive people? I look the way I do because of my parent’s genes and because I never met a hot fudge sundae I didn’t like, and that too can probably be blamed on my parents; can I sue my parents for lost wages?

I checked into this with a lawyer I know who makes more and looks better than me, and he said no. I simply have to compensate for my looks with competence. He wasn’t kidding. What is the ratio of competence to beauty? He didn’t know.

I watch the folks on Fox & Friends (I would now change the name of their show to Foxy Friends) who seem to excel in looks while being a bit on the lighter side of competence, and wonder how I can compete. Then I watch Rev. Al Sharpton who makes up in decibels what he lacks in looks. Maybe that’s the way to go: loud and proud.

I’m really at a loss. And worse, I’m in my sixties so my level of attractiveness, as low as it is, is only going to get lower. Well it may be too late for me, but there are millions of Americans like me for whom some redress is possible. Here is my suggestion:

Take a look at yourself in the mirror and decide if you are pretty or not. If you are, prorate the $230,000 extra you will earn because you are pretty, and start giving that money away to the unattractive people who live around you. Have some cards printed up that read, “I’m sorry you’re not as pretty as me; here’s $100,” and but a fresh $100 bill in the card and start handing them out on the street or at the office. After you’ve given away 2300 cards you can stop and just go about your business. I look forward to getting your cards.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Avoid Future Disappointment & Regret

I love watching television. I find it both entertaining and educational. Just the other day I was watching a commercial for gold plated faux $50 coins and learned that by buying today I could “avoid disappointment and future regret.” Now that is something worth knowing!

Disappoint happens when I desire one outcome and receive another less desirable outcome. Regret is when I engage in an action designed to bring me (or someone else) pleasure, and which ends up bringing me (or someone else) pain. I can eliminate both by purchasing a gold plated faux $50 coin for about ten bucks plus shipping and handling. It sounds like a good deal. But is it true?

The only way to test the truth of this commercial is to buy a coin and see if, from the moment it arrives, I avoid disappointment and future regret. This would, by definition, take me the rest of my life, so buying this coin to test its truth claims is one long-term commitment I am not eager to make. Hence I cannot comment meaningfully on its truth claim.

What I can do, however, is think a bit more about disappointment and regret. Just a bit more—after all, this is only ten dollars worth of worry.

It seems to me that when it comes to disappointment, the Hsin Hsin Ming (On the Faith Mind) by the seventh century Chinese Ch’an master Chien-chih Seng-ts’an, offers the best advice: “If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions.” If you want to avoid disappointment, simply accept reality as it is.

Future regret is similar. Future regret is a karmic ripening that happens when your intent while acting in this moment doesn’t match the result of that action at a latter moment. Karma yogis tell us that we should relinquish the results of our actions, doing what is right and good now, and knowing that we have no control over the outcome. But does that do away with regret?

It does if you hold to the notion of holding no opinions. If you have no opinions, no preferences, then whatever happens is simply reality and you deal with it without any extraneous emotions such as disappointment and regret.

The challenge is achieving the mindset of Chien-chih Seng-ts’an. The very desire to do so sets in motion the very things you desire to avoid, so you are screwed as soon as you begin. And because this is so, it will take you a lifetime filled with disappointment and regret to achieve your goal, if you achieve it at all.

So in the end it may be a lot easier just to buy the gold plated faux $50 coin. Which is why I watch so much television in the first place—you learn lots of stuff.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

God is Messing with Texas

I believe God controls the weather, and uses the weather to reward and punish people. I believe this because it is in the Bible, and because most of my neighbors seem to believe it as well. It is comforting to believe what everyone else believes. Easier too.

Over the years I’ve been told that extreme weather is God’s punishment for American acceptance of abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage, and other sins of liberalism. I don’t doubt this at all. What I don’t understand is why God hates Texas, that bastion of all things godly.

Texas is boiling. July has been the hottest and driest month in Texas since Noah. The government is spending millions of dollars on a treatment plant that will allow Texans to drink their own urine, but the only showers the state can count on are golden ones.

But why? It can’t be Global Warming because Global Warming is a liberal hoax. It can’t be El Nino or El Nina because we put up a fence to keep Mexicans out. So it can only be God:

“Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For the LORD’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is assigning to you.“ (Deut.11: 16-17)

Sure you could say God was only threatening the Jews in Israel, but we didn’t limit God’s wrath to the past in the past, so we can’t do so now. So what god is Texas worshipping that is getting the LORD so angry?

It can’t be the god of the gay agenda, or the god of liberalism, or the god of compromise—Texas is the bastion of conservative, dominionist, and even secessionist Christianity. Is there a single state in the Union that loves Jesus more than Texas? I doubt it. So what could be the problem? Unless…

When Christianity started there was a notion that the God of the “Old Testament” was not the God of the New Testament, and that the Old Testament God should be abandoned. But it is the OT God that uses weather to punish people. Could it be that what we are seeing in Texas today is the wrath of the OT God aimed at Texas because Texas has sided with Jesus? Clearly Gov. Perry’s rally calling people to Jesus didn’t bring a change in the weather. Maybe that’s because the God of the weather isn’t a Christian.

I can’t pretend to know. But I will tell the people of Texas this: God is messing with you, and you had better find out why and fast. I suggest Gov. Perry hold a second prayer rally, and this time limit it to Jews. Have the rabbis of Texas pray for rain. They may be the only Texans left who believe in the God of weather.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

If I Had 1000 Terrorists

“I would waterboard 1000 terrorists to save one American life.”

That’s what the bumper sticker read on the Ford Bronco driving in front of me this afternoon. It is a compelling confession. I couldn’t help wondering if it were true.

Based on the other stickers the truck carried, I wondered if the driver of the Bronco would waterboard 1000 terrorists to save one baby killing abortionist even if he or she were American. I think the driver would have the same reservation about saving one can gay American married to another gay American. In fact I doubt he would waterboard anyone to save President Obama who is a straight American with two kids.

Interesting questions to ask the driver at a stop light, but given the fact that waterboarding doesn’t result in good intelligence, does it really make sense to imagine that waterboarding 1000 terrorists would save even one American life? I suspect the driver would really want his sticker to read: “I’d waterboard 1000 terrorists just for the freaking hell of it.”

I guess that’s why I don’t drive a Ford Bronco: I wouldn’t waterboard anybody.

If for some reason I did have 1000 terrorists on hand I’d put them in prison rather than waste time and water on waterboarding them.

Where would one get 1000 terrorists anyway? I don’t think we have that many on hand. And if we did, why give them to someone, especially someone who drives a Ford Bronco?

Of course if I did have 1000 terrorists I imagine the government would think I was a terrorist mastermind and come after me. So I’d either refuse the delivery of 1000 terrorists or call the authorities once I had them. I’d call them even if I had only 999 terrorists. Or even 998. In fact if I had only one terrorist I would turn him or her over to the authorities. I just don’t want them around.

I had the opportunity of pulling up next to the Ford Bronco and asking the driver if he plans on getting his hands on 1000 terrorists, but when I looked into the front seat it had that, “I have no sense of humor and I will kill you for being a smart ass” look, so I just let him get ahead of me when the light turned green.

Monday, August 08, 2011

Are You Afraid of God?

Are you afraid of God? Millions of Americans seem to be. Their fear is tied to their belief in eternal damnation in Hell. The Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, knows nothing about this. For the early Hebrews everyone suffered the same fate: we all went to Sheol, a lifeless place similar to a Motel Six where they forgot to leave the light on for you.

Hell comes to us via the rabbis who probably borrowed the idea from Zoroastrianism. The rabbis made little use of the idea, while their their Christian rivals seem to obsess over it.

Oliver Thomas writes about this in USA TODAY (Monday 9/8/11). According to Thomas, when Jesus speaks of "eternal" punishment the Greek New Testament uses the word aionos which is better understood as "final" rather "eternal". And almost every reference to Hell is a reference to Gehenna, the valley on the south side of Jerusalem where garbage was dumped in Jesus’ day. Jesus’ message was this: change your life (teshuvah in the Hebrew, repent in English) or your final destination will be the garbage dump. Or, as Rev. Thomas puts is, repent or you wind up wasting your life.

If Jesus did not teach eternal damnation, why insist he did?

The answer, I think, is simple: fear brings power; the only way we can get people to follow stupid ideas is to scare them out of thinking any other ideas. This is what fundamentalism does to people. It robs them of the ability to think by scaring them away from questioning their beliefs at all.

If the motivations of the masters of this madness are clear—fear brings them power—it still leaves us with the question as to why people adhere to these ideas? To be blunt: Why volunteer to follow a preacher who preaches a sadistic god and a religion of hate? I can only think of one reason: the people who follow sadists are themselves sadistic.

When I suggest this to fundamentalists they are horrified, and claim they do not believe in eternal hellfire for their own benefit but because this is what the Bible teaches. This is, of course, nonsense. The Bible can be read many different ways. There are as many love-based versions of Christianity, for example, as there are fear-based ones. So why choose fear over love, torture over forgiveness; anger over compassion? There can only be one answer: they like the fate that befalls those who disagree with them. They are sadist.

I find this answer inescapable and very troubling. Please show me where I am wrong.

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Religion By The Numbers

According to a study by University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Philip Schwadel the higher one’s level of education the broader and more liberal one’s religious beliefs become.

I would like to take credit for this. I would like to think that as students are exposed to my World Religions class or my Religion in America class they become more open in their thinking about religion in general and their religion in particular. But, according to Schwadel this trend begins when people enter the eighth grade, so I really can’t take credit at all. It is cool, though.

The study shows that “for each additional year of education past grade seven” Americans are

1. 15% more likely to attend a worship service in the past week
2. 13% more likely to do that worship in a less strict mainline church
3. 14% more likely to believe in a Higher Power than a personal god
4. 13% less likely to think one religion us true and the others false

I am confused as to how I am to read these numbers. Am I to multiply these percentages by the number of years of schooling one has past the seventh grade? Does this mean that if you make it through high school you are 75% more likely to attend a church? Or that if, like me, you have 13 years of post-seventh grade education you are 169% more likely to think truth is present of more than one religion? How can you be 169% anything?

So what does this study show? It shows that some of us (that would be me) haven’t got a clue how to read sociological studies that include numbers. If you can help me out with this, please do.

In the meantime, I am gearing up for my fall classes and the off-chance that I will get a group of students who 1) have made it through the seventh grade; 2) did so on actual merit and not because their teachers cheated on their No Child Left Behind tests, and 3) are 196% more likely to believe in an impersonal god.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

War Against the West or War Against the Rest?

To speak of an Islamic war against the West, as many do, is to miss the greater truth of our time. Islam is only one front of a larger war, the war of fundamentalism against post-modernity; What Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish fundamentalisms have in common is a modernist obsession with answers cast in affirmations of pre-modern theologies.

Fundamentalism is all about answers, and their primary enemies are reason, free thought, and the scientific method, all of which are rooted in questions. When their answers are questioned they become afraid; when they become afraid they become aggressive; and when they become aggressive they become violent.

How do we who side with the reason, science, and freethinking win this war? I don’t know if we can. Indeed it may already be lost. Look at our debt ceiling “debate.” No matter what the facts there will be members of Congress (both Tea Party and Progressive) who will vote against raising the debt limit believing either than the country will not crash, or that it is preferable to crash than to borrow. This is a martyrology common to fundamentalisms. It is better to die for one’s faith than question it.

The same mentality is at play in the “debates” over evolution and climate change. According to fundamentalists science is simply a matter of opinion; facts have nothing to do with it. Facts are simply what we say they are, and truth is measured in decibels rather than empirical evidence. The louder you scream your “facts” the more “true” they become. This is true on the right and the left, and the middle—if there is still middle—has been silenced by all the screaming.

Vice President Cheney was wrong to deride the “reality based community,” and right to point out its growing irrelevance. “Reality is what we [meaning the Bush administration] say it is,” he said. And he was right. In a world where reality is spin spun loudly, can reason prevail? I doubt it.

Humanity is too young to know if this is a pattern or not. But we may eventually discover that there is a cycle to human civilization: we move from pre-modern superstition to modern science/reason to post-modern questioning of everything and then become so frightened by existential absurdity and the possibility of nihilism that we reject reality and take refuge in fundamentalist sureties. This leads to a long period of scientific and economic decline that results in on-going religious wars among competing sureties that eventually exhausts people to the point where they are willing to give reason a shot once more. Unfortunately rationalism in turn collapses into nihilism and the cycle continues.

My guess is we may be on the verge of a return to pre-modern religious wars and the violence such madness entails. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.

My guess? There is a war. And we have already lost.