I am incensed over the current attacks on Governor Mike Huckabee by the left wing drive-by lame stream Islamo-terror media. Yes, the Governor misspoke when he said President Obama grew up in Kenya, but that does not mean the Governor was wrong when he said that President Obama, his father, and his grandfather have a very different understanding of the Mau Mau revolution than that of most Americans. They do, and it is time they admitted it. All three of them.
Governor Huckabee is a master of history. True, believing that the world is only six thousand years old makes this mastery a bit easier, but the Mau Mau revolution is quite recent, taking place here in the United States only 45 years ago. No, I am not talking about the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonialism. Why should American’s care about that? We never had to deal with British colonialism, and as far as I know we are all proud members of the British Commonwealth.
The true Mau Mau revolution, the one that should strike fear in the hearts of all patriotic Americans is The Del-Tino’s 1966 hit, Papa Ooh Mau Mau in which we find the revolutionary lyric: Oom-ooma-mau-mau, papa-ooma-mau-mau. Ooma-mau-mau, papa-ooma-mau-mau. Papa-a-mau-mau, papa-ooma-mau-mau ... (you put the Ooh Mau Mau.......)
Did you catch that? “You put the ohh Mau Mau?!?” Do you know what that means? Do you know where they are going to put it? [Here’s a hint: the Bible is against putting it where they are planning to put it!] Do you know what that implies for the future of America? Do you have any idea what the Governor is talking about, and how vital it must be to the salvation of this country because the Governor is talking about it?
Neither do I, but I trust that the Governor thinks he knows what he is talking about, and that is good enough for me. As long as he thinks he is thinking I don’t have to. Indeed, none of us has to, and that is what is so great about having a President Huckabee in the White House: no history, no science, and no Papa Ooh Mau Mau. God save the Queen!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Monday, March 07, 2011
Rabbis & God: A Call for Intimacy
Carol Ochs, a wonderful teacher and spiritual guide, wrote an article in the current issue of The Reform Jewish Quarterly entitled: “Fostering a Relationship between Rabbi and God.” I had high hopes for the essay, but was very disappointed.
First Dr. Ochs says, “If we are to deepen the formation of a religious life in others, we must nurture a growing intimacy with God in ourselves. Oddly, we have to put aside the first question we may ask—What do we mean by God?— so that we can overcome the distance required for analytical thought and enter the closeness aspired to by a lover.”
This doesn’t make sense to me. Do we want to be intimate with just anyone? Is our “lover” an unknown quantity? Is there no place for reason in relationships? If we don’t define God how do we know that with which we are becoming intimate is God? If we don’t define God how can we say to a Jew who takes Jesus or Krishna as her lover that she is outside Judaism, or should this no longer concern rabbis?
Dr. Ochs goes on to say that rabbis and rabbinical students need to “return to our own personal experience of the presence of God. In this way we can wrestle with the question, “How do we relate to God, who is now the center of our reality?”
If we do not know what is meant by God, how can we speak of the presence of God? And if we do not what God is, how can we say God is now the center of our reality? And how are we supposed to return to the presence of God in the first place?
The bulk of her essay is a series of interpretations of lines pulled from the Torah, lines she finds to be “touchstones” on her “unmarked journey to a maturing relationship with God.” Despite her claim to the contrary these texts not content free, and do in fact assume a theology, one that I suspect most Jews no longer hold.
For example: “Although you intended me harm, God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Clearly God is a self–conscious being who has intentions and who somehow controls our lives and does so for our own good. Most Jews don’t think this way, which is why organized Judaisms that promote this theology have less and less impact on Jews.
What Jews (and everyone else for that matter) need is a way to encounter reality at a level that transcends and transforms the narrow mind (mochin d’katnut) of self and selfishness, opens us to the spacious mind (mochin d’gadlut) of Self and selflessness, and awakens us to the truth that Alles iz Gott (all is God), understanding God as the intrinsically creative source and substance of all reality.
If I were the head of a rabbinical college I would offer students shamanic training where they learned the ecstatic kabbalistic visualizations of Abulafia, the ecstatic dancing and nigunnim (wordless melodies) of the Hasidim, the dream work of Solomon Almoni, the meditation techniques of Nachman of Breslov and Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, and how to use these and other techniques to create services and life-transition events that had the potential to transform people.
Calling rabbis to God is great. But unless we give them the tools for meeting God—not the anthropomorphic god of the Bronze Age but the timeless God who is Reality itself—the call is going to fall on deaf ears.
First Dr. Ochs says, “If we are to deepen the formation of a religious life in others, we must nurture a growing intimacy with God in ourselves. Oddly, we have to put aside the first question we may ask—What do we mean by God?— so that we can overcome the distance required for analytical thought and enter the closeness aspired to by a lover.”
This doesn’t make sense to me. Do we want to be intimate with just anyone? Is our “lover” an unknown quantity? Is there no place for reason in relationships? If we don’t define God how do we know that with which we are becoming intimate is God? If we don’t define God how can we say to a Jew who takes Jesus or Krishna as her lover that she is outside Judaism, or should this no longer concern rabbis?
Dr. Ochs goes on to say that rabbis and rabbinical students need to “return to our own personal experience of the presence of God. In this way we can wrestle with the question, “How do we relate to God, who is now the center of our reality?”
If we do not know what is meant by God, how can we speak of the presence of God? And if we do not what God is, how can we say God is now the center of our reality? And how are we supposed to return to the presence of God in the first place?
The bulk of her essay is a series of interpretations of lines pulled from the Torah, lines she finds to be “touchstones” on her “unmarked journey to a maturing relationship with God.” Despite her claim to the contrary these texts not content free, and do in fact assume a theology, one that I suspect most Jews no longer hold.
For example: “Although you intended me harm, God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Clearly God is a self–conscious being who has intentions and who somehow controls our lives and does so for our own good. Most Jews don’t think this way, which is why organized Judaisms that promote this theology have less and less impact on Jews.
What Jews (and everyone else for that matter) need is a way to encounter reality at a level that transcends and transforms the narrow mind (mochin d’katnut) of self and selfishness, opens us to the spacious mind (mochin d’gadlut) of Self and selflessness, and awakens us to the truth that Alles iz Gott (all is God), understanding God as the intrinsically creative source and substance of all reality.
If I were the head of a rabbinical college I would offer students shamanic training where they learned the ecstatic kabbalistic visualizations of Abulafia, the ecstatic dancing and nigunnim (wordless melodies) of the Hasidim, the dream work of Solomon Almoni, the meditation techniques of Nachman of Breslov and Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, and how to use these and other techniques to create services and life-transition events that had the potential to transform people.
Calling rabbis to God is great. But unless we give them the tools for meeting God—not the anthropomorphic god of the Bronze Age but the timeless God who is Reality itself—the call is going to fall on deaf ears.
Friday, March 04, 2011
God Slayer No More
I rather liked being a God–slayer, so Pope Benedict XVI’s admission in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, that the Jews are innocent of the execution of Jesus came as a bit of a downer. I used to feel like Buffy without having to learn all that karate.
Of course Christians have murdered millions of Jews over the past 2000 years under the guise of payback for our killing God, so it wasn’t always cool. But today Christians don’t get to kill Jews anymore, though millions still look forward to other people killing all but 144,000 of us before the Second Coming, so let’s not get too excited.
Anyway, if we Jews are innocent, can we sue for damages? Even if we could, no amount of money I got from the Church would make up for my no longer being a God slayer. Especially now, when we need God slayers more than ever.
So, my thanks to the Pope for his honesty. I will write and ask him for a check, and use the money to set up a training academy for the slaying of Gods through the creative and compassionate use of the human imagination. I think I'll call it Imagine. If the Pope doesn’t respond, I’ll try Yoko.
Of course Christians have murdered millions of Jews over the past 2000 years under the guise of payback for our killing God, so it wasn’t always cool. But today Christians don’t get to kill Jews anymore, though millions still look forward to other people killing all but 144,000 of us before the Second Coming, so let’s not get too excited.
Anyway, if we Jews are innocent, can we sue for damages? Even if we could, no amount of money I got from the Church would make up for my no longer being a God slayer. Especially now, when we need God slayers more than ever.
So, my thanks to the Pope for his honesty. I will write and ask him for a check, and use the money to set up a training academy for the slaying of Gods through the creative and compassionate use of the human imagination. I think I'll call it Imagine. If the Pope doesn’t respond, I’ll try Yoko.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Will People of Good Will Stand Together Against Hate?
Democracy and responsibility are not the same thing. While I welcome, support, and encourage democratic movements among all peoples, I have to recognize that they may use their new freedoms to foster ideas that I find hateful and threatening. Case in point: the return to prominence in Egypt of Sheik Yusuf al–Qaradawi, an anti-Semitic preacher of hate.
In a 2009 television interview on Al Jazeera, the Sheik claimed that Hitler was sent by Allah as an act of “divine punishment” for the “corruption” that is the Jewish people, and he hoped that Muslims would carry on this work. In a separate interview, al–Qaradawi expressed his hope that before he died he would have the opportunity to go to the “land of jihad” and shoot Jews.
Sheik Yusuf al–Qaradawi is a major player in the Islamic revival, an advisor to the Muslim Brotherhood, a media star hosting “Sharia and Life” on Al Jazeera, and a symbol of Egyptian freedom who delivered the Tahrir Square sermon on February 18 to a million Muslims. I worry that the Arab principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” will encourage the emerging democratic leaders to double down on Jew-hatred and use anti–Israel sentiment to cement their positions of power.
What can we do about this? First, know it is coming. Second, talk to your Muslim friends and neighbors about it. Third, ask that your local Muslim leaders take the moral high ground in this, and preemptively speak out publically to their communities and to the media in general about the evils of Jew–hatred. If they are afraid, offer to stand with them. If they refuse, think seriously about standing against them.
Liberal Jews and rabbis have long been doing the same with regard to anti–Islamic feelings among Jews and others: at this very moment, I am working against the hate–filled Tennessee law seeking to outlaw Sharia and hence Islam in the state of Tennessee. Now it is time for our Muslim colleagues to do the same for us among their fellow Muslims.
Will they? I don’t know. Challenge them, and report what you find.
In a 2009 television interview on Al Jazeera, the Sheik claimed that Hitler was sent by Allah as an act of “divine punishment” for the “corruption” that is the Jewish people, and he hoped that Muslims would carry on this work. In a separate interview, al–Qaradawi expressed his hope that before he died he would have the opportunity to go to the “land of jihad” and shoot Jews.
Sheik Yusuf al–Qaradawi is a major player in the Islamic revival, an advisor to the Muslim Brotherhood, a media star hosting “Sharia and Life” on Al Jazeera, and a symbol of Egyptian freedom who delivered the Tahrir Square sermon on February 18 to a million Muslims. I worry that the Arab principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” will encourage the emerging democratic leaders to double down on Jew-hatred and use anti–Israel sentiment to cement their positions of power.
What can we do about this? First, know it is coming. Second, talk to your Muslim friends and neighbors about it. Third, ask that your local Muslim leaders take the moral high ground in this, and preemptively speak out publically to their communities and to the media in general about the evils of Jew–hatred. If they are afraid, offer to stand with them. If they refuse, think seriously about standing against them.
Liberal Jews and rabbis have long been doing the same with regard to anti–Islamic feelings among Jews and others: at this very moment, I am working against the hate–filled Tennessee law seeking to outlaw Sharia and hence Islam in the state of Tennessee. Now it is time for our Muslim colleagues to do the same for us among their fellow Muslims.
Will they? I don’t know. Challenge them, and report what you find.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Real Danger of 2012
While millions of Americans are preparing to obsess over the end of the Mayan calendar, the real danger to America in 2012 is renewed anti–Muslim fear mongering tied to the 2012 elections. I suspect this is what is fueling a new bill introduced into the Tennessee Legislature by Sen. Bill Ketron and Rep. Judd Matheny, both Republicans, which makes following Sharia, Muslim law, a felony punishable by 15 years in prison.
“The threat from Shariah¬–based jihad and terrorism,” the bill states, “presents a real and present danger to the lawful governance of this state and to the peaceful enjoyment of citizenship by the residents of this state.” True enough; that is why we have laws prohibiting acts of violence and terrorism, regardless of the perpetrator.
Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny, however, aren’t seeking to strengthen laws against violence, but to criminalize Sharia, and hence Islam, as a whole. Sharia includes professing one’s faith in God and Muhammad, daily prayer, giving charity, fasting during Ramadan, and making pilgrimage to Mecca. Do we really want to criminalize these activities? Sharia also outlaws theft, murder and illicit sexual union. Would outlawing Sharia decriminalize these acts?
Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny have (deliberately?) equated extremist Islamic teachings for mainstream ones. While actual Sharia is a set of principles that is open to various interpretations depending on the scholars involved and the countries in which they live, their bill claims that "Sharia requires all its adherents to actively and passively support the replacement of America's constitutional republic, including the representative government of this state with a political system based upon sharia… sharia requires the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the United States and Tennessee Constitutions and the imposition of sharia through violence and criminal activity."
This interpretation of Sharia puts Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny in sync with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and American born jihadist Abu Mansoor al–Amriki, and if Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny were Muslims I would support this bill, and do everything I could to get them removed from office. But they aren’t Muslims and actual Tennessee Muslim leaders reject this interpretation of their faith. Tennessee is not in danger of becoming Saudi Arabia. Does anyone imagine that we will vote to make drinking alcohol and eating pork illegal? Are we really going to force the women of Tennessee to dress in chadors and give up driving?
This bill isn’t about protecting Americans; it is about scaring them. We are an easily frightened people, and when we are frightened we are capable of doing very bad things. As our country gears up for the next round of political insanity, anti–Muslim fear mongering will increase. Why? Because it generates votes. If such fear mongering were not a staple of American politics I would say we are witnessing the end of our democracy. But we aren’t. This is simply the sad way too many of our politicians play the game.
“The threat from Shariah¬–based jihad and terrorism,” the bill states, “presents a real and present danger to the lawful governance of this state and to the peaceful enjoyment of citizenship by the residents of this state.” True enough; that is why we have laws prohibiting acts of violence and terrorism, regardless of the perpetrator.
Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny, however, aren’t seeking to strengthen laws against violence, but to criminalize Sharia, and hence Islam, as a whole. Sharia includes professing one’s faith in God and Muhammad, daily prayer, giving charity, fasting during Ramadan, and making pilgrimage to Mecca. Do we really want to criminalize these activities? Sharia also outlaws theft, murder and illicit sexual union. Would outlawing Sharia decriminalize these acts?
Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny have (deliberately?) equated extremist Islamic teachings for mainstream ones. While actual Sharia is a set of principles that is open to various interpretations depending on the scholars involved and the countries in which they live, their bill claims that "Sharia requires all its adherents to actively and passively support the replacement of America's constitutional republic, including the representative government of this state with a political system based upon sharia… sharia requires the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the United States and Tennessee Constitutions and the imposition of sharia through violence and criminal activity."
This interpretation of Sharia puts Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny in sync with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and American born jihadist Abu Mansoor al–Amriki, and if Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny were Muslims I would support this bill, and do everything I could to get them removed from office. But they aren’t Muslims and actual Tennessee Muslim leaders reject this interpretation of their faith. Tennessee is not in danger of becoming Saudi Arabia. Does anyone imagine that we will vote to make drinking alcohol and eating pork illegal? Are we really going to force the women of Tennessee to dress in chadors and give up driving?
This bill isn’t about protecting Americans; it is about scaring them. We are an easily frightened people, and when we are frightened we are capable of doing very bad things. As our country gears up for the next round of political insanity, anti–Muslim fear mongering will increase. Why? Because it generates votes. If such fear mongering were not a staple of American politics I would say we are witnessing the end of our democracy. But we aren’t. This is simply the sad way too many of our politicians play the game.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Meaning and Suffering
Last Friday I attended a lecture by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. During the talk he mentioned that he had abandoned his fundamentalist Christian faith because he was unable to reconcile its belief in a good and interventionist God, with all the suffering he saw in the world. I understand Dr. Ehrman’s problem, but opt for a different solution.
My own position is simple: God is not good. Neither is God bad. God is just God, Reality. We humans invent the categories of good and bad: good is what we like, bad is what we don’t like. Different people have different lists of likes and dislikes, and some among us insist that their lists come from God. God never says otherwise, so their claim can be ignored or denied, but never refuted.
As a student of the Bible I have trouble believing that God is opposed to suffering. God drowns almost all humanity in Genesis, terrorizes the Egyptian people, and murders their first born sons in Exodus, and then goes on to order the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Promised Land.
Causing suffering is God’s MO: look what He is willing to put His Son through just to keep Himself from condemning all of humanity once again. God could have simply forgiven humanity, he didn’t need the torture and death of Jesus. Or did He? The Jewish and Christian Bibles make it clear that God needs the death of innocents (animals, babies, Jesus, etc.) to assuage His wrath. So who says God is anti-suffering?
I find the Book of Job to be the most honest book in the Bible. Job suffers because God wants him to suffer. In his conversation with Job God makes it clear that suffering is part of life, and there is nothing anyone (including God) can do about it. That insight was enough for Job, and he found comfort in the chaos of life. I accept the truth of Job, but I want something more: I want the chutzpah of Abraham.
When God tells Abraham of the coming destruction of Sodom, Abraham demands that the Judge of all the world should himself act justly (Genesis 18:25) . Killing the innocent along with the guilty is wrong. God agrees, though both he and Abe are willing to let the city die if ten good people can’t be found within its gates.
Dr. Ehrman left Christianity because its loving God seemed false. I have yet to leave Judaism because its God—Job’s God—seems all too true.
Judaism is (for me) a blending of Abraham and Job. Like Job I know that suffering and injustice are inescapable, and like Abraham (and the Prophets) I fight against them anyway. Judaism is a rebellion against reality: making meaning in a universe that transcends meaning. It is a rebellion that cannot be won, yet cannot be abandoned (It is not for us to complete the task, but neither are we free to abandon it—Rabbi Tarfon, Avot 2:21) . Our messiah is always coming and never arrives because our vision of a perfect world is always a hope and never a reality.
Suffering does not drive me from Judaism, it confirms the need for it.
My own position is simple: God is not good. Neither is God bad. God is just God, Reality. We humans invent the categories of good and bad: good is what we like, bad is what we don’t like. Different people have different lists of likes and dislikes, and some among us insist that their lists come from God. God never says otherwise, so their claim can be ignored or denied, but never refuted.
As a student of the Bible I have trouble believing that God is opposed to suffering. God drowns almost all humanity in Genesis, terrorizes the Egyptian people, and murders their first born sons in Exodus, and then goes on to order the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Promised Land.
Causing suffering is God’s MO: look what He is willing to put His Son through just to keep Himself from condemning all of humanity once again. God could have simply forgiven humanity, he didn’t need the torture and death of Jesus. Or did He? The Jewish and Christian Bibles make it clear that God needs the death of innocents (animals, babies, Jesus, etc.) to assuage His wrath. So who says God is anti-suffering?
I find the Book of Job to be the most honest book in the Bible. Job suffers because God wants him to suffer. In his conversation with Job God makes it clear that suffering is part of life, and there is nothing anyone (including God) can do about it. That insight was enough for Job, and he found comfort in the chaos of life. I accept the truth of Job, but I want something more: I want the chutzpah of Abraham.
When God tells Abraham of the coming destruction of Sodom, Abraham demands that the Judge of all the world should himself act justly (Genesis 18:25) . Killing the innocent along with the guilty is wrong. God agrees, though both he and Abe are willing to let the city die if ten good people can’t be found within its gates.
Dr. Ehrman left Christianity because its loving God seemed false. I have yet to leave Judaism because its God—Job’s God—seems all too true.
Judaism is (for me) a blending of Abraham and Job. Like Job I know that suffering and injustice are inescapable, and like Abraham (and the Prophets) I fight against them anyway. Judaism is a rebellion against reality: making meaning in a universe that transcends meaning. It is a rebellion that cannot be won, yet cannot be abandoned (It is not for us to complete the task, but neither are we free to abandon it—Rabbi Tarfon, Avot 2:21) . Our messiah is always coming and never arrives because our vision of a perfect world is always a hope and never a reality.
Suffering does not drive me from Judaism, it confirms the need for it.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Peace Treety
With all the turmoil going on in Egypt and other Muslim countries I am being constantly asked about future hopes for peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors. While I hope for peace I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. This is because for many the battle isn’t earthly but cosmic. It is a war between Allah and YHVH and their respective armies of the faithful. There are only two ways to end a cosmic conflict: one God wins and desimates the people of the other God, or people stop allowing themselves to be manipulated by Gods altogether. I can’t see the latter happening, so I take seriously this Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him):
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger as saying:
“Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jews hide behind the tree and the stone, and the tree and the stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him:’ – but the Gharqad tree will not say this, for it is the tree of the Jews.”
This is a good news/bad news Hadith. The bad news is that most Jews will die. This isn't unique to Islam. Some of my Christian friends tell me the same thing: all but 144,000 Jews must die in order for Jesus to return. There is just something about the death of Jews that turns some Gods on. The good news is that there is a tree of the Jews. I had no idea.
It turns out the Gharqad tree is Arabic for the boxthorn, a tree of the nightshade family, of which there are ninety species. I don’t know why this tree loves the Jews, but I am glad it does. All those other trees and stones are antiSemites—damn you, Magnolia tree in my backyard! Curse you Maple tree in my front yard!
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start planting Gharqad trees everywhere. And while you may think me silly, you can at least see why I say there will be no peace in the Middle East. When the future depends on talking trees, you can be certain that the insanity and violence of people and their Gods is too much for what little rationality we have left.
[Case in point: anti-Jewish protests in Tunisia: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142405]
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger as saying:
“Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jews hide behind the tree and the stone, and the tree and the stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him:’ – but the Gharqad tree will not say this, for it is the tree of the Jews.”
This is a good news/bad news Hadith. The bad news is that most Jews will die. This isn't unique to Islam. Some of my Christian friends tell me the same thing: all but 144,000 Jews must die in order for Jesus to return. There is just something about the death of Jews that turns some Gods on. The good news is that there is a tree of the Jews. I had no idea.
It turns out the Gharqad tree is Arabic for the boxthorn, a tree of the nightshade family, of which there are ninety species. I don’t know why this tree loves the Jews, but I am glad it does. All those other trees and stones are antiSemites—damn you, Magnolia tree in my backyard! Curse you Maple tree in my front yard!
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start planting Gharqad trees everywhere. And while you may think me silly, you can at least see why I say there will be no peace in the Middle East. When the future depends on talking trees, you can be certain that the insanity and violence of people and their Gods is too much for what little rationality we have left.
[Case in point: anti-Jewish protests in Tunisia: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142405]
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Live Free and Fart
I get a lot of scam emails. You know, the ones that ask you to help a Nigerian woman cash in on her husband’s millions by paying a bribe to the bank president. I’ve worked with several of these women, and these things never pan out. That’s how I know they’re scams. But since so many people are trying this, I assume some people are making money at it, so I have come up with two similar scams that I would like you to help me beta-test. Please share the following two letters.
My name is Howard Thachapanda. I am a citizen of Malawi, and I am in grave danger. My problem is simple: I fart. I fart a lot. And I make a lot of noise and emit terrible odors when I do so. Which is a lot. My country is about to make farting a crime, and I fear arrest at any moment. I have tried hiding, but the noise and smell of my farts gives me away no matter where I hide. I am contacting you because I know you are person who understands both farting and freedom. I have almost enough money to escape my country, and I am hoping you can supply the rest. It is only $50 dollars. If you can help please reply to this email, and I will ask for your bank account numbers, social security number, and the name of the dwarf who turns straw into gold in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Please help me. And soon. I had a large plate of beans just moments ago and I fear the police are patrolling near-by.
If you don’t feel comfortable pretending to be a citizen of Malawi, try this variant:
My name is J. Morris. I am a United States citizen living in Malawi. I am a mild mannered reporter working for a major metropolitan newspaper, and I am about to be tried in Malawi for the crime of farting. It was an accident, as I understood the law against farting, but I could not find a rest room and was forced to fart on the street. I did not know the man standing next to me was with the Malawi secret police. I was being targeted because I was secretly interviewing leaders of the Live Free and Fart movement in Malawi. I need to raise money for my defense. I was given your name along with several others because you are a champion of freedom, and, so I have been told, a fart sufferer. If you can help me, please respond to this email and we will figure out how much I can take you for. God bless you. And God bless America. And God bless Beano.
So please try these out and let me know which of them works the best. Any money you make from these is yours to keep as a “thank you” for being part of this product testing effort. If you do reply to this post please include your bank account numbers, social security number, and the name of the dwarf who turns straw into gold in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.
Thanks.
My name is Howard Thachapanda. I am a citizen of Malawi, and I am in grave danger. My problem is simple: I fart. I fart a lot. And I make a lot of noise and emit terrible odors when I do so. Which is a lot. My country is about to make farting a crime, and I fear arrest at any moment. I have tried hiding, but the noise and smell of my farts gives me away no matter where I hide. I am contacting you because I know you are person who understands both farting and freedom. I have almost enough money to escape my country, and I am hoping you can supply the rest. It is only $50 dollars. If you can help please reply to this email, and I will ask for your bank account numbers, social security number, and the name of the dwarf who turns straw into gold in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Please help me. And soon. I had a large plate of beans just moments ago and I fear the police are patrolling near-by.
If you don’t feel comfortable pretending to be a citizen of Malawi, try this variant:
My name is J. Morris. I am a United States citizen living in Malawi. I am a mild mannered reporter working for a major metropolitan newspaper, and I am about to be tried in Malawi for the crime of farting. It was an accident, as I understood the law against farting, but I could not find a rest room and was forced to fart on the street. I did not know the man standing next to me was with the Malawi secret police. I was being targeted because I was secretly interviewing leaders of the Live Free and Fart movement in Malawi. I need to raise money for my defense. I was given your name along with several others because you are a champion of freedom, and, so I have been told, a fart sufferer. If you can help me, please respond to this email and we will figure out how much I can take you for. God bless you. And God bless America. And God bless Beano.
So please try these out and let me know which of them works the best. Any money you make from these is yours to keep as a “thank you” for being part of this product testing effort. If you do reply to this post please include your bank account numbers, social security number, and the name of the dwarf who turns straw into gold in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.
Thanks.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Keynote for TN State Interfaith Harmony Breakfast 2011
[I gave this talk this morning at the Tennessee State Interfaith Harmony Week Breakfast. For more on the week check our website: http://www.interfaithharmonybreakfasts.org]
There are two kinds of Interfaith programs: the safe and the frightening. The safe leave us untouched; we are same persons going in as we are coming out. The frightening leave us not only touched but transformed; we are different coming out then we were going in.
In the safe program representatives from various religions set forth the key teachings and practices of their respective faiths while their fellow panelists nod politely, pretending to some universal agreement that we know doesn’t exist if for no other reason than if it did exist, it would render our religions redundant.
Safe gatherings avoid both controversy and real conversation. They are not opportunities for dialogue, and focus on serial monologue instead.
Now, lest you think I am opposed to this kind of gathering, let me say quite clearly that I am not opposed. On the contrary: I believe there is a real need for safe Interfaith programming. For some of us just sitting on the same dais with members of other faiths is a breakthrough, let alone finding some common ground of agreement with them. I am not asking people to go further than they can. I am only interested in challenging them to go as far as they can. And for some of us, the safe is nowhere near far enough.
The deeper, scarier Interfaith dialogue to which I am committed happens when people of different faiths engage with one another in the realm Martin Buber called “the between.” Standing in “the between” you no longer follow a script; you are no longer an apologist for your faith, but a seeker of that Truth toward which all faiths may point and no faith can own. Standing in “the between” you cannot know in advance what you are going to say, because you are responding to the unknown and fundamentally unknowable. It is by standing together in “the between” that we share the possibility of hearing something new, and being changed by it.
Those of us who do this dangerous work need an understanding of religion that allows such meeting to happen. Let me share my own understanding as a means of starting a conversation on the promise of Interfaith.
I approach the world’s religions the way I approach the world’s languages. First, while we might say that the capacity for human language is God-given, specific languages are human creations. Second, there is no right or wrong language, no true language or false language. There are only a multiplicity of languages that help those who speak them to make sense of life and plant meaning in its midst.
Languages, like religions, differ. They have different grammars, emphases, and tones. They each see the world in slightly and sometimes vastly different ways. Hence there are things you can say in French that you just cannot say or cannot say as well in Chinese, and there are things you can say in Hinduism that you just cannot say or cannot say as well in Catholicism.
The more spoken languages I know, the richer and more nuanced is my understanding of the world. The more religious languages I know, the richer and more nuanced is my understanding of life.
This has nothing to do with creating some religious version of Esperanto. I love my mother tongues—both English and Judaism—and have no desire to abandon either. But I am enriched beyond description by learning Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, and Greek; Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, and Christianity. No one should be asked to abandon her mother tongue, and everyone should be encouraged to study the other languages of human religiosity. Deep Interfaith encounter is one way to learn another’s language, and when we do we cannot help but be transformed by that knowledge.
This is the kind of Interfaith dialogue I long for. This is the kind of Interfaith dialogue Scarritt-Bennett Center and Wisdom House promote in our monthly Common Table breakfasts, our Dialogues on Faith groups, our Essential Conversations lunches, and other programs. We are not looking to change the languages of faith, but to change those who speak them. We are not looking to create a new religion, but to help foster a new religious sensitivity. We are not interested in blending religions or laying claim to a false and facile religious unity, but to helping one another find in our differences insights of spiritual genius that can transform our lives.
Hinduism’s Rig Veda, perhaps the world’s oldest sacred text, teaches: “Truth is one; different people call it by different names.” The names matter. The Tao isn’t Allah, and Christ isn’t Krishna. Rather they, and all the names we humans have created for that which is ultimately Unnamable, speak to part of the Truth. The more names we know, the more parts we understand, and the closer to Truth we come. But we can never reduce Truth to words. This is why in addition to dialogue we must engage with one another in silent meditation as well.
As the Tao te Ching tells us, “The Tao that can be named is not the Eternal Tao.” Ultimately all words fall short; and all voices must fall silent. It is good that we share our liturgies; it is better that we share the greater silence. And this too is the promise of Interfaith.
When we are free to share our languages without having to defend them, we will at last come to the end of talk, and fall silent together in a humbling stillness that frees us from words, and awakens us to that Ultimate Truth that no words can frame.
This week is World Interfaith Harmony Week. The harmony we seek is not the cheap harmony of serial monologue, or the faux harmony of people ignoring differences, or the fragile harmony of people pretending to believe what they do not believe simply to get along.
Real harmony will take more than a week to create. It will not happen among those who fear to hear, let alone speak, another’s religious language. It will not happen among those whose faith needs defending, but only among those whose faith leads them to the ultimate humbling, and the courage to step into “the between.”
To enter “the between,” first in words and then in silence, is the challenge and promise of Interfaith, the goal of World Interfaith Harmony Week, and the mission of Scarritt–Bennett’s Wisdom House. This is the path on which we embark this morning. Let us walk it to the end.
There are two kinds of Interfaith programs: the safe and the frightening. The safe leave us untouched; we are same persons going in as we are coming out. The frightening leave us not only touched but transformed; we are different coming out then we were going in.
In the safe program representatives from various religions set forth the key teachings and practices of their respective faiths while their fellow panelists nod politely, pretending to some universal agreement that we know doesn’t exist if for no other reason than if it did exist, it would render our religions redundant.
Safe gatherings avoid both controversy and real conversation. They are not opportunities for dialogue, and focus on serial monologue instead.
Now, lest you think I am opposed to this kind of gathering, let me say quite clearly that I am not opposed. On the contrary: I believe there is a real need for safe Interfaith programming. For some of us just sitting on the same dais with members of other faiths is a breakthrough, let alone finding some common ground of agreement with them. I am not asking people to go further than they can. I am only interested in challenging them to go as far as they can. And for some of us, the safe is nowhere near far enough.
The deeper, scarier Interfaith dialogue to which I am committed happens when people of different faiths engage with one another in the realm Martin Buber called “the between.” Standing in “the between” you no longer follow a script; you are no longer an apologist for your faith, but a seeker of that Truth toward which all faiths may point and no faith can own. Standing in “the between” you cannot know in advance what you are going to say, because you are responding to the unknown and fundamentally unknowable. It is by standing together in “the between” that we share the possibility of hearing something new, and being changed by it.
Those of us who do this dangerous work need an understanding of religion that allows such meeting to happen. Let me share my own understanding as a means of starting a conversation on the promise of Interfaith.
I approach the world’s religions the way I approach the world’s languages. First, while we might say that the capacity for human language is God-given, specific languages are human creations. Second, there is no right or wrong language, no true language or false language. There are only a multiplicity of languages that help those who speak them to make sense of life and plant meaning in its midst.
Languages, like religions, differ. They have different grammars, emphases, and tones. They each see the world in slightly and sometimes vastly different ways. Hence there are things you can say in French that you just cannot say or cannot say as well in Chinese, and there are things you can say in Hinduism that you just cannot say or cannot say as well in Catholicism.
The more spoken languages I know, the richer and more nuanced is my understanding of the world. The more religious languages I know, the richer and more nuanced is my understanding of life.
This has nothing to do with creating some religious version of Esperanto. I love my mother tongues—both English and Judaism—and have no desire to abandon either. But I am enriched beyond description by learning Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, and Greek; Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, and Christianity. No one should be asked to abandon her mother tongue, and everyone should be encouraged to study the other languages of human religiosity. Deep Interfaith encounter is one way to learn another’s language, and when we do we cannot help but be transformed by that knowledge.
This is the kind of Interfaith dialogue I long for. This is the kind of Interfaith dialogue Scarritt-Bennett Center and Wisdom House promote in our monthly Common Table breakfasts, our Dialogues on Faith groups, our Essential Conversations lunches, and other programs. We are not looking to change the languages of faith, but to change those who speak them. We are not looking to create a new religion, but to help foster a new religious sensitivity. We are not interested in blending religions or laying claim to a false and facile religious unity, but to helping one another find in our differences insights of spiritual genius that can transform our lives.
Hinduism’s Rig Veda, perhaps the world’s oldest sacred text, teaches: “Truth is one; different people call it by different names.” The names matter. The Tao isn’t Allah, and Christ isn’t Krishna. Rather they, and all the names we humans have created for that which is ultimately Unnamable, speak to part of the Truth. The more names we know, the more parts we understand, and the closer to Truth we come. But we can never reduce Truth to words. This is why in addition to dialogue we must engage with one another in silent meditation as well.
As the Tao te Ching tells us, “The Tao that can be named is not the Eternal Tao.” Ultimately all words fall short; and all voices must fall silent. It is good that we share our liturgies; it is better that we share the greater silence. And this too is the promise of Interfaith.
When we are free to share our languages without having to defend them, we will at last come to the end of talk, and fall silent together in a humbling stillness that frees us from words, and awakens us to that Ultimate Truth that no words can frame.
This week is World Interfaith Harmony Week. The harmony we seek is not the cheap harmony of serial monologue, or the faux harmony of people ignoring differences, or the fragile harmony of people pretending to believe what they do not believe simply to get along.
Real harmony will take more than a week to create. It will not happen among those who fear to hear, let alone speak, another’s religious language. It will not happen among those whose faith needs defending, but only among those whose faith leads them to the ultimate humbling, and the courage to step into “the between.”
To enter “the between,” first in words and then in silence, is the challenge and promise of Interfaith, the goal of World Interfaith Harmony Week, and the mission of Scarritt–Bennett’s Wisdom House. This is the path on which we embark this morning. Let us walk it to the end.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Gimme That Old Time Religion
It seems that Malaysians are going gaga for Lord Murugan, a Hindu fertility God whose holy day is coming up shortly. While Malaysia is overwhelmingly Muslim, the Hindu influences on the population are growing. The festival, called Thaipusam, is so popular that the government declared it a national holy day in 2008 to allow people time off to celebrate.
As part of that festival people giving thanks to Murugan fast for 48 days prior to Thaipusam. On the day itself many will shave their heads, cover themselves with sandalwood paste, and chant themselves into a trance at which time their bodies will be pierced with spears and hooks.
Lest you think this is only for Malaysians, there is a Murugan Temple in Maryland, though their website says nothing about Thaipusam.
Now I’m liberal when it comes to religion, and have no desire to deny or ridicule anyone’s faith (though there may be a fine line between my sense of humor and ridicule), but I don’t think I violate either by asking the question, why do people choose to believe in a God who requires body piercing?
Maybe it is just that I’m squeamish, and phobic about pain. Maybe I’d like it if I tried it. But I’m not going to try it. My preferred God would rather I repay Her kindness to me by having me be more kind to others.
On a similar note, I met a Jewish fellow in New Orleans recently who told me he was involved with a Jewish group in Israel that has reinstated animal sacrifice and is killing animals for Yahweh twice a day. He insisted he was telling the truth, and that they were preparing for the day when Judaism would once again be all about killing animals.
I get why we killed animals thousands of years ago, but not why anyone would do so today. There is a violent streak in religion that some people cannot avoid. It is a kind of pathology. Christianity, too, is nothing without the belief that God needs the death of Jesus in order to restrain himself from killing all of humanity, but at least they don’t want to bring Jesus back so they kill him again (though I do know Christians who believe that Jesus is still tortured by God every time a human sins; talk about child abuse).
The more I know about religion the more bizarre it seems. No wonder it can’t get enough of it.
As part of that festival people giving thanks to Murugan fast for 48 days prior to Thaipusam. On the day itself many will shave their heads, cover themselves with sandalwood paste, and chant themselves into a trance at which time their bodies will be pierced with spears and hooks.
Lest you think this is only for Malaysians, there is a Murugan Temple in Maryland, though their website says nothing about Thaipusam.
Now I’m liberal when it comes to religion, and have no desire to deny or ridicule anyone’s faith (though there may be a fine line between my sense of humor and ridicule), but I don’t think I violate either by asking the question, why do people choose to believe in a God who requires body piercing?
Maybe it is just that I’m squeamish, and phobic about pain. Maybe I’d like it if I tried it. But I’m not going to try it. My preferred God would rather I repay Her kindness to me by having me be more kind to others.
On a similar note, I met a Jewish fellow in New Orleans recently who told me he was involved with a Jewish group in Israel that has reinstated animal sacrifice and is killing animals for Yahweh twice a day. He insisted he was telling the truth, and that they were preparing for the day when Judaism would once again be all about killing animals.
I get why we killed animals thousands of years ago, but not why anyone would do so today. There is a violent streak in religion that some people cannot avoid. It is a kind of pathology. Christianity, too, is nothing without the belief that God needs the death of Jesus in order to restrain himself from killing all of humanity, but at least they don’t want to bring Jesus back so they kill him again (though I do know Christians who believe that Jesus is still tortured by God every time a human sins; talk about child abuse).
The more I know about religion the more bizarre it seems. No wonder it can’t get enough of it.
Monday, January 24, 2011
You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Be Happy But It Helps
Jews are the happiest people in America. At least according to the just released Gallup–¬Healthways Well¬¬–Being Index.
The Index questioned 550,000 Americans over a seven month period, and found that Jews ranked number 1 in well–being followed by atheists, agnostics and other nonreligious folk, who themselves are followed by Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and those of other nonProtestant faiths. Protestants came in dead last.
This curious statistic demands parsing. Are Jews happiest because they are the most religious? Not at all. While it is true that among these happy Jews the religious are the most happy, even atheist Jews are happier than atheist non-Jews.
So why do Jews win the happiness prize? Maybe it has to do with our history: it sucks. Our motto is, “It could always get worse.” With that idea stuck in your head, no matter how bad it is today you figure it could be worse tomorrow, so you better be happy now. Or maybe it’s because religious or not, Jews are big on community, and having a community is somehow uplifting. Or maybe it is because Jews, even religious Jews, just don’t worry about the after–life, and therefore tend to make the best of this life. Which may explain why Protestants come in last in happiness: the Protestants I know worry a lot about the afterlife. Of course if they’re right that only they get to go to heaven, they will be happy a lot longer in heaven than we Jews are here on earth.
On the other hand, neither Martin Luther or John Calvin, sort of the founders of Protestantism, strike me as very happy people. Martin Luther thought his Church had gone to the dogs, and Calvin was convinced that humans are totally depraved. Not much to be happy about in either case. Maybe a steady dose of “you are sinner in the hands of an angry God” is enough to depress anybody.
Jews concerned with growing the tribe should use this study in their marketing. Every intermarrying couple ought to get a copy of the survey with a banner headline saying, “Want Happy Kids? Raise them as Jews!” Or how about huge billboards on highways that read, “Be Happy. Be Holy. Be Jewish.” Or maybe an anti–drug campaign like, “Don’t Smoke That Lid, Just be a Yid.”
The Index questioned 550,000 Americans over a seven month period, and found that Jews ranked number 1 in well–being followed by atheists, agnostics and other nonreligious folk, who themselves are followed by Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and those of other nonProtestant faiths. Protestants came in dead last.
This curious statistic demands parsing. Are Jews happiest because they are the most religious? Not at all. While it is true that among these happy Jews the religious are the most happy, even atheist Jews are happier than atheist non-Jews.
So why do Jews win the happiness prize? Maybe it has to do with our history: it sucks. Our motto is, “It could always get worse.” With that idea stuck in your head, no matter how bad it is today you figure it could be worse tomorrow, so you better be happy now. Or maybe it’s because religious or not, Jews are big on community, and having a community is somehow uplifting. Or maybe it is because Jews, even religious Jews, just don’t worry about the after–life, and therefore tend to make the best of this life. Which may explain why Protestants come in last in happiness: the Protestants I know worry a lot about the afterlife. Of course if they’re right that only they get to go to heaven, they will be happy a lot longer in heaven than we Jews are here on earth.
On the other hand, neither Martin Luther or John Calvin, sort of the founders of Protestantism, strike me as very happy people. Martin Luther thought his Church had gone to the dogs, and Calvin was convinced that humans are totally depraved. Not much to be happy about in either case. Maybe a steady dose of “you are sinner in the hands of an angry God” is enough to depress anybody.
Jews concerned with growing the tribe should use this study in their marketing. Every intermarrying couple ought to get a copy of the survey with a banner headline saying, “Want Happy Kids? Raise them as Jews!” Or how about huge billboards on highways that read, “Be Happy. Be Holy. Be Jewish.” Or maybe an anti–drug campaign like, “Don’t Smoke That Lid, Just be a Yid.”
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Governor Bentley: Christian and Colorblind. Which is Worse?
During a speech at a Baptist church in Montgomery on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Robert Bentley, Alabama’s newly elected governor, admitted to having a serious handicap: color blindness: “I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind."
I think the Governor should have told the citizens of Alabama about this during the campaign. It might have impacted their voting choices. My dad is colorblind and he often mixes up the wrong socks, and sometimes wears an orange shirt with red pants (he lives in Miami, red pants are cool there), and when he does it is embarrassing to the entire family. Imagine the governor of your state going out like that. It would make you the laughing stock of the nation.
Rebekah Caldwell Mason, the Governor’s communications director, wasn’t available to comment on the issue of colorblindness, nor was she available to answer another question reporters had about the fact that Governor Bentley only considers his fellow Christians to be his brothers and sisters:
"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit. But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister… So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."
For some reason some Alabamans are more upset by the Governor’s Christian bias than by his colorblindness, but I think they have it backwards. I don’t want to be the Governor’s brother. The last thing I want is for Governor Bentley to invite himself over to my house for Thanksgiving, or to ask me for money, or any of the other things brothers may do. But I do want him not to wear orange shirts with red pants.
Look, if the Governor doesn’t care about nonChristians, fine. If he thinks we are all going to Hell, so what? If he limits his compassion and concern to Christians, well, that is what you get when you put a fundamentalist Christian in office. The Governor isn’t evil; he’s just that kind of Christian. I’m sure voters knew that before casting their ballots. But if he is going to inadvertently dress like a clown—my God that is grounds for impeachment.
I think the Governor should have told the citizens of Alabama about this during the campaign. It might have impacted their voting choices. My dad is colorblind and he often mixes up the wrong socks, and sometimes wears an orange shirt with red pants (he lives in Miami, red pants are cool there), and when he does it is embarrassing to the entire family. Imagine the governor of your state going out like that. It would make you the laughing stock of the nation.
Rebekah Caldwell Mason, the Governor’s communications director, wasn’t available to comment on the issue of colorblindness, nor was she available to answer another question reporters had about the fact that Governor Bentley only considers his fellow Christians to be his brothers and sisters:
"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit. But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister… So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."
For some reason some Alabamans are more upset by the Governor’s Christian bias than by his colorblindness, but I think they have it backwards. I don’t want to be the Governor’s brother. The last thing I want is for Governor Bentley to invite himself over to my house for Thanksgiving, or to ask me for money, or any of the other things brothers may do. But I do want him not to wear orange shirts with red pants.
Look, if the Governor doesn’t care about nonChristians, fine. If he thinks we are all going to Hell, so what? If he limits his compassion and concern to Christians, well, that is what you get when you put a fundamentalist Christian in office. The Governor isn’t evil; he’s just that kind of Christian. I’m sure voters knew that before casting their ballots. But if he is going to inadvertently dress like a clown—my God that is grounds for impeachment.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Wrong Message
American Muslims are feeling nervous. Their mosques and clerics are under increasing scrutiny, Rep. Peter King plans to hold hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims, and the legislature in Utah passed a law that bans the influence of sharia on Utah law-making. Is there a war on Islam?
I doubt it. But it makes for good conspiracy theories, and Muslims are just like everyone else when it comes to conspiracy theories.
But even if there is no war on Islam, there is a wariness of Islam and Muslims among many Americans, and I do not fault American Muslims for worrying about their place in the United States.
And I can even understand why the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) plans is holding a conference called, “FBI Raids and Grand jury Subpoenas: Know Your Rights and Defend Our Communities.” What I don’t understand is why the poster for the event urges Muslims to “Build a wall of resistance. Don’t talk to the F.B.I.”
The poster, featured on the CAIR website has been removed, but the message may not have been stopped. The response of the Muslim American community must be to open itself up not close itself in. We need all Americans to talk to the F.B.I. when they suspect terrorism, and if Islamic leaders are promoting the opposite view it is going to be all the more difficult to convince the average nonMuslim American that Muslim Americans don’t have something to hide.
If Muslim Americans fall victim to the same anti-government conspiracy theories that flood some right wing Christian communities we are on the road to losing the very soul of our nation.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Barbarians at the Womb
Are you a Jewish woman, or do you know any Jewish women? If so you must read this blog.
Are you or some Jewish woman you know planning to have a child with a Gentile man? Are you or some Jewish woman you know planning artificial insemination using Gentile sperm? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, stop! Do not do it. You are endangering the life of the entire human race.
Rabbi Dov Lior, a prominent leader in Israel’s Religious Zionist movement, in a speech at a women’s health conference, explained that sperm carries the character traits of the donor, and Gentile sperm, being the sperm of Gentiles, carries “negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews.” Using such sperm will, Rabbi Lior said, “lead to barbaric offspring.”
Rabbi Lior’s position is in opposition to the mainstream rabbinic ruling that a Jewish woman using donated sperm is better off using the sperm of a Gentile than that of an anonymous Jew since the latter might be related to her. When having to choose between Cohen and Conan, most rabbis go with Conan; Rabbi Lior suggests the opposite:
“The character traits of the father pass on to the son. If the father is not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel.”
What traits do characterize the Jewish people? According to Rabbi Lior, Jewish traits are mercy, shyness, and generosity. And if Rabbi Lior is any proof we might add xenophobia and stupidity as well. But better to be a boor than a barbarian, I always say.*
*(Well, not always. Truth is, I’ve never said this before, but I intend to always say it starting now.)
Are you or some Jewish woman you know planning to have a child with a Gentile man? Are you or some Jewish woman you know planning artificial insemination using Gentile sperm? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, stop! Do not do it. You are endangering the life of the entire human race.
Rabbi Dov Lior, a prominent leader in Israel’s Religious Zionist movement, in a speech at a women’s health conference, explained that sperm carries the character traits of the donor, and Gentile sperm, being the sperm of Gentiles, carries “negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews.” Using such sperm will, Rabbi Lior said, “lead to barbaric offspring.”
Rabbi Lior’s position is in opposition to the mainstream rabbinic ruling that a Jewish woman using donated sperm is better off using the sperm of a Gentile than that of an anonymous Jew since the latter might be related to her. When having to choose between Cohen and Conan, most rabbis go with Conan; Rabbi Lior suggests the opposite:
“The character traits of the father pass on to the son. If the father is not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel.”
What traits do characterize the Jewish people? According to Rabbi Lior, Jewish traits are mercy, shyness, and generosity. And if Rabbi Lior is any proof we might add xenophobia and stupidity as well. But better to be a boor than a barbarian, I always say.*
*(Well, not always. Truth is, I’ve never said this before, but I intend to always say it starting now.)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sarah Palin and the Blood Libel
I’m not a Sarah Palin fan. I didn’t read her books, and while I have watched her kill a few animals on her television show, I am not a regular viewer. I say this because I want to be clear that when I say that I find it beyond the pale that anyone would accuse Governor Palin of kidnapping and murdering Christian babies, and using their blood to make bread, I do so as a challenger of her policies and not a supporter.
I know people are accusing her of this because she said so in a video she released earlier today. The Governor said that her critics “should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. This is reprehensible.” I agree. Whoever is manufacturing this blood libel must be condemned.
While the false claim that Jews sacrificed Greeks in their Temple in Jerusalem was spread by Apion in the first century CE (a lie that caused the murder of thousands of Jews in Alexandria), the “official” blood libel was the invention of Christians. And while it pains me say so, I suggest it is among Christians and not among Greco-Egyptians like Apion that we must look if we are to find the accusers of Gov. Palin.
In 1144 Christians accused Jews of murdering William of Norwich. About a century later they accused Jews of kidnapping and crucifying eight-year-old Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, and using his entrails for purposes of divination. In 1475 Christians burned alive fifteen Jews for supposedly murdering two-year-old Simon of Trent. Baby Simon was made a saint by Pope Sixtus V in 1588, but his sainthood was revoked by Pope Paul VI in 1965. A double blow to Simon’s family, I’m sure.
In a sign of interfaith cooperation, Muslims picked up the blood libel in 1910, and as late as 2007 Raed Salah of the Islamic Movement in Israel accused Jews of using the blood of Muslim children in the baking of bread.
This is serious stuff. The blood libel is not to be taken lightly. The fact that Jews are forbidden from eating blood in any form (Leviticus 7: 26-27) is irrelevant to those hate-filled perpetrators of this slander. And though it is true that Sarah Palin is not a Jew, and therefore is permitted to consume blood, it is no less slanderous to claim that the blood she consumes is that of little children.
So let’s be clear: while Governor Palin, like millions of Americans, may enjoy a good slice of wheat or rye, she does not spice her slice with the blood of Christian or Muslim babies. Whoever is saying this about her must stop. Argue against her policies if you must, but do not claim that she eats the blood of the innocent. Unless, of course, they are caribou.
I know people are accusing her of this because she said so in a video she released earlier today. The Governor said that her critics “should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. This is reprehensible.” I agree. Whoever is manufacturing this blood libel must be condemned.
While the false claim that Jews sacrificed Greeks in their Temple in Jerusalem was spread by Apion in the first century CE (a lie that caused the murder of thousands of Jews in Alexandria), the “official” blood libel was the invention of Christians. And while it pains me say so, I suggest it is among Christians and not among Greco-Egyptians like Apion that we must look if we are to find the accusers of Gov. Palin.
In 1144 Christians accused Jews of murdering William of Norwich. About a century later they accused Jews of kidnapping and crucifying eight-year-old Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, and using his entrails for purposes of divination. In 1475 Christians burned alive fifteen Jews for supposedly murdering two-year-old Simon of Trent. Baby Simon was made a saint by Pope Sixtus V in 1588, but his sainthood was revoked by Pope Paul VI in 1965. A double blow to Simon’s family, I’m sure.
In a sign of interfaith cooperation, Muslims picked up the blood libel in 1910, and as late as 2007 Raed Salah of the Islamic Movement in Israel accused Jews of using the blood of Muslim children in the baking of bread.
This is serious stuff. The blood libel is not to be taken lightly. The fact that Jews are forbidden from eating blood in any form (Leviticus 7: 26-27) is irrelevant to those hate-filled perpetrators of this slander. And though it is true that Sarah Palin is not a Jew, and therefore is permitted to consume blood, it is no less slanderous to claim that the blood she consumes is that of little children.
So let’s be clear: while Governor Palin, like millions of Americans, may enjoy a good slice of wheat or rye, she does not spice her slice with the blood of Christian or Muslim babies. Whoever is saying this about her must stop. Argue against her policies if you must, but do not claim that she eats the blood of the innocent. Unless, of course, they are caribou.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Let's Drop Religious Labels
Iraqi war criminal Tariq Aziz may escape the death penalty. Convicted for his roll in the murders of thousands of Shiite Muslims, the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, refuses to sign off on offing Aziz saying, “I feel compassion for Tariq Aziz because he is a Christian.”
Does that make sense? I could see it if President Talabani said he has compassion for Aziz because he, President Talabani, is a Christian and Christians are supposed to have compassion, but the President isn’t a Christian but a Muslim. It is Aziz the Christian who is supposed to have compassion. It is Aziz the Christian who should have said “no” to the murder of thousands of his fellow Iraqis. What good is being a Christian if you can still commit mass murder?
And what about the Muslim Talabani? He’s a Muslim not a Christian. Why is he feeling compassion? I read the paper, watch Fox News, and listen to Glenn, Shaun, and Rush on the radio, and I thought Islam was all about killing, especially about killing Christians and Jews. Here is his chance, and he says “no” because he is too compassionate?
This is all so confusing. If you are a Christian, be compassionate and stop killing people. If you are Muslim, be brutal and start killing people. Stop confusing me. Or maybe we should simply drop the labels Christian and Muslim and go with compassionate and not compassionate instead? Rather than tell me you are a Christian or a Muslim, which really tells me nothing about you since the Christian Aziz is a war criminal and the Muslim Talabani is a “saint,” why not tell me whether or not you are compassionate. Yes, that would be much better.
Does that make sense? I could see it if President Talabani said he has compassion for Aziz because he, President Talabani, is a Christian and Christians are supposed to have compassion, but the President isn’t a Christian but a Muslim. It is Aziz the Christian who is supposed to have compassion. It is Aziz the Christian who should have said “no” to the murder of thousands of his fellow Iraqis. What good is being a Christian if you can still commit mass murder?
And what about the Muslim Talabani? He’s a Muslim not a Christian. Why is he feeling compassion? I read the paper, watch Fox News, and listen to Glenn, Shaun, and Rush on the radio, and I thought Islam was all about killing, especially about killing Christians and Jews. Here is his chance, and he says “no” because he is too compassionate?
This is all so confusing. If you are a Christian, be compassionate and stop killing people. If you are Muslim, be brutal and start killing people. Stop confusing me. Or maybe we should simply drop the labels Christian and Muslim and go with compassionate and not compassionate instead? Rather than tell me you are a Christian or a Muslim, which really tells me nothing about you since the Christian Aziz is a war criminal and the Muslim Talabani is a “saint,” why not tell me whether or not you are compassionate. Yes, that would be much better.
Friday, January 07, 2011
Is Religion a Scam?
David Silverstein, president of the American Atheist Group was on The O’Reilly Factor the other evening to explain why his group is claiming that religion is a scam. His answer, “because it is.” Reaffirming as true something you claim is true is not the same as proving it is true. So right away viewers knew that they were in the presence of a propagandist rather than a philosopher.
Now in the interest of full disclosure, I too sometimes say that religion is a scam.
When I use the “s” word I mean to say that all religions can be used to manipulate people to adhere to whatever rulings their respective leaders find it in their best interests to make. It is always easier to get people to do evil things when you can convince them that it is God’s will. As the Qur’an says, "Fighting is prescribed for you, but you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But God knows, and you know not (Sura 2:216)." As long as you believe that God knows and trust that your leader knows what God knows, you are apt to do what the leader says because you believe it is what God wants.
When I read the Book of Leviticus, for example, I see the Priestly Writer promoting the power of the priesthood, and when I read the Book of Deuteronomy, I see the Deuteronomist promoting empire sometimes through genocide. I suspect that these authors knew what they were doing, i.e. that they were using peoples’ belief in God to promote their respective agendas. And thus what they were doing was a scam.
I suspect the same was true when the Roman Catholic Church invented Papal Infallibility in 1870, and when Mohammed received the revelations in Medina that conveniently allowed him to expand his power and the power of Islam.
Priests, popes, prophets all too often hear what they want to hear to promote what they want to promote. This doesn’t mean that religions don’t contain timeless and universal truths, they do, only that they also contain self-serving propaganda as well.
If this was the conversation Bill and David had had, it would have been wonderful. Unfortunately they couldn’t rise to the occasion, and took refuge in ignorance in stead.
When seeking to explain why he believes in God Mr. O’Reilly pointed to the regularity of the tides: the tides go in and out and nobody knows why, he said. Bill has obviously not gotten the news about gravity. Unfortunately, neither did Mr. Silverstein who admitted that he too couldn’t explain how tides happen, but he was certain that it wasn’t caused by an invisible man in the sky. Honestly, David, without gravity in the equation, the invisible man is as good a cause as any.
Stupid is as stupid does, as Mother Gump told us, and discussions of religion on TV are really stupid.
Now in the interest of full disclosure, I too sometimes say that religion is a scam.
When I use the “s” word I mean to say that all religions can be used to manipulate people to adhere to whatever rulings their respective leaders find it in their best interests to make. It is always easier to get people to do evil things when you can convince them that it is God’s will. As the Qur’an says, "Fighting is prescribed for you, but you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But God knows, and you know not (Sura 2:216)." As long as you believe that God knows and trust that your leader knows what God knows, you are apt to do what the leader says because you believe it is what God wants.
When I read the Book of Leviticus, for example, I see the Priestly Writer promoting the power of the priesthood, and when I read the Book of Deuteronomy, I see the Deuteronomist promoting empire sometimes through genocide. I suspect that these authors knew what they were doing, i.e. that they were using peoples’ belief in God to promote their respective agendas. And thus what they were doing was a scam.
I suspect the same was true when the Roman Catholic Church invented Papal Infallibility in 1870, and when Mohammed received the revelations in Medina that conveniently allowed him to expand his power and the power of Islam.
Priests, popes, prophets all too often hear what they want to hear to promote what they want to promote. This doesn’t mean that religions don’t contain timeless and universal truths, they do, only that they also contain self-serving propaganda as well.
If this was the conversation Bill and David had had, it would have been wonderful. Unfortunately they couldn’t rise to the occasion, and took refuge in ignorance in stead.
When seeking to explain why he believes in God Mr. O’Reilly pointed to the regularity of the tides: the tides go in and out and nobody knows why, he said. Bill has obviously not gotten the news about gravity. Unfortunately, neither did Mr. Silverstein who admitted that he too couldn’t explain how tides happen, but he was certain that it wasn’t caused by an invisible man in the sky. Honestly, David, without gravity in the equation, the invisible man is as good a cause as any.
Stupid is as stupid does, as Mother Gump told us, and discussions of religion on TV are really stupid.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
American Exceptionalism
Is President Obama opposed to American exceptionalism? Many Republicans, including many running for his job in 2012, are suggesting he is.
The term was first used in the 1920s by the American Communist Party. It referred to class mobility within American society, and to the resources (both natural and human) that America contains. These factors, the Communists believed, would allow the United States to postpone (but not escape) the collapse that all capitalist societies are doomed to experience. In this it was exceptional.
Today American exceptionalism has come to mean that we are better than everyone else, and that the spreading of American values (religious, social, and economic) is the gift America can give to the rest of the world.
I understand American exceptionalism to be rooted in the uniqueness of our Constitution. We are the first and only state based solely on a set of ideas—freedom, equality, individuality, capitalism, and consent of the governed to name but a few. In a world still given to power rooted in blood, tribe, religion, we are an exception to the rule. Sure we have huge blind spots in our history, but that doesn’t in any way demean the idea or the ideal.
Is President Obama opposed to these ideals? I don’t believe that for a moment.
As long as we demote American exceptionalism to American superiority we may lose our devotion to the ideas that made and make us exceptional. As long as we equate American exceptionalism with being number one, we may fail to defend the things that make us exceptional: freedom of religion through separation of church and state, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc. As long as we mistake American exceptionalism for American jingoism—USA! USA! USA!—we betray the very country we imagine we are celebrating.
And as long as we reduce our politics to personal attacks rather than focusing on competing policies we will soon find ourselves anything but exceptional.
I am looking forward to real debate in Congress. I want to see principled people on different sides of an issue passionately (and politely) argue. This is part of who we are. When we demonize the other as un-American we spitting on the very heart of America.
The term was first used in the 1920s by the American Communist Party. It referred to class mobility within American society, and to the resources (both natural and human) that America contains. These factors, the Communists believed, would allow the United States to postpone (but not escape) the collapse that all capitalist societies are doomed to experience. In this it was exceptional.
Today American exceptionalism has come to mean that we are better than everyone else, and that the spreading of American values (religious, social, and economic) is the gift America can give to the rest of the world.
I understand American exceptionalism to be rooted in the uniqueness of our Constitution. We are the first and only state based solely on a set of ideas—freedom, equality, individuality, capitalism, and consent of the governed to name but a few. In a world still given to power rooted in blood, tribe, religion, we are an exception to the rule. Sure we have huge blind spots in our history, but that doesn’t in any way demean the idea or the ideal.
Is President Obama opposed to these ideals? I don’t believe that for a moment.
As long as we demote American exceptionalism to American superiority we may lose our devotion to the ideas that made and make us exceptional. As long as we equate American exceptionalism with being number one, we may fail to defend the things that make us exceptional: freedom of religion through separation of church and state, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc. As long as we mistake American exceptionalism for American jingoism—USA! USA! USA!—we betray the very country we imagine we are celebrating.
And as long as we reduce our politics to personal attacks rather than focusing on competing policies we will soon find ourselves anything but exceptional.
I am looking forward to real debate in Congress. I want to see principled people on different sides of an issue passionately (and politely) argue. This is part of who we are. When we demonize the other as un-American we spitting on the very heart of America.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Mashiach is Coming! Mashiach is Coming!
Great news, the Messiah, aka Mashiah ben David, may arrive as early as next week!
According to Jewish tradition, if Jews celebrate the Sabbath two weeks in a row, the messiah will come. Thanks to Christianity, we just might pull this off.
The first Shabbat was last Saturday, Christmas Day. Most Jews took the day off. Tomorrow is New Year’s Day. Again we will be home. That is two Sabbaths in a row!
Of course these may not count because many of us went out for Chinese food on Christmas, and will watch the bowl games on television tomorrow, but who knows, maybe God isn’t Orthodox.
OK, I admit that God is most likely Orthodox, and less likely to send the Messiah just because we Jews have a couple of Saturdays off from work, but it does raise a question worth pondering: How would you change your life if the Messiah did in fact arrive? What would you do differently?
Share these with us, please. And then ask yourself another question: If the changes you’d make are good ones, why wait? Why not just make the changes now? For all we know that is really what God is waiting for.
Happy New Year.
According to Jewish tradition, if Jews celebrate the Sabbath two weeks in a row, the messiah will come. Thanks to Christianity, we just might pull this off.
The first Shabbat was last Saturday, Christmas Day. Most Jews took the day off. Tomorrow is New Year’s Day. Again we will be home. That is two Sabbaths in a row!
Of course these may not count because many of us went out for Chinese food on Christmas, and will watch the bowl games on television tomorrow, but who knows, maybe God isn’t Orthodox.
OK, I admit that God is most likely Orthodox, and less likely to send the Messiah just because we Jews have a couple of Saturdays off from work, but it does raise a question worth pondering: How would you change your life if the Messiah did in fact arrive? What would you do differently?
Share these with us, please. And then ask yourself another question: If the changes you’d make are good ones, why wait? Why not just make the changes now? For all we know that is really what God is waiting for.
Happy New Year.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Close Schools for Christmas? Yes. Close them for Shemini Atzeret? No.
I’m reading Stephen Prothero’s essay in USA TODAY (December 20, 2010) promoting the closing of pubic schools for religious holy days. Dr. Prothero (whose work I admire and use in my courses) notes that public schools already close for some Christian and Jewish holy days, and urges us to add Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Wiccan holy days as well. I disagree.
First of all, our kids need more school days not less.
Second, the only Christian holy day we close schools for is Christmas (more on that below). Easter, arguably the most holy day of the Christian calendar is not a federal holiday, and if some schools close for Good Friday they do so for the same reason some schools close for Rosh HaShanah: demographics.
Third, public schools don’t close for the Jewish holy days. Some schools designate Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur as “teacher work days” because so many of their teachers are Jewish and will take those days off anyway. And they do so only if these holy days fall on school days. And they only close one day for Rosh HaShanah not the two days most Jews observe. So public schools aren’t really closing for the Jewish holy days, they are closing because it is impractical to stay open.
Fourth, public schools are supposed to be secular, and secular schools should not close for religious holy days any more than Catholic schools should close for Hindu holy days. If there are Hindu kids enrolled in the Catholic school, they may choose not to attend class in honor of Diwali, for example, but the school itself need not close.
Fifth, whose holy days would we honor and whose would we ignore? If we are truly inclusive schools wouldn’t open at all.
Which brings me to Christmas. Public Schools do close for Christmas. Is that fair? Yes. Doesn’t that violate church/state separation? No. We are a country with a deeply Christian history and as such we honor the birthday of Jesus the way we honor the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. Both of these birthdays are federal holidays because America would not be America with them.
Making Christmas a federal holiday is more of a threat to the holiness of Christmas than it is to the Constitution. According to the same issue of USA TODAY, “Many [people] skip the holiday’s religious side.” While 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas only 74% say Christmas is “primarily” a religious holy day, only 47% go to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas day, and only 28% tell or read the biblical story of Jesus birth. Sadly for Christians, Christmas is going the way of many other federal holidays: just another day for tacky car ads and excessive shopping.
For me Christmas is a time to honor the most famous rabbi of all time, and I will do that in traditional Jewish fashion: I will argue with everything he had to say.
First of all, our kids need more school days not less.
Second, the only Christian holy day we close schools for is Christmas (more on that below). Easter, arguably the most holy day of the Christian calendar is not a federal holiday, and if some schools close for Good Friday they do so for the same reason some schools close for Rosh HaShanah: demographics.
Third, public schools don’t close for the Jewish holy days. Some schools designate Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur as “teacher work days” because so many of their teachers are Jewish and will take those days off anyway. And they do so only if these holy days fall on school days. And they only close one day for Rosh HaShanah not the two days most Jews observe. So public schools aren’t really closing for the Jewish holy days, they are closing because it is impractical to stay open.
Fourth, public schools are supposed to be secular, and secular schools should not close for religious holy days any more than Catholic schools should close for Hindu holy days. If there are Hindu kids enrolled in the Catholic school, they may choose not to attend class in honor of Diwali, for example, but the school itself need not close.
Fifth, whose holy days would we honor and whose would we ignore? If we are truly inclusive schools wouldn’t open at all.
Which brings me to Christmas. Public Schools do close for Christmas. Is that fair? Yes. Doesn’t that violate church/state separation? No. We are a country with a deeply Christian history and as such we honor the birthday of Jesus the way we honor the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. Both of these birthdays are federal holidays because America would not be America with them.
Making Christmas a federal holiday is more of a threat to the holiness of Christmas than it is to the Constitution. According to the same issue of USA TODAY, “Many [people] skip the holiday’s religious side.” While 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas only 74% say Christmas is “primarily” a religious holy day, only 47% go to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas day, and only 28% tell or read the biblical story of Jesus birth. Sadly for Christians, Christmas is going the way of many other federal holidays: just another day for tacky car ads and excessive shopping.
For me Christmas is a time to honor the most famous rabbi of all time, and I will do that in traditional Jewish fashion: I will argue with everything he had to say.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Tea Party Principles
I am so excited about the Tea Party folks coming into Congress in a few weeks. I like when people of principle actually stand up for what they believe in. True, I don’t share their beliefs, but I respect people who say what they mean and do what they say.
My favorite Tea Party guy is Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. He is so honest. For example, he wants to limit voting rights to property owners only. This is as American as counting slaves as ¾ human. But it makes some sense. Just look at how renters treat the houses they live in: they trash them because they don’t own them. Of course if we aren’t careful, the only people who will allowed to vote in this country will be the Communist Chinese.
I also like what he has to say about Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). Mr. Phillips wants him removed from Congress because “he is the only Muslim member of Congress.” This makes sense to me, too. As the only Muslim in Congress, Rep. Ellison must be alienated. Alienated Muslims become radicalized Muslims, and radicalized Muslims use Second Amendment solutions to address their grievances.
But Second Amendment solutions are part of the Tea Party rhetoric, so maybe I have it wrong. Maybe he wants to remove Mr. Ellison from Congress not because he is the only MUSLIM, but because he is the ONLY Muslim. He is concerned that the Congressman is lonely. Nice call: let’s have Muslim members of Congress only when there are enough of them to have a Muslim-American Caucus.
But my favorite principle of Mr. Phillips is his dream to abolish the United Methodist Church, or, as he calls it, “the first Church of Karl Marx.” Last Friday he wrote on his Tea Party Nation blog that the United Methodist Church’s support of the Dream Act makes it an enemy of America. “If you hate America,” he wrote, “you have a great future in the Methodist Church.” (Read his blog at http://www.tngovwatch.org/2010/12/my-dream-no-more-methodist-church/)
Yes, the end of democracy and the Methodist Church. It is going to be a great two years.
My favorite Tea Party guy is Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. He is so honest. For example, he wants to limit voting rights to property owners only. This is as American as counting slaves as ¾ human. But it makes some sense. Just look at how renters treat the houses they live in: they trash them because they don’t own them. Of course if we aren’t careful, the only people who will allowed to vote in this country will be the Communist Chinese.
I also like what he has to say about Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). Mr. Phillips wants him removed from Congress because “he is the only Muslim member of Congress.” This makes sense to me, too. As the only Muslim in Congress, Rep. Ellison must be alienated. Alienated Muslims become radicalized Muslims, and radicalized Muslims use Second Amendment solutions to address their grievances.
But Second Amendment solutions are part of the Tea Party rhetoric, so maybe I have it wrong. Maybe he wants to remove Mr. Ellison from Congress not because he is the only MUSLIM, but because he is the ONLY Muslim. He is concerned that the Congressman is lonely. Nice call: let’s have Muslim members of Congress only when there are enough of them to have a Muslim-American Caucus.
But my favorite principle of Mr. Phillips is his dream to abolish the United Methodist Church, or, as he calls it, “the first Church of Karl Marx.” Last Friday he wrote on his Tea Party Nation blog that the United Methodist Church’s support of the Dream Act makes it an enemy of America. “If you hate America,” he wrote, “you have a great future in the Methodist Church.” (Read his blog at http://www.tngovwatch.org/2010/12/my-dream-no-more-methodist-church/)
Yes, the end of democracy and the Methodist Church. It is going to be a great two years.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
What I Want for Christmas
I don’t celebrate Christmas, and I don’t believe in Santa Claus, so Christmas presents are usually out of the question for me. But this year I am making an exception. I still won’t celebrate Christmas and I still can’t bring myself to believe in Saint Nick, but I’m hoping for a Christmas present all the same.
What I want for Christmas is a big foam #1 Finger. You know, the big yellow foam glove people wear and wave at sporting events to say their team is number one even if it isn’t.
My team is the good ol’ US of A. And we are number uno. We have the best education system on the planet, and the best health care in the world. These affirmations have nothing to do with the facts, of course, but that is why I want the big finger. The lower we fall in the rankings, the louder we should chant “We’re number one,” and the bigger the finger we should wave while doing so.
According to the most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment which measures the knowledge base and reading skills of 15-year-olds around the world, the United States ranks 14th out of 34. “We’re number 1(4)! We’re number 1(4)!” Now I have to wonder why we are even paying attention to a study that can’t even spell the word “program” properly, but still the number is the number, and we need to celebrate our mediocrity with flair. So how about that finger, Santa?
Similarly, in a study of health care systems conducted by the World Health Organization [by the way if you are a doctor working for the World Health Organization, can you call yourself Dr. Who? How cool is that!], the United States ranks #37 out of 190, just behind Dominica and Costa Rica, and just ahead of Slovenia and Cuba, but way ahead of Burundi (take THAT, Burundi!). If you add the digits of 37 together you get 3+7 which equals 10, and if you add those digits together you get 1+0 which equals 1, so, you guessed it! “We’re #1!”
You can see where this is going. On all matters except military spending the USA is falling behind. The only thing we are really number one at is our capacity to kill people. Now don’t sneer. We can move from #37 to #35 in health care just by bombing the hell out of Costa Rica and Dominica, so all our bombs might come in handy. But I am not ready to go to war with Cyprus (#24), and I don’t even know where Andorra (#4) is, so I can’t even pretend to bomb them (though I think we killed their life-giving Tree of Souls in the Avatar movie, which may have been the government’s way of preparing us for a real attack in the not so distant future).
Anyway, I’m not ready to go to war with Andorra or Costa Rica, so let’s not consider that. And I’m not ready to raise taxes on anyone, let alone the rich, to improve our educational system. And I don’t want the federal government to run expensive death panels when Arizona is running their own death panels at a fraction of the cost, so let’s not consider true single-payer health care reform. Nope, I want to leave things pretty much the way they are this Christmas, which is why I need the big finger.
If we are going to settle for being Mediocristan the least we can do is pretend we aren’t. We are number one in that. So, Santa, how about giving me the finger this year?
What I want for Christmas is a big foam #1 Finger. You know, the big yellow foam glove people wear and wave at sporting events to say their team is number one even if it isn’t.
My team is the good ol’ US of A. And we are number uno. We have the best education system on the planet, and the best health care in the world. These affirmations have nothing to do with the facts, of course, but that is why I want the big finger. The lower we fall in the rankings, the louder we should chant “We’re number one,” and the bigger the finger we should wave while doing so.
According to the most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment which measures the knowledge base and reading skills of 15-year-olds around the world, the United States ranks 14th out of 34. “We’re number 1(4)! We’re number 1(4)!” Now I have to wonder why we are even paying attention to a study that can’t even spell the word “program” properly, but still the number is the number, and we need to celebrate our mediocrity with flair. So how about that finger, Santa?
Similarly, in a study of health care systems conducted by the World Health Organization [by the way if you are a doctor working for the World Health Organization, can you call yourself Dr. Who? How cool is that!], the United States ranks #37 out of 190, just behind Dominica and Costa Rica, and just ahead of Slovenia and Cuba, but way ahead of Burundi (take THAT, Burundi!). If you add the digits of 37 together you get 3+7 which equals 10, and if you add those digits together you get 1+0 which equals 1, so, you guessed it! “We’re #1!”
You can see where this is going. On all matters except military spending the USA is falling behind. The only thing we are really number one at is our capacity to kill people. Now don’t sneer. We can move from #37 to #35 in health care just by bombing the hell out of Costa Rica and Dominica, so all our bombs might come in handy. But I am not ready to go to war with Cyprus (#24), and I don’t even know where Andorra (#4) is, so I can’t even pretend to bomb them (though I think we killed their life-giving Tree of Souls in the Avatar movie, which may have been the government’s way of preparing us for a real attack in the not so distant future).
Anyway, I’m not ready to go to war with Andorra or Costa Rica, so let’s not consider that. And I’m not ready to raise taxes on anyone, let alone the rich, to improve our educational system. And I don’t want the federal government to run expensive death panels when Arizona is running their own death panels at a fraction of the cost, so let’s not consider true single-payer health care reform. Nope, I want to leave things pretty much the way they are this Christmas, which is why I need the big finger.
If we are going to settle for being Mediocristan the least we can do is pretend we aren’t. We are number one in that. So, Santa, how about giving me the finger this year?
Friday, December 17, 2010
Save the Frogmen
This morning I heard Rush Limbaugh attack those who are attacking McDonald’s Happy Meals. The issue as he put is that the Nanny State is coming to the rescue of parents who cannot stare down their kids who demand that they not go to the local vegan health food diner and scarf down Happy Meals instead. And why do the kids want the Happy Meals? Because of the toys inside the box. It is wrong for a corporation to go after kids whether it is with tobacco or fat/sugar/salt, but don’t attack the toys.
When I was a kid McDonalds was a drive-in, and there were no Happy Meals. The equivalent product back then was the cereal box with a toy in it. I loved getting those toys. I would stick my hand into the box, crushing the cereal inside to find the coveted prize. Or I would open the box upside down hoping that the toy was at the bottom. Or I would pour the entire box out on the counter and watch the prize spill out in a cascade of Frosted Flakes (They’re Gggggggggggggggggreat). These are some of my best childhood memories.
I loved the frogmen. They were little plastic divers with one fin-clad foot and one foot that was a tiny thimble with a cap. Put baking soda into the thimble, replace the cap and drop the frogman into a sink or bath tub filled with water. As the baking soda reacted with the water the frogman would dive and resurface over and over again. How cool is that? So cool in fact, that I still have one of the frogmen.
So Rush is right but for the wrong reason. Those who would stop corporations from putting toys in their products are robbing our kids of their childhoods. Let our kids have their toys, and if we must do something let’s insist that our food is healthier. Why not put toys with veggie burger meals?
When I was a kid McDonalds was a drive-in, and there were no Happy Meals. The equivalent product back then was the cereal box with a toy in it. I loved getting those toys. I would stick my hand into the box, crushing the cereal inside to find the coveted prize. Or I would open the box upside down hoping that the toy was at the bottom. Or I would pour the entire box out on the counter and watch the prize spill out in a cascade of Frosted Flakes (They’re Gggggggggggggggggreat). These are some of my best childhood memories.
I loved the frogmen. They were little plastic divers with one fin-clad foot and one foot that was a tiny thimble with a cap. Put baking soda into the thimble, replace the cap and drop the frogman into a sink or bath tub filled with water. As the baking soda reacted with the water the frogman would dive and resurface over and over again. How cool is that? So cool in fact, that I still have one of the frogmen.
So Rush is right but for the wrong reason. Those who would stop corporations from putting toys in their products are robbing our kids of their childhoods. Let our kids have their toys, and if we must do something let’s insist that our food is healthier. Why not put toys with veggie burger meals?
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Right Thing to Do
I’m listening to conservative talk radio this morning, and I have to admit that I agree with everything the host is saying regarding taxes. He, like me, looks to the administration of John F. Kennedy for guidance when it comes to taxes. He must have repeated his call to follow JFK’s lead in this matter at least a dozen times in less than five minutes. And I agree!
President Kennedy said, “An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget—just as it will never produce enough jobs or profits." He was right then, and he is right today. So, along with my conservative colleagues across America, I say let’s go back to the solid fiscal polices of 1965.
I’m urging Congress to say no to the Obama tax plan, and pass a tax plan that mirrors that of JFK instead. By 1965 President Kennedy imposed a top tax rate for individuals of 70%, and a top corporate rate of 48%. He also signed a bill providing a 10% tax credit for business purchases of new machinery. And the economy boomed. If it worked for JFK, it should work for us. Right?
So let’s be clear: If you want to free America from a crippling tax scheme stop coddling the American people, and do what JFK did: set the top tax rate for individuals at 70% and for corporations as 48%. It is the right and right wing thing to do.
President Kennedy said, “An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget—just as it will never produce enough jobs or profits." He was right then, and he is right today. So, along with my conservative colleagues across America, I say let’s go back to the solid fiscal polices of 1965.
I’m urging Congress to say no to the Obama tax plan, and pass a tax plan that mirrors that of JFK instead. By 1965 President Kennedy imposed a top tax rate for individuals of 70%, and a top corporate rate of 48%. He also signed a bill providing a 10% tax credit for business purchases of new machinery. And the economy boomed. If it worked for JFK, it should work for us. Right?
So let’s be clear: If you want to free America from a crippling tax scheme stop coddling the American people, and do what JFK did: set the top tax rate for individuals at 70% and for corporations as 48%. It is the right and right wing thing to do.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Just in Time for Christmas
Thousands of Iraqi Christians are fleeing to the north from Baghdad and Mosul to escape Muslim attacks against them. Of the approximately 100,000 Christians who once lived in Mosul, only 5,000 remain. Of course Iraqi Muslim fanatics are equal opportunity haters, so they continue to bloody one another along the Sunni Shia divide, but it makes me wonder: what are our women and men dying for again? Are we sacrificing American lives so Iraqis have the freedom to murder one another? Is this what we mean when we say, “the surge worked”?
The longer we stay in Iraq the more convinced I am that President Bush was correct: Iraq did and does have weapons of mass destruction. They are the Iraqi people themselves.
The longer we stay in Iraq the more convinced I am that President Bush was correct: Iraq did and does have weapons of mass destruction. They are the Iraqi people themselves.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Tea for Jew
Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Republican Joe Straus is in trouble. Tea Party conservatives, led by John Cook, want to push him out of the Speaker’s position. Speaker Straus’ sin? He’s a Jew.
“I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office,” Mr. Cook said. So Straus has got to go.
Now I don’t considered myself an expert on Texas, Texas politics, or even the Jews of Texas. To be honest, the only Jew I associate with Texas is Kinky Freedman, though now that I think about it, the name of his band, the Texas Jew Boys, suggests Kinky isn’t the only Jew in the Lone Star State. But why do these God-fearing Tea Bag Republicans have to ditch one of the Chosen? Because Speaker Straus’ rabbi is somehow associated with Planned Parenthood. Guilt by association. This gives us a glimpse into the America we can expect as the Tea Party completes its takeover of the GOP and the country.
The simple fact is, when the going gets tough, the tough get going… after the Jews, and Muslim Americans and illegal immigrants and…
“I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office,” Mr. Cook said. So Straus has got to go.
Now I don’t considered myself an expert on Texas, Texas politics, or even the Jews of Texas. To be honest, the only Jew I associate with Texas is Kinky Freedman, though now that I think about it, the name of his band, the Texas Jew Boys, suggests Kinky isn’t the only Jew in the Lone Star State. But why do these God-fearing Tea Bag Republicans have to ditch one of the Chosen? Because Speaker Straus’ rabbi is somehow associated with Planned Parenthood. Guilt by association. This gives us a glimpse into the America we can expect as the Tea Party completes its takeover of the GOP and the country.
The simple fact is, when the going gets tough, the tough get going… after the Jews, and Muslim Americans and illegal immigrants and…
Sunday, December 12, 2010
An Update to Friday's Post
I just learned of Rabbis Against Racism and their effort to confront the rabbis I wrote about last Friday. Here is there petition. If you are rabbi, please sign it. If you know a rabbi please send it to her or him. To sign the petition on line, go to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/rabbisagainstracism/
לא תטה משפט גר . . . וזכרת כי עבד היית במצרים
Do not pervert the rights of the stranger . . . and remember that you were once a slave in Egypt (Deuteronomy 24:17-18)
To our rabbinic colleagues in Israel,
We, rabbis serving in congregations and communities across the world, are turning to you for your assistance and leadership at a time of crisis. The recent halakhic ruling from community rabbis in Israel that forbids leasing apartments to non-Jews has caused great shock and pain to our communities. The attempt to root discriminatory policies based on religion or ethnicity in Torah is a painful distortion of our tradition. Am Yisrael knows the sting of discrimination, and we still bear the scars of hatred. When those who represent the official rabbinic leadership of the State of Israel express such positions, we are distressed by this Chillul HaShem, desecration of God’s name.
This degradation of the Torah threatens both Israel and our communities. We struggle to maintain a strong, loving relationship between Jews outside of Israel and the Jewish state. Every day, that challenge grows more difficult. Many of our congregants love Israel and want nothing more than the safety and security of the Jewish homeland, but for a growing number of Jews in America this relationship to Israel cannot be assumed.
Statements like these do great damage to our efforts to encourage people to love and support Israel. They communicate to our congregants that Israel does not share their values, and they promote feelings of alienation and distancing. Further, these attacks on the principles of our prophets, which form the basis of Israel’s law and society, provide justification for anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment across the world.
Many of you have raised your voices in the past, and have dedicated your lives to pursuing a just society in Israel. You have taught us that the discriminatory attitude expressed in that halakhic ruling does not reflect the belief of the majority of rabbis and Torah scholars or the people of Israel, and for that reason, we turn to you. For the sake of our people, our Torah, and Israel, we beseech you to take a strong public stand and oppose those who misrepresent our tradition.
לא תטה משפט גר . . . וזכרת כי עבד היית במצרים
Do not pervert the rights of the stranger . . . and remember that you were once a slave in Egypt (Deuteronomy 24:17-18)
To our rabbinic colleagues in Israel,
We, rabbis serving in congregations and communities across the world, are turning to you for your assistance and leadership at a time of crisis. The recent halakhic ruling from community rabbis in Israel that forbids leasing apartments to non-Jews has caused great shock and pain to our communities. The attempt to root discriminatory policies based on religion or ethnicity in Torah is a painful distortion of our tradition. Am Yisrael knows the sting of discrimination, and we still bear the scars of hatred. When those who represent the official rabbinic leadership of the State of Israel express such positions, we are distressed by this Chillul HaShem, desecration of God’s name.
This degradation of the Torah threatens both Israel and our communities. We struggle to maintain a strong, loving relationship between Jews outside of Israel and the Jewish state. Every day, that challenge grows more difficult. Many of our congregants love Israel and want nothing more than the safety and security of the Jewish homeland, but for a growing number of Jews in America this relationship to Israel cannot be assumed.
Statements like these do great damage to our efforts to encourage people to love and support Israel. They communicate to our congregants that Israel does not share their values, and they promote feelings of alienation and distancing. Further, these attacks on the principles of our prophets, which form the basis of Israel’s law and society, provide justification for anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment across the world.
Many of you have raised your voices in the past, and have dedicated your lives to pursuing a just society in Israel. You have taught us that the discriminatory attitude expressed in that halakhic ruling does not reflect the belief of the majority of rabbis and Torah scholars or the people of Israel, and for that reason, we turn to you. For the sake of our people, our Torah, and Israel, we beseech you to take a strong public stand and oppose those who misrepresent our tradition.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Say what you mean; do what you say
Fifty state-employed rabbis in Israel have signed and circulated a petition urging Jews not to rent or sell land to nonJews, and saying that those who do should be cut off from their people.
Thankfully the action was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "This kind of speech should be banned in a Jewish and democratic state."
I am pleased that the Prime Minister is opposed to rabbinic sponsored racism, but his choice of words suggests he doesn't understand the nature of either a Jewish or a democratic state.
First of all these rabbis derived the decision from Jewish law. While their reading is controversial, it is the very nature of a Jewish state (as opposed to a state of Jews) to allow for just this kind of speech. If you don't want your country ruled by the mores of clerics and their pre-modern worldviews, don't set it up as a Jewish (or Islamic or Christian) state.
Second, this kind of inflammatory speech is absolutely protected in a democratic state. Freedom of speech is key to any truly democratic country, so banning opinions, even evil ones such as this, betrays the very promise of democracy.
So is Prime Minister Netanyahu anti-Jewish or anti-democracy? Of course not; he is simply speaking hyperbolically to mask his actions or lack thereof.
These rabbis whose opinions the PM says should be banned actually work for the state. While banning speech is wrong, punishing state employees who blatantly discriminate against citizens of the state is right, appropriate, and just. If the PM is serious he should fire these rabbis. Until he does it is just politics as usual in a country held hostage by clerics.
Thankfully the action was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "This kind of speech should be banned in a Jewish and democratic state."
I am pleased that the Prime Minister is opposed to rabbinic sponsored racism, but his choice of words suggests he doesn't understand the nature of either a Jewish or a democratic state.
First of all these rabbis derived the decision from Jewish law. While their reading is controversial, it is the very nature of a Jewish state (as opposed to a state of Jews) to allow for just this kind of speech. If you don't want your country ruled by the mores of clerics and their pre-modern worldviews, don't set it up as a Jewish (or Islamic or Christian) state.
Second, this kind of inflammatory speech is absolutely protected in a democratic state. Freedom of speech is key to any truly democratic country, so banning opinions, even evil ones such as this, betrays the very promise of democracy.
So is Prime Minister Netanyahu anti-Jewish or anti-democracy? Of course not; he is simply speaking hyperbolically to mask his actions or lack thereof.
These rabbis whose opinions the PM says should be banned actually work for the state. While banning speech is wrong, punishing state employees who blatantly discriminate against citizens of the state is right, appropriate, and just. If the PM is serious he should fire these rabbis. Until he does it is just politics as usual in a country held hostage by clerics.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Christmas is a myth. Thank God.
On the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel atheists have posted a billboard featuring the three Magi approaching the manger. The text reads, “You Know It’s a Myth. This Season Celebrate Reason.” The sign saddens me.
“Myth” is not the same as “falsehood.” Myth is a narrative structure used to convey some of the deepest truths we humans can glean. Myths are not believed in but unpacked and lived.
The problem with contemporary religion is that it devalues myth and imagination, and seeks legitimacy in history and science. The power of Christmas is not that Matthew and Luke were historians (they can’t even agree between themselves), but that they were mythmakers. They used story, just as Jesus did, to convey a truth that science and history could not accommodate.
I am, of course, speaking as a nonChristian, but I say the same about the myths of every religion including my own. If I insist the Exodus is history I have to deal with a murderous God and a host of extraneous, harmful, and self-serving miracles. But if I accept it as myth I am dealing with the liberation of self from enslavement to power; the suffering is mine, the deaths are mine, and the liberation is mind. Myth is meant to lived rather than believed in; it is about the inner life not the political one.
The characters found in myths represent aspects of our own psyches. The Virgin Birth is neither a miracle nor a biological act of parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). It is a story about how something new and potentially redemptive comes into the world. As a myth Christmas speaks to all humans. As science and history it makes no sense at all.
If we reclaimed the power of myth, and understood its role in our lives, we could reclaim the world’s religions as keepers of myth and train clergy to be guides to myth who can help us live out the mythic and imaginal dimensions of our lives through acts of compassion and contemplative spiritual practice.
If I had the money I would post my own Magi billboards. But I would change the tagline from “You Know It’s a Myth. This Season Celebrate Reason” to “You Know It’s a Myth. This Season Celebrate the Imagination.”
“Myth” is not the same as “falsehood.” Myth is a narrative structure used to convey some of the deepest truths we humans can glean. Myths are not believed in but unpacked and lived.
The problem with contemporary religion is that it devalues myth and imagination, and seeks legitimacy in history and science. The power of Christmas is not that Matthew and Luke were historians (they can’t even agree between themselves), but that they were mythmakers. They used story, just as Jesus did, to convey a truth that science and history could not accommodate.
I am, of course, speaking as a nonChristian, but I say the same about the myths of every religion including my own. If I insist the Exodus is history I have to deal with a murderous God and a host of extraneous, harmful, and self-serving miracles. But if I accept it as myth I am dealing with the liberation of self from enslavement to power; the suffering is mine, the deaths are mine, and the liberation is mind. Myth is meant to lived rather than believed in; it is about the inner life not the political one.
The characters found in myths represent aspects of our own psyches. The Virgin Birth is neither a miracle nor a biological act of parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). It is a story about how something new and potentially redemptive comes into the world. As a myth Christmas speaks to all humans. As science and history it makes no sense at all.
If we reclaimed the power of myth, and understood its role in our lives, we could reclaim the world’s religions as keepers of myth and train clergy to be guides to myth who can help us live out the mythic and imaginal dimensions of our lives through acts of compassion and contemplative spiritual practice.
If I had the money I would post my own Magi billboards. But I would change the tagline from “You Know It’s a Myth. This Season Celebrate Reason” to “You Know It’s a Myth. This Season Celebrate the Imagination.”
Thursday, December 02, 2010
No Hope
Just when I thought I could not get more depressed about the prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine, I learn that the departments of education of both Israel and Palestine have banned a unique textbook designed by Israeli and Palestinian educators entitled “Learning Each Other’s Historical Narrative.”
The book places the Israeli and Palestinian versions of the history of their homelands side by side, allowing children on both sides to learn how the other understands the history they take for granted. Of course both versions are controversial in the eyes of the other, but that is the point. There is no “true” history, there is only the narrative histories told by each side’s historians. And being able to see the reality the other sees is a huge step toward authentic dialogue and empathy.
Of course the leaders on both sides fear both empathy and dialogue, and so both have banned the book from public high school curriculums. How sad.
On the other hand it does show that the leadership of both sides are not really on opposite sides at all. They are on the same side: the side of fear and hatred that keeps them in power.
Just as the Israelites could not enter the Promised Land until almost all of the older generation passed away, peace may not come to the region until all those currently in power are pass away. The questions we must ask are these: how many generations of status quo leadership are left; and how many people must die before these leaders finally die?
The book places the Israeli and Palestinian versions of the history of their homelands side by side, allowing children on both sides to learn how the other understands the history they take for granted. Of course both versions are controversial in the eyes of the other, but that is the point. There is no “true” history, there is only the narrative histories told by each side’s historians. And being able to see the reality the other sees is a huge step toward authentic dialogue and empathy.
Of course the leaders on both sides fear both empathy and dialogue, and so both have banned the book from public high school curriculums. How sad.
On the other hand it does show that the leadership of both sides are not really on opposite sides at all. They are on the same side: the side of fear and hatred that keeps them in power.
Just as the Israelites could not enter the Promised Land until almost all of the older generation passed away, peace may not come to the region until all those currently in power are pass away. The questions we must ask are these: how many generations of status quo leadership are left; and how many people must die before these leaders finally die?
Friday, November 26, 2010
The American Dream
The problem with the American Dream—the problem with all dreams really—is that you have to be asleep to maintain it. In the case of the American Dream—the notion that our kids will live richer and more productive lives than their parents—this means being asleep to the fact that real wages have been falling for decades, that corporations are making more money now with millions of Americans out of work then they were when they employed those Americans, and the realization that the lie of the American Dream is the same as that found on the sign heading into the Auschwitz death camp: Arbeit macht frei/Work sets you free.
It doesn’t. Work, especially working at something you hate to maintain a life style you can’t afford and never have time to enjoy anyway, is slavery. When work is fun, it is no longer work. That is why so many employers try to make work fun; they no it isn’t.
I gave up the American Dream the day I decided not to enter my family’s business, and to pursue instead a life as a rabbi, educator, and writer. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to have a summer home up north, a winter home down south, and buy a new car every two or three years. My hope now is to inherit one of those homes, sell it, and use the money to buy a more recent used car than the 2005 Mazda Protégé I currently drive. But am I bitter? No.
My dad loved what he did, and I am proud of the business he and my uncle built, and happy for my cousins who are making it even greater and more financially rewarding. And I am delighted with the life choices I made, and recommend them to my own son who is just beginning his career as an educator and writer. What about rabbi? He teaches Jewish American literature at the university—close enough.
So as Black Friday comes to a close and we begin to prep for Shabbos, let me suggest five ideas to share with your kids about the American Dream:
1. Wake up and stop dreaming it. Find what you love and do it. And if you have to do stuff you don’t love to supplement yourself, do that too. Just don’t abandon what you love.
2. Move somewhere cheap and live even cheaper. The less you have the less you have to earn and the more time you have to play. Get a good financial planner to help you manage the surplus.
3. Don’t go into debt. Only exception is when buying a house, and even then buy small and think twice and then twice more.
4. Don’t count on anyone to take care of you: not parents, employers or the government; yet don’t imagine you can take care of yourself. Build a network of friends who pledge to help one another in times of crises. Even then be prepared to be disappointed. Learn to live with anxiety, ambiguity, and doubt. It called adulthood.
5. Measure the quality of your life by how often you are happy and of service to others. The only advantage to being rich and miserable is that the rich can afford legal drugs to mask their misery while the poor have to risk jail time for their’s. Forget about being rich or poor; seek only to avoid being miserable.
It doesn’t. Work, especially working at something you hate to maintain a life style you can’t afford and never have time to enjoy anyway, is slavery. When work is fun, it is no longer work. That is why so many employers try to make work fun; they no it isn’t.
I gave up the American Dream the day I decided not to enter my family’s business, and to pursue instead a life as a rabbi, educator, and writer. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to have a summer home up north, a winter home down south, and buy a new car every two or three years. My hope now is to inherit one of those homes, sell it, and use the money to buy a more recent used car than the 2005 Mazda Protégé I currently drive. But am I bitter? No.
My dad loved what he did, and I am proud of the business he and my uncle built, and happy for my cousins who are making it even greater and more financially rewarding. And I am delighted with the life choices I made, and recommend them to my own son who is just beginning his career as an educator and writer. What about rabbi? He teaches Jewish American literature at the university—close enough.
So as Black Friday comes to a close and we begin to prep for Shabbos, let me suggest five ideas to share with your kids about the American Dream:
1. Wake up and stop dreaming it. Find what you love and do it. And if you have to do stuff you don’t love to supplement yourself, do that too. Just don’t abandon what you love.
2. Move somewhere cheap and live even cheaper. The less you have the less you have to earn and the more time you have to play. Get a good financial planner to help you manage the surplus.
3. Don’t go into debt. Only exception is when buying a house, and even then buy small and think twice and then twice more.
4. Don’t count on anyone to take care of you: not parents, employers or the government; yet don’t imagine you can take care of yourself. Build a network of friends who pledge to help one another in times of crises. Even then be prepared to be disappointed. Learn to live with anxiety, ambiguity, and doubt. It called adulthood.
5. Measure the quality of your life by how often you are happy and of service to others. The only advantage to being rich and miserable is that the rich can afford legal drugs to mask their misery while the poor have to risk jail time for their’s. Forget about being rich or poor; seek only to avoid being miserable.
Friday, November 19, 2010
TSA Rhymes with Gay. Coincidence?
I travel a lot, often by plane, and, I am concerned about the new pat-down and scanner procedures of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). My concern with the scanners is not so much that they show my naked body to the world, but that my naked body is so not worthy of such attention. If I were 50 pounds thinner, and if I had actually lifted weights at the gym rather than watch others do so, I might be more comfortable. But really, I wear size XXL to cover up a multitude of dietary sins. If I wanted some guy to view my naked body with x-rays, I’d move to Metropolis and kidnap Lois Lane.
Of course I don’t have to go through the scanners. I could allow a TSA agent to run his hands over my body to make sure that my testicles are not in fact grenades. But this option doesn’t appeal to me either.
Yet I am a patriot, and as such I am willing to allow my country to fool me into thinking that this technology can catch terrorists, and to scare me into believing that everyone from an 8 year-old kid to an 88 year-old grandma is a potential terrorist, so I will put up with it. But I
do have two suggestions to make this procedure more palatable.
First, increase the power of the scanners so that they are capable of identifying tumors and diseases, and have medical techs rather than TSA agents review them and inform me of my current health status. I’d be grateful for that procedure.
Or, if some guy is going to fondle me, why not hire trained chiropractors? Then they could feel for bombs and realign my spine at the same time. Given the horror of airplane seating, I’d be willing to undergo this kind of screening getting on and off the plane.
But until the TSA comes up with systems like these, I’m going for a third option: I’m go to claim I’m gay.
The TSA doesn’t allow a male agent to fondle a woman passenger because of the sexual impropriety, so they shouldn’t allow a male agent to fondle a male passenger if said passenger is gay. Since I would be more comfortable with a woman agent, I am, for all travel related purposes, now choosing to be gay.
If the government denies my claim saying that homosexuality isn't a choice, I will harness support from many well-known pastors and politicians who insist homosexuality is a choice. In a free country I can choose to be gay if and when I want to. And for TSA screening purpose I want to, so I am. And where are the churches and synagogues on this, anyway? Do we really want our children molested by people who aren’t even ordained clergy? And if homosexuality is a choice—which when I’m not flying it isn’t, but when I am flying it is—would we want to put homosexual ideas in our kids minds by having them groped homosexually at the airport? Could it be that the TSA is in fact on the front lines of the Gay Agenda? I’m just asking.
Of course I don’t have to go through the scanners. I could allow a TSA agent to run his hands over my body to make sure that my testicles are not in fact grenades. But this option doesn’t appeal to me either.
Yet I am a patriot, and as such I am willing to allow my country to fool me into thinking that this technology can catch terrorists, and to scare me into believing that everyone from an 8 year-old kid to an 88 year-old grandma is a potential terrorist, so I will put up with it. But I
do have two suggestions to make this procedure more palatable.
First, increase the power of the scanners so that they are capable of identifying tumors and diseases, and have medical techs rather than TSA agents review them and inform me of my current health status. I’d be grateful for that procedure.
Or, if some guy is going to fondle me, why not hire trained chiropractors? Then they could feel for bombs and realign my spine at the same time. Given the horror of airplane seating, I’d be willing to undergo this kind of screening getting on and off the plane.
But until the TSA comes up with systems like these, I’m going for a third option: I’m go to claim I’m gay.
The TSA doesn’t allow a male agent to fondle a woman passenger because of the sexual impropriety, so they shouldn’t allow a male agent to fondle a male passenger if said passenger is gay. Since I would be more comfortable with a woman agent, I am, for all travel related purposes, now choosing to be gay.
If the government denies my claim saying that homosexuality isn't a choice, I will harness support from many well-known pastors and politicians who insist homosexuality is a choice. In a free country I can choose to be gay if and when I want to. And for TSA screening purpose I want to, so I am. And where are the churches and synagogues on this, anyway? Do we really want our children molested by people who aren’t even ordained clergy? And if homosexuality is a choice—which when I’m not flying it isn’t, but when I am flying it is—would we want to put homosexual ideas in our kids minds by having them groped homosexually at the airport? Could it be that the TSA is in fact on the front lines of the Gay Agenda? I’m just asking.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Islam has a Muslim Problem
On October 31st gunmen burst into Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation church during Sunday mass and opened fire killing two priests and 48 parishioners. The murderers belong to the al-Qaeda linked terrorist group called Islamic State of Iraq that has declared jihad against Iraq’s Christian population.
This is one of an on-going series of attacks on Iraqi Christians by Iraqi Muslims. Hundreds of thousands (the Catholic Church puts the number at one million) Iraqi Christians have fled to other countries to avoid being murdered at the hands of Islamic fanatics. And make no mistake these are Islamic fanatics; fanatics fuelled by their version of Islam. They are not attacking foreigners, but fellow Iraqis. Their hatred is not fueled by America policies or Israeli occupation of the Palestine. It is fuelled by a belief that Muslims must kill Christians.
Islam has a Muslim problem. The problem with Islam is Muslims who have signed on to a radical, violent, murderous faith that, while violating the deepest principles of Islam, continues to masquerade as Islam, and does so successfully.
Islam lacks a pope who can speak for the religion. And at the moment there is no Reform Islamic movement that can work to bring Islam into the 21st century as Reform Judaism has done for Jews. The kind of academic study of scripture and religion commonplace in so many Christian and Jewish seminaries is largely absent in the Islamic world. There is no quest for the historical Muhammad as there is the historical Jesus. Islam seems to know only competing orthodoxies when it desperately needs liberal reform.
There are factions within Judaism and Christianity that refuse to have anything to do with modernity, let alone postmodernity. And some among them are violent. But these groups are not engaged in wholesale slaughter of innocents. No matter how strongly I oppose the settler movement in Israel and condemn the violence that often defines it, there is no moral equivalency.
This is not religion’s problem; this is Islam’s problem. Only Muslims can solve it. And while no Muslims have asked my advice, I would suggest that someone convene a world council of imams who could make clear to Muslims and nonMuslims alike just what it is Islam stands for, and that would condemn unequivocally the insanity and violence that is perverting the message of Islam. I would also like to see wealthy Muslim visionaries fund
young American Muslims seeking to create a new kind of Islam that embraces science, secular scholarship, critical thinking, and nonviolence even as it affirms the prophetic message of Islam and upholds the beauty and genius of Islamic civilization. Without it I worry that Muslims are doomed to wage a civil war of Muslim against Muslim that will take thousands of nonMuslims down with them.
This is one of an on-going series of attacks on Iraqi Christians by Iraqi Muslims. Hundreds of thousands (the Catholic Church puts the number at one million) Iraqi Christians have fled to other countries to avoid being murdered at the hands of Islamic fanatics. And make no mistake these are Islamic fanatics; fanatics fuelled by their version of Islam. They are not attacking foreigners, but fellow Iraqis. Their hatred is not fueled by America policies or Israeli occupation of the Palestine. It is fuelled by a belief that Muslims must kill Christians.
Islam has a Muslim problem. The problem with Islam is Muslims who have signed on to a radical, violent, murderous faith that, while violating the deepest principles of Islam, continues to masquerade as Islam, and does so successfully.
Islam lacks a pope who can speak for the religion. And at the moment there is no Reform Islamic movement that can work to bring Islam into the 21st century as Reform Judaism has done for Jews. The kind of academic study of scripture and religion commonplace in so many Christian and Jewish seminaries is largely absent in the Islamic world. There is no quest for the historical Muhammad as there is the historical Jesus. Islam seems to know only competing orthodoxies when it desperately needs liberal reform.
There are factions within Judaism and Christianity that refuse to have anything to do with modernity, let alone postmodernity. And some among them are violent. But these groups are not engaged in wholesale slaughter of innocents. No matter how strongly I oppose the settler movement in Israel and condemn the violence that often defines it, there is no moral equivalency.
This is not religion’s problem; this is Islam’s problem. Only Muslims can solve it. And while no Muslims have asked my advice, I would suggest that someone convene a world council of imams who could make clear to Muslims and nonMuslims alike just what it is Islam stands for, and that would condemn unequivocally the insanity and violence that is perverting the message of Islam. I would also like to see wealthy Muslim visionaries fund
young American Muslims seeking to create a new kind of Islam that embraces science, secular scholarship, critical thinking, and nonviolence even as it affirms the prophetic message of Islam and upholds the beauty and genius of Islamic civilization. Without it I worry that Muslims are doomed to wage a civil war of Muslim against Muslim that will take thousands of nonMuslims down with them.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Farting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Ohioan Christian Summers is eleven years old. Christian Summers is a boy. Christian Summers farts and thinks its funny. Christian Summers suffers from FHS, Flatulence Humor Disorder.
This is not a joke. Millions of eleven-year-old boys suffer from this disease. As explained in Wikipedia, “Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals.” ["Other animals" refers to eleven-year-old boys.] “Flatus [the gas generated in the digestive tract] is brought to the rectum by the same peristaltic process which causes feces to descend from the large intestine. [Which is why sometimes farting surprises us with something a bit more tangible.] The noises commonly associated with flatulence are caused by the vibration of the anal sphincter, and occasionally by the closed buttocks.” What Wikipedia fails to tell us is that this entire process is beyond funny if you are an eleven-year-old boy suffering from FHS.
Christian is a mammal and/or other animal. Farting alone is common to his kind. The disorder arises with the involuntary laughter that Christian also expels along with the flatus [so called after the Roman Emperor Flatus Maximus who was known to defeat entire armies by releasing gas from his rectum].
You see those who suffer from Flatulence Humor Disorder think flatus is funny. The louder the expulsion of flatulence, the funnier the FHD sufferer thinks it is. This is a genetic disease found in about 100% of eleven-year-old boys.
The sad thing in this story is that Christian has attacks of FHD while riding on his school bus, and his bus’s driver, who may not be a mammal and/or other animal and who was never eleven years old, gave Christian detention for having this disease.
We should not penalize our children for being the victims of FHD. In fact it may violate the First Amendment. Flatulence may be protected as speech since some eleven-year-old boys can actually make their butts talk while farting.
Whatever you may think of eleven-year-old boys farting on school buses, we must take pity on children who suffer from FHS and not consign them to detention. Or, if detention is the route society insists we take, we must have compassion for the adult who has to sit in a closed room for an hour with these exploding boys.
This is not a joke. Millions of eleven-year-old boys suffer from this disease. As explained in Wikipedia, “Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals.” ["Other animals" refers to eleven-year-old boys.] “Flatus [the gas generated in the digestive tract] is brought to the rectum by the same peristaltic process which causes feces to descend from the large intestine. [Which is why sometimes farting surprises us with something a bit more tangible.] The noises commonly associated with flatulence are caused by the vibration of the anal sphincter, and occasionally by the closed buttocks.” What Wikipedia fails to tell us is that this entire process is beyond funny if you are an eleven-year-old boy suffering from FHS.
Christian is a mammal and/or other animal. Farting alone is common to his kind. The disorder arises with the involuntary laughter that Christian also expels along with the flatus [so called after the Roman Emperor Flatus Maximus who was known to defeat entire armies by releasing gas from his rectum].
You see those who suffer from Flatulence Humor Disorder think flatus is funny. The louder the expulsion of flatulence, the funnier the FHD sufferer thinks it is. This is a genetic disease found in about 100% of eleven-year-old boys.
The sad thing in this story is that Christian has attacks of FHD while riding on his school bus, and his bus’s driver, who may not be a mammal and/or other animal and who was never eleven years old, gave Christian detention for having this disease.
We should not penalize our children for being the victims of FHD. In fact it may violate the First Amendment. Flatulence may be protected as speech since some eleven-year-old boys can actually make their butts talk while farting.
Whatever you may think of eleven-year-old boys farting on school buses, we must take pity on children who suffer from FHS and not consign them to detention. Or, if detention is the route society insists we take, we must have compassion for the adult who has to sit in a closed room for an hour with these exploding boys.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
GOP vs DEMs? No. Lucy vesus Charlie Brown.
Looking for a metaphor for American politics? Try Charlie Brown trusting Lucy not to pull the football away as he races to kick it.
In 2008 the American voter played the role of Charlie Brown and the Democratic Party played the role of Lucy. The football was Change We Can Believe In. Yes, we believed. And then Lucy pulled the ball away and we found ourselves flat on our backs. This year the American voter is once again playing Charlie Brown while Lucy is played by the Republican Party. The football is still and always Change We Can Believe In.
Is anything going to change come January? No. Why? Because Lucy is Lucy regardless of who plays her.
In 2008 the American voter played the role of Charlie Brown and the Democratic Party played the role of Lucy. The football was Change We Can Believe In. Yes, we believed. And then Lucy pulled the ball away and we found ourselves flat on our backs. This year the American voter is once again playing Charlie Brown while Lucy is played by the Republican Party. The football is still and always Change We Can Believe In.
Is anything going to change come January? No. Why? Because Lucy is Lucy regardless of who plays her.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Prime Directive
This morning I head out for my daily five-mile walk with God. About 3.0 miles in I see a huge turtle walking along a concrete path under a roadway. The path links two sections of the Greenway and Lytle Creek. At this point in my walk I am usually in love with everything, and here is this fat old turtle totally exposed to predators and I am convinced that she (he?) needs my help. My plan is to tap on her shell, and when she withdraws inside, to pick her up and carry her to the water on the side toward which she is walking.
This is my version of a boy scout helping an old lady to cross a street.
This act of pure love for my fellow manifestation of the Divine Mother was met with a vicious turn: the turtle attacked me! This huge mouth opened wide and the turtle lunged at me. True it took her an hour to turn around and do this, but it was shocking nonetheless.
Anyway, I backed off, apologized for the interruption, and walked on by. This was a teaching moment, and the tortoise taught me the difference between Rabbis Hillel and Jesus versions of the Golden Rule.
Hillel taught, “Don’t do unto others what you do not want others to do to you.” Jesus taught, “Do unto others what you would want done unto you.” I assumed that I would like someone to pick me up and move me along my path, and therefore so would my turtle friend. But when I think about it, I wouldn’t like this at all.
Just imagine: you are walking along enjoying the fall foliage (or dying leaves, depending on your mood), and suddenly some giant reaches down, grabs you around the waist, and carries you along dangling in mid-air. Doesn’t sound so good. Yet this is precisely what I wanted to do with the turtle.
Next time I see a turtle ambling along I will just let her be, and if she is attacked by some carnivore along the way and brutally torn to pieces and eaten, I will simply smile and say, “Serves you right for trying to bite me, you reptilian brained moron.”
This is my version of a boy scout helping an old lady to cross a street.
This act of pure love for my fellow manifestation of the Divine Mother was met with a vicious turn: the turtle attacked me! This huge mouth opened wide and the turtle lunged at me. True it took her an hour to turn around and do this, but it was shocking nonetheless.
Anyway, I backed off, apologized for the interruption, and walked on by. This was a teaching moment, and the tortoise taught me the difference between Rabbis Hillel and Jesus versions of the Golden Rule.
Hillel taught, “Don’t do unto others what you do not want others to do to you.” Jesus taught, “Do unto others what you would want done unto you.” I assumed that I would like someone to pick me up and move me along my path, and therefore so would my turtle friend. But when I think about it, I wouldn’t like this at all.
Just imagine: you are walking along enjoying the fall foliage (or dying leaves, depending on your mood), and suddenly some giant reaches down, grabs you around the waist, and carries you along dangling in mid-air. Doesn’t sound so good. Yet this is precisely what I wanted to do with the turtle.
Next time I see a turtle ambling along I will just let her be, and if she is attacked by some carnivore along the way and brutally torn to pieces and eaten, I will simply smile and say, “Serves you right for trying to bite me, you reptilian brained moron.”
Thursday, October 21, 2010
iBigot
I am a bigot. At least by NPR standards. NPR fired Juan Williams yesterday for admitting that when he boards an airplane with Muslims dressed in Muslim garb he feels a twinge of concern. Not because he believes all Muslims are terrorists (he doesn’t) or because he believes that all terrorists are Muslims (he doesn’t). He feels what he feels because (1) we can’t control our feelings and (2) Muslim shoes and underwear tend to explode. This has nothing to do with the people wearing those shoes and underwear, and everything to do with the quality of Muslim shoe and underwear manufacturing. Just like Toyota cars used to race off on their own regardless of the driver’s will, so, as I understand it, Muslim made underwear tends to explode at certain altitudes. It’s one thing to explode into your underwear—that’s what it’s for, and quite another to have your underwear explode into you. So, Juan, I get it.
And if Juan Williams, perhaps the lone liberal voice on Fox News, is a bigot, then so am I. Let me honest about my feelings.
Like Juan, I too am leery of Muslim made underwear. But that’s not all. I don’t want to fly with Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, either. I’ve seen these people walking up and down the aisle asking to speak to their fellow passengers about their religion, and I don’t want to be hassled.
Similarly, I inquire into the religious beliefs of my pilot and co-pilot. If they are Rapture-ready Christians, I don’t want to fly with them. Give me a Jew, Muslim, or Catholic over an evangelical Protestant any day. At least I know we won’t crash because God took the pilot and co-pilot up to heaven and allowed the rest of us to die.
I am also nervous when I see Hasidic Jews on the plane lest they conscript me into a mid-air prayer service. And, if I were a Palestinian, I would be nervous about any Jew on the plane lest they try and spread out from their seat into my seat claiming that their great great great great great great great great grandparents sat in that those seats a long time ago and so it is rightfully their seat today.
Atheists too are a problem for me. What if we are going to crash and we have to call on God to save us, and maybe God is Jewish and requires a quorum of ten Jewish men to listen to our prayer and all we have are nine Jewish guys and an Atheist, and so we all die because this idiot can’t go along to get along.
I don’t want hip-hop Blacks on my plane either because they might start singing and making that spitting sound and messing up my Pringles.
And fat people. I don’t want to sit next to fat people because they ooze over into my space.
People with babies are on my no-fly list as well. I don’t want to sit next to some screaming baby, and insist that all parents drug their children into a stupor so I don’t have to buy Bose noise reduction headphones just to keep from getting a migraine.
So, Juan, I’m with you. And if I had a job at NPR I would expect them to fire me as well. Because, hey, who wants commentators to be honest?
And if Juan Williams, perhaps the lone liberal voice on Fox News, is a bigot, then so am I. Let me honest about my feelings.
Like Juan, I too am leery of Muslim made underwear. But that’s not all. I don’t want to fly with Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, either. I’ve seen these people walking up and down the aisle asking to speak to their fellow passengers about their religion, and I don’t want to be hassled.
Similarly, I inquire into the religious beliefs of my pilot and co-pilot. If they are Rapture-ready Christians, I don’t want to fly with them. Give me a Jew, Muslim, or Catholic over an evangelical Protestant any day. At least I know we won’t crash because God took the pilot and co-pilot up to heaven and allowed the rest of us to die.
I am also nervous when I see Hasidic Jews on the plane lest they conscript me into a mid-air prayer service. And, if I were a Palestinian, I would be nervous about any Jew on the plane lest they try and spread out from their seat into my seat claiming that their great great great great great great great great grandparents sat in that those seats a long time ago and so it is rightfully their seat today.
Atheists too are a problem for me. What if we are going to crash and we have to call on God to save us, and maybe God is Jewish and requires a quorum of ten Jewish men to listen to our prayer and all we have are nine Jewish guys and an Atheist, and so we all die because this idiot can’t go along to get along.
I don’t want hip-hop Blacks on my plane either because they might start singing and making that spitting sound and messing up my Pringles.
And fat people. I don’t want to sit next to fat people because they ooze over into my space.
People with babies are on my no-fly list as well. I don’t want to sit next to some screaming baby, and insist that all parents drug their children into a stupor so I don’t have to buy Bose noise reduction headphones just to keep from getting a migraine.
So, Juan, I’m with you. And if I had a job at NPR I would expect them to fire me as well. Because, hey, who wants commentators to be honest?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Islam is a Religion
Islam is a religion. It’s true. The United States Department of Justice has said so, and it is the banner headline of this morning’s Daily News Journal here in Murfreesboro. This may not be news to you, but it is to thousands of my neighbors, and, to be quite frank, I was beginning to wonder about this myself.
I mean a religion is supposed to be about your relationship with God, and Allah isn’t Jesus, so Allah isn’t God. And a religion is supposed to have a holy book, but the Qur’an isn’t the Bible so the Qur’an isn’t a holy book. That’s why we can burn the Qur’an and “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” but not the Bible. And Jesus said it is what comes out of your mouth not what goes into it that counts (Matthew 15:17-18), so any religion that restricts what foods you can eat, isn’t a religion. [Editor’s note: I once heard a gay Christian cite this text to suggest Jesus was in favor of oral sex. Really.]
And then there is the issue of Sharia. What kind of religion is it that wants to dictate to people how they should live? You don’t see Christianity doing that, do you? And what about the idea that Islam is going to fly its flag over the White House and the entire world? What kind of religion wants the whole world to be converted to its way of life? Why that would mean sending missionaries to every country of the world to preach the Gospel! Can you imagine that?
Clearly, if Islam is a religion, it is a religion the likes of which you haven’t seen in this country since the last time you watched the 700 Club. But, look, this is still a free country, even though it is governed by Red Fascist Nazis who are running FEMA concentration camps across the land. I heard that the FEMA camps are actually renting space from the Islamic terror training camps also spread across this country, which proves the link between our so-called President and terrorists of the so-called religion of Islam.
And what does it mean that the Obama Justice Department declares Islam a religion when it refuses to acknowledge that the United States of America is a Christian country? It means that the government is in cahoots with the Muslims against the Christians, that’s what. So I call upon all of you who are reading this to call the Justice Department and demand that they issue a list of acceptable religions in the United States, and when they turn down your request even though they just declared Islam a religion you will know that the United States of America recognizes only one religion and that is the religion of Islam.
Remember that when you go to the polls on November 2nd and they ask you to dip your right pointer finger into a jar of purple ink to prove you are a Muslim. I’m not making this up. I've been told that the confirmation button on the electronic voting booth shoots purple ink onto your finger when you push it. You won’t see it because it only shows up under black light, and even then only in FEMA concentrations camps. But believe me, it is there.
I mean a religion is supposed to be about your relationship with God, and Allah isn’t Jesus, so Allah isn’t God. And a religion is supposed to have a holy book, but the Qur’an isn’t the Bible so the Qur’an isn’t a holy book. That’s why we can burn the Qur’an and “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” but not the Bible. And Jesus said it is what comes out of your mouth not what goes into it that counts (Matthew 15:17-18), so any religion that restricts what foods you can eat, isn’t a religion. [Editor’s note: I once heard a gay Christian cite this text to suggest Jesus was in favor of oral sex. Really.]
And then there is the issue of Sharia. What kind of religion is it that wants to dictate to people how they should live? You don’t see Christianity doing that, do you? And what about the idea that Islam is going to fly its flag over the White House and the entire world? What kind of religion wants the whole world to be converted to its way of life? Why that would mean sending missionaries to every country of the world to preach the Gospel! Can you imagine that?
Clearly, if Islam is a religion, it is a religion the likes of which you haven’t seen in this country since the last time you watched the 700 Club. But, look, this is still a free country, even though it is governed by Red Fascist Nazis who are running FEMA concentration camps across the land. I heard that the FEMA camps are actually renting space from the Islamic terror training camps also spread across this country, which proves the link between our so-called President and terrorists of the so-called religion of Islam.
And what does it mean that the Obama Justice Department declares Islam a religion when it refuses to acknowledge that the United States of America is a Christian country? It means that the government is in cahoots with the Muslims against the Christians, that’s what. So I call upon all of you who are reading this to call the Justice Department and demand that they issue a list of acceptable religions in the United States, and when they turn down your request even though they just declared Islam a religion you will know that the United States of America recognizes only one religion and that is the religion of Islam.
Remember that when you go to the polls on November 2nd and they ask you to dip your right pointer finger into a jar of purple ink to prove you are a Muslim. I’m not making this up. I've been told that the confirmation button on the electronic voting booth shoots purple ink onto your finger when you push it. You won’t see it because it only shows up under black light, and even then only in FEMA concentrations camps. But believe me, it is there.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Hand to God
If you have been reading this blog for a while you know that I support the expansion of the Islamic Center in my town of Murfreesboro, TN. You also know that I think much of the paranoia around Islam and Muslims is just that: paranoia. But just because your paranoid doesn’t mean you aren’t being followed.
Case in point: The Times of India reported on Monday, July 5, 2010, that Professor T. J. Joseph a lecturer at Newman College in Thodupuzha in Idukki district was dragged from his car and had his right hand chopped off by Muslim fanatics. His crime? He allegedly wrote a question on an exam that was considered by some to be derogatory of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Now I teach Islam at MTSU. And while I try to be respectful off all the religions we cover, the fact is I have a wicked sense of humor, and often point out the more absurd facets of religion and invite comment by my students. I am also an academic and assume that the Qur’an (along with all other holy books) is the product of human beings not gods. I do not single out any one religion for ridicule, and certainly feel no antipathy toward Islam or the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). But blasphemy is in the mind of the beholder, and there is no reason to doubt that if I lived in (or could find on a map) Thodupuzha in Idukki district my right hand too would be lopped off by some Muslim maniac.
This incident leads me to two conclusions. First, if ever invited to teach Islam at Newman College in Thodupuzha in Indian’s Idukki district, I should immediately and emphatically decline. Second, given my nature and teaching style, I should work hard at being more ambidextrous.
Case in point: The Times of India reported on Monday, July 5, 2010, that Professor T. J. Joseph a lecturer at Newman College in Thodupuzha in Idukki district was dragged from his car and had his right hand chopped off by Muslim fanatics. His crime? He allegedly wrote a question on an exam that was considered by some to be derogatory of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Now I teach Islam at MTSU. And while I try to be respectful off all the religions we cover, the fact is I have a wicked sense of humor, and often point out the more absurd facets of religion and invite comment by my students. I am also an academic and assume that the Qur’an (along with all other holy books) is the product of human beings not gods. I do not single out any one religion for ridicule, and certainly feel no antipathy toward Islam or the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). But blasphemy is in the mind of the beholder, and there is no reason to doubt that if I lived in (or could find on a map) Thodupuzha in Idukki district my right hand too would be lopped off by some Muslim maniac.
This incident leads me to two conclusions. First, if ever invited to teach Islam at Newman College in Thodupuzha in Indian’s Idukki district, I should immediately and emphatically decline. Second, given my nature and teaching style, I should work hard at being more ambidextrous.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The Grand Design
Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design, makes God irrelevant to creation. “It is not necessary to invoke God to … get the universe going.” All you need, he says, is gravity. He is not the first to do this, and like the others he has unleashed a torrent of protesters.
What Dr. Hawking and his opponents have in common is the notion that God, whatever God may be, is something outside the process of creation. Hawking is saying there is no need for anything outside the process, and hence there is no need for God. His opponents say there is such a need, and therefore a need for God.
My problem with both arguments is the very definition of God as someone or something outside the system. For me God is the system.
But is this merely a matter of semantics? Am I really an atheist with a linguistic tic that has me say “God” over and over again?
Well, I am an atheist if by “theist” you mean someone who believes God is a person outside creation who made and manages the world. I just cannot believe such a being exists. And, like Spinoza, I could use alternative words for God, though I prefer Reality to his Natura (Nature). God is reality, the source and substance of all that was, is, and will be.
When Hawking says that the universe creates itself out of nothing he is using everyday language in a unique way. “Nothing” for him is intrinsically creative. It is, grammar aside, not a noun but a verb. This is how I understand God as well. And what the Hebrew Bible seems to hint at when it reveals God’s name as YHVH, a variant of the Hebrew verb “to be,” rather than its English rendering: the noun, “Lord.”
People want to know how creation got started. I suggest that it never stopped. The universe is a dance of on and off; the multiverse that Hawking posits all the more so. God is not just on or off, but both on and off and the flow from one to the other over and over again.
Of course you can’t pray to my God, and my God doesn’t back sports teams, politicians, specific legislation, or religions, so my God may be of no use to you. I understand that. My God is of no use to anyone. A god you can use is an idol.
What Dr. Hawking and his opponents have in common is the notion that God, whatever God may be, is something outside the process of creation. Hawking is saying there is no need for anything outside the process, and hence there is no need for God. His opponents say there is such a need, and therefore a need for God.
My problem with both arguments is the very definition of God as someone or something outside the system. For me God is the system.
But is this merely a matter of semantics? Am I really an atheist with a linguistic tic that has me say “God” over and over again?
Well, I am an atheist if by “theist” you mean someone who believes God is a person outside creation who made and manages the world. I just cannot believe such a being exists. And, like Spinoza, I could use alternative words for God, though I prefer Reality to his Natura (Nature). God is reality, the source and substance of all that was, is, and will be.
When Hawking says that the universe creates itself out of nothing he is using everyday language in a unique way. “Nothing” for him is intrinsically creative. It is, grammar aside, not a noun but a verb. This is how I understand God as well. And what the Hebrew Bible seems to hint at when it reveals God’s name as YHVH, a variant of the Hebrew verb “to be,” rather than its English rendering: the noun, “Lord.”
People want to know how creation got started. I suggest that it never stopped. The universe is a dance of on and off; the multiverse that Hawking posits all the more so. God is not just on or off, but both on and off and the flow from one to the other over and over again.
Of course you can’t pray to my God, and my God doesn’t back sports teams, politicians, specific legislation, or religions, so my God may be of no use to you. I understand that. My God is of no use to anyone. A god you can use is an idol.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Religion & Science, Marriage Made in Hell?
Jerry Coyne, Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, argues in yesterday’s USA TODAY that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. I disagree.
Good science, as Dr. Coyne says, is rooted in reason and evidence, and at home with doubt and testing. I suggest the same is true of good religion. Good science uses math and machines to investigate reality, good religion uses contemplative disciplines such as meditation, imagination, literature, art, and music to do the same.
Good science should be used by good religion to free itself from bogus notions about reality: the sun revolving around the earth, creation being only 10,000 years old, etc; and bogus history: there is no evidence for the Jews’ enslavement in and exodus from Egypt, for example. Free from the burden of affirming what is bogus, good religion can then use the tools of comparative literature and mythology and psychology to find the wisdom articulated in the myths it used to mistake for fact. Good science frees good religion from irrationality.
Of course Dr. Coyne isn’t talking about religion and science in this way. He is pitting the worst of religion (people killing other people over inane dogma), against the best of science: open minded rational seekers of truth. But science doesn’t work that way. New ideas are not welcomed in scientific establishments any more than they are in religious ones. True, scientists don’t kill one another over their findings, but they do seek to kill one another’s careers and funding.
Dr. Coyne sums matters us this way: “In religion faith is a virtue; in science it’s a vice.” Nonsense. First of all he is mistaking “faith” for “belief.” Good religion and good science are both rooted in the faith that the universe can be understood and navigated wisely and well. And just as religion has faith in its contemplative methodologies, so science has faith in the scientific method and reason. What good science and good religion both reject are dogmatic beliefs. Bad science and bad religion, on the other hand, revel in dogmatism.
Dr. Coyne reduces religion to superstition. To the extent that religions are tied to superstitions and demonstrable falsehoods, they should free itself from these. That is how science can benefit religion. But the opposite is also true: the extent to which science is blind to realities uncovered by contemplative practice, or closed to the notion that meaning and value can be found in the human condition, or that the human condition is as much rooted in narrative as in physics, science needs to open its eyes.
Good science, as Dr. Coyne says, is rooted in reason and evidence, and at home with doubt and testing. I suggest the same is true of good religion. Good science uses math and machines to investigate reality, good religion uses contemplative disciplines such as meditation, imagination, literature, art, and music to do the same.
Good science should be used by good religion to free itself from bogus notions about reality: the sun revolving around the earth, creation being only 10,000 years old, etc; and bogus history: there is no evidence for the Jews’ enslavement in and exodus from Egypt, for example. Free from the burden of affirming what is bogus, good religion can then use the tools of comparative literature and mythology and psychology to find the wisdom articulated in the myths it used to mistake for fact. Good science frees good religion from irrationality.
Of course Dr. Coyne isn’t talking about religion and science in this way. He is pitting the worst of religion (people killing other people over inane dogma), against the best of science: open minded rational seekers of truth. But science doesn’t work that way. New ideas are not welcomed in scientific establishments any more than they are in religious ones. True, scientists don’t kill one another over their findings, but they do seek to kill one another’s careers and funding.
Dr. Coyne sums matters us this way: “In religion faith is a virtue; in science it’s a vice.” Nonsense. First of all he is mistaking “faith” for “belief.” Good religion and good science are both rooted in the faith that the universe can be understood and navigated wisely and well. And just as religion has faith in its contemplative methodologies, so science has faith in the scientific method and reason. What good science and good religion both reject are dogmatic beliefs. Bad science and bad religion, on the other hand, revel in dogmatism.
Dr. Coyne reduces religion to superstition. To the extent that religions are tied to superstitions and demonstrable falsehoods, they should free itself from these. That is how science can benefit religion. But the opposite is also true: the extent to which science is blind to realities uncovered by contemplative practice, or closed to the notion that meaning and value can be found in the human condition, or that the human condition is as much rooted in narrative as in physics, science needs to open its eyes.
Monday, October 11, 2010
18%
Should I be upset that 18% of my fellow Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim? I’m not sure. You see according to a Gallup Poll, 18% of Americans also believe that the sun revolves around the earth rather than the earth revolving around the sun. And a Baylor Religion Survey shows that 18% of Americans expect scientists will prove the existence of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. And a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration poll shows that 18% of Americans don’t wear their seatbelts when driving. So 18% may just be a standard for dumbness in America.
Of course it may be a standard for intelligence as well. The First Amendment Center says that only 18% of Americans know that freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment; and a Nature magazine survey says that only 18% of Americans take global warming seriously; and another Gallup poll says that only 18% of Americans believe in the Theory of Evolution.
What am I to make of these numbers? Should I be upset by the ignorance of 18% of Americans or proud of the intelligence of another 18%? I suspect 18% of Americans say I should, and 18% say I shouldn’t. What do you think?
Of course it may be a standard for intelligence as well. The First Amendment Center says that only 18% of Americans know that freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment; and a Nature magazine survey says that only 18% of Americans take global warming seriously; and another Gallup poll says that only 18% of Americans believe in the Theory of Evolution.
What am I to make of these numbers? Should I be upset by the ignorance of 18% of Americans or proud of the intelligence of another 18%? I suspect 18% of Americans say I should, and 18% say I shouldn’t. What do you think?
Friday, October 08, 2010
Red Sex?
Public Policy Poling, a Democrat–affiliated polling firm, found that only 4% of Republicans support building a mosque near Ground Zero while over five times that number support building a strip club at the same location. Of course some liberal commie leftists will say this shows how Islamophobic Republicans are, but that is a misreading of the numbers. The real story is that 79% do not support a strip club. Republicans aren’t just Islamophobic, they are anti-sex.
It gets worse. The number jumps to 84% if Republicans are asked whether they oppose an Islamic strip club in the area of Ground Zero. 84% of Republicans don’t want to see naked Muslim women, and yet most Republicans seem to be opposed to the head to toe covering of Islamic women. Which is it? Do you want Muslim women naked or clothed?
The confusion suggests that the real point is this: Republicans don’t want to be around Muslim women, naked or clothed. Again, the leftist crowd will argue that this reflects the fact that so many Republicans are closeted gay men, but this discounts the lesbian faction within the Republican party, and reflects sexism on the part of liberals.
So let’s be fair: Republicans like sex but only between married heterosexual couples who are not Muslims. Is this right? To tell you the truth, I am getting confused. Luckily there is already a strip club near Ground Zero called Pussycat Lounge, so there is no need to build another one, especially since Republicans won’t frequent the place (they seem to prefer Lesbian Bondage Bars).
It gets worse. The number jumps to 84% if Republicans are asked whether they oppose an Islamic strip club in the area of Ground Zero. 84% of Republicans don’t want to see naked Muslim women, and yet most Republicans seem to be opposed to the head to toe covering of Islamic women. Which is it? Do you want Muslim women naked or clothed?
The confusion suggests that the real point is this: Republicans don’t want to be around Muslim women, naked or clothed. Again, the leftist crowd will argue that this reflects the fact that so many Republicans are closeted gay men, but this discounts the lesbian faction within the Republican party, and reflects sexism on the part of liberals.
So let’s be fair: Republicans like sex but only between married heterosexual couples who are not Muslims. Is this right? To tell you the truth, I am getting confused. Luckily there is already a strip club near Ground Zero called Pussycat Lounge, so there is no need to build another one, especially since Republicans won’t frequent the place (they seem to prefer Lesbian Bondage Bars).
Monday, October 04, 2010
I'm Stewish
I’m a lot like Stewart. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. The Jew. People a lot like Stewart control the news media. Or so says Rick Sanchez who is a lot like Fidel Castro, and who was fired from CNN after letting the katz out of the bag that the media is controlled by people of the Stewish persuasion.
Do Stews control the media? No, but we used to. Now it’s controlled by some Australian guy. In Bible times we dominated the media which was the Bible and only Jews could write for it. When we moved from print to movies we dominated that as well, but we were careful to hire goyim like Charlton Heston to play all the best Stewish roles. In the Internet age we have Mark Zuckerberg creator of Facebook (his original name for it was Sefer Punim), and Michael Dell (his father was an orthodontist), but Steve Jobs and Bill Gates aren’t Stews so our dominance is over.
Rick also said Jon was a bigot. I have no evidence for or against such a claim, but I admit that I’m a bigot. I hate bigoted people. That means I am a self-hating Stew, but many Stewish people are.
Should Rick Sanchez have been fired for outing the news media as controlled by the Stews? No. Rick should have been fired because his show sucks. Which it does.
Will Rick be back with a new show on a new network that is Stew-free? I bet that Australian guy is calling him right— Wait a minute! This just in: Rupert Murdoch, the Australian guy, is Stewish! His mum’s mum, Marie Grace de Lancey Forth had a mum, Caroline Jemina (nee Sherson) who was Stewish. That means that according to Stewish Law and anti-Semitic paranoia Rupert Murdoch is Stewish!!!!! Rick is right!!!!!
His show still sucks, but Rick is right.
Do Stews control the media? No, but we used to. Now it’s controlled by some Australian guy. In Bible times we dominated the media which was the Bible and only Jews could write for it. When we moved from print to movies we dominated that as well, but we were careful to hire goyim like Charlton Heston to play all the best Stewish roles. In the Internet age we have Mark Zuckerberg creator of Facebook (his original name for it was Sefer Punim), and Michael Dell (his father was an orthodontist), but Steve Jobs and Bill Gates aren’t Stews so our dominance is over.
Rick also said Jon was a bigot. I have no evidence for or against such a claim, but I admit that I’m a bigot. I hate bigoted people. That means I am a self-hating Stew, but many Stewish people are.
Should Rick Sanchez have been fired for outing the news media as controlled by the Stews? No. Rick should have been fired because his show sucks. Which it does.
Will Rick be back with a new show on a new network that is Stew-free? I bet that Australian guy is calling him right— Wait a minute! This just in: Rupert Murdoch, the Australian guy, is Stewish! His mum’s mum, Marie Grace de Lancey Forth had a mum, Caroline Jemina (nee Sherson) who was Stewish. That means that according to Stewish Law and anti-Semitic paranoia Rupert Murdoch is Stewish!!!!! Rick is right!!!!!
His show still sucks, but Rick is right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)