The Lord giveth and the Corp taketh away

The New York Times had an article on Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, the work the board does, and some of the opposition to the this work.  See “U.S. Climate Change Policy: Made in California”, Hiroko Tabuchi, 2017-09-27

It is amazing the corporate and “conservative” opposition to this work.  On the other hand, the comments were overwhelming in favor of clean air and the necessary regulation to obtain it.  And the profits to be made by leading the world in providing a clean environment instead of making matters worse.

Thus my title.  You would think that “conservatives” would be all in favor or preserving the clean air and water that “God gave us”.  Instead, they seem hell-bent on destroying them, bringing us back to days of heavy smog and burning rivers.

My own little comment was to a contributor who had been in China recently where pollution is endemic but the government is taking steps to improve the air quality.  I pointed out that “we the people” had enough of the pollution from backyard burning barrels.

Is climate change God's warning to those who pollute?

The Duluth News Tribune had an article about climate scientists who are worried about Donald Trump's proposed appointments.

"Florida climate scientists worry as Trump picks his Cabinet and sea levels rise"

"These choices dismay Dan Weiss, a clean-energy consultant who has led climate change programs for several major environmental organizations.

“'Nominating climate science deniers to head EPA, Energy and Interior is the same as appointing an arsonist to head the fire department,' he told McClatchy. 'South Florida should get used to higher floods than it has today.'”

- Duluth News Tribune, 2016-12-22.

Maybe global warming is "fire the next time"?

TRUTH or truth?

TRUTH is what some assert with certainty but with no coherent justification.  TRUTH cannot be challenged.

Truth is what people strive for with questions and tests; truth may never be fully achieved but enough has been discovered to offer a guide to life or improvement of lives.

One TRUTH is that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.  The truth is that the Bible offers many moral teachings even though it contains descriptions of many impossible events or even justifies bad deeds.

Did God on the sixth day create “man in his own image, … male and female created he them”?  Or did he create only Adam and then when Adam grew lonely, he created Eve from Adam’s rib.  I would think it would take more than a few days for Adam to grow lonely for a companion.

Is the “Great Flood” a recounting of some catastrophic flood in the Tigris-Euphrates valley in which some few had the foresight to build boats for their family and cattle, or was it a great flood to destroy all the “wickedness”, including babies?  Considering that the depth of the waters was 15 cubits (22-1/2 feet), it was probably the former.  Flood stages of over 20 feet are all too common even now.  The truth is that it is important to be just and that it is important to prepare for disaster.

Is it TRUTH that God let Satan bring many calamities upon Job, or is it truth that bad things happen to good people?  Certainly a just God would not let so many innocent people be killed to test one man, especially if God knows everything?

Is it TRUTH that heretics should be burned at the stake?  It is truth that the Bible only mentions “heretic” once.  “A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject” (Epistle to Titus, 3:10).  I don’t think “reject” meant to kill, but rather it meant to shun.

Is it TRUTH that Islam is a militant religion set on converting all to Islam?  It is truth that Mohammed and his followers had to defend themselves against the polytheists of Mecca who considered the Muslims a threat.  It is also truth that many Muslim-dominant cultures had a mix of Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

“Those who believe, and those who are Jewish, and the Christians, and the Sabeans - any who believe in God and the Last Day, and act righteously will have their reward with their Lord; they have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve.” - Talal Itani. “Quran In English. Modern English Translation. Clear and Easy to Understand”.

The Sabeans were a culture in South Arabia; this is supposedly where the Queen of Sheba came from, she who visited King Solomon. 

You can get many versions of the Qur’an from the iBook store and other sources.  However, like the Bible, it takes much reading to understand what is meant.

Consider “simple” documents like the “Declaration of Independence” and the “Constitution”.

Is it TRUTH that they are clear and unambiguous?  It is truth that people are still arguing over them over two hundred years later.  It is truth that what one Supreme Court decides may be overturned by another Supreme Court? For example, “Separate but Equal” was overturned by “Brown vs. Board of Education”.

Is it TRUTH that the United States is a Christian nation blessed by God?  It is truth that many of the signers of the “Declaration of Independence” or the “Constitution of the United States” attended Christian Churches.  It is truth that the “Declaration of Independence” mentions “Nature’s God” and the “Protection of Divine Providence”.  But it is also truth that the “Constitution” uses no words or phrases involving any deity.  It is truth that the United States took land from Christian Cherokees and others because white men wanted the gold that was found in Georgia.  So much for the “Protection of Divine Providence” for these Christians.

Is it TRUTH that Adam Smith advocated totally free markets?  It is truth that he used “free market” once and only once in “Wealth of Nations”.  But it is also truth that the heavily regulated market was brought about by the woolen manufacturers.  They asked for and received from Parliament many regulations that would keep the price of wool down so that their costs would be down and their profits up.  It is also truth that even today “Free Marketers” lobby for laws that are beneficial to them and detrimental to others.

Is it TRUTH that voters “decided”?  By the time you read this, the Iowa caucuses will have been held.  It is truth that many voters cast their votes for whoever “won”, but many other voters chose somebody else.  It is truth that better headlines would be that “a plurality of voters” or “a majority of voters” supported the “winner”.

It is also truth that no matter who is doing the reporting, they have a limited amount of time or space.

It is also truth that this column should end before you fall asleep.

Also published in Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2016-02-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/02/04/6677_truth_or_truth.

Are “conservatives” the lackeys of Daesh?

One of the ways that people control a narrative is by defining the terms.  The more the terms are favorable to their narrative, the more they get others to “dance to their tune”.  Both Daesh and “conservatives” have been controlling the narrative to their respective audiences.

What’s this Daesh?  It is the Arabic term for the group that calls itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), or just the Islamic State (IS).  Keith Ellison, a member of Congress from Minnesota and a Muslim, refuses to use these “Islamic” descriptions and uses Daesh instead.  One, Daesh does not represent the Islam that Ellison and many others follow.  Two, Daesh does not like this name which is somewhat of a pejorative in Arabic.

Look at this another way.  Daesh represents Islam no more than the Coo Coo Clucks Clan represents Christianity.  By the way, many letter writers say that all Muslims should speak out against Daesh; they forget that many Christians did not openly criticize the Coo Coo Clucks Clan.

Many Muslims are speaking out against Daesh.  See the article about Rep. Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, the other Representative who is a Muslim speaking out against Daesh (see CQ Roll Call, 2015-11-17, also published in the Duluth News Tribune the next day).  The article stated that Ellison and Carson shared the same religion as the terrorists; this is way off the mark.  It is like saying those who call for punishment of gays share Christianity with those who believe “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

Also, by the time you read this, my friend M. Imran Hayee should have his own take on Daesh published in the Duluth News Tribune.

Why are “conservatives” the lackeys of Daesh?  Because Daesh wants a war with “Christianity” and anybody else who doesn’t share their corrupted view of Islam.  The “conservatives” think that the U.S. is the Calvary of the movies and will save the wagon train from the bandits or the Indians.  As “Leader of the Free World” with the mightiest army in the world, the U.S. will crush anybody who is not for “freedom”.

But what is the reality of the effectiveness of the U.S. military against a “moral” force such as Daesh?

In 1775, a ragtag army took on a heavily trained army of a distant empire.  It took some years, but with the help of another empire they forced that army to surrender.  Then a much better trained U.S. Army took on lightly-armed groups of a widely-dispersed populace.  In the next century, the U.S. military joined several other countries in defeating an opposing army in a long-drawn out struggle.  That led to the same defeated army being reconstituted under a dictator far worse than the Kaiser of two decades earlier.  Again the U.S. joined several other militaries to defeat this dictator and his army.  Half-way around the world the U.S. military joined several other militaries to defeat an Imperial military.

Then with the confidence from that war the U.S. fought an army that tried to unite a country under its dictator rather than the dictator of the other half of the country.  That other half did move to a democracy that is prospering compared to the invading half which has been living under a brutal line of paranoid dynastic dictators.

These military successes led to a confidence that has not been fulfilled since.

First, the U.S. thought it could fight a guerrilla army that knew the language and had willing and unwilling support from a large portion of the country.  The U.S. could never be sure who was friend and who was foe.  The U.S. had to leave for a variety of reasons.  Ironically, that same country is now a trading partner.  Even though the government is still run by “godless” Communists, it seems to have taken to heart the Christian dictum “forgive those who trespass against you.”

The U.S. did have success in defeating a “ferocious” army that was more bluster than power.  It did leave the dictator in power, but the U.S. did accomplish the goal of getting the dictator’s army out of the country he invaded.

Next, the U.S. took on fighters in a strongly religious country that had a very corrupt government.  The U.S. could never tell for sure who was friend or foe.  That fight still goes on.

Then the U.S. took on the dictator with the “ferocious” army again and sent him into hiding.  However, for a variety of reasons, the country became splintered into several factions and no local politician has made any serious attempt to unify the country.  The U.S. tried supporting the government against its antagonists, but like the army of 1776, the antagonists are scattered throughout the populace.

Out of this chaos has come Daesh.  Who does the U.S. have as allies in the region?  A military dictatorship and the country that promotes Wahhabism, the unforgiving variety of Islam that created Daesh, an Islam that ignores “As Allah forgives you, forgive others.”

Now we have “conservatives” who are “liberal” with dropping bombs in the Middle East.  Are they just playing into the hands of Daesh?  These “Christians” want to keep out Muslims who are fleeing Daesh.  They are afraid that terrorists might come in with the refugees.  But by dropping more bombs and by refusing refugees, might we just reinforce Daesh’s claim that there is a Christian war against Islam?

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2015-11-25 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/24/6304_are_conservatives_the_lackeys_of_daesh

Do we reap what we sow?

 History is filled with “what ifs?”  What if the Normans hadn’t invaded England?  What if Columbus hadn’t sailed across the Atlantic?  What if England had included the colonies in Parliament?

We really don’t know how much different actions would have gotten quite different results.  Several authors have written speculative fiction describing outcomes quite different from actual history.  One example is an author who wrote several books on what if the South had won the Civil War.

I don’t really know how things would have turned out if only…, but bear with me as I join the speculators.

Lincoln went to war against the Confederacy because he felt that an un-United States would have left the States open to foreign intervention.  It wasn’t so much that he wanted to free the slaves, but the South did fear the North taking away its slaves.  Lincoln did take away the slaves, but that left so much resentment that “blacks” still are treated as second class citizens in much of the South, to say nothing of the murders committed against blacks in the South (and in the North too).

If the South had successfully seceded, with or without a war, would the slaves eventually be freed?  Probably not.  For example, textile mills in New England would be eager to buy slave-picked cotton from the South.  And manufacturers in the North would be eager to sell all kinds of labor-saving machinery to the South.  Would that machinery be more efficient than slaves?  Thereby reducing the market in slaves?  We really don’t know.

In Europe empires grew to embrace many people of quite different languages and interests.  The empires in turn were distrustful of each other and made treaties with “friendly” empires to protect themselves against “unfriendly” empires.  They thought a balance of power would create a balance of peace.  Then “one leg of the chair” collapsed.  With a single assassination, one group of empires felt the need to attack another group of empires.

If there had been an alliance of all the nations of Europe to settle disputes in a more peaceful manner, would there have been “The War to End All Wars”?  We do know that most of those countries are now at peace with one another.

But at the end of World War I, some victors wanted to punish the losers.  This punishment had two different serious consequences.

In Europe, the injustices perceived by the Germans led to the rise of Adolph Hitler.  Millions died because they were “other” and millions died because of the wars Hitler started.  Consider that not all these deaths were caused by Hitler and his Japanese allies.  The number of innocent people killed in the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are far greater than the number of people killed in a decade of “Islamic” terrorism.

In the Middle East the Ottoman Empire was broken up willy-nilly without any consideration for the people of the various countries created.  Then oil was discovered and buying countries wanted to make sure they had stable supplies.  It didn’t matter what the form of government was or the what the wishes of the people were.  The buyers supported non-democratic leaders with nary a blink of an eye.  In fact, if a democratic leader tried to change oil contracts to be more beneficial to his country, the buyers sought to overthrow him and replace him with an autocrat.  Remember Mosaddegh and Reza Pahlavi?  Is it any wonder that the ayatollahs took over and had so much animosity to the U.S.?

Then George W. Bush and company decided that they had to do something about Saddam Hussein because of 9/11.  How many Iraqis died because of this war?  It was far more than had died in any number of terrorist attacks before.  And the easy victory that the Bush administration predicted resulted in chaos that still hasn’t settled down either with a stable democracy or a firm dictator.

Into the vacuum came equally hard-nosed militants who believed Allah was on their side.  I find it strange that Allah isn’t booming down from heaven the same message to the rest of us.  And strange that God isn’t booming the same message that George W. Bush received.

All of this religiosity seems to ignore the more gentle wisdom that is in both the Bible and the Koran: do unto others as you would have them to do you, blessed are the peacemakers, the sins of the fathers are passed on to the sons, yea unto the seventh generation, and many more.

“Yet it is in fact militarization that is the cause of the problem in the first place.” - Ben Norton

If you have an hour to spare, read Ben Norton’s “Our Terrorism Double Standard: After Paris Let’s Stop Blaming Muslims and Take a Hard Look at Ourselves”, Salon, 2015-11-14 at
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/14/our_terrorism_double_standard_after_paris_lets_stop_blaming_muslims_and_take_a_hard_look_at_ourselves/ The article doesn’t take an hour to read, but you will want to read many of the related articles in the sidebar.

After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush is infamously quoted as advising Americans to “Go shopping.”  I think it was a misguided attempt to ask people to act normally.  My advice to Americans after any of these catastrophes is “Go vote”.  Too often the militant vote and the peacemakers stay home.

Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-11-19 at
http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/18/6257_do_we_reap_what_we_sow

Religion and morality

George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address that one cannot have morality without religion.

I disagree.

You don't need a god to make you ethical,
But the "wrong" god can make you unethical.

Throughout history, people have killed other because their "god" justified it.

We have ISIS killing those who don't believe as they do, and we had Torquemada of the Spanish inquisition torturing and killing those who would not believe as he did.

The United States is NOT a Christian Nation

...and it was not founded as such.

The United States may have many people who call themselves Christians, but evidence abounds that very few practice Christianity.  I’ll get back to this.

Many who proclaim that the United States is a Christian Nation cite the Declaration of Independence.  But “Christian” or “Christianity” do not appear in it or the Constitution.  The closest to a religious statement in either is “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration, was a hypocrite.  He held slaves and did not pass on their Creator-given inalienable rights of liberty.  Furthermore, what did “men” mean at that time?  People of male gender as in the Adam and Eve story.  Or people as in on the sixth day “God created man in his own image…male and female created he them.” - Genesis 1:27, King James Version.

The only “religious” word that appears in the original Constitution is “religious”, as in “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”  Given all the religious tests that have been required, “ever” was not a very long time.

It took over 170 years for a Catholic to be elected President.  And he felt compelled to be vetted by a group of Protestant ministers.  It took a bit less for a Jew to be appointed to the Supreme Court.  John McCain and Barack Obama had to be vetted by an Evangelical minister to prove their “Christianity”.  Shame on Obama, the Constitutional professor, for submitting to this religious test.

And this same Constitutional professor is sponsoring his own “Prayer Breakfasts”.  And shame on all the other politicians who do not have the political will to object to this religious test.

These prayer breakfasts also prove that these politicians are hypocrites.  “And when thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.”  Matthew 6:5.

What does a Christian practice?

For starters the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul.”
The second is “Like unto it, to love thy neighbor as thyself.”  And who was “thy neighbor”?  The hated Samaritan who helped a Jew beaten and robbed by the side of the road.

A variation of the second commandment is “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”  Would we like foreign troops stationed in our country?  One of the reasons of the American Revolution was the stationing of British Troops in many of the Colonial cities.  But we have bases in dozens of countries, sometimes welcomed by the populace, sometime hated by the populace.

Many congregations recite the “Lord’s Prayer”: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  The United States and many other countries have forgiven Germany and Japan for World War II, but has the U.S. gotten around to forgiving others that they have trespassed against?

U.S. mobsters practically ran Cuba and the U.S. supported the dictator Batista.  Is it any wonder that a Cuban leader arose to oust Batista?  And is it any wonder that leader wanted to reclaim the ill-gotten gains.  But there are many “Christians” in the U.S. that still don’t want to forgive the Cuban government.  Very strange that the U.S. had “good” relations with other Communist governments, including China.

The U.S. was implicit in the overthrow of Mohammad Mossaddegh of Iran and the support of the Shah with his brutal Savak.  Is it any wonder the Ayatollahs have little love for the U.S?  Who should be the first to “forgive those who trespass against us”?

“Blessed are the peacemakers” is part of the Beatitudes, but is U.S. peacekeeping around the world only making matters worse?  See above about the British troops keeping peace in the Colonies.  Are nuclear weapons peacemakers?  Oh, yes!  The Colt Peacemaker has the blessing of the Bible!

We definitely don’t have any “Christian” banks.  How many of them are going to forgive loans every seven years, even for loans to Christians?  Are “Christian” farmers not going to till the land every seven years?  Unless they are farming only for themselves and have saved a lot of food, they would go bust.

Now we have many people asserting that their “freedom of religion” allows them to refuse to associate with certain people or to not have to abide by certain laws.  There is a certain logic in this because “conscientious objectors” are allowed to avoid military service, but they have to do other public service instead.  So if the “Christians” at the top of a corporation object to paying health insurance for abortions, should they then be required to contribute to a fund for child care?

My take of the “freedom of religion” clause in the First Amendment is that we are free to believe what we want, whether it’s the Big Guy in the Sky, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or a Golden Calf.  It isn’t anybody else’s business.  The writers of the Bill of Rights were only too aware of all the persecutions that had happened because somebody believed the “wrong” thing.  The “freedom of religion” clause guarantees that we are free to believe what we want.  In return we should let others believe what they want.

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-14 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/13/5275_the_united_states_is_not_a_christian_nation

Hubris is ruinous

Hubris is overreaching pride and arrogance.  Many Greek tragedies have the gods punishing those like Oedipus.  Shakespeare tragedies have circumstances punishing those like MacBeth and Othello.  It seems that rarely do the electorates punish those with overreaching pride and arrogance.  They do it by not voting and those with hubris never count the non-voters.

Scott Walker is one who is showing overreaching pride and arrogance in his abilities.

He touts his electoral success but ignores that he won with a low turn-out.  Many other newly-elected Republican governors won with higher vote counts (of those who bother to vote). Those who signed the petition to recall Walker but then didn’t show up to vote were also arrogant.

He talks about the “invisible hand of the free market”, but ignores Adam Smith’s admonition of trusting those who live by profit.

He is proud to have passed a “right to fire” law, but ignores Smith noting that the masters could organize to keep wages down but it was illegal for the workers to organize to raise wages.  If workers can refuse to pay union dues, is there a complimentary law that businesses can be part of Chambers of Commerce without paying dues?

He thinks that facing down demonstrators qualifies him to take on the likes of ISIS.  Facing demonstrators armed with pizzas is not same as facing a few thousand jihadists armed with AK-47s, rocket launchers and more.  Also, he ignores the history of meddling in the Middle East; it has always backfired, maybe not right away, but within a few years.

I only have my keyboard against Scott Walker’s many microphones.  If you are a Wisconsin voter who didn’t show up in one of more of Walker’s election “landslides”, please show up the next time.

Many politicians other than Walker cite their belief in American exceptionalism.  Sorry, but many people in other countries, well-governed or not, believe their countries are exceptional.  The difference is that many of these people don’t think their exceptionalism gives them the right to tell other countries how to conduct their own affairs.  Those who believe in American “exceptionalism” refuse to see how often the “gods” have punished this hubris: Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and more.  The proponents of the “domino theory” seemed to have ignored that a game of dominos can go off in unexpected directions.

The hubris of the jihadists of ISIS and other terror groups make the hubris of American politicians look like a parlor game.  The jihadists claim they are doing Allah’s will, but how do they know this other than repeating it to each other?  Where is their forgiveness to others that Allah gives them?  And if they believe “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”), can’t Allah right these “wrongs”.

If God could flood the entire world, killing thousands of pregnant women and their unborn children, couldn't God send a lightning bolt to strike “blasphemers” dead?  If God could destroy the tower of Babel, built out of bricks, couldn’t God bring down the skyscrapers of steel in all the cities of the non-believers?  If God could destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the residents were sinful, couldn’t God destroy all the much larger cities of today where there is much “sin” according to purists who believe in an Almighty God?

The greatest hubris of all is that of countries with nuclear weapons.  They want to prevent other countries from having any capacity to build nuclear weapons, but they seem very disinclined to reduce the number of their own nuclear weapons.  These nuclear countries are ready at a moment’s notice to cause more death and destruction than the God of the Old Testament did from the beginning of the world.

Mel wishes the pen were mightier than the sword far more often than it has been.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names cannot hurt me

"A faith that cannot withstand ridicule is no faith at all. And a faith that cannot laugh at itself is a faith that defies human nature."
- “Your Free Speech, and Mine”, Timothy Egan, New York Times, 2015-01-16

There are too many people and too many governments that take offense too easily at any criticism of their religion or their government.  They are so insecure in their beliefs or of their power that they are willing to kill those who criticize them.

The current political insecurity is shown by the North Korean government.  They can’t take the spoof of their leader in an American film.  One, should they worry about a rebellion in North Korea because of this film?  It will definitely not be shown publicly.  Two, have they considered the spoofs of American politicians that are made daily in all kinds of media all across Europe and the Americas?  Does President Obama really have such big ears as drawn by many cartoonists?

The current religious insecurity is shown by those who take offense at caricatures of Mohammed.  This is also a political insecurity by certain governments who use religion to control their people.  Have they considered all the spoofs of religion and religious figures that have been made for centuries in Europe and the Americas?  Does the Pope really wear such a high mitre that his aides have to check the height of a bridge before the Pope can ride under it?

Wiley’s “Non Sequitur” frequently draws the foibles of people entering heaven.  I bet most of us have seen over a dozen cartoons in the last year from a variety of cartoonists picturing God.

Many of you probably know several jokes about religion.  Here are a few that I’ve known for decades.  I’ve shortened them a bit to save space.

A priest and a rabbi golfed together every Sunday afternoon for many years.  One day the priest asked the rabbi if he ever ate ham.  Hem, haw! “Well, yes, I have.”  “Tasted pretty good, huh?”  A couple holes later the rabbi asked the priest if he ever slept with a woman.  Hem, haw!  “Well, yes, I have.”  “Better than ham, huh?”

Two priests and a Protestant minister went fishing together.  After a bit, one priest said he forgot something on shore and walked across the water to shore and came back.  A bit later the other priest did the same.  The Protestant minister had to show that he could walk on water also.  He stepped out of the boat and sank up to his neck.  One priest asked the other, “Do you think we should have told him where the rocks are?”

Jews tell this about themselves: If two Jews are in a room there will be three opinions.  You can substitute Unitarians for Jews and probably several other religious groups.

Garrison Keillor claims the original settlers of Lake Wobegon were Unitarian missionaries, one of whom wanted to convert the Ojibwe with interpretative dance.

For a lot more jokes about Unitarians, see http://www.imladris.com/Sandbox/index.shtml?UuJokes.html.  The lead paragraph is “Many of these jokes are collected in the fine volume "The Church Where People Laugh" by Gwen Foss. They're full of unwarranted stereotypes suggesting that all UUs are flaky, coffee-swilling environmentally fanatical atheists ... as a UU, I find them hilarious.“

Monty Python produced two popular movies heavy on spoofs of religion: “Life of Brian” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.

Ah, “The Holy Grail”!  There is a violent religion for you.  All the Christians that pillaged their way across Europe and the Near East to drive Muslims out of the Holy Land.  And many of them made alliances with the Muslim rulers.

Even religious groups that many consider strait-laced can laugh at themselves.

“A teacher asked her students to bring an item to class that represented their religious beliefs. A Catholic student brought a crucifix. A Jewish student brought a Menora. A Southern Baptist student brought a CorningWare.”

For many more like this, see http://www.christianpost.com/buzzvine/7-southern-baptist-ecumenical-jokes-that-will-have-you-rofl-107419/.

I was given a book by a French friend, “Dieu rit en Alsace” (“God laughs in Alsace”).  It has many anecdotes about clergy and lay people.  One of my favorites is about a young Protestant pastor asked to perform a wedding in another town.  He directed the couple to exchange knees and bend their rings.  I wish I still had the book to see the original German and all my other favorites in French.  I hope the person I lent it to can find it.

I wonder if God is so great, then can't he take care of blasphemers like he did with the Great Flood or with Sodom and Gomorrah?

I think those who criticize “blasphemy” are insecure in their own beliefs.  Like the North Korean leaders they see everything that contradicts their world view as a physical threat to themselves.  Many believe that the best counter to “blasphemy” or any insult is to dismiss these with “consider the source”.

Take a look at the “Charlie Hebdo” cover.  It was republished last week in both the Reader Weekly and the Duluth News Tribune.  Isn’t Mohammed shedding a tear about the violence done is his name?  At least twice this past week I’ve seen Muslims retell the story of Mohammed’s forgiveness of a women who threw garbage at him as he passed her house.

“...and you should forgive And overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” – Qur’an

“Life ain't no how serious.  We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo

“Can't we all just get along?” –  Rodney King

Je suis Charlie!  Je suis Ahmed!

Playing God

ISIS is playing God.  It is deciding who should live or die based on a narrow religious belief.
If Allahu akbar (God is great) means anything, then shouldn't Allah be the One deciding who should live or die?  If God is so dissatisfied with those who don't believe as ISIS does, then shouldn't God be the one sending a Great Flood to punish all the sinners?  If God destroyed the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, shouldn't God be the one destroying the cities of the Yazidis for their "blasphemy" rather than ISIS?

Speaking of blasphemy, aren't those who charge blasphemy against others being blasphemous themselves.  Is the supposed blasphemy against God or against their interpretation of God and God's laws?

These truly blasphemous acts have been going on for millennia by people with all kinds of religious beliefs.

Jewish law called for stoning those who blasphemed against Yahweh.  But didn't Yahweh give a commandment: "Thou shalt not kill."  Yahweh had no qualifiers on that commandment.  Yet within a few years Joshua destroyed dozens of cities, supposedly on the command of the Lord God.  Was Joshua playing God to assume that he could freely kill the residents of these cities?  He “destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded”.  The Book of Joshua is one big compendium of violence and giving the spoils to the victors.

Irenaeus was a bishop in the early Christian Church.  He railed against those who didn't believe as he did.  He was so successful in banning alternative beliefs that books expounding other beliefs never made it into the Canon, and those who had these books buried them in the desert.  An example is the Book of Judas.

Tomás de Torquemada was appointed as Grand Inquisitor in Spain.  He had many Jews and Muslims tortured and killed because he deemed that they didn’t fully and sincerely convert to Christianity.   His name has become synonymous with overbearing interrogation.  Ironically, he himself was a descendant of Jews.

Of course, Protestants weren't innocent either.  Jean Calvin, originally a Catholic, was an active opponent of Michael Servetus’ anti-trinitarianism.  Calvin was instrumental in having Servetus burned at the stake on order of the Geneva city council.

The Church of England, albeit not strictly Protestant, fined people in the 1500’s for not attending church. The 1559 Act of Uniformity penalized those who conducted unofficial services.  Some who did conduct unofficial services were executed for sedition.

The Pilgrims escaped England because they did not like the trappings of the Anglican Church and the imposition of religious conformity.  One group fled to North America and landed in Massachusetts.  They in turn demanded conformity.  The Quakers upset this conformity, often with disruptive acts.  The Pilgrims tried throwing them out and they would return.  They hung some and bored holes in the tongues of others.  Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses should be glad they live in our times.  They only get doors slammed in their faces.

Is it any wonder that the writers of the Constitution included ““no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States”?  It is also a wonder that many “strict constructionists” want to have prayer breakfasts, have candidates meet with religious leaders, and call into question the Christianity of the President.

Jack Whitley was asked to resign as chairman of the Big Stone County Republican Party because of his facebook comments that Muslims are “parasites” and “terrorists”.  What if he had an “Office or public Trust under the United States”?  Would his vile remarks be considered failing a “religious” test?

Unfortunately, these hateful attitudes are not just held by those who call themselves Christian or Muslim.  From “Gandhi” with Ben Kingsley, I remember the hateful remark of a distraught Hindu father, “Muslims killed my baby!  I want to kill Muslims!”  Muslims in Burma have been persecuted by Buddhists many times for over 600 years; it continues even to today.  This doesn’t resonate with one of the Eight Truths of Buddhism: Right Action: Acting in a non-harmful way.

I am always suspicious of anyone who claims to speak for God, whether they go up a mountain or read from some book that is full of contradictory advice.  Especially when they call for the expulsion or murder of people that don’t hold exactly the same views as they do.  These hateful people forget one of the most important words in their holy books: forgiveness.

In addition to the Buddhist Right Action, there are:

“thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”: Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:39 (and elsewhere)

“...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you?” Qu’ran: Surah 24, v. 22.

My favorite though is:

“What is hateful to yourself, do not to do to your fellow man.  That is the whole Torah; the rest is just commentary.  Go and study it.” - Rabbi Hillel (a contemporary of Jesus), Talmud Shabbat 31a.

This article was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2014-12-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/12/04/4460_playing_god

Criminals hiding behind religion

An obscure gang of hoodlums has made world headlines by kidnapping over 300 girls, often by raiding schools.  Boko Haram claims to be following Islam, but are they really?  Most Muslims condemn these actions as against their understanding of Islam as a religion of peace.  The violence perpetrated by Boko Haram is so perverse that even Al Quaeda has distanced itself from them.

“Boko Haram” loosely means “western education is sinful”.  Boko Haram, like many other groups with a rigid agenda, is full of contradictions.  First, if western education is sinful, why are they using weapons, trucks, cars, motorcycles, and now video cameras?  These are all products of western education.  Second, they use obscure passages of sacred texts and completely miss the larger message, that of all major religions, be kind to others.  Kidnapping and massacres are not being kind to others.

Boko Haram doesn’t want girls to be educated, but it conveniently ignores all the Muslim countries with a large percentage of educated women, even countries with a conservative Islam.

Benazir Bhutto was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Afghanistan, where the Taliban keeps trying to overthrow the government because it is not “Islamic” enough, reserves 20 percent of the seats in Parliament for women.

Iran, with its hodgepodge of secular and religious rule, a few years ago had more women in its universities than men.  It also had a hodgepodge of rules varying from university to university including gender-specific restrictions.  Women can’t take computer science and men can’t take Persian/Arabic language!

Unfortunately, hate of others is not limited to Islam.

"Muslims killed my baby!  I want to kill Muslims!”  This was said by a character in the film “Ghandi” with Ben Kingsley.  How could each and every Muslim be responsible for these stupid killings?

Muslims were killed in Guwahati, Assam, India, in sectarian violence.  Sunnis kill Shia, Shia kill Sunnis.  Boko Haram blows up mosques because their leaders don’t follow its dictates.

Ahab and his Canaanite wife, Jezebel, killed the priests of Jehovah.  Then Elijah killed the priests of Ba’al.

Crusade after Crusade marched, with the blessings or incitements by Popes,  to the Holy Land to rescue it from Muslims.

Torquemada,  Grand Inquisitor of Spain, had many tortured to get them to recant heresy.  He was a “moderate”; he “moderated” the use of torture of previous inquisitions.

Jean Calvin brought charges of heresy against Michael Servetus; he suggested Servetus be beheaded.  The government of Geneva decided he should be burnt at the stake.

The Ku Klux Klan, with crosses on their robes, killed blacks for the slightest suspicion of unapproved conduct, and it killed whites who opposed their actions.

In Northern Ireland Catholics killed Protestants and Protestants killed Catholics.  And sometimes they killed their “own” because the latter wanted reconciliation and peace.

Qasim Rashid wrote “What Prophet Muhammad would say to Boko Haram”, Fox News, May 8, 2014.  It is a good exposition of the importance of learning in Islam.  He quotes Muhammad, “Seek knowledge even if you must travel to China” and “The search of knowledge is an obligation laid upon every Muslim.”  Rashid writes, “Fatimah was a Muslim, an African, a female, and literally changed world history through education. Her revolutionary University of al-Qarawiyyin [founded 859] is now the world’s oldest university.”

The comments were a predictable mix of bad taste and prejudice.  A reader “muhammad” summed it up with “I don’t see any difference between Boko Haram and many commenters in this forum.”  The response to his post proved his point.

The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, claims he communicates with God.  How many times have we heard a similar claim by those who hate others?

If God is so powerful, why does He use so many different intermediaries to make His will known?  Few of these intermediaries even agree on what God revealed to them.  Too many of these “intermediaries” have their own agendas.  If I were to believe all that God said directly to these “intermediaries”, I could only conclude that God was schizophrenic.  I doubt that, whatever God is.

I think it is more that certain people are telling God what He should believe and then forcing other people to believe as they do.

Elijah was in a power struggle with Ahab and Jezebel.  Supposedly he challenged the priest of Ba’al to a sacrifice contest.  Would Ba’al ignite the offering of his priests or would Jehovah ignite the offering of Elijah?  Poof!  Jehovah ignited Elijah’s water-soaked offering.  Then Elijah had the people chase down and kill the priests of Ba’al.  Why did Elijah do that?  Did Jehovah use up his bolts of lightning?  Wouldn’t He have an infinite supply of lightning to zap each and every one of these non-believers?

Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church claimed that “God hates fags”.  Hm!  If God hates fags so much, shouldn’t He just boom it out for all to hear?

We can say one thing with certainty about those who claim to speak for God.  They are all fallible beings and probably misunderstood what God told them.

This I Believe

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.”
- Matthew 22:37-38

The Bible quotes I use are from the New International Version as found in www.BibleGateway.com.

Jesus is quoting an earlier text: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
- Deuteronomy 6:5

But who or what is God?  Is he some big guy in the sky?  This is what people of the times believed about God or most other gods they believed in.  Now we can see into the “heavens” and all we see are big rocks and burning suns on and on and on.

Or is God a metaphor of all existence.?  A God that “sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous”?  That is, if we follow the “laws of nature” or take steps to protect ourselves from these laws we can “keep ourselves dry”.

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
- Matthew 22:39-40, see also Leviticus 19:19

Leviticus is more narrow than Matthew.  Leviticus limits “neighbor” to “among your people”.  Matthew expands “neighbor” to those outside “your people”, the hated Samaritans.

Rabbi Hillel, who taught from 30BCE to 10CE followed “Love your neighbor as yourself” with “the rest is commentary.” See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Quote/hillel.html.

Research for writing can take one down many unexpected paths.  The Jewish Virtual Library has an article on Hillel and his “friendly rival” Shammai.  See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hillel.html.  What was interesting about this article was that Hillel was often the more liberal and popular of the two whereas Shammai was more conservative with very strict views.

What commentary we have in the Bible.  To me it is a source of myth, fable, propaganda, and wisdom.

The myths are the stories that attempt to explain how things came to be, from the creation stories to the Exodus.  If Adam and Eve were the first and only people, who did their children marry?  The children would have had to commit incest!  Compare Genesis 4 with Genesis 5. They seem to be two very different stories.

The fables are stories to illustrate some larger issue.  For example, the book of Job examines the problem of bad things happening to good people.  A loving, all-powerful God would not put the lives of innocent people in danger just because they were related to one “blameless and upright” man.

The propaganda is justification for deeds that are prohibited elsewhere: “but all the people [the Israelites] put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed.” – Joshua 11:14.  And this supposedly is after Moses brought down the Ten Commandments which included “You shall not murder.” – Exodus 20:13

The wisdom abounds.  The prime example is “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If we don’t get along and help each other what kind of tooth and nail society will we have. “… for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”  Is a drone the modern version of a sword?  “You cannot serve both God and money.”  We certainly have become a nation that justifies letting money rule while claiming to be a “Christian nation.”

Many of us know “the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons, yea unto the seventh generation”.  I tried to find a source for this; I found nothing but others quoting it.  I guess this is a case of popular editing of the Bible.  What I did find was “punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 20:5 and others).  It was an admonition to follow the faith being laid down.  However, it could equally apply to pollution and global warming.  The harm we do to “God’s creation” could punish our children to the third and fourth generation, and beyond!

The greatest problems with the Bible are the selection of what is included, how accurate are the generations of transcriptions and translations, and how much crept in that was a belief of the time.  One example is just who went into town after Boaz scooped grain into Ruth’s shawl?  Boaz or Ruth?  See http://biblehub.com/ruth/3-15.htm for many variations of Ruth 3:15.  Did “he” go into town or did “she” go into town?

Does it really matter?  What really matters is that we seek a moral compass to help us all achieve a prosperous and just world.

M. Imran Hayee, a regular Local View contributor to the Duluth News Tribune, wrote that he considers the United States an Islamic nation: “Freedom, cleanliness make US the world’s most Islamic nation”, Dec. 8, 2013 (http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/285407/publisher_ID/36/).  He differentiates between Muslim countries where the majority consider themselves Muslims and Islamic countries where most Islamic values prevail.  He considers the Islamic values in the U.S. as cleanliness, charitable giving, and religious freedom.

Now if we could only have a Christian nation too; one where we “do unto other [nations] as we would have them do unto” us.

Also posted on the Reader Weekly website at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/12/19/2635_party_of_one-9.

Who will you thank at Thanksgiving?

Most people will give thanks for their Thanksgiving dinner to God and to the preparers.  Consider all the others who helped make your dinner possible.

First, consider the people who built the roads for you to get to the store and all those who paid taxes for those roads, both now and long ago.

Consider the people at the grocery store who stocked the shelves, coolers, and freezers with all the food you bought and who checked you out and bagged your groceries.

Consider the people who drove the trucks on the above-mentioned roads to deliver the food to the grocery store.

Consider the people in the warehouses who unloaded the goods from one set of trucks coming from processors, stacked them, and then loaded them on another set of trucks for delivery to local stores.

Consider the people who drove the trucks on the above-mentioned roads to deliver the goods to a warehouse.  Sometimes they are driving long hours under a deadline.

Consider the people who processed the food at a cannery, a packager, or a slaughterhouse.  Many of them work under conditions and wages you wouldn’t tolerate.

Consider the people who drove the trucks on the above-mentioned roads to deliver the produce or animals to a cannery, a packager, or a slaughterhouse.

Consider the state and federal inspectors who try to enforce those “burdensome” regulations so that you have safe food, uncontaminated by unwanted organisms and chemicals.

Consider the environmentalists who want to reduce the contaminants in our air and water that could make your food less healthy.

Consider the people who picked the fruit and vegetables that are on your Thanksgiving table.  Some of them worked in air-conditioned harvester cabs; others of them picked by hand so long that they wondered if they could stand straight at the end of the day.  Some of them owned the land they worked and kept any profits.  Some worked seasonally at wages you wouldn’t tolerate.

Consider the people who ran the farms.  Some of them were corporate managers and some of them were resident farmer-owners.  These latter took many risks to produce your food besides the general risk of physical injury.  Was the weather going to be just right to give a great crop?  Were the market prices going to be favorable enough to pay their bank loans and still have money left over to live on until the next crops came in?

Consider the local bankers who made many of the loans to farmers.  Did they evaluate the risk properly so that the bank would have enough profit to continue the next year?  Now savings account interest is a joke, but when it was a decent return would the banker have enough profit to pass on to his or her savings customers?

Consider all those who contribute indirectly to your having an enjoyable meal.

If the weather is bad, consider all the snowplow operators who work long, weird hours so that you or your guests could get safely to wherever your Thanksgiving meal will be.

Consider the police who are out patrolling while you travel or are eating.

Consider the firefighters who may have to jump up from their meal at moment’s notice because somebody knocked over a candle or burned themselves with hot food.

Consider the complexity behind some of our simple pleasures.  Without the efforts of hundreds and thousands of people we may never meet, we would have to go out ourselves to grow and harvest what we enjoy in good company in a warm house.

Also posted on the Reader Weekly website at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/11/21/2479_party_of_one-6.

Oklahoma, tornadoes, Pat Robertson, God, and James Imhofe

Pat Robertson supposedly stated that the deadly tornado that destroyed homes and killed people in Moore, Oklahoma was because people didn't pray enough.  See "God and the Moore Tornado", Roger Talley, Examiner, 2013-05-25.  This in turn cites "Pat Robertson: Tornadoes Could Have Been Stopped If People Had Prayed", Huffington Post, 2013-05-20, which in turn uses a video from other sources.

What exactly did he say?  If you watch the video, both the Examiner, which seems to have a bias toward religion, and almost all the other "short quote" media, didn't give the full context of Robertson's statement.  In the video, Robertson gives a scientific explanation of tornadoes, stating that this is the way God set things up to provide thermal balance for the earth.  He then asks why people build in places with known dangers.  He does state that God could have stopped the tornado if enough people had prayed.  That is quite a different statement than God punished Moore because not enough people prayed.

This pokes a bit of a hole in the joke that I have, but I'll push on anyway, partly because the Examiner article put this spin on it.  What if the Moore tornado was a warning from God?  Could it have been a warning not about prayer but about re-electing James Imhofe to the U.S. Senate?  After all, Sen. Imhofe is one of the chief global-warming deniers in Congress.

All kidding aside, the data is not in on the connection between global warming and tornadoes.  As usual, we have the usual suspects jumping to draw their own conclusions.  On one side global warming doesn't exist because scientists have not found a definitive link between tornadoes and global warming, and on the other side tornadoes must be increasing in severity because of global warming. Actually, global warming could increase them or global warming could decrease them.  For a balanced view on the research in progress, see "Tornadoes and Global Warming", Robert Kunzig, National Geographic, 2013-05-22.

God, civility, and the Golden Rule

Some letter writers to the Duluth News Tribune have recently been calling for God in our lives to solve many of our problems.  Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisitor, believed in God, and he had thousands murdered because they didn’t believe as he did.  The Puritans believed in God, and they had dozens murdered because the innocent victims would not admit to being witches.  Plantation owners believed in God, and they kept slaves who they would whip for whatever cause.

The problem with a belief in God is that too many “believers” are very selective in what they believe.  Too many ignore a central tenet of monotheistic and other religions.

“Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.” – Hillel, a Jewish teacher in the first century, B.C.E.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7:12

“...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” _ Qur’an (Surah 24, “The Light”, v. 22)

"What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." – Confucius

“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him." – Plato’s Socrates (Crito, 49c)

You can find many more variations and sources of the “Golden Rule” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule.

What these religious and ethical variations call for is for us to be part of communities.  These communities are at neighborhood, city, national, and world levels.  They are as informal as holding a door for a stranger at a public building or as formal as churches and civic associations.

Unfortunately, many of us don’t act as if we are in some of these communities.  We walk out of our houses to our car on the street or in the garage and drive somewhere else without even seeing a neighbor.  We don’t bother to shovel our sidewalks because we don’t use them, completely ignoring all the footprints in the snow.  As we drive we are focused on thoughts elsewhere, whether in our heads, on our radios, or even on our cell phones.  We drive over crosswalks without even looking for pedestrians.  We drive through red lights ignoring any traffic or pedestrians waiting at the cross streets.  We race through parking garages without headlights and without watching for vehicles backing out.

Our first try at building communities should be to consider doing unto others what we appreciate others doing unto us.  Do we want to walk on clear sidewalks?  Do we want other drivers to be attentive to vehicles around them?  Do we want drivers to be attentive to us as we cross a street?  Do we want other drivers to wait for us to back out of a blind spot?

If we start with these small changes, maybe we can look at how we treat others in a larger context.  Do we talk about public employees as “they” or do we consider them our neighbors.  Did “they” make a patch on our street, or did a city crew make the patch?  Did “they” plow our street, or did an overworked city plow driver make our street more drivable?

Remember that the Good Samaritan of the Book of Luke was an “other”.  To build communities, we need to be open to including the “other” as our neighbors.

Official announcement of Human 2.0

God is pleased to announce the release of Human 2.0, code named Eve. Eve has over 250 new and exciting features that should make life easier for all. The only known problem is that Human 1.0, code named Adam, has a hard time understanding Eve and why she keeps pointing out his shortcomings.

Michele Bachmann, natural disasters, and messages from God

Huffington Post had an article "Michele Bachmann Says Hurricane Irene and Earthquake Are Divine Warnings To Washington", Jon Ward, 2011-08-29.

The quote is "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?'"

The article has an update that the campaign was claimed it was a joke.  The above article has a link to "Michele Bachmann: It was a joke!", Politico, Alexander Burns, 2011-08-29.

First, Burns wrote should any politician joke about such serious matters where many people have died and problems of recovery are still ongoing.

Second, consider how many supporters of Bachmann take her every word seriously.

Third, if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, ever present, why does God communicate in such obscure ways?  Shouldn't God be able to boom out in all the languages of the world any message God wants to send to people?

Oh, wait!  I hear a faint voice.  It's sounds tired and frustrated.  It's saying the same thing over and over again.  Ah ha!  It is God, and she says, "Nobody understands me."

If God created the world, why is it falling apart?

As we drove across eastern Montana, we marveled at the buttes and other rock formations. Most were sandstone in many layers, some brown, some gray, and some red. Their common features were the cracks, erosions, and the tallus at the bottom (the buildup of broken rock). When we were westbound last week, we saw a sign that said, "Watch for falling rock."

See "What is God?"

Creationism is hubris

Those who study evolution observe how God created life. Creationists tell God how He created life.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18

What God told me

I said to a friend recently, "If God wanted me to do something, why didn't he tell me?"

My friend replied, "Maybe you weren't listening."

I replied, "I was listening. God said, 'Nobody understands what I say.'"