Who's Afraid of Gods?

Just how scared of Satan do you have to be to flee in the face of a nonChristian prayer?

This morning I hosted one of my bi-monthly lunches as Wisdom House at Scarritt-Bennett Center. Our theme was “transformation.” Nineteen people attended. We begin the lunch at 11:30 by asking someone to offer grace. This morning we had two women in attendance who were practitioners of Soka Gakkai Buddhism, and they offered to teach us the chant they use: nam-myhoho-renge-kyo (“I devote myself to the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law”).

In addition to our two Buddhists were two young Christians, one who had just graduated high school and his friend who was a college graduate. Both young men were working as servers in a local restaurant for the summer. I had a chance to talk with all four of these people before we began our luncheon, and they seemed really eager to be at Wisdom House.

When we settled down to chant, the older of the two young men said that they would listen but not chant along. No problem; you certainly don’t want to affirm something you cannot in good conscience affirm, but as soon as they heard the first word of the chant they bolted. Literally, they leaped up and ran out the door. I expected them to come back to eat, after all they had pre-paid for their lunch, but they jumped into their car and fled. I have never seen anything like this.

Someone later explained to me that the church to which they said they belonged believed that the prayers of any nonChristian were pleas to the Devil, and that even to sit through one quietly would put their souls at risk.

I have no problem with anyone running to save his soul, but from words? From another person’s heartfelt prayer of gratitude? I began my interfaith studies in my junior year of high school, and I’ve sat through lots of prayers to lots of Gods in decades since, and I never felt any fear for my soul. That may be because I don’t believe I have one (having a personal soul negates my belief that we are all manifestations of the One Soul, the One Self, Brahman, God, etc.), but still, what kind of church raises such frightened followers?  

What about you? Do you fear the prayers of others? What would you have done when these two women started to chant? What would you say to these two young men?

Vive la Difference?

I’m reading The Forward, a wonderful Jewish newspaper, and two articles catch my attention. The first wonders why young, secular, and liberal American Jews take so little interest in Israel. The second reports on ultra-Orthodox rabbis spreading an extremist Judaism throughout the ranks of the Israeli military instructing soldiers to “show no mercy,” to view civilians as “not innocent,” to “ignore any foreign doctrines [that] confuse the logical way of fighting the enemy” (doctrines such as the Geneva Convention and the Israeli Defense Force’s own code of ethics).

It seems to me that the second article speaks to the first.

One reason young (and not so young), liberal, secular, and universally humanistic American Jews are alienated from Israel is that Israel seems to be on its way to becoming a theocracy. The more Israel comes to resemble Iran the harder it is to give a crap about what happens there.

Now Israel need not care what liberal, secular, and universally humanistic American Jews think. They can and should do what they think is in their best interest. If Israelis want to live in a theocracy run by Orthodox Jews that’s their business, but don’t expect me or people like me to stick with them.

Now it’s true that America seems to be on its way to becoming the United States of Christ, and when it does I will leave, but, given the choice, I won’t move from one theocracy to another. I’ll look around and find the country whose people seem the most free, secular, democratic, and rational, and emigrate there.  At the moment I’m eye-ing Canada, but it may be that China will surprise us all, and I’ll move there. At least I know I’ll like the food.

Breakfast at Noshville

I’m sitting at the counter in Noshville, Nashville’s New York-style  Jewish deli, talking to a well-dressed fellow who tells me he’s a lawyer. Our conversation turns to the economy, and I thought I’d share his thoughts with you as best as I can recall them.

“Let’s face it: the United States is a plutocracy: a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. The only “people” that matter any more are corporations. You may think you’re voting for ideas or political parties, but politicians are owned by plutocrats who use both sides to further their own ends. They don’t care whom you vote for, because they win regardless. This is going to lead to one of five results:

“One: the emergence of an Ayn Rand dystopia, where the government serves the rich and the rest battle one another for the scraps tossed to them. This is where we seem to be heading at the moment.

“Two: the plutocrats will get too greedy and raid the corporations, and the corporations will rebel. The plutocrats have the military on their side, and the corporations will hire private armies. It would be a hot war between billionaires fought with armies poor people.

“Three: the plutocrats will misuse the military, failing to pay the brass sufficiently, and piling up casualties in quest of more power, and the military will rebel, side with corporations, and create a fascist state.

“Four: the 99% will revolt, take to the streets in mass and demand changes. This will cause the plutocrats and the corporations to unite and crush the people militarily.

“Five, the 99% will stop playing the game. They’ll establish local barter economies of scale, opt for a simpler more self-sufficient existence, and allow the plutocrats and corporations to implode. This will cause the plutocrats and corporations to yield some of their wealth but none of their power, to the poor as they try to entice people back into service.

“Which of the five options do I see coming? In the short run I think we’ll put Gov. Romney and the Republicans in power and opt for the Ayn Rand dystopia. Then in 2014 we could see collaboration between Tea Party and Occupy folks against the plutocrats and corporations. It would look like a revolt, and some cosmetic changes would be made to delude the people into thinking they’ve won, but it will be business as usual at the top. By 2016 we might have a populist president and Congress, but they will be puppets of the plutocrats, just like most politicians are now, and nothing will change.

“In the long run I see a war between the super rich backed by the military and the corporations backed by mercenaries with the rest of us as collateral damage. No telling who will win, but I would back the corporations. Either way most of us lose.”

I know this seems very depressing. But I swear it went down better with eggs, latkes, and Diet Coke.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

In 1968 Mitt Romney allegedly led an alleged assault on an allegedly gay student at his private high school academy during which Mitt allegedly had his alleged friends pin down the allegedly gay student while Mitt allegedly cut off his hair with a pair of scissors. Is anyone surprised that the alleged lame stream liberal effete media would be on this story like glitter on Glee? Of course not. It fits right into their narrative of a heartless Mitt terrorizing homosexuals in his teens, dogs in his twenties, and workers for the rest of his life. But in their rush to judgment the media elite have failed to note the heroism that Mitt displayed: he dared to work as a barber without a license.

His action was a blow against unnecessary government regulation. When I was in high school I worked at a barbershop—cleaning the sinks, washing the floors, polishing the chairs, etc.—every evening after my night shift at Friendly’s Ice Cream.

And, like Mitt, I too cut the hair of a fellow student.

It was my junior year of high school and my neighbor’s dad had given him money for a haircut but my friend wanted to use it for something else and asked me to cut his hair instead. He had dog clippers and I had a dog, so how hard could this be?

It went well at first: I plugged the clippers and turned them on. The hum was strong and confident, and for a moment so was I. Then I started cutting. When I was done it cost my friend twice what his dad had given him to have a barber fix what I had done to him.

Here’s my point: if I can remember cutting this kid’s hair and he only cried and screamed after I’d finished, how is it that Mitt can’t remember cutting that other kid’s hair when he started crying and screaming the moment Mitt’s friends pinned him to the ground?

There can only be three possible answers to this question. First, the incident never happened and Mitt is being swiftboated by Obama hacks. Second, the incident did happen, but it was so traumatic for Mitt that he repressed all memory of it. Or third, it did happen, Mitt does remember, and he is lying in order not to lose the votes of licensed barbers in the Republican Party.

Mormons don’t lie (which is why I take Joseph Smith at his word regarding the Golden Tablets) so option three is out, and Mitt’s friends implicated themselves in the incident so option one is out. This leaves option two: Mitt was traumatized and suffers from Repressed Memory Syndrome.

Repressed Memory Syndrome in no way disqualifies Mitt from being president. After all President Obama forgot that he was for gay marriage when he said his opinion was evolving (in fact it was devolving) and now that he is for it again he still can’t remember that he was for it all along. So he, too, may suffer from this disease. In fact the more I follow politics the more it seems that Repressed Memory Syndrome is something that all politicians share. How odd is that?

2012 M(a)y(an) Ass

Damn, damn, damn. I don’t know about you but I was planning to enjoy my final months on earth as the Mayan calendar came to an end on December 21, 2012. I got a reverse mortgage on my house, sold the movie rights to all my books, took out massive cash advances on all my credit cards, and received large advances on books I have no intension of writing but whose due dates are December 22, 2012. I was certain that the Mayans were right and the world was coming to an end. I was planning to live life large. I was even going to vote for a third party candidate for president in November just to screw with the two-party plutocracy that runs this country. But all that is over now.

Headline in today’s USA TODAY: “Mayan calendar goes beyond 2012.”

Are you kidding me?! It turns out that some archeologists found a new room in the Mayan ruins of Xultun. On the walls of this room the Mayans calculated dates of festivals that would fall after the year 3500. That’s over 1500 years from now! We’ve got over 1500 years left to this civilization, and it is going to take me every last one of them to pay back all the money I owe.

I don’t know whom to sue first: Daniel Pinchbeck for writing his doomsday scenario, The Return of Quetzalcoatl, the archeologists who have been excavating Xultun for years and only just now found the updated calendar, or the Mayans themselves for writing their stupid calendar on walls rather than on large boulders along side highways where everyone could find them.

Well, I guess I should be thankful that the world isn’t ending in 2012, but to be honest, I was looking forward to it. After the disappointments of Harold Camping’s end of world prophecies on October 21, 2011 and May 21, 2011 I had given up on Christian doom and opted for what I assumed was the more reliable Mayan doom. But no, they too have failed me.

I don’t know whom to trust in the doomsday fantasy world anymore. S o I am asking you, my friends, if you know of some other prophecies I can rely on, please write them in the comments section of this blog. I just can’t bear the thought that there is no end in sight.