Will Blog for Food

The US and Iraq: Locked in an Embrace Gnawing on Each Other's Heads in the 9th Circle of Hell

Dante wrote one of the allegorical classics of western literature: The Inferno, meant to be a description of Hell. In the 9th (and lowest) circle of hell he placed Count Ugolino of Pisa and Archbishop Ruggieri, both  men frozen in ice up to their necks with Ugolino gnawing on Ruggieri's head for all eternity. This is an apt metaphor for the US in Iraq: the US is frozen in the 9th circle of hell with Iraq gnawing on its head for all eternity. The US can never get away from Iraq because the logic for staying is always circular. If we're winning, we have to stay until the job's finished which it never will be, and, if we're losing, we have to stay until we win which we never will.

Stuck in hell gnawing on each other's heads - the US and Iraq will continue their dance of death until China decides to take away the baby bottle of finance and the whole enterprise collapses of its own weight bringing down the whole economy with it and turning US taxpayers into perpetual slaves as interest and debt are forever. The kind of violence that goes on in Iraq can continue to pop up on and on so there will never be an end game, there will never be a definition of winning, there will be nothing but interminable, intermittent violence leading to more and more death and destruction and pissing money down hell's rathole. And al Quaida is getting exactly what it wants - bleeding the US to death. The US, responsible for a million Iraqi deaths - mostly civilians - is not capable of liberating the people it's killing - only killing the unliberated. It's created 2 million refugees and displaced persons, people who cannot lead any kind of normal life and are condemned to a hellish existence despite their innocence.

Colin Powell's Pottery Barn metaphor for Iraq is not apt. We broke it but we can't  fix it so either we wash our bloody hands and admit our guilt for creating this chaos or we stay frozen in a deathly embrace gnawing on Iraq's head in perpetuity. This is a worse result than admitting that all the lives spent, all the money spent, was not only in vain but was res- ponsible for the des- truction of a nation and a people, reducing a some- what civilized society to a trash heap, a Humpty Dumpty that can't be put back together again. In fact the only hope for its ever being put back together is for the US to get out and let the chips fall where they may because the US prescence there is only making matters worse.

Whatever "improvement" there is in the situation there has come about because the US has bought off some of the fighters. Frantically trying to find every fighter to pay off is a fool's mission, but it's clear the only Iraqis who want the US there are those who have their hands in the US' pockets. The Iraqi government is corrupt; it's being paid off so it wants the US to maintain its prescence there so it can continue to get paid off. This is part and parcel of the gnawing on our neck which will go on until the US cuts the umbilical cord and leaves with past blood but not future blood on its hands - where the line of demarcation between past and future is the point at which the US leaves. Abandon all hope ye who enter here should have been the US' slogan for war in Iraq.

Christian Conservative, an Oxymoron?

Would Jesus be a Christian conservative? I don't think so. They stand for everything he didn't. For instance, Jesus was against capital accumulation, the private pursuit of wealth and for helping people less fortunate. What do Christian conservatives stand for: capital accumulation and not paying taxes which might help somebody less fortunate. Christianity has become a perversion of what Jesus stood for and proclaimed: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Basically, Christianity has come around to serving the needs of its constituents which are basically selfish. (So what else is new?) And their selfish interests have to do with getting their souls into heaven in the least onerous way. Helping others materially and paying taxes to support government programs which help the less fortunate is onerous. Tithing to the church and adopting a certain mindset of correct beliefs (allowing yourself to  be brainwashed) is less onerous. It doesn't require any physical exertion. Tithing is simply life-after-death insurance which corresponds to life insurance. The prudent person wants both.

Christianity in the US, especially modern day evangelicals, places all the emphasis on having a correct belief system. Any time believing a certain way is important, in my opinion, you're dealing with brainwashing. And if it's so important that, unless you have the correct beliefs, you're going to hell, the stakes are raised considerably and the brainwashing is commensurably increased. The Soviet Union used to brainwash its constituents politically. In the US that function has been off-loaded to conservative pastors who provide religious and political brainwashing, the political component of which dictates that government should lower taxes and eliminate social programs to help the poor. Even the pastors, including the Grassley six, advocate the private pursuit of wealth and capital accumulation as evidenced by their own conspicuous consumption and extravagant lifestyles. Jesus told the rich man: "Sell what you have, give it to the poor and come and follow me." (Oh, and, by the way, I live an impoverished lifestyle. Get used to it!) Modern day evangelicals preach a "prosperity doctrine" which teaches that private wealth is a sign of God's approval. It's a nice theory but it is the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. Nor is it original. Max Weber in 1904 pointed out in "The Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism" how Protestantism made Christianity more amenable to the private pursuit of wealth.

PHOENIX, Nov. 14 /Christian Newswire/ -- The head of a financial accountability group for Christian nonprofits says that the Senate Finance Committee is likely to be looking at three areas of operation of "the Grassley Six," as he calls them, major ministries headed by Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Randy and Paula White. Ken Behr, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, told Church Executive, a business magazine for larger and mega churches, that Senator Chuck Grassley is likely to probe into concerns over excessive compensation, income unrelated to the business purpose of the ministries, and perks or what is known as "excessive benefit transactions."

In a statement, Grassley said he was acting on complaints from the public and news coverage of the organizations. "The allegations involve governing boards that aren't independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls-Royces," Grassley said. "I don't want to conclude that there's a problem, but I have an obligation to donors and the taxpayers to find out more. People who donated should have their money spent as intended and in adherence with the tax code."

Creflo Dollar has a Lear Jet, a Gulfstream 3 jet, a Rolls-Royce, a $3 million mansion in Atlanta and a more modest $2.44 million condo overlooking Central Park in Manhattan. These guys and gals have amassed personal fortunes, and their parishioners are stupid enough to keep contributing to them. They live like Wall Street moguls! Why? Didn't they read that part of the Bible where Jesus tells the rich man to give all his money to the poor or that part about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? These people would not necessarily have to live ostentatious and extravagant lifestyles. It is possible to accumulate a lot of money, live a modest lifestyle and use that money to do good works to help the poor and less fortunate. Some rich people even lead an impoverished lifestyle using their money to help others.

Jesus was against the private accumulation of capital: "Consider the birds of the field; they neither sow nor reap, but yet their Heavenly Father provides for them. Lay not up earthly treasure where dust and moth can corrupt, but seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things will be added to you." Jesus' only act of violence was overturning the money changers' tables in the temple. One could gather from this that money and all its manifestions was disgusting to him especially when it was an integral part of religion.

Christianity has had 2000 years to distort and pervert Jesus' teachings. It didn't start with the modern day evangelicals and their wealthy pastors. Renaissance Popes offered indulgences which bilked the faithful into paying money to get their souls or their dead relatives' souls out of purgatory and into heaven. Again life-after-death insurance or pay-to-play to get your soul into heaven much as you would pay a bribe to gain your body safe passage. Clergymen have been proficient for centuries in using the fear card to fleece their flocks. They've been proficient in getting their flocks to contribute to the church (meaning them) in order to enrich themselves while getting the flock to believe they were giving to God and promoting their own prospects for the afterlife. And the fear of death is the ultimate fear of the unknown.

According to Jesus, however, this particular theory is invalid. It's not what you believe that counts; it's not what you give to the church that counts. It's how much you help those who are less fortunate that counts. Suppose God is not really interested in whether you  believe in Him or believe in Jesus or not. What a refreshing breath of fresh air to be relieved of that brainwashing burden! By the way, a lot of religious people and good citizens don't believe in Jesus: Jews, for example.

Suppose that what really counts is how you live your life, especially in terms of whether or not you've helped those less fortunate than yourself. There are many ways to do this to be sure, and supporting a tax policy that redistributes wealth to help the poor and disadvantaged is surely one of them. Government can and should help the poor in a comprehensive manner while private charity is at best a hit or miss, hodge podge proposition. In other words, by its very nature, some people will always be left out. With a comprehensive government program, sufficiently funded and mandated, this should not happen. Everyone that falls into a certain category will be helped unless there's corruption and bribery which is all too common in government, especially in the Bush administration.

Religions other than Christianity don't place the same emphasis on having a correct belief system so they have a lot less of a load, a lot less of a mental burden on their shoulders. In the Pilgrim's Progress, Christian carried this burden on his back which was a metaphor for the mental burden of having to have a correct belief system or in other words to accept the brainwashing aspect of religion. Religions that don't try to indoctrinate their constituents into having correct beliefs place the emphasis elsewhere (like on living a good life), are much less involved in guilt and shame and free their constituents' minds so that they can function in a more creative manner intellectually. Therefore, they are far more likely to make real contributions to human knowledge than are people whose minds are hampered by religious brainwashing. Consider Einstein. Not being a Christian, his mind was free to ponder the universe without having to be afraid he was violating some sacred, correct belief system and that his soul was in in jeopardy. What a refreshing approach to life!

Finally, in Jesus' last teaching, before he was hauled off and crucified, according to Matthew, he told his disciples:

31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' 40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' 41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' 44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' 45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' 46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Is there any clearer exposition that, according to Jesus, what is really important is not what you believe but how much you help your fellow man especiallly those less fortunate?  This is the coup de grace to all those who have perverted Christianity into a belief system which condones the private acccumulation of capital and ignores or deemphasizes the pursuit of policies which help those in need. Jesus did not distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving poor. Being poor was in and of itself, de facto, a good enough reason that they should be helped. So may I suggest that supporting tax policies that redistribute wealth from rich to poor and provide support for people in need is quite a bit less severe than "selling what thou hast and giving it to the poor." Instead of a life-after-death insurance policy which involves tirthing to the church, real Christians should support governmental programs which redistribute wealth and help those in need. 

David Hume and the Argument from Design

Creationism or the argument that God exists because it would take an intelligent being to design the human eye, for example, is nothing new. Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) refuted this argument in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion published shortly after his death in 1776. One of the arguments against their being an intelligent and all knowing designer is that the design isn't perfect. Why, for example, is their predation? Couldn't God have designed the universe without predation? Why are there carnivores? Couldn't nature only have allowed herbivores to evolve? Or is the design such that it is the best possible design given God's criteria whatever they are? Do some design criteria conflict with other design criteria such that the final design is a compromise or favors certain criteria over others? Or do humans just project their wishes, desires and concerns anthropomorphically on God?

My feeling is that in designing the universe God couldn't finely tune every eventuality. In any given situation things might go wrong. Life on earth has only been possible because, in the preponderancee of situations, things have gone right. However, 99% of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct. So from God's point of view, extinction of a species must not necessarily be a bad thing. To guarantee that no species would ever go extinct would require a degree of micromanagement that goes beyond simply setting the design parameters for the universe and requires intervention in the day to day goings on in the universe, in other words, micromanaging. Maybe that's not God's job. But there are those who maintain that God does micromanage the universe intervening in the form of miracles. While miracles usually apply to some individual situation, there are larger issues where God could have intervened to lessen the suffering of large numbers of people and didn't. For instance, God could have intervened on 9/11 to prevent the loss of innocent life. One more tip-off to the FBI could have done it. A suspicious gate agent could have done it. It seems clear that the immense series of human errors and negligence in addition to the evil intent of the hijackers was responsible for the tragedy on that day, but there was no intervention by God. Similarly, natural events like tsunamis, fires and floods which have killed thousands might have been candidates for divine intervention but there was no intervention. Or man made events like the holocaust, for example. The genocide in Darfur. Starvation and disease all over the world. In a perfectly designed universe it seems like things like this wouldn't happen or else God would intervene to prevent them from happening. 

But obviously God's values are different from human values and aspirations. Maybe it's God's plan that human beings should take it upon themselves to minimize the suffering in the world although a case could be made that humans have done their best to increase suffering and contribute to natural disasters. Case in point: global warming. Maybe this dilemma between good and evil, between taking responsibility to make the world a better place versus the propensity to make it a worse place, is something that was intentionally designed in rather than a design flaw of the universe. Maybe this is the "best of all possible worlds" but you just have to define "best" differently. Maybe God is indifferent whether or not any particular species goes extinct including the human species. After all, from a dinosaur's point of view, the universe seems to have been totally indifferent that an asteroid hit the earth in a random occurence and wiped them all out. Nobody seems too upset about that. Human beings are a self-centered, anthropomorphic species. They see things only from the point of view of humans and not from the point of view of dinosaurs, for example. Existence is so anxiety producing that wishful thinking and self-delusion are the only ways out. We define God as we wish Him to be and the unknown as we wish it to be.

Can we safely say, then, that God is indifferent to any particular species' going extinct whether it be humans or dinosaurs? If so, the suffering of innocents and predation are not design flaws in the universe. The  lack of perfection in the universe is not a design flaw, and, by the same token, the existence of order and complex systems such as the human eye is no argument for the existence of God unless God is simply a technician and not concerned about the fate of any species. But maybe that is God's value: no species is sacrosanct. It could be that God's value is that life be a fundamental part of the universe, not that life be preserved in any particular instance whether individual or species wide. Perhaps life will always spring into being anywhere in the universe where conditions are appropriate so in a larger sense the preservation of one species or even one planet is of no concern.  In the larger sense, there will be the birth and death of entire solar systems; this we know to be true. Then how could life be necessarily preserved somewhere in the universe? Obviously, it couldn't if the "seed" theory is correct. That's the theory that life, like spores, floats around the universe and settles on fertile soil. If it were destroyed in the area(s) of the universe where it exists, then there would be no more possibility of any life anywhere. It would be a lifelesss universe. Only if the precursors of life are ubiquitous in the universe (and I think the  precursors would have to be at  the quantum level), only then could life spring up anywhere. Just as light can fall on any planet created anywhere in the universe because photons are ubiquitous, the precursors of life would have to be able to fall on any planet regardless of what happened or didn't happen elsewhere. Life, or the precursors thereof, would have to be as ubiquitous as light. Just as mass and energy are interchangable at the quantum level, life at the quantum level could be thought of as pure spirit. Through combinations with other fundamental particles, spirit and mass could be bound together to form life as we know it.

Book Review: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins sets out in this book to prove that there is no God. In his initial chapters he goes over the "proofs" of the existence of God, as well as other reasons for believing in God such as Pascal's wager. Pascal said that one is better off to believe in God for the following reasons. Suppose there is a God and you believe in him. Then surely you will go to heaven. If there really isn't a God and you believe in him, you've lost nothing. But, if there is a God and you don't believe in him, you'll surely go to hell, whereas, if there really isn't a God and you don't believe in him, you've gained nothing so you're better off to believe in God. But hold on for a second. This is assuming that all God cares about is whether you believe in him or not. What if God doesn't really care whether or not you believe in Him but cares about how you've lived your life? Then all bets are off. And what if your believing in God causes you to carry an unnecessary and inhibiting baggage of false beliefs around your whole life, causes you to live in a mental straitjacket? Then surely, you've lost something by believing in God!

Dawkins separates the human race into a number of religious classifications from Theists (true believers) to Deists such as Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein, who believe God created the universe but doesn't micro-manage it by listening to and responding or not responding to prayers and supplications to agnostics who are unsure whether there is or isn't a God to atheists, like Dawkins, who believe there almost certainly is no God. We have to wait till the 4th chapter for Dawkins' proof that there almost certainly is no God and it is a big disappointment or maybe it's a huge relief depending on your point of view. His proof is essentially that, if there were a God, then who created Him and so on in an infinite regression? Well, it doesn't take too much imagination to imagine a God who is timeless, who exists outside of time and, therefore, always existed. Time is a function of the physical universe as Einstein demonstrated. Time started with the Big Bang and will end if the universe ends in a Big Crunch. If the universe continues to expand it may never end, but, at any rate, it is a function of our physical universe and doesn't apply to any entity that transcends our universe. Well, God, if He exists, and is the Creator of our universe would "almost certainly" transcend the time constraints of the universe He created. Timelessness is not hard to imagine, and I'm surprised that Dawkins, who prides himself on being able to imagine things beyond our normal 3 (or 4) dimensional world, doesn't seem capable of imagining it.

I agree with Dawkins that the great preponderance of war in human history has been justified by religion or has had religious overtones. Many ancient warlords and conquistadors were only interested in religion to the extent that any particular religion's God would help them to vanquish their enemies and win wars. The Roman emperor, Constantine, made Christianity the state religion of Rome only because he thought the Christian God would help him win battles. Otherwise, Christians would have probably continued being persecuted and tortured and thrown to the lions in the Roman Colosseum. But the existence or non-existence of God really has nothing to do with religion as it has played out in human history. I agree with Dawkins that religion really isn't about whether or not God exists so much as it is about filling a psychological void in the human experience. We probably need God more than God needs us.

If one is not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a member of any other religion, one can still believe in the existence of God. Anyone can completely reject organizational religion and can still have a personal one. The fact that religion has been used to justify war does not mean that there is no God or that there is one. One of the positive things Dawkins is for is to conduct objective experiments which can reflect on certain religious beliefs. He discusses an experiment in which a group of cancer patients was prayed for by another group of people while a control group of cancer patients was not prayed for. It was double blind in the sense that no one knew which group was being prayed for or by whom. Then the two groups were statistically evaluated to see if one group had less deaths than the other. In this particular experiment, prayer was not found to have a benefical effect. There are other experiments that could be conducted. One I dreamt up is to have a carefully monitored light bulb hooked up to a switch that was switched off, but very easy to turn on. Then the object would be to have a group of people who would be willing to try to turn on the light after they had died. This experiment could be conducted over a long time span - many, many years. It would be hoped that a large group of people would agree to be participants. This would tend to prove or disprove that there are ghosts or that people who have recently died could affect reality among the living by interacting with them as ghosts and, at least, some of the dearly departed are reported to do. It is claimed that ghosts can open and close doors. Then they should be able to turn a light off and on. This would be a controlled experiment as opposed to the anecdotal stories that are heard which could be entirely apocryphal. The number of times the light turned on spontaneously could be compared to the number of people in the control group who had died.The only problem with experiments such as these is that true believers are not interested in conducting them, and scientists are for the most part not interested either.

Dawkins explores to a great extent the dichotomy between Darwin's theory of evolution and the religious fundamentalist theory of Creationism. Of course, he comes down on the side of Darwin and his arguments are most convincing. This is really child's play for an intellect like Dawkins. It's a no-brainer that the theory of evolution is viable. The only question is do we know all that there is to know about how evolution works? I don't think so. I think there is more to be discovered. It would be arrogant to assume that the last word has been written about any scientific theory. Will Darwin's theory ever be invalidated? I don't think so. Will it ever be added to or subsumed? Undoubtedly. While random genetic changes over a long period of time and natural selection can account for the evolution of complex species from simple ones, is randomness the only mechanism that's involved? I don't think science can maintain that with 100% certainty. I think there may be other mechanisms like even maybe the subconscious mind that might affect mutations thus making them somewhat less than totally random. I also happen to think that Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) is a reality. There was a book "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain" that reported scientific experiments on ESP and, to my mind at least, strongly suggests the reality of such phenomena. J.B. Rhine founded a Department of Parapsychology at Duke University and conducted statistical experiments in card guessing and dice tossing. I think this is a fruitful area of research although there doesn't seem to be any money to fund it in a theocratic, militaristic culture such as the US.

Dawkins pays tribute to the psychological roots of religion. As human beings, we are all in need of solace, peace of mind, consolation and love. When I was a boy, my parents led me to believe in Santa Clause. Now there was somebody who loved me and rewarded me every Christmas by delivering a great assortment of presents. It was my favorite time of year, and Santa Claus was my best (imaginary) friend. Of course, it was my parents who loved me and delivered the presents. My Mom taught me that, although she didn't put it in exactly these terms, God was essentially Santa Claus writ large. God was all loving. God loved me unconditionally. That was the God they taught me to believe in. This was very comforting. Although I'm ambivalent about a personal God at this point, it is still comforting to believe that the universe has a purpose and God, while I don't believe He micro-manages life on earth, ultimately wants good to win out over evil. The purpose of the universe may be nothing more than the unfolding drama, the spectacle of it all, from beautiful sunsets to the ecstasy of sex. I tend to think prayer may have some validity, even though God doen't necessarily hear and answer prayers, in terms of sending out good thoughts and wishes via ESP to other human beings. So prayer may have validity even though the mechanism by which it works may not be the same mechanism that most people who pray believe in. In fact God may have set up the universe to work perfectly and automatically (including evolution), physically and spiritually, without his having to do anything.

This gets to the heart of the problem. Suppose that all religion is subjective and has nothing to do with objective reality. Dawkins decries wishful thinking, self-delusion and anthropomorphism where anthropomorphism is defined as ascribing human attributes to inanimate objects, natural phenomena or in this case God. As Dawkins points out, human beings' minds can play tricks on them when dealing with objective reality and most humans don't have the aptitude, inclination or robust intellect to be absolutely objective. It is too cold and forbidding. So we need things like God if only in the mythological sense. Dawkins and other scientists, and, in particular, atheists tend to take things absolutely literally. They are literalists for whom something is either true or false. What does it hurt to believe in a God of our own devising if we can believe in art, history, mythology, even Santa Claus, for Christ's sake, even though we know he doesn't really exist, and find some consolation there. Dawkins rightfully points out the importance of the Bible as part of our literary, cultural and historical heritage. Maybe we should consider God a part of our mythological heritage too and yet still draw comfort from Him as we would from art, music or literature - in other words not take God too literally or too objectively. How could you tell a child who has lost her mother anything other than "Mommy is in heaven with God"? Dawkins mentions religion as consolation and this is probably the bottom line of why religion is necessary even if you don't believe in it with your rational mind. You couldn't tell a child that her mother's death was just a random perturbation of atoms and molecules that came together in an unfortunate circumstance.

The trouble with atheists, especially atheist scientists, is that they don't even believe they they themselves exist as anything other than a machine, let alone whether God exists. Turing invented the Turing machine and the Turing Test. He said imagine that you ask questions through a slot in the wall. On the other side of the wall is either a computer or a human who supplies the answers through the same slot. If the computer is sufficiently complex, you could not tell the difference between a human and a computer based on the answers you get. Some scientists even believe that advanced computers or robots even have conscious feelings. So in a spiritual sense, some scientists, at least, believe that machines are "alive" and that they themselves are nothing more than "dead" machines. If you can't believe in yourself as a spiritual being, a self who is real to you anyway, how could you ever believe in the existence of something beyond yourself whom you've never seen or experienced in any direct way?

So let's postulate for a minute that God exists. Then the real question is: "What is the nature of God?" Is he all powerful and all loving? No, he can't be both because, if he was, he would step in and prevent the slaughter of innocents. He could have prevented 9/11 just by having better communications between the FBI and the CIA, not to mention having the President willing to read the PDB which was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack within the US.". He could have prevented the Nazi genocide of the Jews. He could have prevented genocide in Darfur. So it's obvious to me that God is not micromanaging affairs on earth. I think of myself as a Deist plus. I think God could have set up the universe just by defining six numbers, and set it up so that God is involved on an ongoing basis in terms of psychic and spiritual phenomena. In fact God, instead of being a well-defined entity outside the universe, could have immersed himself and dispersed himself within the universe and life itself could be God manifested in multitudinous forms combining both spiritual and physical attributes.

So the atheist position that there is no God is sort of a conversation ender. It's much more interesting to wonder, if there is a God, what is his nature, and what am I doing here and how does that all relate to the purpose, if there is one, of the universe?

The Heart of Christianity

A caller to a radio talk show recently maintained that, if you didn't believe that Jesus rose physically and bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven, then you weren't a real Christian. This controversy has arisen because of the TV special on the Discovery channel in which some guy claims to have discovered the tomb of Jesus and his family (including wife and child) in Jerusalem. This couldn't be true, the lady maintained, because it would invalidate Christianity or in other words, if it was true, all Christians might as well pack their bags and start looking around for another religion. This discovery, if true, would take the heart out of Christianity.

The talk show host said, "Wait a minute, I thought the heart of Christianity was Jesus' teachings not the miracles, not whether he literally arose from the dead. I thought the heart of Christianity was Matthew 25 where he was talking to his disciples and told them what they had to do to get into heaven. It had nothing to do with what they believed. It had to do with what they did, how they lived their lives. Jesus said that the ones that would go to heaven were the ones who had seen him naked and had clothed him, who had seen him hungry and had fed him, who had seen him thirsty and given him something to drink, who had given him shelter, visited him in prison. You get the idea. Someone who had done some tangible thing to help him. And his disciples said, "Lord when did we see you naked and not given you clothes, when did we see you hungry or thirsty and not given you food or drink?" etc. Jesus said, "Inasmuch as you have done it or not done it to the least of these my brethren, you have done it or not done it unto me."

Now the talk show host said, isn't this the heart of Christianity? Oh no, the caller maintained, the heart of Christianity is whether Jesus physically and bodily rose from the dead in which case his bones could not be found anywhere on earth. So this is really the cleavage in Christianity today: those who maintain they're going to heaven because they have a correct belief system regardless of whether they do as Jesus said and lift a finger to help others and those whose beliefs may not be correct but take literally Jesus' admonition to help their fellow man, in particular those less fortunate than they are. There are some who help their fellow man, to be sure, but who still don't qualify for Jesus' approval. For example, the Bush Administration has done a lot to help the rich and their cronies. I don't think this is what Jesus had in mind: helping the haves and the have mores!

Thomas Jefferson went through the Bible and took out everything extraneous to get at the heart of Jesus' teachings. Isn't this what Jesus came here to do: to teach people how to live better lives? The Jefferson Bible gets rid of all the miracles and mumbo jumbo and gets to the heart of Jesus' teachings. There are some who believe that one gains entrance to heaven, not by his or her actions, but by believing the correct line of mumbo jumbo. Isn't that the same as brainwashing? Jesus actually got in trouble with the Jewish religion over the same issue. There were the Jews who were literalists and legalists who thought all they had to do to get into heaven was to follow the Jewish law literally. The basic point of Jesus teaching was that  this is not the correct or true way to be. He called these people hypocrites. The Pharisees and Sadducees were the two main Jewish sects in the time of Jesus. They were more concerned with doing rituals correctly and a literal understanding of the Torah than they were with helping other people. A correct understanding of Jewish ritual included how people were to be punished: "who was to be stoned, who strangled, who burned, and who beheaded." Custom and ritual trumped compassion and empathy. It's obvious which side of this issue Jesus was on, and yet contemporary Christians, to a large extent, are more aligned with the Pharisees and Sadducees than they are with the teachings of Jesus.

The Barbarians, a series recently on the History Channel, brings to light another interesting fact. The Vandals from whom we get the word vandalism were actually Christians. They were Aryan Christians as opposed to Roman Christians, the difference having to do with scholastic interpretations regarding the Trinity. So even barbarians evidently were not above quibbling over scholastic differences. However, the barbarians' main concern was which god or God was powerful enough to give them victory in war. Some of them only converted to Christianity when they were convinced that this would give them the edge in warfare. Childeric, the Frank, for example, converted as a last resort after he had come close to losing his life on the battlefield and then became convinced Christianity was correct after he was able to pull his irons out of the fire, so to speak, and go on to win the battle. The Roman Emperor, Constantine, made Christianity the State Religion of Rome because he became convinced that it would help him to achieve victory on the battlefield.  Thus Christianity became a major religion not by virtue of the fact that people became convinced that Jesus' teachings were correct so much as they were convinced that by becoming Christians they would have success in war.

So what has changed? Throughout history most (if not all) wars have been fought over religion. Catholics and Protestants have fought for centuries. Different sects of Protestants have fought other sects of Protestants. Hindus have fought Buddhists. Christians and Muslims have fought for centuries. Religious persecution has been rampant - against the Jews, against Christian heretics such as Jean d'Arc. Remember her? She was burned at the stake. Religion is more about who's right and who deserves to win than it is about empathy and compassion or helping one's fellow man as Jesus tought. If that grave in Jerusalem really contains Jesus' body, it's a wonder they haven't claimed to have seen him rolling over in it due to the complete perversion of his teachings over the last 2000 years! Onward Christian soldiers!

They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Any More

Kinky Friedman, composer of the song "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Any More," is running for Governor of Texas. Kinky is an unusual politician, one who is devoted to telling the truth. This gets him into a lot of trouble since he is inherently politically incorrect.  But Kinky is absolutely right. Jesus lived his life as a Jew and died a Jew. It was only later, about 100 years later, that Christianity became a distinct religion in and of itself. And that was due to Saint Paul who was also a Jew. He was the great evangelizer traveling the roads and byways of the Roman Empire getting all sorts of people to convert to Judaism - in particular the Christian variety of Judaism.

But Saint Paul ran into a little problem. There were a lot of adult males who would have liked to have joined except for one little requirement: they had to be circumcized. Ouch!! Early Christian prospect to Saint Paul: "You know Saint Paul, my man, I'd really like to join your Christian band there, but there's one little problem just between you and me, bro, like this circumcision thing, you know, dude, my wife ain't going for it. She says she doesn't want you messing with her treasure trove, and, like, we wouldn't be able to do it for several months and what if it gets infected?" Saint Paul figured, if he didn't require them to be circumcized, he could get a lot more people in so he dropped that requirement. This didn't set well with the Jewish authorities who immediately kicked the Christians out. If it hadn't been for the pain associated with circumcision, Christians today probably all would be Jews.

Christianity mainly appealed to the downtrodden and oppressed folk of the first century, and there were then, as today, sure a lot of them. At first Rome persecuted the Christians throwing them to the lions and such, but the Emperor Constantine in 313 AD converted to Christianity and issued the Edict of Milan which proclaimed that henceforth Christians were not to be persecuted. It was sometime later (in 380 AD) under the emperor Theodosius that Christianity became the state religion of Rome. From this point on the fate of Christinaity was bound up with the fate of the Roman Empire. Christianity was off and running to become a major world religion.

Back to Kinky. He started out as a musician with his band the Texas Jewboys. One of his songs was the ever popular "Get your biscuits in the oven and you buns in the bed" Later he wrote mystery novels. Now he's running to be the Governor of Texas. He's not your typical politician. His lyrics upset every Christian, feminist and racial-sensitivity-watchdog foolish enough to take him seriously.

I think Jesus would have liked Kinky. He's not your typical hypocrite.