Jesus n’ Me

Those damn fanboys have ruint yet another perfectly good slight acquaintanceship.

Honestly.

In the meantime, don’t take Jesus’ failure to make eye contact personally, if you happen to see Him at the New Years’ bash.

Consider this: he might be really embarassed that his posse’s gotten the wrong end of the stick again. Last time it was the Inquisition, and look what happened.

Damn fanboys. They always want to run the club their way, and all the fun people don’t even want to drop by anymore.

Hmmm … I’m in a very similar boat … on xmas eve my wife goes off to celebrate with her church … and I stay home with the cat (or, as was in previous years, with my Dad … trying to figure out if we have anything in common anymore [or if we ever did]).

Although I’m not 100% sure about the bursting into flames bit. I’ve entered my wifes church … but always have this burning sensation. Could be something else, of course.

Yea, I started out real close to Jesus, my Dad worked for him and so did my mom in a way. I like what he has to say, especially the part about helping the poor and being peace makers, but now I just avoid him. I just can’t make sense of his father and Jesus is too close to his dad to reject one with out rejecting the other. So I just go my way.

As far as Jesus’ so called defenders go, I know there’s a special place in Hell for them and the hate they spread in his name.

Well, Adam, it’s obvious that you didn’t get an Xbox 360 for Hanukkah. Wow, that’s quite a story, but then you’re a professional writer. I’m going to have to re-read and mull this over for a while and I’ll get back to you guys later.

David and Adam, ditto with me and the little woman; she goes off to church and I stay home finish the paper. The kids are rather sceptical of the whole religion precept, but I haven’t been coaching them. I figured they’re smart kids - they can make up their own minds.

If many years from now a large group of people who claimed to be followers of Adam Felber said that his writings showed that George W. Bush was the greatest president the United States had ever known, and you had access to the writings of said Adam Felber, would you hold it against Adam? Even if the foolish followers decided to run a country based on the foibles of George W. Bush? I certainly hope not. But now, because you disagree with some of Jesus’s followers, you are throwing away all of Jesus’s teachings, even though you agree that His teachings are, all in all, sound.

I have enjoyed this blog and have learned a great deal from Adam and the commenters here, as well as from the links you have provided me with, but I am having a problem with the religious intolerance I feel here. I wonder what your reaction would be if you substituted the word “Muslim” or “atheist” for the word “Christian” in this section. Folks, I’m a progressive, but I wonder where my place is. I sure as hell don’t belong with the Republicans, but I’m beginning to think the Democrats don’t want me either.

I can only speak for myself Leslie, and perhaps your remarks weren’t addressing my post, so all I’ll say is this. I think it’s common to conflate such criticism into a broader commentary than it’s clearly meant to be. It’s frequently done by people (this may or may not include yourself) who want to dodge the issue at hand. I know I spoke about jesus’s followers and the mess they’ve made of it. I think I was fairly clear as well that I did not mean all christians, just a large number of them.

If you feel that criticism is unwarranted, I’ll certainly listen. Who knows, you may convince me I’m wrong but from what I’ve seen, there hasn’t been much “mortality” from that majority in some time. Need I present examples?

I’m not “Democrats”. I’m just one guy who used to be a card carrying conservative and got disgusted with the lack of honesty in that party. I can’t claim to speak for any progressive group but myself and all I can say is that if you feel that criticism of christians precludes from being a liberal, then perhaps you’re right.

I hope I am (and you are) wrong though. I think we have room for a lot of people in the big tent. They just have to mean what they say and be honest.

David of the Green Swamp here (upper case - the third david uses lower case, so there is an identifier),

First, a truly minor note: “There were a lot of Christmas specials on TV this year, and I couldn’t enjoy them as much because all the yelling made me aware that their aren’t any Hanukkah or Ramadan specials.” “…there aren’t any…” And yeah, there aren’t any, which strikes me as a missed opportunity for enrichment of our collective cultural experience (assuming such a thing is any longer permissible in what appears to be an age of ever-rigidifying demographic groups).

So now to jump in to the discussion at hand with my usual trepidation-free (and probably error-prone) compulsion to have a say.

I think Jesus was very likely regular folk with a huge dose of global humanitarianism, something anathema to damned near every interest group of his era, as well as to most of the high profile Christian leaders of today, especially those spewing the rampant homophobia which infects much of much of the “faith community” (which descriptor incorrectly suggests a monolithic entity - people who speak of the central role of religious faith in their lives are anything but monolithic, much to the chagrin of the “Learned Elders” and the legion of telehucksters).

And there is growing evidence of the rejection of homophobia among the majority of Americans (wonder if the pope will maybe jump a couple of centuries and join us in the 21st?)

Adam, I read this with great interest and considerable empathy, in part because if there is a Jesus who is able to speak to the mass of Christians who are enablers of what the likes of Pat Robertson, George Bush, and the current anti-land reform, homophobic pope, and the rest of the people who claim somehow to speak for God or God’s agent(s), then it is fair to ask Where the hell is he? I don’t see Jesus in those terms, and I doubt there is any such thing as seeing a mystical Jesus clearly, if at all. But it’s very easy to see the thrust of the current American Godsmack Up with Jesus movement, and it is a sickening, anti-humanity assault on the human flesh and the human spirit.

The fact that it was the Christian community that Karl Rove was able to exploit to such electoral success screams volumes. Can’t see where the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount figures into any of what seems to define the main thrust of current American Christianity.

Still think Ezra Pound was on to something in “The Goodly Fere,” although it seems to me the archetypal humanitarian should be, if any gender, female, or more properly non-gender, and it is his humanitarian character, and his humanitarian character alone, that recommends Jesus as a spiritual guide. And humanitarians are almost never given any significant authority in the affairs of humankind, and if they are, that authority is ultimately either demonized or co-opted.

But back to what Adam is feeling, which I think is the profound disconnect between humanitarianism and current dominant American religious forces, and for that matter dominant religious forces worldwide, which is something to be rejected in any way possible by everyone of every (or no) religious persuasion.

Shantih

I think it’s time to remind everyone again that 90% of the headlines are made by 10% of the idiots. The followers of Pat Roberts, the screaming homophobes, the right-wing talk show people, the people who think “God helps those who help themselves” is an actual quote from the Bible (sorry: it was Benj. Franklin…) and therefore justifies the opinion that the poor deserve their fate… These people make the national headlines. These are the people from whom one may get the impression that the actual teachings of Jesus are being ignored in favor of what this generation of Puritan bigots considers “moral”. I know I often get that feeling - and from my own cousin, I regret to say; he likes to forward me “internet letters” that he agrees with. They turn my stomach. I delete them.

Making only local headlines is the poor church in East Oakland that decided to support one family of Katrina refugees for one year, and went out and got housing, clothing, appliances, toys for the kids, etc. for this family (including a job for mom). Now that’s Christianity. And if you apply the 90%/10% rule, there may be more of that going on, quietly in the background as Christ taught, than we realize. Just because it isn’t in the national headlines doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Full disclosure here: I personally am not a Christian, not because I object to Christ’s teachings (actually I try to live by Christ’s teachings) but because, as Murray said, I have trouble with his dad. (And don’t get me started on Saul of Tarsus…) What bothers me about the 10% making the headlines is their insistence that the only worthy people are the ones who think like them. I prefer the company of people who are willing to admit they may be wrong.

As for substituting the word “Muslim” for “Christian”, Leslie: I object to the Muslim fanatics out there as I much as I do to the Christian fanatics. I object to being told that I must shut up, obey the men, cover my face and hair, etc. I don’t want to live in the 12th century.

And David, don’t hold your breath waiting for this pope to enter the 21st century: he’s heading straight back to the 17th.

I was born and raised Greek Orthodox, and I have bounced back and forth between that and the Episcopal Church most of my adult life. I, too, became so disappointed with the relative silence of the Christian wing of the Church, just about 5 years ago now, that I finally dropped out altogether.

Intellectually I know that I’m not helping, that it would be better if I were to stay in and not help to reduce the number of Americans who say they belong to a “mainstream” (as opposed to an independent evangelical) church. But I don’t have the will to do that without getting something out of it for myself, and I wasn’t getting any spiritual nourishment for myself out of that exercise.

I am somewhat heartened to hear interviews with Jimmy Carter, and read reviews of, his new book, “Our Endangered Values”. Someone with some clout has finally blown the whistle on the bullies, money changers, and hypocrites who have hijacked the Church.

hedera,

Think he’ll be willing to stop at the 17th, or will the rumblings of enlightenment thinking send him wandering on back in his misbegotten vision quest for myopic authoritarian orthodoxy?

‘Course I guess as long as it’s a liberation theology free world, he’ll be happy wearing his outfits and playing his part. Intriguing the similarities between his and Pat Robertson’s views of the people of and acceptable economic systems for Central and South America.

Hey Cretins,

Life is good at the top! The air is fresher; the colors brighter! And every day is a profitable ($$$) adventure. Still skimming and hiding off-shore.

ginny, you and madbard are bitching and moaning about fanboys fucking up all things good and virtuous about religion. HAH!!! What about fangirls, huh? Anita Bryant, now there was a dame! Great big hair, white teeth and always with the Florida tan. And talk about gams! I have, however, always been suspicous and curious about the breasts - but she says she has a “don’t ask, don’t touch” policy concerning that information. And she enforces this policy most vigorously, at least around me - the prude. I could still see handprint on the side of my face for days. Still, “A breakfast without Orange Juice is like a day without sunshine” can still melt me. And “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree…” What a babe! That business about a fag-free Miami pretty much did her in, though. The last I heard she and hubby #2 were in bankruptcy. Good place for them to be, if you ask me.

Rep. Thomas Delay, (R, TX)

Leslie, not to be critical, but good things can be done in the name of Kilgore Trout, too.

Cooper, not to be critical, but are they?

Does it matter whose name a good deed is done in, so long as its done freely and without expectation of reward?

I’m not sure that anyone with even a modicum of intellectual integrity would imply that religion, any religion, is completely evil and has never accomplished any good.

That said, and I’m not accusing you of this Leslie, but as I mentioned above, it’s often defenses like that are the ones used to cover for people like Fred Phelps.

For instance, Pat Robertson. He’s a fairly wacky guy (to put it mildly). His “commercial endeavors” are suspect (again, to put it mildly) as are much of his “teachings” but surely, even Pat does some nice things, so how “fair” should I be with him? Is it unreasonable for me to expect normal, rational christians to denounce him?

I truly wish all christians, all people of faith, were as seemingly live and let live as you appear to be Leslie buit my experience tells me otherwise. My experience tells me that there are actually fairly large swaths of intolerant, outright bigoted people hanging behind jesus’s robes to take away the civil rights of fellow citizens.

So you make a good pont Leslie. It doesn’t behove me, or anyone else, to lump all people of faith in one category. However, that same sword cuts in both directions. The good works or words of a few, don’t cover the many either. People stand on their own merits, sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

Ever notice how politicians talk about “Heartland values” or “Southern values” or “Oregon values,” but they’re always the same values? Wherever they happen to be speaking, they attribute special “values” to that place. It’s the same with religion. Is “Christian” charity really that different from Muslim or Buddhist charity?
Every time someone mentions the ghastly cruelty and injustice inflicted in the name of God or Jesus, someone brings up the good works of Christians. Perhaps that’s really just a comment on the universality of both cruelty and charity.
As an atheist, I have a very strong motivation to practice charity and kindness toward others: I believe that this is the only life we have. There is no “divine” justice, so the need to work for justice here on earth is that much greater. There is no afterlife in which all of our hurts will be salved and all wrongs righted, so THIS is the only time we have to make each other’s lives more bearable. And although Jesus did promise a heavenly reward, he didn’t give people a free pass to make others miserable in this life–he blessed the peacemakers, and the meek, and the merciful!

Happy holidays!

Cooper, good works are good works. May Kilgore smile on you!

Ice Weasel, Pat Robertson is a fruitcake. He’s off his nut about half a mile, and I’m appalled that he calls himself a Christian. I can’t judge him rationally because I’m too angry about his actions, so I won’t even address your other comments about him. When I spoke about the good being done by Christians, I was speaking about the group as a whole. I realize you have the right to become specific, but Pat Robertson, really!

Ann, you may be an atheist, but you preached a sermon, and a pretty good one at that.

I love reading everyone’s comments too here…so best.

…(whispering from the back pew)…I enjoyed reading every word you wrote Adam. Christian or Athiest, Polytheist or Buddhist, there’s just so much I personally can take from a “marketed” Jesus. I tried to embrace the concept of “NOTW”, but I love this world so much and so many have been taken away from me in this world I have a hard time dealing with something that’s Not Of This World. If you can’t be part of this world, why am I even alive then? I just can’t stomach the acronimic WWJD and NOTW’s any longer.

I had the distinct PRIVILEGE of celebrating both Jewish and Christian holidays for about six years while my dad was married to his Jewish 2nd wife; my step-mother. My step-family seemed to me during this time period much more loving, tolerant, and just overall okay with who they were than my subsequent trying to be like other people who are born-again and have lots of money and are so happy singing about Jesus and redemption.

I was baptized Episcopalian in 1987, after thinking (delusionally so) that taking this straight and narrow path would really make my life more meaningful. Instead, I felt like one must feel when they were born, say, male, and know all along that they were meant to be a different sexual orientation, say female. Like, the choice had been made but I wasn’t comfortable. Ever.

I digress here on your blog. What I am trying to say is this: This year felt more like ChristMESS to me than ChristMAS. Something’s changed; something’s shifted. I even felt uncomfortable having to sit through what felt to me a propaganda-laden “Chronicles of Narnia”. The book and its symbolism via C.S. Lewis was magical and ethereal. The Liam Neeson’d Aslan made me feel nauseous. I couldn’t wait until it was over and I could leave the theatre. Was I feeling like the White Witch? Was I “bad” like Edmond? Was I being “convicted” of sin through the movie? I don’t know! I do know that I liked Mr. Tumnus though…he was cool because he was the only character in that movie that actually was struggling with thought vs. deed.

I’m just so over it all and it’s hard to feel that way when you’ve got children that are trying to make sense of what’s going on in their life, their country, their world at the same time you are.

Hey RRRyan,

Let me get this straight.

Lying about a blow job is unacceptable but lying to go to war and sacrificing several thousand Americans and at least 100,000 Iraqis is just fine? An admirable choice?
You think that CNN is the polar opposite of FOX? As far as I can see it is only slightly to the right of center. You want the polar opposite, try Pacifica Radio.
You quote Jesus as saying “not one word of the law will go away” But when was the last time you heard a conservative quoting Jesus saying. “It is harder for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. If you wish to enter heaven, sell all you have, give it to the poor, and follow me. You have turned my father’s house into a den of thieves. (I could go on for a long time here, 1/3 of what Jesus says in the Bible has to do with helping the poor, but I’m guessing you don’t want to hear it because Jesus didn’t really mean it, right?).
You know, what ever Pat Robertson says, whether it is meant for the general public, Christians, for his followers, or just for the other handful of insane people like him, it is a little hard to defend calling for an assassination, and calling God’s wrath on NY, New Orleans, and even Dover PA. So you are saying that with out God you would be equally crazy? Does that mean that Pat is with out God, or that only your faith keeps you from being equally insane? And how does that explain so many VERY moral people who don’t believe in God? CS Lewis bounced back and forth from Christian to Atheist to Christian, can you tell from his works when he was what? He still liked to spank girls when he was a Christian.
And with out Christianity the choice is “do what ever you want, when ever you want”? My experience is that many Christians do “what ever they want, when ever they want”, and use their Christianity to JUSTIFY it. Secular Humanists can’t fall back on a book filled with contradictions to cover their every whim and must use their own judgment to decide what is right. My guess is that you will find the overwhelming numbers of people in jail are Christians and not Secular Humanists

RRRyan, we still welcome your input.

Cooper, thanks for reading my post.

Not all Americans believe that our president lied about WMDs (which I assume you are referring to). So without believing your premise the rest doesn’t come up.

If I believed that I would be disappointed in his actions. I’ll take it a step further though. I honestly believe there were and ARE WMDs. They made it to Syria early in the conflict or are buried. A man like Hussein does not go from having them to not having them. Period.

I’ll admit that based on the limited facts we peons of the planet have access to it is possible that our President managed to organize a great conspiracy to get all of the intelligence to point to WMDs. Just like the above, my gut says too unlikely. Just like I don’t think he’ll cheat on his wife I also don’t think he’ll lie to us.

As far as the reasons we went to war, I know a lot of Christians who are opposed to it. I’m admittedly a bit mean. A person like S.H. who mows down Kurds by the thousands for trying to leave “his” country, who buries people’s children by the hundreds for living in the same city that an assassin came from, and the list goes on… Must die ASAP. I’ve had a wonderful life so far and would consider it an honor to trade what’s left of it to help others be freed from such fear and oppression. If my forefathers had not thought that way I would be shipping half of everything I earn to England for the king to build his next palace. So my OPINION is based on “with great privilege comes great responsibility”. The Iraqis are my neighbors, and perhaps someday friends, even brothers. The bar is set high for America and I am amazed that we still make the leap.

Again, thank you so much for reading my post. I see other comments have popped in while I was composing this. Neat!

Murray,

I hope I don’t wear out my welcome by trying to touch on everything. All of your points have merit. I already mentioned that I don’t believe Bush lied to anyone, so that comparison is unfair.

1. On the poor I assume you mean that conservatives don’t care about them? That is not true. I care.

2. Den of thieves? Yes, perhaps some religious leaders have done just that. Surely not all though. Jesus warned that they will be dealt with especially severely.

3. Jesus meant everything he said.

4. I apparently don’t know as much about C.S. Lewis as you.

5. On the Robertson issue you were all over the map, maybe he’s a big target. I’m not personally vouching for every word that comes out of his mouth. When he talks about things like assassinations and judgment I take it with care. Christians can be skeptical too. I had an accident on my motorcycle the other day and am still aching from it. Is that God’s judgment on me? I’m persuaded that it was a combination of wrong place, and wrong time. Does God control the weather? Yes. Does God judge people using natural disasters? Yes. Does that mean that he hates New Orleans? The only thing I can say is I’m pretty sure He’s not into Mardi Gras. I wouldn’t go as far as he did. I wrote a check to the Salvation Army and faced the fact that I didn’t have enough vacation time to make the trip to help.:-\

After that response I felt like I was on the business end of a Tommy gun.

RRRRyan,

Four hurricanes in a row hit Florida, all immediately after the 2004 election. What do you think God was trying to say there?

Adam,

With all due respect, when Shrub “testified” before the 9/11 Commission, he refused to do it under oath, and he refused to do it without his puppetmaster by his side, and he refused to let the session be recorded for posterity. Hence he avoided the possibility of being caught in an *offical* lie….for the time being. But this is the man who was going to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Why wouldn’t he testify under oath?

More recently, he has announced that he, by virtue of being a “war president,” is above the law. This in itself is an impeachable offense against the Constitution which he has sworn, under oath, to uphold.

If you were listening to Patrick Fitzgerald a couple of months ago, and I know you were, then you understand why obstruction of justice is just as serious a crime as the underlying crime that is being covered up. I think you’re being too easy on poor ole Georgie, but I also think that justice will be served. It may take a while longer, but we will determine once again that we are a nation of laws, not of men, just as we did in the Nixon regime.

Hi Sharon! Thanks for responding.

1. I can’t verify or deny that the U.S. has stopped looking for the WMDs. If they went to Syria what would you say if we did go looking for them? You wouldn’t like that one bit I suspect.

2. My bet is the war in Iraq will really be over when Hussein hangs but that’s not very P.C. is it? I also think it’s likely that they won’t make democracy fly, but they’ll get a good chance to try. Genesis 16 (I think or maybe 19) talks about Ishmael and says something like his offspring will live in conflict with his brothers. As far as no verified connects do you know what Zarqawi’s title is? How about “Head of al-Qaeda in Iraq”??? Do you know who his predecessor was? I’m quite certain it was also the President/Dictator/King of Iraq. You may disagree, but if you believed this stuff as I do then my other opinions certainly make sense do they not?

3. As far as OBL, he is likely dead. If he’s not dead, he’s certainly no longer very involved. What makes you think we aren’t looking for him? Best guess is he’s in Pakistan. Would you like that we continue our search there? I suspect not. Especially with them pointing their nukes at India. Yes, they do have WMDs, at least they say they do.

Gosh I love this place.

Adam, I really do like your story about Jesus N’ Me. I guess there is something about religion or just the mention of Jesus that brings out a visceral reaction in the average human, whether you’re for religion or again’ it.

Thanks for this blog. Growing up in smallville like I did, I didn’t meet a Jew until I was in college, honest. There I met alot of them and actually dated one for a year (I was her goyfriend). I went to Synagog a few times - no flames, no lightning bolts. Her friends and family were very kind to me and hoped to Jesus that she would marry a nice Jewish boy - not me - which is what happened, as it turns out.

“The real issue is that he is our President, and he took us to war largely for reasons that turned out not to be true. If nothing else, that represents colossally poor judgement. But worse - the Iraq war was not well planned. Despite the administration’s assurances, it is not going well, and it’s my suspicion that we’re going to declare victory and leave in order to save face, and then the place is going to fall apart.”

A real issue here, rather than the real issue here…. But in addition to making quite good sense, you are likely dead on in your conclusion. I would add, however, that Cheney and Rumsfeld will not be without an utterly ruthless, totally “American interests” as they define American interests plan for what they consider victory, and it has nothing to do with the wellbeing of Iraqis. We lost the war Bush said we were fighting on the first day in Baghdad when we did not secure the Iraqi Museum, choosing only to protect the oil ministry. That move was emblematic of who we as invaders really were and why we were there. Soldiers just did what they were told to, individually noble in most instances but agents of what was in reality an utterly ignoble breach of the peace.

The Kurds are fully prepared to go to war for Kirkuk, the Shi’a in the south are likely ready to do the same for the southern oil fields, and while god only knows what’s in Bush’s mind, if anything, what’s in the minds of the policy makers is what it has always been. Violence, destruction, human agony and massive death are acceptable, so long as some geopolitical point is arrived at that ensures cheap access to and predictable control of vital resources. And it matters very little how totally taxpayers and men and women who mostly really do want to serve their country get screwed, so long as major corporate interests, in this case energy interests, win, at least as they define winning in their boardrooms.

I have to say I think Bush believes what he says, which is really pathetic. Cheney is indifferent to whether what he says is the truth or a lie. Rumsfeld lives in his own elitist universe, enamored of his own cleverness, and dismissive of any judgments contrary to his own.
And American taxpayers and Iraqis in general are well and truly fucked, except those who emerge as the privileged in whatever emerges from this crime against humanity (all wars of aggression, regardless of the rationale, are crimes against humanity).

I think the “Iraqis in general” just voted for a parliament and are still uncovering mass graves.
But, you strayed from the question. If Bush lied, didn’t almost every prominent Dem.? If it was a lie, wasn’t it a massive, two decade, both party, all of government lie that required thousands of officials, agents, etc…to carry out.

Sharon,

I’m sure if we knew him to be dead it would be announced and promptly, not waiting for the next election. It would be dishonest to hold such information for that purpose & remember, I think our president is honest. BTW, do you really believe the NYT story on the wiretapping was promptly released or strategically?

I’m sorry I missed the news that we aren’t looking for OBL. I find it hard to believe that someone isn’t looking for him. What’s the bounty up to now, 20 million or something?

When the President says he “doesn’t think about him” I’d assume he means that he is no longer a threat, not that he wants to send him on an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas.

Is there anything our President could do that would make you happy? Leave Iraq? Stay in Iraq? Announce that he awakes in the middle of the night screaming because of the face of OBL? Wiretapping terrorist communications? Not securing our ports enough? Too proactive, not proactive enough.

People who really hate our President say things like:

“If the people of the 9th ward were mostly white their homes wouldn’t have been destroyed.”

Huh?

“Iraqis never asked us to come there.”

Uh, yes they did. In fact they counted on us once and we let them down causing many to be killed.

Anyway, I really like to avoid ranting. Some of that may qualify. :-\

One thing that our president could do that would make me happy is to take the lead on getting us away from an oil-based economy. Get serious about developing alternative fuels, because the oil IS going to run out sooner or later. He could take the lead in dealing with the associated pollution and climate change. When you see General Electric making the leap to cleaner, more efficient technologies you know the market is there. Use tax policies to help companies change course and produce the products the world will want, rather than rewarding the fuel fossils for dragging their feet. It would be good for the country in so many ways; how could it not make me happy?

Also, the president could just give it a rest on the religion stuff for a few months. (We already know where he stands; there’s no need to reassure us - really.) It doesn’t seem to work in our favor when we’re up against religious fanatics. Sure, there’s a difference in degree. But it’s damn hard to argue that they shouldn’t try to institute shariah (sp?) law, when our leader is constantly trying to put his God into every element of American law.

Jesus loves us and you’re trying, is that it, waterfowler?

Leslie,
I said I was sorry if I left anyone out. Jesus loves you and I’m still tryin’.

Might be worth remembering that Hans Blix was in the process of establishing that Hussein had no WMDs, as Scott Ritter was also arguing quite compellingly, and that Bush rushed to war rather than wait until some kind of objective conclusion regarding WMDs could be reached. And there was certainly nothing Saddam could do while the inspectors were in Iraq.

Leaders are accountable for the decisions they make, and for the consequences of those decisions (regardless of intentions - competence trumps “character”), which consequences all affected persons are condemned to suffer collectively.

I think Adam is right - the question of whether or not Bush lied is a distraction from the plain story of the administration’s behavior before and during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and for those decisions and actions this administration should be condemned. On the other hand, maybe it does matter that if it can be established that Bush lied, the majority of Americans would support impeachment, a cleansing of the White House Augean Stables that might be the best thing for the wellbeing of the republic since Nixon had to climb aboard Marine One that final time (what a day of rejoicing that did be).

An aside: “What’s love got to do with it?”
-Tina Turner

For a history of how the humanitarian teachings of the prophet Jesus morphed into the rule-bound, spirit-suffocating, exclusionary cult espoused by too many of our most vocal political and religious “leaders”, I would commend to your reading pleasure the book “Constantine’s Sword”, by James Carroll, published a few years ago. The beginning of the end came when Christianity went from being a religion, to being The State-Mandated Religion, back in the 4th century. There are, as you can imagine, many lessons along the way about the dangers of permitting a government-religious coalition to flourish.

Chari,

I reacted the same way you did to Adam’s post. I thought it was a particularly effective reminder of how the public face of contemporary American Christianity is estranging at least some (I have no idea how many, not even a ballpark guess - or hot dog) thoughtful, intelligent, basically congenial folk - and really pissing off some others - but it is probably the former who matter more for purposes of this discussion.

As an apatheist, I really don’t have a dog in this hunt, other than how the radical religious right is advocating public policies that could have an effect on my personal freedoms.

But on the subject of Jesus — for a long time I’ve thought that deifying him blunted the impact of his message. If Jesus was divine, then he knew the Plan and the abuse and suffering he endured would end in the ultimate vidication of the Resurrection. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.

When I read the gospels I don’t get the idea that Jesus thought he was divine at all. When he referred to himself as the “Son of God,” I always thought he was saying “And so are you…and you are the daughter of God” All of us carry the spark of divinity within us. So his message is all the more powerful because he was human — just like us — yet he was able to transcend the darker nature of humanity and say “Love one another. Forgive your enemies.” If he, as a purely human being could do that, then the rest of us are challenged to do the same.

Jesus was a martyr for a cause. There have been others in history who have suffered and died because they called upon us to listen to the better angels of our nature.

It’s a powerful message and it is the shame of our species that we have corrupted it.

dee, I think you have to make the exception for John’s gospel, which is why I’m mad at the people who put together the canon. There are so many other gospels out there, and if they’d picked a different one or chosen to leave John out, Christians would likely still be questioning this thing.

I agree on the last two points, though, which is why I think Jesus would just be sad and rather weary if I met him at a party.

Jesus didn’t make a habit of beating others with his cross, I just wish his followers wouldn’t either. I don’t want Christians to legislate their morality, and I don’t like to be subtly proselytized every where I turn.

I kind of just want to be left alone.

Wow, it’s nice to see representation balancing out here.

Murray, would you characterize my responses here as “beating”? I’m just curious if you are referring to me or others. I have certainly said more than my share.

Don and RRRRyan, I’m a liberal Christian, so I’m not representative of the Felbernauts, and I’ll speak only for myself (which I guess I should do in any case). Both of you are well-spoken, refreshingly willing to discuss rather than denounce, and while you have your own well-formed opinions you seem willing to recognize that there are others out there that you probably will not change. My earlier comments about conservative Christians were not intended to include you, and I apologize for the generality. I was referring to the Pat Robertson conservative Christians. And let me go into detail as to why I am so het up over Pat Robertson.

I used to work at the trust department of a bank. One of our Trusts left a bequest to the Pat Robertson Ministries, so I went on the web to find the address. I found Pat Robertson’s website, and his comments for the day included “How I know Jesus was very wealthy and had a large house and fine clothes.” It included scriptural supports, but I didn’t follow them. I was too dumbfounded. I double-checked to make sure I didn’t have a parody website, but no. There was more off-the-wall stuff on there, as well as more traditional fare. This is the man who called for the assassination of a world leader. I guess we can start making bracelets now that say “WWJA” for “Who Would Jesus Assassinate”. This is also the man who said that Hurricane Katrina was a judgment on New Orleans because of Mardi Gras. Do you know what Mardi Gras is? Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday”. It is the day before the beginning of Lent, which is a period of fasting and introspection in the Catholic Church (well, and any church that follows a liturgical calendar). A large percentage of people in Louisiana are Catholic, and Mardi Gras is the last chance to party before the somewhat gloomy days of Lent. I know Mardi Gras has been secularized, but it seems to me that Mr. Robertson has been reading too much Old Testament and not enough New.

When you combine all these things, it becomes obvious why Pat Robertson has not been good for the Christian image, to say the least, to the world at large.

Leslie, no apologies are necessary. Thanks for your generous comments, it is sincerely appreciated. I completely understand your perspective and when it comes to outspoken people like Pat Robertson who say the dumbest things, I am often offended myself! If I learned anything, it is true that the Gospel can be offensive to those who do not believe, but it does not mean I have the right to be offensive. I hope that makes sense.

I believe that the causes for so many of the natural disasters are rooted in two issues: 1) it’s a consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin that led to the fall and the corruption of the harmony of nature, and 2) I believe that the earth is now groaning for it’s maker as evidenced by Jesus words in the Gospel. I have no other explanation for what we have been experiencing and even scientist aren’t in total agreement. However, it is completely inappropriate and inexusable to declare that specific sins of a population of people earned God’s wrath and jugement. If that’s the case, we have to be consistent and ask why He doesn’t strike every city in the world on a regular basis since we can find all kinds of “stuff” everywhere and in every city, state, country and continent. The ignorance and lack of a proper view of the Bible is mind numbing.

For whatever people who espouse these ideas are not well studied and certainly are not reprentative of many good and solid Christians who have spent a lifetime studying history from both the Bible and sources outside of the Bible. Their particular style of theology is viewed through a method of interpretation that is very loose and open to new revelation. Many times that new revelation runs contrary to what the Bible already says and they cause more confusion and anxiety than is necessary. Life is already hard enough. My view is that the Bible and Christianity offer a hope like no other religion. One that promises a resurrection with a new body, a new world that is no longer tainted and stained, and in heaven there will never be another tear, pain, worry or fear. To be in the presence of God for eternity will be greater than anything we can begin to imagine. That makes it worth it.

As a Christian, I’m left to agree with Paul when he writes that if this is not true and if Jesus is not who He claimed to be, then our faith is in vain and our works are useless. But, if it is true, I will stake my life on it.

When one boils it all down to a common denominator, it is easier to throw a stone sometimes at someone who is completely outline and offensive than it is to look in the mirror and ask the hard questions abot myself. It’s even harder to answer them and sometimes there simply is no answer, at least not one everyone will find acceptable. I have learned that it is not up to me to change anyone’s view but we can have reasonable conversations about our beliefs and how we came to them. As a result, it is liberating to me in that I realize it is not my job to “convert” anyone. It is my responsibility to have the open discussion.

Thanks again Leslie. Adam, I applaude you as an honest Jewish person calling it the way you see it. I hope one day you will understand your Christian friends motives, even if they are skewed and pushy. Sometimes the best of intentions don’t come across the way they should or they the way would like them to and causes more harm than good. Thanks again for starting this wonderful forum so that we can exchange ideas, even if we don’t agree with another.

Leslie, I appreciate your comments. You must realize that my criticism of Mardi Gras has to do with beads, booze, and sex. Mostly just the sex but the other two made it sound better. I really do find promiscuity especially disturbing. Probably because of the whole Sodom and Gomorrah story.

As far as the assassination thing, I guess I relate it to a story in the Old Testament when Saul was told by God through Samuel the Prophet to destroy everyone and everything in a certain city. Saul decided to keep a bunch of stuff, including the King. When Samuel found what Saul did he abruptly rebuked him and stabbed the King himself. I am not saying that Pat Robertson was right to say what he did, but I suppose I give him a little slack because the idea of killing someone is not entirely unbiblical to me. Don’t worry, this applies on a global/political level, not my personal life. I certainly would not kill anyone over my own inconvenience. I imagine if someone purposely hurt my family it is possible that my regard for our laws would be tested. I just hope you don’t misunderstand my meaning here.

Life is extremely valuable to me. I get choked up just thinking of people dying at a young age for any reason, not just war. I guess for me certain other things are more important. Justice, in certain circumstances, becomes more important than life. Especially when it means saving other lives.

We all draw that line at different places. Some people go so far as making life the most important factor. A lot of our disagreements are because of our different lines I think.

Hugo Chavez poses a real threat. He already believed we were trying to kill him and has himself been implicated in attempts to kill our president. What Robertson said makes sense from a certain point of view.

Only time will tell if Chavez becomes the next Hussein, or even Hitler. Anyone who says killing Hitler early would have been unjust does not see justice the same as I do. People who act like Chavez, and Hussein, or the President/King/Dictator of Iran are all giving us hints at their plans. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

RRRRyan,
No I wasn’t refering to you, I was talking about Bill O’Reilly, Pat Robertson, and all of the others who have claimed that there is a war on Christmas because we don’t all say “Merry Christmas”.

Ice Weasel - I look forward to your post.

LOL ice weasel. Don’t be scared. I’m not planning on killing anyone.

Don, I would disagree with you on the public discussions. I think those discussions are, for the most part, much more polarized and less productive. Perhaps that’s a function of my age. I don’t know. But I recall times were there was a much more fertile public ground for thrashing the issues of the day and one in which the participants did not tend act as though they were fighting for the lives of their children on every issue, as I seem to see today. That’s just one person’s observations.

For many people, I think that threatened feeling comes for two reasons. One, we’re told it’s a culture war over and over. We’re told that “if the liberals win our way of life will be extinguished” and such, every day. These issues are not put in the context of a pluralistic society trying to get along with each, they’re turf battles that are won and lost with many casualties and, “our way of life” is at stake with every turn. Hardly a productive place to begin discussions, eh? Second, I think we’ve changed, fundamentally, in the way we deal with each other. As we’ve integrated more and different persons into our society we’ve seen some groups seem to get very defensive about their “territory”. Who would have thought that in 2005 we would have an “evolution trial”?

I agree that our media has taken the discussion of religion and politics far from a place where most Americans would prefer it to be. In appealing to fringe points of view, they further polarize issues that are seldom binary in nature. They simplified, for the sake of the limited attention span of the viewers and to make their message more potent, issues that are far more complex than can possibly be discussed in a five minute segment with two respondents.

I also think much, perhaps most of the blame lies with us. All of us, in a sense. And by that, I don’t mean to say you specifically, or me, or anyone but Americans in general. I think many people, perhaps most, are woefully and more important, willfully ignorant of the issues of the day. They prefer that in fact. How many Americans know the starting line up of the local football team and could not tell you who their elected representatives are at the city, state and national level? How many Americans even bother to vote? We get the democracy we, as a society, deserve, and right now, that’s a fairly mediocre one.

Don, I think you raise some excellent points about introspection versus the much more widespread, pariah seeking we seem to be engaged in. The same sex union issue is perhaps the best example that comes to mind. As a society we’re in the midst of committing some rather bad decisions. For example, the media babbles endlessly about “islamofacists” and how “fundamentalists” are devastating other countries while ignoring what our, home brewed fundies and fascists have managed to accomplish. The irony of us giving up our freedoms to protect ourselves from people who, according to the current administration, “hate” them and want to take them away is not even laughable anymore.

We’ve managed to completely eradicate any kind of moral consistency in our policy making. Arguably, we’re managed to eradicate most of our policy making in favor of being guided by more nebulous “spiritual” means. There’s nothing wrong with being spiritual or being guided by “higher principles”. Well, that is unless those higher principles have a lot in common with the Mullahs of Iran or the despots of the banana republics.

Don, thank you for the opportunity to address your points. Adam, as always, thank you for providing the forum in which to do so. My apologies to everyone for being so long winded.

I don’t think there’s anything I can usefully add to what everyone has been saying. I think ice weasel made some excellent points about the deterioration of public discourse in this country, which we should all ponder, regardless of which “side” we’re on. I fully agree with Murray’s comment about Jesus not beating people with his cross - great, Murray!

Being a detail freak, however, I want to go back to one little point in one of RRRyan’s posts: “I am surprised there was no response to the OBL/SH connection I mentioned above.”

RRRyan, to the best of my knowledge and belief, there WAS no connection between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, before the invasion of Iraq (and certainly not after). The “connection” was one of the items which (I believe) was fabricated by certain senior U.S. officials (we’ll probably never know who) to justify the invasion. If you look at the two you find this: OBL was a Wahhabist fanatic whose primary goal, at that time, was to get the “unclean” U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia. SH was a secular dictator of a country whose primary religion was Islam but in which religion was secondary to the Baathist rule, allowed by it if it didn’t affect the ruling establishment. Both OBL and SH wanted things their way; neither one wanted (so to speak) anything that the other had to offer, and neither one wanted to be part of an operation that he wasn’t in complete charge of.

I would seriously like to know what evidence you know about that indicates a clear connection between these two men, before the U.S. invaded Iraq, and why you think that evidence is sound.

Here are two non U.S. sources:

Documents Found | Training Camps

But really, this could take forever to go through all the evidence that too many people narrow down to 1 or 2 items that are then discredited and claimed to represent the whole body of evidence.

“TWO former Iraqi intelligence agents have told the CIA that Saddam Hussein has fostered training camps to produce scores of highly trained terrorists for attacks in the Middle East and the West.
If confirmed, their statements will strengthen the case of those in Washington advising President Bush that the only way to crush Arab terrorism is to topple Saddam.”

This is your evidence? 4 year old discredited allegations from unnamed Iraqi sources? What, no aliens to quote?

RRRyan,

Where on earth did you get the idea that Chavez attempted to have Bush killed? And on what basis do you draw parallels between Chavez and Saddam or Hitler? This sounds like something from Fox’s alternate universe.

Even a cursory review of readily available history, including all the attempts to assassinate Castro, who has never undertaken anything remotely resembling an attempt to have any president of the United States assassinated, will suggest that Chavez is probably correct that he uncovered a US-backed plot to have him assassinated, since the US-backed military overthrow of Chavez failed because the majority of Venezuelans would have no part of it, and instead re-elected Chavez.

Please try to be a bit more reality-based in your judgments about Chavez, and about US foreign policy. Now you might not believe Chavez is the best choice for Venezuela, which is fine, but it is worth noting that the majority of people worldwide do not believe Bush is the best choice for America, or, because we are so powerful and so ready to used armed intervention, the best choice for the rest of the planet.

Hell and dalmations! 101 comments and still ticking.

Count me as “yet another Episcopalian.” Speaking strictly for myself, I prefer to believe rather than not believe, with bells and smells on. The burning sensation experienced by my husband, lower-case david, whenever he enters the church is probably due to either 1. leftover incense, or 2. dust. We couldn’t afford to pay the utilities on the heretic-detecting laser cannons, so we turned them off.

Still, david knows he’s welcome to drop by for nosh and a kibbitz after services. No biggie.

Frontline recently had a very interesting multi-part episode called “From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians” that covers the earliest years of Christianity, the little Jewish sect that could. I’d heard a lot of the material before in various discussions, but the images and locations made it much more vivid.

The first episode covers “the many faces of Jesus.” Strangely, that song by Dire Straits was running through my mind as I watched it.

RRRyan, thanks for the citations; I’ve read them. I find it interesting that they both came from the U.K. Telegraph; now I have to do some checking into that paper’s normal stance and biases. This is what being a detail freak gets you. I have a sneaking feeling I’ve read about the Telegraph being a roaring tabloid, but I’m not sure and have to do more research.

I have to point out that “exile groups opposed to Saddam”, cited in the training camp article as having passed the information on to the NY Times, have a very poor reputation for accuracy. In fact, most of them seem to have lied like flatfish most of the time. And the NYT’s uncritical acceptance of much false information about the Iraq situation is well known.

I also wonder about the files from the Mukhabarat HQ; I remember seeing that article when it was published. The trouble with it is, I never saw any followup on it. If it was really as damning as the Telegraph article sounds, I’d think it would have been more widely published; since it wasn’t, I wonder if there was less there than the authorities initially thought. Sigh - back to Google.

I concede you’ve cited published articles supporting your position; I’m still not convinced. But I agree you aren’t just making this up.

Hedera, getting background info on the Telegraph was one of my first instincts, too, although I don’t have access to the media analysis resources I used to. My brief and Google-aided research shows that the Telegraph is a conservative, online-only British daily. Didn’t find anything as to tabloid status.

Adam, not to be nit-picky, but I’m pretty sure al-Qaeda (and ObL) claims to be Sunni.

Also, here’s a handy poll published yesterday on the topic of how “Many Americans Still Believe Hussein Had Links to al Qaeda.”

Sizeable minorities of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein had “strong links to al Qaeda,” a Harris Interactive poll shows, though the number has fallen substantially this year.

About 22% of U.S. adults believe Mr. Hussein helped plan 9/11, the poll shows, and 26% believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded. Another 24% believe several of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis, according to the online poll of 1,961 adults.

I remember a political cartoon from Spring 2003 that drew the provable connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda beautifully: they both include the letter “Q.”

Adam,

Thank you for elaborating on those two bits. I agree with you that there certainly is no one piece of “hard” evidence as it would certainly have “floated” to the top. I must admit that their religious difference is probably the most persuasive “non-link” evidence I’ve heard.

Here’s an interesting read, I acutally found both of the bits I mentioned in there as well as a plethora more. Perhaps the “thousands” you mention.. LOL.

Saddam & UBL

ginny, I got Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms) in my car cd player and listened to it on the drive home tonight. Great band, WAY ahead of its time.

M. Twain - that’s a littel harsh don’t you think? The Jewish people of his day were highly fragmented (Pharisee’s, Sadduccees, Sanhedrin, Zealots, Essences, etc.) and some not very representative of their religion at the time. Does that mean that Jesus was not Jewish?

You must have some bitterness and awfully bad experiences to generalize any group of people, of which all are sinners and none are perfect!

I am not Christian. However, this time of year — with Christmas unavoidable — I focus on what I think is the essence of Christianity: The Golden Rule (from Matthew 7:12).

Don, I would suggest you read any good biography of Mark Twain and you’ll discover that he did, in fact, have some very bitter experiences. He was also, in general, very sceptical about the people in his day who called themselves “Christians” - I recommend his Letters from the Earth to your attention…

Murray, I would kindly and respectfully suggestion you’re looking for something that isn’t there. I’m sure you understand what I mean.

BTW, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Great Jumpin’ Jehosaphat. I leave you guys alone for a couple of days and you have a DISCUSSION? Jesus wept!

Adam, brilliant post (the one at the top of the page in particular, although the others are good too). Jesus’ mates are not my mates. Ever.

It’s funny. As an ex-born again (does that make me a Died Again Christian?), I can understand where RRRRyan and pastor Don are both coming from. If we’re going to live by a set of rules, then we can’t just pick’n'choose which rules are gonna apply to us. Although this does actually happen in real life, most of the rule choosers end up behind bars - murderers, rapists, usurers, Enron executives, etc. Obviously, the same isn’t true for the Currant Administration.

By the same token, it’s so easy to alter guidelines from 2000 years ago, over time, to become firm rules that everyone must follow to the letter or risk Burning in Hell, that it’s been done. I know - let’s translate “G’day, Mate!” from Australian to Russian to Spanish to German to English, and it probably turns into “Beat your wife regularly, friend”.

So I asked myself, many years ago, what rules were worth following - what felt right to me, that matched what I felt was the gist of the bible, the Torah, and the noble Qur’an, and guess what - it was “Do unto others as you would have done unto you”. The really funny thing (funny peculiar, not funny Felber) is that, by and large, I found the folks who quoted and lived by the original words of the holy books failed to understand this simple guideline. So there are still people who believe that hurricanes are caused by “bad” people who invoke God’s wrath (ignoring for the moment many Western governments’ inability to accept responsibility for global warming, which contributes to said hurricanes), that same-sex relationships are “sinful”, that infidels must be exterminated, that women must not dance or bare their ankles, and so on.

Interestingly, the majority of folks who think like that (and I’m not only talking about Major Figures, but about people I’ve personally met and discussed and debated with, including a fair number of “orthodox” priests, rabbis, imams, and ordinary people associated with formal religions) appear to actually be the majority of the members of organised religion. And the other 10%? Well, as Leslie and Ann and others have said, they’re the ones doing 90% of the good work on the ground.

It’s always so much easier to talk about what’s right and proper than to do it. At least, that’s what I’ve found. The talkers talk. The doers just do.

I count myself inordinately lucky (or maybe I’m just extraordinarily picky) that folks like these are amongst my greatest mates. Not that I’m implying that I’m tarred with the same brush as them! Nah - I just attach myself to nice people and bask in the reflected warmth…

RRRRyan,
The problem with allowing “making a difference for the better” to trump international law is that “better” can be extremely subjective. Who gets to decide which causes “transcend the rules”? What you might think of as a positive change might seem to another like a change for the worse, and vice versa. That’s part of why international law is so important (in my opinion)—it represents a standard for what is right that has been globally agreed upon and can (ideally) be judged objectively.

Regarding letter vs. spirit of the law: Perhaps the reason laws are written with letters is that it’s possible that different people will have varying interpretations of the spirit of the law. There is tremendous value in understanding the spirit of the law, but we have to realize that people will understand it differently depending on personal and cultural differences. When the people interpreting span the globe, those differences can be pretty vast, so we’ve agreed to do a certain amount of letter-of-the-law abiding.

Someone mentioned global warming. I respectively would like to voice my opinion that global warming is a myth. Scientists have not witnessed the earth’s cycles long enough to venture much more than a guess on the topic. For all we know the next ice age comes just after the next warm up cycle, which if you remember from third grade is what happened during the dinosaurs. If you paid attention you would have noted that Fred Flinstone’s car did not burn fossil fuels, but somehow North America had a tropical climate almost to the border of Canada. So the earth warms up, and the earth cools down… And some folks say it’s all our fault. How arrogant. Talk about pollution, check out a volcano sometime. BTW, I already know the story that the volcanoes are “natural pollution” blaa blaa… Are we so arrogant to think that when we pump oil out of the ground and refine it that we’ve somehow created something that wasn’t already there? Geesh… Ug make fire, Ug’s fire deplete ozone, Ug die. What was it in the 90s, hole in ozone because of aerosol cans? New theory, hole in ozone is naturally occurring and expands and contracts without explanation. Nice. Does anyone know if waterbeds are good or bad for you?

I love science, but these guys take some pretty big liberties. The “big bang theory”? Just because you take all the matter in the universe and make it the size of a “pencil tip” for some reason it is suddenly plausible that it just exists? That’s not science, that’s “let’s see how many people we can fool into believing this nonsensical theory”. It fits well with that low hum that our buddies recorded some years ago. We can call that the “sound of the big bang still resonating through the galaxy”. I hope no one here is married to this but ROFL.

One last thing, did anyone hear that the levy system improvment plan that may have saved some of our neighbors was blocked by environmentalists concerned with wetland preservation? Anyone wanna guess what happened to those wetlands during the hurricanes?

RRRRyan,

In my “letter-vs.-spirit” argument I intended to address laws that govern huge bodies of people, in this case the population of the world. I appreciate your effort to balance the word and spirit in your own life, and the depth of thought you have put into it. I find guidance to do the same in my own faith. My point (which you seem to understand, I’m just reiterating) is that this could be dangerous to do on a grander scale where people who have no conscience or guiding principles would take advantage of it. Even if actions taken in the spirit of the law but outside the bounds of the letter are “right,” they open up doors for anyone else to argue that their out-of-bounds actions are “right,” too, in the spirit of the law.

So even though I am appalled at what Saddam did (which I have studied, graphically), I don’t feel that the US should be able to justify our invasion, which killed and harmed Iraqi citizens, by saying that Saddam was killing and harming Iraqi citizens. Also, our invasion (sorry to use such a charged word, but that’s how I feel) has been far from blameless, and hasn’t made life much better for Iraqis than it was before (just in case making life better for Iraqis was ever a goal). Case in point: Abu Ghraib Prison was ill-famed as a torture facility under Saddam’s rule, and is now again infamous as a facility used for torture by US army personnel.

Re: “the U.S. version of torture,” which you mention as a “transcendental cause”: sleep deprivation is hardly the worst of U.S. torture, and I refer again to the if-we-do-it-how-can-we-criticize-them-for-doing-it argument. At the very least.

I agree that Saddam was a terrible “leader” and did horrible, inhuman things (the Halabja attack, his massacre of the Kurds in the Anfal movement, just to name a few). But I withhold judgment on whether his case justified transcending the rules because I believe that he could have been stopped using methods that lie within the bounds of international law, or at least that the legal methods were not exhausted and were not given a fair chance before they were dismissed.

Hedera, that’s all I was saying, I must not have said it clearly enough.

Rebecca, you’re my kind of Christian.

RRRRyan, you make it hard for me to take you seriously.

I understand that people who disagree most often have different starting points, usually the result of different world and life views. Fair enough, I accept that. However there is also the problem of faulty reasoning or relying on faulty information. These are usually easier to point out, even if they aren’t as easy for the other to accept.
I’m willing to engage (obviously too eager sometimes, seeing as how I have fallen for WF’s troll bait, which won’t happen again), if someone is willing to discuss an issue on its merits, without rancor. I admit I’m a bit impatient with those who don’t have the time to re-read their comments to eliminate the typos or clear up gibberish, even if some slip by my own efforts. (I’m not accusing you of this, and it’s been a while since I’ve said anything).

But you seem to think that science is just another religion which you can believe or reject at will. This is said only by those who don’t know what Science is. One doesn’t believe in science because one BELIEVES it, as one does with a faith in God, but because one can PROVE it. If one can’t prove it, it’s not science it’s religion.

When you throw in Fred Flintstone into your rejection of Global Warming, you have proved my statement that you no longer need to be taken seriously. We don’t have a common understanding of science, evidence, beliefs, etc, to be able to discuss things. At this point any more effort to answer your statements is futile.

Feel free to continue to post here (notice how generous I am with Adam’s site). OK, at least feel free, as far as I’m concerned, to continue to post here. I for one will be saving my breath to respond. Arguing between people with skewed realities, accomplishes nothing. (Skewed - nonintersecting).

Murray, I was using Fred Flintstone as a humorous illusion (this forum is supposed to be funny, I just wanted to keep the spirit) to the fact that the globe was once warmer without our help. However, it somehow slipped by you and you decided to use that as a basis for dismissing my entire post? That is one of the strategies that we two differ on. However popular straw man arguments are among those who agree with you there are still people who can call a “straw man” a “straw man”. Here are some more formal examples of my feelings on the matter by I imagine a few other “ignorant” people:

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040222-103504-1476r.htm

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4139

http://www.magma.ca/~hurleyp/FightingTheHoax.htm

Hedera, I appreciate the use of the word ignorant as it puts me in good company. I thought the left was supposed to represent tolerance. I happen to have studied the issue “to death” and I would contend that it is your own ignorance that is causing my postings to be difficult to interpret.

One more thing… since you promised not to respond. Murray, I’ve heard some seriously flawed excuses to reject other people’s opinions from both sides of the fence, but yours is the first to threaten my trust in democracy. If a society is significantly populated with people like minded with you, democracy will certainly fail. I’m sure glad I still represent the majority. It is my only hope.

You folks criticize me for distrusting someone for cheating on their spouse and using the word “Fred Flintstone” in a post proves the “statement that you [I] no longer need to be taken seriously”. Irrational, illogical, and downright pompous.

BTW, that “common ground” I mentioned before, that would be a intellegence, and you appear to be the one lacking.

Fair enough.

Kim,

You mean like we would have started doing in 2001 under Al Gore (Earth in the Balance), had the Supreme Court not intervened and appointed Bush/Cheney/Exxon-Mobil?

I definitely like the idea of puttin’ down the freakin’ torch. Kudos, person (I started to put down girl, then realized I have no idea what gender you are).

Kim,

I guess I won’t leave just yet. I agree entirely on alternative fuel. Mostly on the basis that fossil fuels are exhaustible. Something that doesn’t smell bad would be nice too. It is a necessity that we find alternatives.

Also, legislation needs to be put into place to protect new technology from the deep pocketed oil barons that would block it. No, I do not put our President into that category.

I don’t have ANY faith in U.N. based treaties to produce results. The U.N. is plagued with corruption and money that goes there is wasted. Nations sign U.N. treaties (and resolutions) out of convenience with no real intention of following them. I’m proud that we rejected Kyoto since we’d probably be the only ones to even make an attempt.

Your reasoning on “the torch” is great, however you’ve made a very large assumption. You have assumed that there is scientific evidence that we would be putting “the torch” out, or at least slowing it down. There is no such evidence that doesn’t have an equally valid opposite. It is the modern equivalent of bleeding sick people with leeches. In fact, there is as much evidence that the “extra” greenhouse gases are holding back the next ice age, which many scientists believe to be overdue. Earlier theories actually were the exact opposite, the earth was supposedly cooling down. We have gained 1 degree in 100 years, so my stance is based on ignoring the hype and trying to hear the experts. The experts admittedly have no clue what to expect. So I opt to support not closing our eyes and throwing darts at the dart board. Once some real science happens, ie. proven hypothesis, then we make the necessary adjustments. We’ll probably still be wrong, but less foolish.

Did I mention that levy improvement project that was blocked by environmentalists trying to “protect the wetlands”?

RRRRyan,

Glad to see you decided not to leave, but we might be a bit over-obsessed as a society with whether or not we offend someone or some group. I think perhaps the primary reasons for monitoring whether or not what we say is offensive to someone is because we want to stay engaged in conversation with that person, or to sell that person something. But I also think we have to be able to discipline our own natural tendency to take offense. And I also think that if we give too much thought to whether someone will be offended, we can wind up not saying some things we really should go ahead and say.

As you’ll probably figure out, I wrote my comment on the other post before I read your comment on this one.

Murray, Thank you so much for responding.

Okay, assuming that is what it is, how does compressing all matter in the universe to a single point explain its origin? Of course you’ve made the question very small, I believe the theory is the size of a pencil point, but no less massive which is the true measure of matter anyway. Again, the theory doesn’t answer the question of origin. It just makes it really tiny.

What laws decided how much matter would exist in that dot? How do we know it was a pencil point and not a bowling ball, or a planet size for that matter? How do we know it was one point and not 3, or 4?

Finally, how does this answer the origin of the universe? No matter how compressed, the theory begins with the universe already in existence. It would have to with the whole conservation of matter “law”. So we are left with; a finite amount of matter has always existed in an infinite (or finite depending on the flavor) amount of space. The problem is “has always existed” still doesn’t make sense. That’s where common sense comes in to play. It was just there? No reason, just there?

For me, my heart screams out “someOne had to have chosen the amount of matter”, “someOne had to lay out the dimensions”. If so, that One is the meaning of life, all life, not just mine.

Combine the big bang theory with the law of entropy and you’ve got a real paradox. The result again being no answer at all.

RRRRyan, one of the scariest things about science is that it can lead you to the conclusion that there are really important things we don’t know, and may never know.

As Murray indicated, the best scientific thought currently indicates that the universe began with the “big bang”, which was a point source of extremely compressed matter. What came before that? We don’t know, and we have no way of knowing because all information about any “previous” existence was destroyed in the big bang.

Why the size of a pencil and not some other size? We don’t know, and we may never know. The evidence indicates it was only a single point, not 3 or 4; but that’s another thing we have no way of knowing. My guess, based on 30 years of reading the cosmology articles in Scientific American, is that if there were multiple point sources of compressed matter, they might have expanded into multiple “big bangs” and become multiple unconnected universes, which we would be unable to perceive because they aren’t part of the universe we’re in. We can only see our own neighborhood, because of the limitations imposed by the speed of light in a vacuum.

The really scary thing about science is that there’s no proof there’s anyone “in charge” out there, except us. (Assuming we can be said to be “in charge” of anything except this planet.) This does not mean there is no God; it doesn’t even mean I believe there is no God (my beliefs are irrelevant to this discussion). It means there is no clear evidence of what you call “someOne” which can’t be explained in any other way.

A lot of people find that so scary they can’t contemplate it, and so they conclude that the scientifically inclined are all Godless atheists. Not true; many scientists are very religious and believe deeply in God. They just don’t confuse they things they choose to believe with the things they can prove.

Kim your response finally clued me in to the answer to my major question. So for you, compacting all the matter in the universe to a single point, doesn’t necessarily answer the question of origin. You seem to have recognized that the infinite time prior to the date of the big bang, while the whole universe was sitting around as a pencil point, is simply unexplained. However, God is no better answer since there is no explanation for where he came from either?

That is perfectly logical.

So we are asking the same questions today that Moses was thousands of years ago. God’s answer: “I Am”.

Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, they are all names that speak to the same paradox that mankind continues to pursue. I guess my whole point is, the Big Bang doesn’t explain anything. Since it doesn’t, in my mind it isn’t even an alternative to creation theory. However, to someone else, they both leave the same hole, making them identical in scope and alternatives to each other. For me, an intelligent creator that says “I have simply always been” goes further than the big bang. However, one must first believe there is A creator, and then believe He inspired the bible, to even get to what He says about Himself. So that’s why the word Faith is such an important part of Jesus’ vocabulary.

Murray’s need to rule out the possibility of discussion and ignore the questions I ask are also logical. That exercise was quite valuable to me. Makes me wanna sing, “I saw The Light, I saw The Light. No more darkness, no more night…”

It also brings dead horses to mind. :-\ I suppose I don’t mind continuing to provide entertainment to you guys, but I guess being taken seriously is seriously out of the question. The foundation I build my worldview on is completely different matter from most of you, Faith being the prime element. Just like Murray said.

It’s funny, we all seem to start with faith, just faith in different things.

Matthew 7
24″Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

To respond to your earlier post (#138):

RRRRyan, I’ve been wondering why the levees weren’t strengthened. Do you have evidence that it was because of environmentalists? That seems like a plausible explanation to me — but so does inadequate funding from the federal government, and so does corruption of local government… I would like to know which of these is truly responsible (or maybe all of the above).

In regard to global warming, I agree that more research is needed… but if there are fairly easy things we can do in the meantime to reduce our “footprint” on the planet, that’s a good idea. That will make it easier for us to respond when we do have a better understanding of what’s happening. And there IS existing technology that we could easily be implementing now — the only reason I can see *not* to is corporate greed. When an industrial plant creates air pollution because its CEO would rather get paid $7 million that year than to put scrubbers on the smokestacks and only have $6 million left available for his take-home pay — well, we get smog in the short term and possibly even more dire consequences in the long term.

RRRRyan, why do you say you don’t put Bush in the category of “deep pocketed oil barons” who are trying to thwart alternative energy in order to protect oil interests? He used to run an oil company (Arbusto, which went bust), and he still seems to have close ties to the industry. His own personal house might be eco-friendly, but his White House policies have been ambiguous at best. His first budget cut renewable energy research funding. Then a couple years later, he promised to raise the funding – but only if drilling in the Arctic Nat’l. Wildlife Refuge was part of the deal.

I don’t understand this statement at all: “I’m proud that we rejected Kyoto since we’d probably be the only ones to even make an attempt.” Isn’t it clear that we’re NOT the only ones making the attempt? Windmills and solar panels are going up all over Europe. Japanese car manufacturers are building hybrids and other fuel-efficient vehicles. We’re not totally in the dust, but we sure as heck aren’t leading the pack.

Kim, I can’t answer much else right now but I did have this page bookmarked on the levee issue:

http://tapscottscopydesk.blogspot.com/2005/09/katrina-la-times-uncover s-enviro-suit.html

It does seem that the ACE gave up fairly easily. Whether that was due to money or not who knows? I believe it is a good example of how well meaning attempts to protect one thing can lead to more problems. That is my concern with the global warming issue.

It never pays to talk to the people with Bibles who come to your front door. They NEED to tell you why their religion is better then yours. They are also not encumbered by the dictates of logic, evidence or observation.

FWIW, I saw a wonderful article recently in The Onion on the “new” faith-based gravitational theory - “Intelligent Attraction”. (I’m constantly amazed by Robert Siegel et al, I’ve never not laughed out loud reading that fine publication - it gives me faith every day that humour in Merrika is alive and well and living it large).

Kim,

“And there IS existing technology that we could easily be implementing now” - This is our point of disagreement. Again, it is not agreed upon that existing technology would make any difference at all. One very qualified scientist (Chris Landsea) resigned from the U.N. assessment team because he believed there to be no factual basis for the theories and was pressured to invent some. Until it is proven scientific fact you cannot expect CEOs to spend the money and you certainly cannot force them to. Once it is proven fact then by all means start legislating. I sometimes sit behind a big diesel truck in traffic and realize there is one scientific fact, that stuff smells bad and makes me nauseous.

Kim, eureka! We agree. Not that Bush is a money hungry oil baron, but that he has been a bit ambiguous on the topic. I’m not familiar with him tying drilling in Alaska to alternative fuels. My initial sense is they should be separate, but poly”ticks” often goes that way from both sides of the aisle. I can understand being ambiguous on the topic though, without any facts it’s hard to make good decisions. The evidence for global warming is weaker than the evidence for WMDs in Iraq. Please feel free to list any evidence at all on the topic and I’ll be happy to research the counter evidence from similarly qualified scientists. I found this article: http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040222-103504-1476r.htm very good.

Very specifically those windmills and solar panels have nothing to do with Kyoto. When wind farms pop up in Russia, then I’ll concede that Kyoto may have made a difference. LOL, new “palace” for Putin or a wind farm? Hmmm… Hard choice. What a joke. People are starving in Russia and that hasn’t stopped the government from hording money. What’s some silly piece of paper going to do? Those guys still pump their sewage straight into their waterways. They’re “leading the way” on the global environmental initiative though. Does that at all explain my cynicism on this subject?

t is interesting to me that we seem to always try and put science at odds with religion. Both groups take things on faith, (Religion that there is a creator, science that we really understand anything. (Isn’t there a theory that we can never really know anything for sure? Gotleib? can’t remember), both try to find answers, ignoring that the things they believe in can’t really be proven at all. A few hundred years ago most people were convinced that the earth was flat, based on the observations they could make. Today we are convinced that the universe came from a “Big Bang”, again based on what we can observe. I wonder where we will be in a few hundred years. I’m just saying, you would think they could get along better. Although to be painfully honest, most scientists put up with religion, with maybe a little condescension, better then some, but only some, religious people put up with science

Nevertheless, a lot of scientists are religious and a lot of religious people are interested in science. I know I see God as that “first cause” which science doesn’t like to deal with because it works for me better than the “Stuff Happens” explanation that my Astronomy professor gave me in college, although I understand that for most people it harkens back to tribal shamans explaining lightning storms as the god’s getting pissed. I would venture to say that most of the religious people I know think that if God wanted to create the universe with a “bang” that is His business.

About the original post – Adam, don’t know if you ever listened to Ray Stevens…probably not…but he had a song where he wondered if Jesus came back would he admit he had been talking to all those preachers (politicians?) who say they’ve been talking to him? Personally, I think he would offer you some M&M’s and roll his eyes like the rest of us.

Full disclosure time. I’m a Mormon. I think of myself as Christian although RRRyan might disagree, lots of people do. No problem with science, which doesn’t mean I buy it all either. Don’t like Bush, the man scares me. And for the record, I think God expects us to be environmentally friendly; would you want people tearing up something nice you made them?

RRRyan, this is not a personal attack, as I have admired the way you have defended your ideas in politics and religion (although I disagree with you far more often than not) , but you had so many flaws in your posts about science, especially post #157, that I was literally banging my fists against my head as I read it (I tend to be a bit excitable, which is why I don’t do so well in face-to-face debate).

I guess that was a bit of a run-on sentence, sorry if it was hard to follow.

Anyways, let me try to address some of your more major misconceptions. I am a senior college student studying to be a physicist, possibly an astrophysicist (haven’t decided for sure), so I feel I am in a good position to do so. First of all, let me summarize the Big Bang theory for you in four words: The universe is expanding. This is, of course, oversimplification, but it is the basis of the theory. From this, scientists have deduced that it expanded from an incredibly hot and dense point, and the evidence that we have supports this view. I won’t bother going over this evidence here since it is fairly easy to find. The Big Bang theory says absolutely nothing about where the matter came from or why it expanded, and anybody claiming otherwise is simply wrong.

There have been several possible ideas proposed about where this point came from or why it started expanding, but they are just theories in the conventional sense of the word, which we wouldn’t even be able to test. This moves us onto your second major misconception, the difference between a scientific theory and how the word ‘theory’ is normally used. A normal theory, as I’m sure you know, is pretty much a guess which has yet to be proved. To get a good grasp of what a scientific theory is, I would suggest visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory since it covers the subject well. Essentially, however, a scientific theory is a model which explains what we have observed, and can be falsified and make predictions. Many years of tests have failed to falsify it, and the Big Bang theory has made a significant number of predictions that have proven to be true. Thus, even if some theory came along which falsified the Big Bang theory, which is unlikely at this point, it would have to explain all that we have observed using the Big Bang theory anyways. The theory is certain to be refined as well in the future, as it has been since it was created. Every theory is constantly being tested and reworked to fit reality more closely.

The last point I want to make concerning the Big Bang theory for now, although I will gladly discuss any point you wish more thoroughly if you ask me too, is another very common misconception. You speak as if you imagine all of the matter in the universe being in one single point and started expanding outwards. This is not the correct way to think about it. The entire universe was in that small point, and it is space itself that has been expanding since then. This is a very hard idea to grasp, and I hope I explained it well enough.

Your comments about light and gravity in the second paragraph of post 157 are also completely unfounded. We have seen light being affected by gravity. This is no theory. This is a fact we have observed; as early as 1919, in fact, Sir Arthur Eddington measured the bending of starlight around the sun during an eclipse, thus performing the first test of Einstein’s relativity theorem (which it passed with flying colors). Also, light does not have a rest mass, but it will still be affected by gravity, since gravity is actually a warping of space-time itself, according to relativity. I’m afraid that referring to relativity as “only a theory” only shows your ignorance of the subject.

Finally, the last thing I have to say concerns your third paragraph in post 157. I’m not entirely sure what you intended to say here, but you seem to be implying that the Big Bang theory somehow contradicts the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which it simply doesn’t. If you could be a little more clear in what you are trying to say, I’ll do my best to clear up any problems you think you see.

David, I actually did not miss your point. The fact is many people (well-meaning semi-intellectuals), if not you, do consider the “Big Bang” to be a theory of origin. My point was that this is not so. Since it is not a theory of origin, and creation is a theory of origin, then the “Big Bang” theory is not even an alternative to creation even if that seems to be the general consensus. Stephen speaks to the conflict this idea creates above and Booshi speaks to the limits of BBT below. So it would seem that so far the most “plausible” and “demonstrable” theory of origin we have is creation. One thing to note, I also do not believe evolution to be “the opposite” of creation. In fact, again, they are not alternatives they actually compliment each other. BTW, I would call myself a “well-meaning semi-intellectual”.

Also, I will confess that my WMD evidence argument was pretty weak. I suppose I was trying to point out what I saw to be a bit of a contradiction. We can just let that one go if you’d like.

CaptainBooshi,

“This is not the correct way to think about it. The entire universe was in that small point, and it is space itself that has been expanding since then. This is a very hard idea to grasp, and I hope I explained it well enough.”

This is what is so fascinating about the Big Bang for someone like me. It forces the mind to try to go where neither stopping at the 7-11 for a tank of Citgo nor embracing faith, which, as Jesus is reported to have said, requires one to be as a child, does.

This requires something quite different, and quite exhilirating, of the human intellect. And I hold to what I’ve written elsewhere: the human mind is perfectly capable of functioning in these different spheres, especially when neither constrains the other. For me, the sphere for which the mind is sufficiently equipped is the quest for knowledge, which is neither absolute nor terminal. Regarding the various faiths, we have no capacity that I can detect to go beyond either believing or not believing, a terminus for the human mind.

Just to pour petrol on the flames - if anyone has a GPS receiver, for traffic navigation, bushwalking, or if you take a trip on any taxi or (especially) an aeroplane, you’re the beneficiary of the direct and fundamental application of relativity “theory”. Without taking into account relativistic principles, current GPS navigation would be at least an order of magnitude out of whack. Hmmm. Maybe Bush’s GPS receiver doesnt’ believe in relativity, and the WMDs are actually there, but the GPS navigator they’re using to find them is looking somewhere else?

I find it incredibly interesting that once again, we’re discussing and defending scientific theory vs. common or garden-variety “theory”. This is a recurring and fascinating issue. Frustrating, to be sure, but really interesting. It’s almost like a rumour - if we repeat the word “theory” often enough in public, maybe people will forget what it means..

RRRyan, I’m sure, given your educational level (much more advanced than mine, I have to admit!) that you understand the fine but clear distinction between a formal scientific theory and the much looser definition that some sectors of the community choose to give it. I know the language changes over time, but it’s strange to see it happening before my very eyes.

RRRyan, when I said ignorant, I did not mean it as an insult or that you know nothing about relativity; I meant to say that you do not understand the difference between a scientific theory and how we normally use the word. Relativity is not a law, and it can never be a law. It is a scientific theory. I tried to explain the difference as best I could in the last post, but the best course would probably be to check wikipedia’s entry, since they do a good job explaining it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

The example I gave in that post is only the earliest example of someone observing light bending around something, but if you don’t want to accept that, it is far from the only one. First, however, I would like to say about that case that the light from a star that should have been blocked by the sun was bent the exact amount that Einstein’s theory predicted, making your idea very unlikely. Despite this, however, we have seen many more examples of gravitational lensing, as it is known. An example would be when we see four seperate images of the same quasar around a galaxy that is between it and us. The most dramatic example I know of is the Einstein Cross. We also see Einstein rings, when one object directly behind another in space from our view will make the light from the object behind appear as a ring around the object close to us. Not to mention that this is not the only prediction made by Einstein’s theory of relativity, all of which have been shown as well.

The false idea that human life contradicting the second Law is actually fairly common, and stems from a simple misconception. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics only states that the total amount of entropy in the universe increases with time. This allows a system within the total universe to temporarily decrease in entropy, as long as the total entropy goes up. That is the case with all life. The sheer amount of energy all organisms use to live dwarfs the amount that entropy decreases by our existing in an ordered state. We ultimately lead to entropy increasing faster by existing than it would if we did not.

Finally, we cannot presume that there was more entropy before the Big Bang and less after, because ‘before’ is a useless concept here. Time as we know it exists only in our universe. We don’t know where the singularity which birthed our universe came from, and we don’t know why it started. We have ideas that are theoretically possible, but that’s all, and even these ideas vary wildly.

BTW, when I said “but would I float or explode” I meant “implode”.

Just stumbled across a fascinating article on gravity in the November Scientific American at the dermatoligist’s office (being a no longer young Anglo child of the Sunbelt). Maybe Bush is on to something bigger in his two-dimensional world, while we stumble about lost in the nuances of our illusory three- or four-dimensional world.

Also find myself wondering if the person who has put together the world’s largest ball of string is actually on a quest for primal truth, but that is just a reflection of the further fragmentation of what I thought was my cohesive intellect.

Still, it’s a hell of a journey.

Oh - I do know that my dog (Kevin) exerts a similar gravitational attraction on my person to that exerted on my person by Saturn. I think I’ll call my next dog Saturn for that very reason. Yet another fascinating factoid from our friend, “gee emm emm on are squared”

Well, I absolutely love Jesus…He is the Messiah after all, who came to save the WHOLE world. It’s sad that some people refuse to look at the FACTS that stand on His side, but instead state old stale arguments and point the finger at evils caused by some of His supposed believers. We could point out the many evils caused by atheism (and those evils ARE supported by the teaching thereof, unlike the troubles caused by supposed followers of the Christ), some of us have pointed those troubles out just to be ignored. Oh well–this post will be not be posted, just couldn’t read the bologna without saying my piece. Thanks

And the amount of evil caused by atheism? Nada, nil, zed, zilch, gar nichts…

The amount of evil perpetrated by atheists? Probably about the same, per capita, as any other demographic group, although anyone I know who has gone so far as to declare her/himself to be an atheist has also been quite moral.

How can atheism cause evil?

Atheists simply reject the belief in God. I defy you to demonstrate that atheists are any more or less likely to be moral than anyone else.

An atheist is perfectly capable of viewing the use of depleted uranium, resulting in leukemia in who knows how many innocent Iraqi children, as evil. Apparently any number of God-fearing folks in this administration do not.

I accept the assertion that from the perspective of someone who believes in God, an atheist is simply wrong. But the idea that there is any positive correlation between atheism and inclination toward evil is not only wrong, it is wrong headed.

On balance, atheists are responsible for far less evil in the world than people who believe in God, simply because there are apparently far, far fewer atheists, if we accept what people say they are as generally valid.

I guess your question is, Do people who believe in God have a greater reservoir of morality than do atheists, and my answer, based on my experience, including a profession of faith at age 12 and church membership until adulthood, is No.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_pat_robertso n

If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil…the worst that you can say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever.
–Woody Allen

Back to the subject of atheists and the evil they cause or don’t cause, as opposed to the evil caused by people who believe in God:

You will never find an atheist roaring into battle yelling that God is on his side. You also probably won’t find an atheist killing people because they believe in the wrong God.

The only atheists I can remember who killed people who didn’t agree with them were the Soviet and Chinese communists; and there were so many other ideological weirdnesses in that mix that I’m not sure you can attribute the evil they did to their atheism. They did kill people who insisted on practicing religion.

Before communism came along, all the really nasty religious wars were run by people who believed in God. I don’t restrict it to Christians because it includes Muslims and Jews. Read the Old Testament for a look at the religious wars the Jews engaged in while they were in charge in Israel, before the fall of the first temple.

Other than Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, the major religions that come to my mind are Hinduism and Buddhism. I can’t recall Buddhism driving a religious war. Historically I don’t think that Hinduism did, but the current BJP party in India, with its hindutva policy, is leaning awfully close to saying that only Hindus are right; and the next step after that…

I don’t recall ever reading that any of the polytheistic religions that Christianity overrode (Rome, Greece, Druidism - any others?) ever attacked their neighbors because of their religion. The Romans didn’t care what your religion was as long as you paid your taxes.

On the other hand, I’m not an expert in any of these cultures; just rambling based on a broad reading of history. Anyone want to argue?

I can’t believe how long this thread is going.

Thanks everyone who responding to my little experiment. Captain Booshi, thanks for clearing that up. That density theory does make sense.

Has anyone heard of the theory of relative motion? I’ve been reading it and it is fascinating. It is an all inclusive theory, http://www.rbduncan.com.

On to the question of evil, these are some great posts!!! There are a few points I’d like to make.

1. Christians, IMO, seem to struggle more with biblical evil than any atheist. It’s the taboo problem. For some reason forbidden things become exceedingly desirable. Paul talks extensively about this in his letters. Perhaps this is the root of so many evils done in the “name of the lord”. Many were not good at all.

2. For a lot of atheists especially life becomes the ultimate good and importance. For Christians the promise of live everlasting puts life in a slightly less important category. Pete eluded to it but I find a lot of people’s definitions of evil are based on their value of human life. It’s funny that on the abortion issue roles are completely reversed in general. I’m not sure if that proves my hypothesis wrong or not. :-\

3. “Surgical Strikes” are those designed specifically to target militants and minimize collateral damage. I strongly believe these fall into the category of “last resort” killing. I would agree that we didn’t “have” to go and kill the people who hate Americans and plot daily their demise. I just think it was a good thing.

4. Pat Robertson is really getting bold these days. I still stand by post on the subject. A careful reading of the Old Testament would show that God was not too pleased with the Israelites if they backed out of anything concerning the promise. Moses died because of hitting a rock instead of touching it, it is not too far fetched to believe that a biblical God was displeased with Sharon. I personally would have never made the connection, but I still think Pat Robertson is not unreasonable to make that connection.

We’re on our way to 200 posts! LOL.

Great discussion. As a pastor and someone who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible - I believe evil in man entered the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Evil is a consequence of sin. Sin is evil and the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No exception in history (except of course for the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world - Jesus).

If one does not believe in evil - I challenge that presupposition. Laws are created to protect us from evil acts. Murder, extortion, purgery is lying, stealing, and the list goes on. And what about death? For all of scientists discoveries, it may be able to prolong death and identify the gene that causes aging, but it will never solve the mystery and provide a life without death.

What is the root of all of this? Where does the behavior come from? I didn’t have to teach my children to lie. I understand the issue of mental illness and agree it exists - yet what is the root of the mental illness and the list goes on and on and on… Their must be a root.

I believe the root goes back to Adam and Eve. Call me simple. But I believe it is the most reasonable answer. None of us are immune from the capacity to do evil or have evil acts done against us. I believe as we are all sinners, we have lost the full capacity for good and real understanding of what good is or we would not commit evil acts against one another.

So to your point, every choice, decision and behavior has a consequence. That consquence can be good or bad. Nonetheless, we are imperfect creatures navigating in an imperfect world. For all of our genius and innovation, we will never understand all of the consequences for our decisions until after the fact, even with the best of intentions and after thinking through all of the possibilities. For all it wonder, the brain still has a limitation to understand all of the possibilities, only some or maybe even most of them. However, the slightest miscalculation can have a dramatic, unintended consquence.

Lots to say, no time. Here I thought it was just down to me and David. Don, Pete, Hedra, Dabid- I enjoyed you comments. Let me put something together and I’ll be back tomorrow. Busy day.

Thanks for reading my post.

I was talking to a friend the other day and I think we came to an interesting understanding. When I read Revelation, or read the “wars and rumors of wars” scriptures, I believe them to be a foregone conclusion. So when I see the wars I’m a little comforted if you will. I’m no warmonger, I just realize that the bible is right. I agree with you that war is probably not always necessary, gosh now Iran is becoming more volatile.

My friend is quite peace loving, he’d rather live oppressed than kill for freedom. Not because he’s a sissy, but because he takes the example of Christ literally for every aspect of his life. I admire that position.

It seems to refine down to matters of personality more often than matters of logic or even religion. I’m a bit of a zealot, like Peter I’m likely to hack someone’s ear off. Jesus, would then rebuke me. :-\

Stephen, I think it’s arguable that the Romans didn’t conquer their provinces because of religion, either the Romans’ religion, or the provinces’ religion. I don’t claim expertise in Roman history and culture, but I always thought the Roman Empire and associated conquests were based quite simply on power, not theology.

Don,

“Religion throughout history has been a major way of understanding our world and how to interact within it.”

While I agree that people throughout the ages have used religious beliefs to try to help them understand the world and how to interact with it, none of the religions, including Christianity, at least in their orthodox forms, have a very good track record. Science would be a far superior way to accomplish those goals, but for the fact that we are social creatures and much more recipients than determiners of the contexts in which we exist, so as societies we can only wait and hope for the day that knowledge, employed within the constraints of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, becomes a dominant force in the behavior of human societies.

Religions can provide a sense of personal security, and a basis for organizing a society, but they have no reliable track record of building a better world. Withing religions, ecumenism offers the best hope for that purpose, but the spirit of ecumenism was beaten back after it briefly reared its noble head starting in the 60s. I will be a happy camper if genuine ecumenism re-emerges.

It is more by the fact of existence within a culture than any consistent or overarching value in the search for things like truth, a better world, or the society envisioned in America’s founding documents, that any religion has power or significance in shaping who and what its adherents are.

The study of various religions and their roles in human history is quite fascinating, and quite important. And it is certainly true that very, very large numbers of people have and do now believe in a god or gods. But I don’t think what you are implying in your statement to hedera has any value beyond an assertion of your particular belief system.

Don, don’t forget that, along with their pantheon of gods and wierd emperors (I’m a keen student of Roman history), the Romans were infinitely good at absorbing other cultures and religions wholesale. (Plus, they were far superior fighters, which beat religion 10 out of 10). Sure, there were many instances of religious intolerance; but by and large, I’m sure you’d agree that religious minorities were pretty much left to their own devices. Unless, of course, they started making a nuisance of themselves - then things got nasty.

Were the Romans, as a people or as a religious group, evil? Personally, I don’t think so, but then I benefit enormously from what they achieved over 700+ years. Were individual Romans evil? Some undoubtedly were - just as there are undoubtedly evil christians (and atheists) today.

However, I do disagree with your point regarding the use of religion as a way of understanding the world.

In by far the vast majority of cases, religions started out as a way of understanding phenomena, both physical and societal. But with sadly few exceptions, every one of those religions became instruments of suppression, fear, and for the most part, political tools. When any religion becomes, in whole or in part, a tool for keeping the religious in jobs, I get worried. It then becomes the job of the few to try and keep using the temporal powers of their religion to try and help the less able, the less fortunate, the different.

Unfortunately, it is left to science to continue to try and find the underlying reasons for physical phenomena. Because many religions ask the question “why?”, but only to a certain point - after which, “why?” becomes anathema. And people who continue to ask become labelled - usually as evil.

I left mainstream religion some time ago, mainly because I continued to ask “why?” and I continued to get the answer “because God said so”. At that point, I realised that that wasn’t an answer at all. But it’s enough for some, and as long as those people don’t label me as evil because I disagree with them on theories of evolution, contraception, separation of church and state, sexual freedom, religious tolerance, and personal thinking, I’m happy for them.

Now, on to the 200th…

My friend and I talked about torture a bit. I told him that if 3 people kidnapped my 2 year old daughter and I caught one I would do whatever it took to find out where she is. Including subjecting him to mass amounts of pain. My friend said something to the effect of “I’d try to be an example of Christ.”

That’s a pretty large contrast. So it stands to reason that our opinions on the matter are quite different. I don’t see subjecting “evil doers” to persuasive pain as an equivalent to hacking off the head of a news reporter with a dull knife. However, if you put terrorists and reporters in the same camp then of course you would disagree with me.

The typical argument is that it makes us no different than the terrorists. That is not at all my perception. Those same people have gone as far as calling our troops terrorists. I find that to be ludicrous. They are heroes for the cause of freedom. If you care to argue that they won’t bring about a long-term-lasting-freedom, then I would say you may well be correct. So they are giving people A CHANCE at freedom. That’s a noble cause as well.

“Your premise that our troops are in Iraq to establish freedom for Iraqis doesn’t square either with the facts available to us or Bush’s preparing to “cut and run” because our continued presence in this failed enterprise in Iraq is perceived by Republicans as possibly causing Republicans to lose control of one or both houses of Congress. I’m ok with “cutting and running” because, as a quote I came across goes, the only thing worse than soldiers dying in vain is more soldiers dying in vain.”

Hmmm… I thought I had made the point that I agree it is quite possible that Iraqi citizens do not make democracy (aka freedom) work. That possibility does not negate the valor of those who try to make it happen. I’m not sure how the above quote really proves anything, as far as I can tell it is neither relevant nor accurate. No soldiers have died “in vain”, the fact is at worst they died to give Iraq a chance at democracy. Bush has not even eluded to a “cut and run” plan. I’ve only heard that from the “other side of the aisle”.

This kind of reminds me of the “no new taxes” fiasco where President Bush Sr. was pigeon-holed into a new tax by the dems and then raked over the coals for it. American’s aren’t as gullible as some people think. This whole Alito attack is raising a ruckus among even loyal dems. Ted Kennedy continued his strategy of turning the democratic donkey into an ass. The 10-year-old-strip-search-smear-campaign played the same bad assumption again. Anyone who reads the search warrant from that case suddenly says, it’s not a question of why did Alito support the officers, it’s a question of why did the other 2 judges not support them.

The clock is ticking on this. Hillary has kept a low profile and right now she is one of the few donkeys left that has any chance at being taken seriously. I sincerely hope that she is being sincere. I’d love to see someone mainstream take a viable moderate position. So far she seems to be doing just that. I must say, it’s doubtful she’ll get my vote in ‘08 but she’s on the right track to get my respect.

Sorry all, no internet access at home and with the 3 day weekend, (YAY) no ability to post. Hedrea, Don, Pete, Love studying the Roman Empire, I think they moved more to the tune of money than anything else in their “let’s take over our neighbors” ideas. And they were the masters of letting every one do their own religion as long as taxes got paid and the emperor was revered. As a History/Sociology major in college, I came to the conclusion that religion is very important to understanding the culture you are studying, maybe not the world as a whole. I think we would get a lot farther with the other cultures if we understood their religion and respected it. Even if they chose not to have a religion. .

Don- while Christianity may be the largest single religion, if you can call it that considering all the different varieties, the numbers I heard was that it was only 1/3 of the worlds population. Did I hear wrong?

David- Still haven’t made up my mind on Bush. Mostly because I don’t know how smart the man actually is. Do you blame the monkey or the trainer? If he was fully aware that the reasons he was given us for war were questionable if not down right suspect, then taking us to War for some other personal reason would qualify him as evil to me. If he was just unaware of the situation and did what his advisors told him, that makes him stupid, not evil. I’m not sure at this point which is worse for our country. As far as religion goes, I think religions could build a better world if the adherents to it would just follow it. Too many use it as an excuse to make people do what they want.

Stephen,

Very well said. And I see Bush in much the same way, which is why I struggle with the question. In the main, I guess, I wind up focusing on the sheer stupidity of the decision, and the horrendous destruction and suffering what Walter Cronkite correctly called the worst foreign policy blunder in American history has caused and continues to cause.

Your perspective on religion is exactly what I came out of my college comparative religion class thinking (and wishing for).

RRRRyan,

Yes, Al Gore is an angry man. Have you forgotten the role of righteous anger? Al Gore knows the Constitution, and he knows what a threat to our constitutional democracy an imperial president who decides what laws he will and will not follow and how laws are to be interpreted can be. Al Gore is far from alone in his anger, anger which is found across the political spectrum. Bob Barr made a nice bookend for this very appropriate call for an independent inquiry into dangerous presidential excess. Even Lyn Nofziger weighed in with a comment on the idea that it is necessary to sacrifice liberty for safety. It ain’t, he said.

Were we gathering foreign intelligence? I thought that all the wire tapping was going on in the US. How is that foreign intelligence? Is there a declared war going on? Doesn’t congress have to declare war? The constitution was based on checks and balances. We don’t want any one branch getting stronger than the others.

The thing that bothers me about the whole NSA thing is if it is all above board why not get permission? It’s not like the Republicans don’t control the congress. I’m sure it could have been pushed through. And I’m sure it could have been kept under wraps, at least as long as it has been. Isn’t it worth the time to be above reproach?

So we are back to the question. Is the man an idiot, or is he up to something a little darker? Something like this is never going to play well with the American people. Just because you can make the argument that the President has the right to do it, doesn’t mean he should go ahead and do it. I would think a little thought would have gone a long way here IMHO.

Nearly every president that has ever served has done the very same kind of wire tapping. Did you read the article and the cases cited? With one side of the conversation always being out the country of course it can be deemed for national security. Dems are throwing stones at the wind. If you can’t find dirt you invent it seems to be their motto.

RRRRyan,

This is blanket wiretapping without a warrant, and what is acknowledged re overseas communications requires FISA approval (after the fact, if needed). Only communications totally outside the United States aren’t covered.

Federal law, none of which could exist absent the Constitution, is rife with telecommunications legislation, so I still find your question pointless.

And it is hardly just Democrats raising these issues. Arlen Specter ain’t a happy camper on this one.

An indication of my cyber-ignorance. What is LOL? I see it quite often, but all I can think of is lots of love, and I suspect that is not the intent here, although I also don’t mean to imply that I think there is ill will, just a major difference of opinion. Anyway, my other guess is lots of laughs, which God knows we all need to get us through this fogbound experience called American political life.

Even if “nearly every president” has done something, that doesn’t make it right. Honest, RRRRyan, that’s the kind of argument that 8 year olds use to persuade Mommy they should be able to do something outrageous: “all the other kids are doing it.”

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizens the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” except on presentation of a properly issued Warrant. Mr. Bush has decided he has the right to ignore this because it’s too inconvenient for everybody to be always getting warrants (that’s actually the reasoning I see him using). I actually read something, can’t recall the article, that said he started bypassing FISA because it rejected a small number of the NSA’s requests for warrants as unjustified.

This is not Democrats playing election year politics, any more than the Watergate burglary was. This is a major assault on the basic civil compact that created this country. If we lose the protection against unreasonable search and seizure, in a very real way we will cease to be the United States of America. We’ll be something much diminished, with the same name. This is why Arlen Specter, and I hope other principled Republicans too, are starting to raise their voices.

Note to self: go write another check to the ACLU…

Oh, I want to point out… from The Authorization to use Military Force… WHO DETERMINES? … HE (the president) DETERMINES.
We’d have tens of thousands of civilian casualties by now if we (the majority) ran things your (the minority) way. Thankfully Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton are so determined to show their true colors (yellow back, red face) that next election we’ll be taking more seats yet.

I have to admit, that worries me a bit. If we keep having to fill so many seats we’re bound to find a bad potato (or potatoe if you are the “other” 50% of the population) in the bunch. Besides, who knows, at this rate in about 1000 years we actually may end up with a civil liberties problem, kinda like global warming, well not really cause at 1 degree per century it would actually take about 3000 to really notice, but then again the change would be so subtle, maybe we will have evolved into whales by then. Until then I’ll rest comfy in my bed and keep making babies. Raising them up in the way they should go so when they are old they won’t depart from it.

RRRyan,

So it doesn’t bother you that the president can just pick someone out of a hat and slap a wire tap on them? While I agree that if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, but who determines what is wrong? As I recall from the Old Testament, Samuel told the Isrealites that they did not want a King. A King would take total power over their lives, raise their taxes, and send their young men off to war. Kings are bad. Isreals responce? Yeah, Um…We want a King. Seems to me the right is doing the same thing.
And for the record, not a democrat, Married and having kids, my idea of training them up in the right way to go includes questioning the world around them and not just assuming because the president says he is a good guy it is automaticaly so.

Seems to me if the president was doing everything right, he wouldn’t have to worry either…

RRRRyan,

Global warming problems are a lot closer than 1000 years. For a conservative estimate, divide by 10. For a worst case estimate, which is not totally out of the question, divide by between 50 and 100. At the moment, I’m dividing by 25.

We’ve already been through a number of civil liberties crises in our nation’s history, but each time to date we’ve found some way to self-correct as a civil body politic. This is the struggle you are seeing play out once again.

Take comfort wherever you can, although some of it I suspect will prove false comfort.

I grew up in a family with Christian parents who, to my good fortune, subscribed to Stephen’s philosophy.

So what, to you, is the root of the matter? I’m just curious. It seems that you are willing to let the president get away with anything, and ayone who questions him must be unpatriotic, because of the “root of the issue” and I would like to know what caused you to give him such blind loyalty.

Stephen, “the root of the matter” is skewing facts to turn well thought and planned policies into “illegal”, or “lacking integrity”, or “tyrannical”, or “enslaving” (that one courtesy of Mrs. Clinton)… and so on. The facts themselves do not merit the responses that attempt to demonize our president for political gain.

Also, I do not give our President a blank check. I do disagree with many of the things he has done. He referred to Islam as a religion of peace, that is historically inaccurate and in my opinion a sell-out thing to do. Harriet Myers represented compromise, of course Dems didn’t even notice so HERE COMES ALITO!!! LOL. He convinced Sharon to give up Gaza… That was pure hypocrisy. I have a long list of disagreements, they just don’t seem to come up here.

The wire-taps are clearly legal per our own courts and the issue will go away soon enough but are used as “further evidence” of the lack of integrity of our President. Every common fallacy that exists has been used in generating this anti-Bush propaganda. I see through the fallacies and I hope my children will as well. That’s what I mean “getting to the root of the matter”. Cutting through the fallacies that so easily deceive audiences these days.

The whole global warming issue is based on similar fallacies and even bullying out the contrary opinions. A vast majority of scientists do not support the mainstream theories, but environmentalist and liberal pressure keeps the general public assuming this to be scientific fact. Our citizens are so gullible.

It dawned on me yesterday, WF can appreciate this, while I was duck hunting. Environmentalist whackos decided that lead shot was dangerous to wildlife and forced laws that require the use of steel shot while hunting waterfowl. Why? Because, the birds may eat the minute quantities of lead shot among the tons of gravel and sand that they forage in and it could poison them. LOL… My rabbit dog lived to ripe old age of 15 with a piece of lead shot embedded in his leg. Anyway, so the laws go through and here’s the result. Steel shot SUCKS, it is not as dense as lead and does not hold as good of a pattern or penetrate as well. So what was the reality of that nonsense? More wounded birds going off to die without retrieval, a six bird bag limit now means probably another 6-12 dead in the bush, instead of 2-4 as used to be the case for me. Why? Well meaning people twisting facts to “it coulds” or “maybe someday”, and causing legislation that causes more problems. So now the foxes and coyotes are eating up birds full of steel shot and probably going sterile or something (I made that up and have no intention of trying to convince you of it as it has no merit, just like global warming).

Anyway, you may not be able to relate, but I really hate wounding an animal and not being able to retrieve it. Food is a major reason for my hunting. So when some well-meaning-meddlers go and fabricate stories to get their way and cause the state of society to deteriorate because of their willingness to skew reality I will call a spade a spade and teach my children to do the same.

David, I just had an epiphany. We’re all just dumb sheep herding together and moving in a mass. I still think what I think but I’ve been fed the same disinformation everyone else has and just come to my own conclusion. Unfortunately, I had questionable data to start with. So I go a different direction for a little while but in the end we all end up with the quantitative result of our herd mentality. That really stinks. So I’m stuck with your errors and you’re stuck with mine. Oh well… Guess we might as well be nice about the whole ordeal.

Maybe I’ll just focus on curing gravity. I think I’m on to something with this theory of relative motion. You wouldn’t have heard of it since it is an alternative to Relativity and not written by Einstein. The tested predictions are identical, it’s the untested ones that create the distinction. Anyone have an idea of how to test the speed at which gravity from one mass “strikes” another? In relativity it should be instantaneous, with relative motion it would be equal to the speed of light, which the theory calls “speed of action at a distance”. Unfortunately the distance required to measure anything at the speed of light would require huge masses to generate measurable gravity. :-\ … Hmmm…

RRRRyan,

Gotta admit, I did enjoy reading your last post. Hell, maybe we are all billeted in a dimension, and for a brief time, that can ultimately only bewilder us.

Kid died in Orlando because his father brought home some gravel for his driveway that had been contaminated with lead (my guess is from an old car battery or batteries). It rained, the kid played in the lead-contaminated water, and the kid died of lead poisoning. Lead shot you ate passed on through, but evidence is also compelling that ingested lead causes reduced intellectual capacity in children’s brains. Lead oxide in paint is inconsequential? The point is, we are always behind the curve as a society (and a species) regarding what stewardship of the world’s ecologies (and our own specific places) means.

New theories regarding gravity are pretty damned fascinating, although I really am only an intrigued amateur in that area (and of course maybe all areas, even the ones about which I believe I’m knowledgeable).

RRRRyan,

Now that’s one thing I like a lot about being an American. While we might not be expert, we don’t take kindly to anyone suggesting there is anything we should not feel free to think about and talk about. Honest intellectual humility plus an unquenchable desire to wonder about things make for a lot of fun in life, no matter how bewildering it sometimes is. You should have heard my uncle (Ph.D. in biology with a spider named for him) on the lack of any certainty that a Ph.D. and competence were synonymous.

Good point. I really wish I could believe 98% of people weren’t gullible enough to be swayed by propaganda. My estimate is closer to 10% lol.
:-\

Kids are awesome aren’t they? My daughter is so cool and I have a son on the way!

We are thinking of adopting too. It’s expensive but the adoption tax credit takes a big chunk out of that, thank you Mr. President!

Good day!
Thanks for the great information.
Your post was inspiring.