Templars Opening Telegrams

It's all over

2010-09-19T18:56:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm making the move to Wordpress. Templars Opening Telegrams is no more - go to A Leap of Bad Faith instead.

Christians and Wealth

2010-08-06T22:59:00.002-05:00

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong? - James 2:5-7

It may just be a personal belief, but it's my sincere opinion that the worst thing that's ever happened to the gospel is the prosperity doctrine. And I'm definitely not the only person that thinks this. From the prayer of Jabez to the simple idea that salvation means God gives us what we ask for, people look to God like a vending machine; an answer to their problems in the same way people call a new car a "godsend," or a basketball court an "answer to prayer." Steven Prothero says this is more popular in the global south, where people look to God as an answer to poverty and think that deliverance comes through essential needs and goods that the rest of us take for granted. That may be true, but I see it here in the states all the time; from Joel Osteen's 43,000 member Lakewood church, T.D. Jakes's 30,000 member Potter's House church, or any of the other hugely popular mega-churches that preach why not gain the whole world plus your soul? America's material culture has met it's Christian traditions, and ironically for a belief that has a foothold in the Biblically conservative, this union happened by the work of extrabiblical thinkers. Wheras some Christians leave aside all the social gospel stuff because what's really important is getting to heaven, prosperity preachers go past salvation to what they know people really want to hear - "how can I make this work for me?"

It's interesting how the politicizing of Christianity by the religious right has, in it's own way, united materialism with spirituality and faithfulness, and all the extra little bits of reasoning that go along with it. For years, conservatives and reactionaries have the notion that taxing the rich is equivalent to punishing their success. It's a clever way to re-frame what statists call social responsibility, and what anarchists and libertarians would call theft. But if taxing the rich is punishing their success, can't we form the equally biased and polemic argument that not taxing the rich rewards selfishness? Society doesn't work like that; the idea of rewarding selflessness is a spiritual concept, but humanity has survived for thousands of years because the strong have rode the backs of the weak and made the most of it. People need to transition to a progress-driven society, rather than a profit-driven one, where we are more concerned with addressing needs rather than creating them to sell services and labor.

However the relative wealth of others in this world matters little from a Christian perspective; Matthew 6:33 gives us a priority to find real meaning in our life beyond getting "stuff," Matthew 19:24 is the most well-known warning on how wealth will make your spiritual progress difficult, and James 2 cites the problems believers have with the rich. Romans 2 reminds us that glory, honor and peace is to everyone who does good, regardless of who they are; we are not saved by those works (Eph 2:8-9), so those people cannot boast about all the good they have done compared to others, because it is how much of ourselves we give, not the measure of the giving itself (Luke 21).

Materialism matters very little - wait, no, it matters A LOT, isn't that obvious? We make too much of it; we measure success by it, we measure personal worth by the possessions we have, and we spend our lives toiling and exerting ourselves meaninglessly, like Sisyphus. I'm not saying give all your stuff away (like Jesus may have said), that's another post. But men like Bill Gates spend vast fortunes trying to absolve themselves, to "buy" moral virtue by paying someone else to do good, but their nature remains the same; they just budget the cost of love and make generosity a tax-deduction. In fact, even with billionaires pledging to give half their money away, it's unlikely that anyone would personally know kindness on their behalf, and unless giving money away can do the same good actually interacting and showing love to someone else does for a person, they're still just budgeting their problems.

If Christ commands you to love your neighbor, don't just write them a check. And if you want to get deeper in your faith, deep pockets aren't a sign of success.

Ask a simple question, get a complicated answer

2010-07-25T14:44:00.001-05:00

Recently I was having a discussion with my wife, where we reached a difference of opinion. We were talking about Rick Warren earlier and I was complaining his interview with Sam Harris a few years back. I basically was frustrated that Harris (who I admire for his clarity of thought) comes across articulate and non-crusading, versus Warren, who is argumentative and somewhat belligerent.

I find Warren's status interesting. He gets lumped in with a lot of evangelical Christians but makes himself out to be part of this paradigm shift, where traditionally conservative leaders break away on select issues like social justice and global warming. But, ultimately, he retains his evangelical-cred by sticking with the "gays are bad, atheism is totally foolishness, abortion's wrong," etc. And I find this attitude disheartening. Not that I disagree with his opinions, but really the way he presents them. Now, this is where my wife had an objection. She said, when asked or challenged with what were basically deal-breaking questions like "is abortion wrong" or whatever, that people should be resolute and firm; just give a simple, direct answer to a simple question.

But it's not a simple question, I said. Why is somebody asking you that in the first place? They probably have one of three reasons:

1. "I have my own strong opinions on this issue (articulated or otherwise) and I want to see where this person stands. Are they with me or against me?"

2. "This question has personal relevance to me and I want to see how this person would judge me based on my opinion. Are they against me or with me?"

3. "I have no idea what to think and I just soak up other people's opinions like a sponge."

Granted, that last one is probably pretty rare, but the first two have a simple commonality. It's all about putting people into groups. Is this person part of my in-group or are they in the out-group? How should I react to them? In the first case, someone's personal feelings may be based on a long prejudiced or a highly reasoned argument, but either way, it's typically ingrained so well that they ask as an "argument-check." Like one experience I had, where some fundamentalists asked me "Did you vote for Obama in the last election?" A simple, concise, way to know whether I was an ally or a foe. Honestly, I'm usually not interested in participating in these throwdowns; either Point A is true or its false, and I'm not interested in fighting with someone else's conception of what IS AND IF YOU DISAGREE YOU'RE A TERRIBLE PERSON because it just wastes everybody's time, makes us upset, and then we dislike each other even more.

The third reason is unfair; people should determine what they believe for themselves. There's an axiom in film-making: "Show, don't tell." Why are we so compelled to tell people what we think the truth is instead of living it day by day? And even then, we must be humble and remind others (and ourselves) that we're only human.

But the second case is the most relevant to this post; if we are going to share ourselves honestly and openly, we have to address people as people without making blanket statements and generalizations, and not assuming that everyone who disagrees with us is some part of homogeneous group that loves to cavort in whatever we consider evil ("all atheists hate God and have no morals!!!").

People have personal experiences that are more complicated than our basic assertions; to answer them we have to understand the question. Why are you asking that? What is the issue at heart? Is it because of something you've experienced in the past, or because of a preconception about someone else, somebody other than me? This is a lot harder than just slamming out an absolutist YES or NO. Single syllable answers don't create relationships and simplify what are deeply important topics to others. While some can gloss over an issue they are unfamiliar with (for instance, people against interracial marriage who have never really known an interracial couple), it does us no good to remain arrogant when a human being with issues and a life of their own is staring us in the face. I won't answer a yes or no question if I can help it, because it doesn't do me or the person who asks any good.

A Brief History of American Propaganda

2010-06-29T09:01:00.006-05:00

While perusing the library today I came across a copy of Edward Bernays's Propaganda, an influential and historical piece of literature that will be described in centuries to come the way we describe Hobbes's Leviathan. Bernays is today known as the father of the public relations industry. But back in the day, the two terms were fairly similar, and propoganada had no negative overtones like it does today. In fact, another man (later recognized as a founding communication theorist) named Harold Lasswell said,

"Propaganda has become an epithet of contempt and hate, and the propagandists have sought protective coloration in such names 'public relations council,' 'specialist in public education,' 'public relations adviser.'"

Today, when we think propaganda we think silly, overstated images like the posters of WWII; which most of the modern literature on propaganda covers, as there is little material on current application of so-called 'propaganda'. The term has been garnished with such pejorative overtones that the mere recognition of propaganda for what it is immediately exposes it as some dishonest device, some sinister magic wielded by plotting and evil men in high places. A simple search for soviet propaganda reveals all sorts of images and examples, clearly obvious for what they are. But searching for American examples is much less telling. In America, propaganda is what you call the opinions of those you disagree with.

A spoof of propaganda, in the form of reverse culture jamming by Mars

However, this was not what the 20th century American communication theorists envisioned when they thought of propaganda. Bernays, Lippman, Lasswell saw it as an important tool for democracies. First, Bernays felt that

The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.
– The Engineering of Consent, 1947

and that

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
- Propaganda, 1928

Whereas Aristotle believed that democracy needed no more than the freedom and ability of people to forward arguments, reason and decide with good aptitude, Bernays had Hobbesian doubts on the capacity of people to govern themselves. He felt that the capable have a responsibility to manipulate the public for their own benefit - in his own words,

...we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. - Ibid

If this all strikes you as shocking, save it; Bernays was criticized for being "The Young Machiavelli of Our Times". This is a fair assessment; although most of his work took place in the private and corporate sphere, he was instrumental in overthrowing the democratically elected president of Guatamala, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (also the first peaceably elected man there), in the 50s. By branding him as a communist (on behalf of the US based United Fruit Company, now Chiquita), the CIA was able to commence Operation PBFORTUNE and PBSUCCESS, and oust him in a US backed invasion in '54, to the profit of United Fruit. Seriously, I am not making any of this up; feel free to google it.

The second man I mentioned, Walter Lippman, had similar feelings. You may recognize the title of Herman and Chomsky's book, inspired by the following.

That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . [a]s a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.- Public Opinion, 1922

Again, we see here the need for a special class of leaders, the leaders in Lazerfield's two-step theory of communication, or maybe those who informed the opinion leaders. This is not a new concept in and of itself - this class used to be refered to as the intelligentsia, a special class of people who had the creative and independent capacity to justify the existence of the establishment and propagate its values to others for the future. Their role is virtually the same of the intellectual in a democratic society; but with one chief difference. Whereas...

Intellectuals help societies talk about their problems... [they] are key democratic agents as they stimulate informed discussion about pressing social problems, fulfilling this role by cultivating civility in public life and promoting the subversion of restrictive common sense.- Goldfarb, Civility and Subversion, 1998

... the role of the intelligentsia is to support the status-quo and the agenda of the governing body as they see fit. As L'Etang and Pieczka write,

Lippman advocated a technocratic representative democracy where power resided in the hands of a small, intellectual elite and public consent to their rule was engineered. - 2006

Anti-intellectual cartoon by Thomas Nast, circa 1875

You can probably assume what Harold Lasswell's feelings were, the third man I mentioned.

Regard for men in the mass rests upon no democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interest. The modern propagandist, like the modern psychologist, recognizes that men are often poor judges of their own interests, flitting from one alternative to the next without solid reason or clinging timorously to the fragments of some mossy rock of ages. - Harold Lasswell, 1935

In and of themselves, the propagandists sound sinister, but their reasoning was that if they didn't utilize those skills, someone else would, for ulterior purposes. Bernays, Lippman and Lasswell are influential and important thinkers; but how is their influence felt today? We'll explore this more later.

Box Dei

2010-06-28T15:20:00.000-05:00

If you read this blog, you may also enjoy my other blog, Box Dei. It's pretty limited in content right now, but it's my way of surviving through new movies I have to see sometimes.

The title comes from the phrase "Vox populi, vox dei" or "The voice of the people [is] the voice of God." According to wiki, this phrase comes from a letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne in 798, in which he writes

"And those people should not be listening to those who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness"

It's suggested that's an aphorism, or a wise saying of the times. To me it bears remembering, with the presence of the mass media becoming our new collective consciousness. And if the voice of God was the crowd, then is the television the new medium for the God of this world?

Now I'm not saying that the TV is Satan, or anything so crass and lowbrow as that, but that whereas we had a collective unconsciousness of thoughtful reason and speculation, and mediation on those things, today we have a globalization media of instantaneous awareness and debate. Things that were left to our meditation are now a little less left to the human contemplation, and sharp, crisp, aware, unveiled.

Anyway, the "Box" is full of powerful messages rooted in our subconscious history of thought and myth, and most entertainment exploits and re-frames old ideas to sell a few tickets or rentals. It takes a little work to break apart the picture, and when you do, you're left with a puzzle that can show any number of images. I just focus on the images that are meaningful to me.

So if you like crazy interpretations of pop-films, check out my other blog, Box Dei.

Our longest war - an Addendum

2010-06-18T11:48:00.001-05:00

As discussed in the previous post, al Qaeda is possibly more a means of operating or thinking, than a literal organization. Could it be that the Taliban represents the same concept? I mentioned that American troops are supposedly fighting for women's rights there - I meant to mention the irony of this given the Taliban-style laws passed by President Karzai, which include the following:

the wife “is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires”.
“As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night,”
“Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”
“A wife cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband” unless in a medical or other emergency.
endorsing child marriage with girls legally able to marry once they begin to menstruate

With those laws, many were wondering what we were doing over there. Are we still fighting the same faceless enemy that the Viet Cong represented? In disproportionate warfare with non-state actors, how do you seperate the enemy from the population? When are they indistinguishable? Faceless myths and associations people cling to make for a forever war those in power can continue to perpetuate.

Our longest war - and nobody noticed

2010-06-16T21:23:00.001-05:00

These past few days, the war in Afghanistan became the longest war in US history, surpassing Vietnam with the dubious honor. Often times, while the media and the public focused on Iraq, Afghanistan was forgotten, and thought of as "that other place in the mideast people are fighting terrorism." But to this date, we've been there 8 years, 8 months and 9 days.

But the reasons for our invasion were hasty and born out of a climate of angst, torment and passion during the throes of the post 9/11 nation. Merely a month after the hijackings and crashes, the US commenced military operations against the Taliban government of Afghanistan. The region had a long history of foreign interference going back to 1839, with a destabilized and poor population lacking basic resources and infrastructure. Up until the 1990s, the Afghan people had served as a "poker chip" in a struggle for dominance in the region between superpowers situated around the globe.

Though the focus of the war has shifted to outing the Taliban, the original reasons for entering the Afghan theater was to eliminate protective cover for al Qaeda, which along with Osama Bin Laden, was credited with the 9/11 attacks. However, there is significant speculation that al Qaeda does not exist. Not that there are not radical, violent men with weapons out in the desert somewhere - but what we call al Qaeda is a "way of working," as Tony Blair phrased it, and the intricate, highly organized terrorist network we have come to fear and loath is a myth - and myths are powerful vehicles for people to derive meaning from. Whether men now openly claim to be part of the organization or officials label targets as al Qaeda operatives/agents/terrorists/fighters/whatever, the term is a powerful, recognizable term, like a glittering generality with as much charm as Benito Mussolini.

Still, the US is out there, for whatever reason. Now it's eliminating the Taliban and their record of oppressing women. But do you want to solve human rights crises around the world? Pick your issue, spin a globe, close your eyes, and point. You could wind up anywhere from Israel to your backyard. People will always find a political reason to wage war. One clothes the stain of shamefulness with the cloth of righteousness. And while innocent people die, angry men take up arms, and misguided Christian soldiers continue to march onward, and blood continues to be shed around the world.

As a friend joked to me, we're making progress in sustainable warfare. It used to be that things were rationed and the entire nation's resources went towards the cause. The role of propaganda on American civilians was more important, and conscientious objection was a big deal. But today, it's an all volunteer army, America's GDP still exceeds everybody else's (for now), and we play lots of video games filled with simulated atrocities, even glorifying the heroic eddas of our past.

Are we getting used to being at war? After all, the US has been involved in some sort of military conflict at any given place on the globe since we got out of WWII. But this is a sustained action; so long as we're comfortable, nobody notices. But Christians must consider their place in these times. Given that there are those who still croon about the US being a Christian nation, we must consider how the state would behave if the people who ran it were in fact Christ-followers.

Acts of God and other such atrocities

2010-06-15T20:33:00.000-05:00

Last night, a 62 foot statue of Jesus was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leading church members to proclaim it was an "act of God." Notwithstanding the entire statue was made of Styrofoam and steel (an excellent flammable lightning rod if there ever was one), parishoners were sure God was trying to tell them something, as evidenced by this video.

The incident reminded me of a similar phenomenal incident recently, where Gov. Rick Perry and US Rep. Tom Cole wrote the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off as an "act of God." Going further back, conservatives were also quick to say that the Hurricane Katrina disaster was an "act of God" because of the decadence and immorality of New Orleans and the French Quarter. They said the same thing about 9/11 and plenty of other storms and squalls.

Natural disasters and unforeseen though naturally occurring events are typically refereed to as acts of God, where liability is limited to likely and possible outcomes. But it's easy to take those events (and unpleasant man made ones which can be understood in their proper historical context given time and education) and apply whatever meaning you like to it. In fact, it seems any event can be an act of God, an empty canvas on which to apply your own meaning. This is much like many situations where confirmation bias can lead us to giving God (or some devil) credit for any event you please. Example - today my leg hurt. Is this because A) God is punishing me for something I feel guilty about - B) The Devil tormenting me for something I'm feeling good about - C) my muscle is out of shape? Given that all those things may be true whether I believe them or not, I'm likely to pick whichever has the most emotional relevance to me. In the case of large scale events, I can also attach religious meaning to it, if it suits my purposes (as in propagating a value-based message with the powerful fallacy of appeal to religion). For instance, if I was a hawkish conservative I could easily say God had us discover lithium in Afghanistan as a blessing for carrying out His work (by slaughtering countless godless Afghanis). Regardless of the history of the conflict, the situational psychology of the people involved, etc etc. I find it very easy to say what I want, because a quick summary is more interesting to you than a thorough analysis of the circumstances surrounding the topic in question.

Though church leadership now says the "Touchdown Jesus" fire was not a sign from God, it's amusing to think what could have been meant if it was. Maybe Yahweh was saying "Hey, don't make a $300,000 graven image after I put the rule right in the 10 commandments." Or maybe, "This statue really blows, it looks nothing like me." We could roll with this and say God was trying to tell people to quit using oil when he allowed BP to screw up royally and let the oil spill occur (though I have a hard time believing God gets the credit for that). Katrina could have been God saying he hates Jazz music, not debauchery. He just got there a little late to kill Jelly Roll Morton, but then again, "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

Given a fresh perspective, any number of the "acts of God" mentioned could make for messages the Religious Right was not expecting. 9/11? Some religious thinkers thought it was a catastrophe we deserved, while the perpetrators likely thought it was a miracle we deserved. And meanwhile, it is what it is. A gaudy sculpture of styrofoam and fiberglass goes up in smoke, and people call it God. Mysterious ways indeed. Does this God know what he's doing? It might be helpful for befuddled conservatives to suggest He's figuring it out.

Happy Flag Day!

2010-06-14T20:59:00.001-05:00

Today is Flag Day, and this week commemorates the image and symbolism represented by the flag of the United States. Flags are potent symbols for the values and mores of a society; values and mores developed in a culture over the mythologizing of its history and past, for the advancement of the people under that banner.

Our world has a way of interposing it's systems on us through socialization; we are "coded" with the principles of the society we live in. Like other stuff I've said, this is all pretty "duh" stuff. But for a Christian, or anyone who believes that the meaning of our life lies outside the arbitrary, synthetic organization of people, Christian Existentialism and Christian Anarchism does a great job of breaking apart those social mores. I know most Christ-followers would say "oh, well, all we need is the bible and nothing more," but we live in a world where we're influenced by many, many different factors. Existentialism does a great job of philosophically questioning the relevancy of those influences and breaking down socialization in a way that we can judge it's relative worth to our goals. Anarchism does a great job of putting us in a place where we can be critical and honest about the shortcomings of human government and the need for each person to be responsible to themselves and their community.

Anyway, the flag represents the US, Americanism, it's history and it's values. What are those? Maybe what you make of them. Given how little that has to do with Christ, or the things he would value, what flag should we fly this week?

Maybe no flag would be best; after all, flags themselves are just symbols of artificial organizations of thought brought about by our own thinking. But if we wanted to fly something, maybe that should be the black and white flag of Anarcho-Pacifism (or Christian Anarchism). The white is for peace, the black is for "the negation of all oppressive structures, in deliberate contrast to the colourful flags typical of most nation-states" (according to wiki).

Anyway, be sure to enjoy all the editorials in all the papers this week, and the finger-wagging of veterans wearing their service ball caps talking about the proper way to display the flag, and all the blind patriotism that goes along with flag worship, and so on and so forth.

More Tolstoy - Christians in Power?

2010-05-22T09:00:00.001-05:00

It's really lazy to just post this without too much commentary right now, but a lot has been going on for me. I'm going to try and finish out one of my posts here soon. In the mean time, I read this today and felt it was worth sharing. Still available online for free, Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You is a must-read for Christians of any time. There is plenty to think about here.

Contrast the emphasis on humility, meekness, and surrender to heavenly authority Tolstoy emphasizes here, with the dominionism of the Religious Right and the efforts of politicians to play up their religion; in fact, of all US elected officials (federal that is; senators, representatives, govs, executives etc), only one has ever been an atheist (Stark D-CA), and two Buddhists (Hirono D-HW, Johnson D-GA) and two Muslims (Ellison D-MN, Carson D-ID) have been elected in the last five years. The rest have all professed to be Christians, from demigauge Huey Long, a self-professed baptist that literally controlled Louisiana before he was assassinated, to Presbyterian Andrew Jackson, genocidal maniac who forcibly removed an entire nation of people after butchering them before being elected president. Often times, faith is an important aspect of political communication in relating to constituents, as a way of pandering to their values and culture, and serves as an easy way to gain the respect of people so imbued by religion and not spirit. In a move towards more universal acceptance, Kennedy faced a tough time convincing Protestants he wouldn't be some sort of papist proxy; of course, he would "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Or at least so much as the establishment would see it.

The notion of Christians seizing control of government is antithetical to Chistianity itself; as Tolstoy begins Chapter X,

"Christianity in its true sense puts an end to government. So it was understood at its very commencement; it was for that cause that Christ was crucified."

Can a President ever really repent for all the things that happen by their hand? If we are complicit in the sins of our society, surely a leader is in some ways the nexus of those decisions which lead to the death of many, the destruction of lives, the feeding of gluttons and the rich. By some measure they must be the means by which evil and power perpetuates; even if their intentions are noble, by cooperating with the system they have propegated it.

Again, can a president repent? Obama has killed

"708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the Pakistani tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009. For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by the American drones, 140 civilian Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 percent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were innocent civilians."

"You can't make an omlet without breaking a few eggs?" you say? People are not eggs.

Also, what sort of omlet is made up of crappy foreign policy littered with derelict asiatic and mideast nations, with civilian casualties rising and US troop suicides climbing to match? That's the point where you suggest the cook get out of the kitchen, pronto.

Anyway here's the text.
-------------------
Excerpt from Chapter X -

"It may well be that government was necessary and is still necessary for all the advantages which you attribute to it," says the man who has mastered the Christian theory of life. "I only know that on the one hand, government is no longer necessary for ME, and on the other hand, I can no longer carry out the measures that are necessary to the existence of a government. Settle for yourselves what you need for your life. I cannot prove the need or the harm of governments in general. I know only what I need and do not need, what I can do and what I cannot. I know that I do not need to divide myself off from other nations, and therefore I cannot admit that I belong exclusively to any state or nation, or that I owe allegiance to any government. I know that I do not need all the government institutions organized within the state, and therefore I cannot deprive people who need my labor to give it in the form of taxes to institutions which I do not need, which for all I know may be pernicious. I know that I have no need of the administration or of courts of justice founded upon force, and therefore I can take no part in either. I know that I do not need to attack and slaughter other nations or to defend myself from them with arms, and therefore I can take no part in wars or preparations for wars. It may well be that there are people who cannot help regarding all this as necessary and indispensable. I cannot dispute the question with them, I can only speak for myself; but I can say with absolute certainty that I do not need it, and that I cannot do it. And I do not need this and I cannot do it, not because such is my own, my personal will, but because such is the will of him who sent me into life, and gave me an indubitable law for my conduct through life."

Whatever arguments may be advanced in support of the contention that the suppression of government authority would be injurious and would lead to great calamities, men who have once outgrown the governmental form of society cannot go back to it again. And all the reasoning in the world cannot make the man who has outgrown the governmental form of society take part in actions disallowed by his conscience, any more than the full-grown bird can be made to return into the egg-shell.

"But even it be so," say the champions of the existing order of things, "still the suppression of government violence can only be possible and desirable when all men have become Christians. So long as among people nominally Christians there are unchristian wicked men, who for the gratification of their own lusts are ready to do harm to others, the suppression of government authority, far from being a blessing to others, would only increase their miseries. The suppression of the governmental type of society is not only undesirable so long as there is only a minority of true Christians; it would not even be desirable if the whole of a nation were Christians, but among and around them were still unchristian men of other nations. For these unchristian men would rob, outrage, and kill the Christians with impunity and would make their lives miserable. All that would result, would be that the bad would oppress and outrage the good with impunity. And therefore the authority of government must not be suppressed till all the wicked and rapacious people in the world are extinct. And since this will either never be, or at least cannot be for a long time to come, in spite of the efforts of individual Christians to be independent of government authority, it ought to be maintained in the interests of the majority. The champions of government assert that without it the wicked will oppress and outrage the good, and that the power of the government enables the good to resist the wicked."

But in this assertion the champions of the existing order of things take for granted the proposition they want to prove. When they say that except for the government the bad would oppress the good, they take it for granted that the good are those who at the present time are in possession of power, and the bad are those who are in subjection to it. But this is just what wants proving. It would only be true if the custom of our society were what is, or rather is supposed to be, the custom in China; that is, that the good always rule, and that directly those at the head of government cease to be better than those they rule over, the citizens are bound to remove them. This is supposed to be the custom in China. In reality it is not so and can never be so. For to remove the heads of a government ruling by force, it is not the right alone, but the power to do so that is needed. So that even in China this is only an imaginary custom. And in our Christian world we do not even suppose such a custom, and we have nothing on which to build up the supposition that it is the good or the superior who are in power; in reality it is those who have seized power and who keep it for their own and their retainers' benefit.

The good cannot seize power, nor retain it; to do this men must love power. And love of power is inconsistent with goodness; but quite consistent with the very opposite qualities--pride, cunning, cruelty.

Without the aggrandizement of self and the abasement of others, without hypocrisies and deceptions, without prisons, fortresses, executions, and murders, no power can come into existence or be maintained.

"If the power of government is suppressed the more wicked will oppress the less wicked," say the champions of state authority. But when the Egyptians conquered the Jews, the Romans conquered the Greeks, and the Barbarians conquered the Romans, is it possible that all the conquerors were always better than those they conquered? And the same with the transitions of power within a state from one personage to another: has the power always passed from a worse person to a better one? When Louis XVI. was removed and Robespierre came to power, and afterward Napoleon--who ruled then, a better man or a worse? And when were better men in power, when the Versaillist party or when the Commune was in power? When Charles I. was ruler, or when Cromwell? And when Peter III. was Tzar, or when he was killed and Catherine was Tzaritsa in one-half of Russia and Pougachef ruled the other? Which was bad then, and which was good? All men who happen to be in authority assert that their authority is necessary to keep the bad from oppressing the good, assuming that they themselves are the good PAR EXCELLENCE, who protect other good people from the bad.

But ruling means using force, and using force means doing to him to whom force is used, what he does not like and what he who uses the force would certainly not like done to himself. Consequently ruling means doing to others what we would we would not they should do unto us, that is, doing wrong.

To submit means to prefer suffering to using force. And to prefer suffering to using force means to be good, or at least less wicked than those who do unto others what they would not like themselves.

And therefore, in all probability, not the better but the worse have always ruled and are ruling now. There may be bad men among those who are ruled, but it cannot be that those who are better have generally ruled those who are worse.

It might be possible to suppose this with the inexact heathen definition of good; but with the clear Christian definition of good and evil, it is impossible to imagine it.

If the more or less good, and the more or less bad cannot be distinguished in the heathen world, the Christian conception of good and evil has so clearly defined the characteristics of the good and the wicked, that it is impossible to confound them. According to Christ's teaching the good are those who are meek and long-suffering, do not resist evil by force, forgive injuries, and love their enemies; those are wicked who exalt themselves, oppress, strive, and use force. Therefore by Christ's teaching there can be no doubt whether the good are to be found among rulers or ruled, and whether the wicked are among the ruled or the rulers. Indeed it is absurd even to speak of Christians ruling.

(all emphasis added)

Excerpt from Tolstoy - The Circle of Control

2010-05-17T00:21:00.002-05:00

I have been very busy lately, with finals and moving and such, so I haven't been able to post as I'd like too. I do have several topics in the works, but for now, I thought I would share some of my reading from today, part of The Kingdom of God is Within You, a classic text by Leo Tolstoy which is availible online here (free).
____________________

Governments and the ruling classes no longer take their stand on right or even on the semblance of justice, but on a skillful organization carried to such a point of perfection by the aid of science that everyone is caught in the circle of violence and has no chance of escaping from it. This circle is made up now of four methods of working upon men, joined together like the limes of a chain ring.

The first and oldest method is intimidation. This consists in representing the existing state organization--whatever it may be, free republic or the most savage despotism--as something sacred and immutable, and therefore following any efforts to alter it with the cruellest punishments. This method is in use now--as it has been from olden times--wherever there is a government: in Russia against the so-called Nihilists, in America against Anarchists, in France against Imperialists, Legitimists, Communards, and Anarchists.

Railways, telegraphs, telephones, photographs, and the great perfection of the means of getting rid of men for years, without killing them, by solitary confinement, where, hidden from the world, they perish and are forgotten, and the many other modern inventions employed by government, give such power that when once authority has come into certain hands, the police, open and secret, the administration and prosecutors, jailers and executioners of all kinds, do their work so zealously that there is no chance of overturning the government, however cruel and senseless it may be.

The second method is corruption. It consists in plundering the industrious working people of their wealth by means of taxes and distributing it in satisfying the greed of officials, who are bound in return to support and keep up the oppression of the people. These bought officials, from the highest ministers to the poorest copying clerks, make up an unbroken network of men bound together by the same interest--that of living at the expense of the people. They become the richer the more submissively they carry out the will of the government; and at all times and places, sticking at nothing, in all departments support by word and deed the violence of government, on which their own prosperity also rests.

The third method is what I can only describe as hypnotizing the people. This consists in checking the moral development of men, and by various suggestions keeping them back in the ideal of life, outgrown by mankind at large, on which the power of government rests. This hypnotizing process is organized at the present in the most complex manner, and starting from their earliest childhood, continues to act on men till the day of their death. It begins in their earliest years in the compulsory schools, created for this purpose, in which the children have instilled into them the ideas of life of their ancestors, which are in direct antagonism with the conscience of the modern world. In countries where there is a state religion, they teach the children the senseless blasphemies of the Church catechisms, together with the duty of obedience to their superiors. In republican states they teach them the savage superstition of patriotism and the same pretended obedience to the governing authorities. The process is kept up during later years by the encouragement of religious and patriotic superstitions.

The religious superstition is encouraged by establishing, with money taken from the people, temples, processions, memorials, and festivals, which, aided by painting, architecture, music, and incense, intoxicate the people, and above all by the support of the clergy, whose duty consists in brutalizing the people and keeping them in a permanent state of stupefaction by their teaching, the solemnity of their services, their sermons, and their interference in private life--at births, deaths, and marriages. The patriotic superstition is encouraged by the creation, with money taken from the people, of national fêtes, spectacles, monuments, and festivals to dispose men to attach importance to their own nation, and to the aggrandizement of the state and its rulers, and to feel antagonism and even hatred for other nations. With these objects under despotic governments there is direct prohibition against printing and disseminating books to enlighten the people, and everyone who might rouse the people from their lethargy is exiled or imprisoned. Moreover, under every government without exception everything is kept back that might emancipate and everything encouraged that tends to corrupt the people, such as literary works tending to keep them in the barbarism of religious and patriotic superstition, all kinds of sensual amusements, spectacles, circuses, theaters, and even the physical means of inducing stupefaction, as tobacco and alcohol, which form the principal source of revenue of states. Even prostitution is encouraged, and not only recognized, but even organized by the government in the majority of states. So much for the third method.

The fourth method consists in selecting from all the men who have been stupefied and enslaved by the three former methods a certain number, exposing them to special and intensified means of stupefaction and brutalization, and so making them into a passive instrument for carrying out all the cruelties and brutalities needed by the government. This result is attained by taking them at the youthful age when men have not had time to form clear and definite principles of morals, and removing them from all natural and human conditions of life, home, family and kindred, and useful labor. They are shut up together in barracks, dressed in special clothes, and worked upon by cries, drums, music, and shining objects to go through certain daily actions invented for this purpose, and by this means are brought into an hypnotic condition in which they cease to be men and become mere senseless machines, submissive to the hypnotizer. These physically vigorous young men (in these days of universal conscription, all young men), hypnotized, armed with murderous weapons, always obedient to the governing authorities and ready for any act of violence at their command, constitute the fourth and principal method of enslaving men.

By this method the circle of violence is completed. Intimidation, corruption, and hypnotizing bring people into a condition in which they are willing to be soldiers; the soldiers give the power of punishing and plundering them (and purchasing officials with the spoils), and hypnotizing them and converting them in time into these same soldiers again.

The circle is complete, and there is no chance of breaking through it by force.

The Sleep of Sorrow and the Dream of Joy

2010-05-01T09:00:00.006-05:00

Someone I know but never met commited suicide Friday morning. Friend of a friend of a friend sort of thing. I pieced it together through the information I had at hand. It struck me; when I realized this is happening every day, all around us. There are those who leave us for their own reasons we can never answer, and our only recourse is to explain the loss of loved ones to others. Although it is not my place, and I am not in the position to have anything to say, my heart goes out. Because it is the purpose of those of us with beliefs, with higher callings, to emphasis the charity and loving kindness of our inspiration to others.

I read a book by one William Duggan recently, and a certian section struck me. It read:

"The condition of mankind in general and each individual man in the process toward unity with love is the condition of Original Sin."

Duggan was trying to communicate the NT concept of original sin. He differentiated between the OT account of Adam's sin and the Romans 5 account, which set the foundation for the idea that what seperates us from God is our inability to love; what keeps us in a state of misery, and makes evil in the world, is the lack of an altuistic, empathetic, loving element, which Christ embodied by the spirit of God. As God is love (1 John 4:8) and God is a spirit (John 1:18), those who emphasis the love of Christ in their life are taking the transcendant values of the divine and making them immanent, or manifesting itself in and through all aspects of the material world. Our Christianity must inspire us to love, sacrificially and altuistically, because that is our "process toward unity with love."

It's this and my continuing frustration with myself and others how little our spirituality does to make the world better, and instead serves to justify our own beliefs. Rather than working as a means to liberate ourselves from human culture, materialism, and selfishness, it typically serves as a vehicle for reinforce and legitimize our personal views/beliefs with powerful, traditional myths. It is supposed to be the means for our own enlightenment; what moves us beyond temporal concerns to those altruistic, loving and understanding values. But so often we are lost in the literalness of behaviorism and historical fact, that we lose sight of the revelation of God in time as specific events where something beyond ourselves is revealed to us. The deeper meaning is lost, because we see it as another philosophy, or some other sort of organization to determine how we should live, rather than a new reason for why we are living. We are living to love, and to grow in secret through this revelation (Mark 4:26-29). We do not live to love the world (1 John 2:15) and all it's devices and organizations, but to love God and our neighbors (Matthew 22:39). We are the body of Christ, and if God is love, we must love, because our neighbors need it.

Basket of Bread-Rather Death Than Shame by Salvador Dali

I don't really know too many people who have commited suicide; a co-worker of my father did when I was young, and this person who passed away Friday was not someone I knew, but when people take their lives it is because the circumstances they live in seem beyond the ability to cope. During my grievence for everyone who is far away from us, and beyond our ability to love before they are gone, I recalled the words of Khalil Gibran, Lebbanese poet/philosopher/mystic, who has always been a great inspiration to me.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears. - On Pain, جبران خليل جبران بن ميکائيل بن سعد

A Question That Shouldn't Make Sense

2010-04-26T08:54:00.002-05:00

What does God look like?

A depiction of Yahew by the Libourg Brothers, early 1400s

It's interesting to me that of the three Abrahamic, monotheistic faiths, Christianity is the only one that has accepted graphic depicitions of the divine in the mainstream. While Judiasm takes the Law of Moses serious in its demand that people not make idols (whether or not they're in the form of things in heaven or not), it's more or less moot because God is understood as non-physical, non-copreal, and eternal. Islam's tradition of aniconism (not depicting God) comes from the Hadith, and that ﷲ is unlike anything man knows:

Quran 42:11 “There is nothing like Him, but He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing.”

112:4 “There is nothing comparable to Him.”

I won't get too deep into those justifications, but I just think it's really interesting that Christianity used to be the same way; for a long time the iconoclasts decided that they were going to take the commandment not have graven images seriously.

I guess my main complaint would be that by accepting a long tradition of the depiction of God the Father as an old man with a beard, we've created a stereotype of God in our culture; while we don't worship the image, it influences and affects the way we think about God (as primarily masculine for instance). In fact a great deal of our relationship with the divine is to find ways that we can relate it to ourselves, with the justification that we are related to it by being made "in the image." Is it that humanity has created a God that looks like ourselves, rather than understand the God we resemble through our limited abilities of understanding? In every way, how we understand God is anthropmorphic; from God's range of emotions, of jealousy, love, wrath, and mercy, to God's anatomy. How we understand the idea of the "hand" of God or how he makes the heavens his "throne" and the earth his "footstool," - even his physical appearance is recorded as man-like (Ezekiel 1:26) and the OT extensively relates to God in the human terms of king or ruler.

It's a type of physitheism, where the human form and characteristics are attributed to God. Of course we use the language metaphorically, as language can only take us so far.

I was trying to come up with an antonym for "anthropocentric" and I realized there could never be one, because we would not be able to understand it. This is the nature of the transendental divine; the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, or fearful and facinating mystery. In the philosophical concept of The Other, the divine is the Other, and conversely, anthropomorphic terms are a way to existentially describe what God is not; you can even call this a type of apophatic (or negative) theology.

The way we relate to God is through our understanding; theologians have argued how much of Imagio Dei refers to the physical versus the substantial, psychological attributes. I'd say most of this argument is part of the progression of Christianity from a physitheistic understanding to psychotheism, where God is truly a single spirit with wholly non-corporal, non-physical properties. The understanding of how this transcendent entity becomes immanent is part of the Christian mythos, though shared in cruder forms by other beliefs.
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I realize this entry is probably weak, but I haven't published anything in awhile because I've been too busy with schoolwork. I have several posts brewing but I just wanted to get this one out of the way. I'll try to return to it some other time.

Belief VS You Pt. 2 (Re: "The Light of The World")

2010-04-17T09:00:00.020-05:00

I didn't do a very good job answering the questions my friend Jason asked in the last post, so I'll try again. "The Question," rephrased...

does Christianity display a spirit of intolerance for non-believers?

Backer's Last Judgement, where unbelievers are cast into hell

Answer 2:
Most people undergo a process of socialization where they affiliate with others who have similar beliefs, and create groups and organizations often with hierarchical power structures, to propagate and encourage those beliefs among the ingroup. "Duh," you say. Why can't I just say folks with the same interests get together and chill? Because this process is extremely profound and has far reaching implications for people everywhere, regardless of their thoughts. Maybe I should review first.

The image to the left is a brief overview I made of how people learn their roles (and others) through social identity theory. To copy from Wiki (the easiest resource on hand) - social identity theory's four principles are these-

Categorization: people often put others (and ourselves) into categories.
Identification: people also associate with certain groups (ingroups and outgroups), which serves to bolster our self-esteem.
Comparison: people compare our groups with other groups, seeing a favorable bias toward the group to which we belong.
Psychological Distinctiveness: people desire our identity to be both distinct from and positively compared with other groups^[2].

These ideas are also expressed in continental philosophy's concept of The Other. The other is a way to define the self, in existential terms; it is what we are not. It also serves as a way to understand components of society or the excluded who should be subdued or excluded.

Now, knowing this, observe Christianity as a social ingroup, and the authors of the Bible, "inspired" as we say they are, as members of a new, elite ingroup who are quick to defend it in it's infancy? Regardless of their feelings as to it's legitimacy, and their divine ordination, being human, we can assume they socialize in the same manner. Therefore, when we see people rejecting The Other in society, we see the ingroup displaying it's behavior of bias and exclusivism. However, inspiration does shine through the cultural and anthropocentric bias of the men who wrote Christian scripture;

Proverbs 3: ⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Another source I should have remembered before, is this:

1 Corinthians 13: ⁹For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
¹⁰But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
¹¹When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
¹²For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
¹³And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Wheras 2 John makes the case for a strong in-group bias, these excerpts also make the exception for the lack of human understanding that prevents people from making divine and righteous judgment. Instead, people are supposed to "try the spirit" (1 John 4) and work out our salvation "with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). In fact, to expand on that, the author also writes how we should emulate the humility of Christ; there is no pride in this, and ingroup values are discouraged by emphasizing the ideas of compassion, peacefulness, and selflessness. Lending itself to radically different interpretations, Christianity can serve as a vehicle for a personal philosophy or a social order, each with varying degrees of metaphysical relevance. People confuse one with the other, and often see direct calls to action in the scripture as an imperative to implement that social order in their world rather than their lives and relationships.

On whether or not there is a numinous or divine source for morality, this is also existentially irrelevant; as soon as we are able to recognize it, morality already exists, and we must provide our own essence or context for its existence. As human society has a long and rich lineage of values and mores extending into pre-history, the origin of those morals is left to explanation by less skeptical theologians and evolution biologists, who can still believe in the divine implementation of some sort of morality in human behavior. Even if that is so, morality as the superego of human behavior is a factor in returning the world to entropy.

One of the examples I mentioned in the outline I made was Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. Edward Said made some nice comments about that here. Ingroup mentalities that promote exclusivism inevitably perceive people not part of the group as threats and look to objectify them in one way or another. While Christians have an a biblical directive to be faithful, they also must be humble, kind and loving. It's these "irrational" values that sets Christ-centric discipleship apart from other social orders. When Jesus commands believers to "love your enemies," "turn the other cheek," and "bless them that curse you," he is not speaking figuratively, he was deliberately working against the tendency of people to stratify into castes, classes, ingroups, etc.

So, to go back to the original question and hopefully answer it better this time with all that exposition - Christianity as a social group has an intolerance for unbelievers because people in it; it's what we all do. Christianity, as a spiritual philosophy, is exclusive (which is a different issue), but it's exclusivity does not prohibit believers from being intolerant of unbelievers. Believers are supposed to transcend the "group" thinking -

Romans 12:²Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. ³For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

and furthermore, believers are supposed to drop the secondary socialization, while retaining their personal spiritual revelation -

1 Corinthians 9: ¹⁹Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. ²⁰To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. ²²To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

To summarize, Christian culture and society is a sham, an invention of people. Any time people exhibit intolerance for unbelievers, they are acting like the "old man" (Romans 6:6) and not with the regenerated behavior of someone exemplifying the spirit of Christ (with the exception of the theological discussion of exclusivity, which is up to the "fear and trembling" of each believer, but that's a different issue).

Belief vs You Pt. 1 (Re: "The Light of the World")

2010-04-15T20:10:00.002-05:00

This is a response of a post at my friend Jason's blog, which in turn was a response of my previous post.

2 John 1: ⁷For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
⁸Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
⁹Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
¹⁰If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
¹¹For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

"...does this Bible passage not display the same spirit of intolerance for non-believers displayed in the Qur'an, where those who "fight GOD" are to be killed, crucified, mutilated, or banished?"

Simple answer: yes.My long answer is broken into two parts; a lengthy examination of the epistle in question, and a more generalized reflection on the topic.

Answer 1:

I think we can put that sense of intolerance we get out of those versus into perspective by context (and remember that the New Testament never advocates murder or violence against unbelievers and even those who reject God). The preceding verses say

⁵And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.
⁶And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

John the Evangelist is writing (presumably) to people who are believers, but are dealing with an early type of gnosticism, docetism; that Christ was not come in the flesh but his physical person was an illusion and pure spirit. As Jason stated in his blog, " it's fair to say that all Christians must believe in Christ's divinity," but not all Christians always have believed in Christ's humanity. A few years back there was an issue in Ethiopia where converts who were part of the United Pentecostal Church took to believing in "Divine Flesh" - that Jesus was a special creation in the womb of Mary, and that there was no human lineage in his person. As the paradox of 100% man, 100% God aspect of Jesus is important to the Christian mythology, it's argued that gnostic teachings of a pure spirit Jesus remove the relevance of his sacrifice for the average human.

The commandment John is referring to in verse 5, comes from Matthew 22, where Christ is asked what the greatest commandment is.

³⁷Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
³⁸This is the first and great commandment.
³⁹And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

When John says thatit is love that we walk after his commandments, he is referring to the book of John, Chapter 14:15 - "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

As the verses continue, it also seems John could be speaking to the doubt of people who are still skeptical of the message of Christ - the Judaic society saw Jesus as a blasphemer who went against the law of Moses. In the light of not being the political revolutionary they hoped, they were afraid of his statements that he would tear the Temple down and in three days rebuild it (John 2:19). lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward refers to going back on the message of the Gospel and missing out on the personal rewards it offered Jews formerly bound by law, who were now subject to grace. Verse 9 is a clear condemnation of people who reject that gospel, and while it obviously also speaks out against "universalism," it was probably targeted at Pharasitical rabbis and thinkers. Verses 10 and 11 goes beyond that disagreement, to suggest that anyone who aids or wishes them goodwill is culpable to their "evil deeds." This works great for anyone that thinks they know everything, and doesn't want to hear any different from anybody. I have a hard time reconciling this directive; the only way I can figure it is that it might have been in this sort of context:

Possibly this lady was like Gaius, of whom we read in the next epistle, a generous housekeeper, and hospitable entertainer of traveling ministers and Christians. These deceivers might possibly expect the same reception with others, or with the best who came there (as the blind are often bold enough), but the apostle allows it not: "Do not welcome them into your family." Doubtless such may be relieved in their pressing necessities, but not encouraged for ill service. Deniers of the faith are destroyers of souls; and it is supposed that even ladies themselves should have good understanding in the affairs of religion. 2. "Bless not their enterprises: Neither bid him God speed. Attend not their service with your prayers and good wishes." Bad work should not be consecrated or recommended to the divine benediction. God will be no patron of falsehood, seduction, and sin. We ought to bid God speed to evangelical ministration; but the propagation of fatal error, if we cannot prevent, we must not dare to countenance.

Of course, the objective mind in me questions the loaded nature of words like "deceivers" and so forth. I really doubt people go around intentionally trying to lead others astray - more likely they just feel as if they're doing the most good they can the best way they know how. For someone who saw Jesus, like the author, I'm sure they didn't consider this as much as we do; after all

1 Corinthians 1:
²²For indeed ^(A)Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom;
²³but we preach ^[a]^(B)Christ crucified, ^(C)to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles ^(D)foolishness,
²⁴but to those who are ^(E)the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ ^(F)the power of God and ^(G)the wisdom of God.

Hrm. I'm not sure that did such a good job of answering the original question, or even going beyond the original post. I'll try to continue in the next post.

Theocracy vs Bad Faith

2010-04-12T18:41:00.000-05:00

Today I was talking to a group of Muslim students who had set themselves up in the student union, and were trying to correct misconceptions about Islam and how they weren't all terrorists or that sort of thing. While I commended their efforts for raising awareness and being so open, as I talked with them I quickly realized they were proselytizing as well, or at least very eager to try. This in and off itself is understandable. In last Sunday's service, my pastor used the example of Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller made a blog post about a very nice guy who handed him a bible after a show, and was careful to not appear crazy. Mr. Jillette is a well known atheist, and he assumed that this guy knew that, but he also made that case that he understood if you believed in hell, and that the only thing that could save people is by sharing your knowledge or revelation, then how much would you have to hate somebody to not share that with them? He compared it to knowing their was a train coming, and someone was in the way, and that you'd really have to not like somebody to do anything about it.

Anyway, I talked to these students for awhile, and because I'd read a little bit of the Qur'an I did have something I wanted to ask them about, and it was specifically this passage:

[5:32] Because of this, we decreed for the Children of Israel that anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all the people. And anyone who spares a life, it shall be as if he spared the lives of all the people. Our messengers went to them with clear proofs and revelations, but most of them, after all this, are still transgressing.
[5:33] The just retribution for those who fight GOD and His messenger, and commit horrendous crimes, is to be killed, or crucified, or to have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or to be banished from the land. This is to humiliate them in this life, then they suffer a far worse retribution in the Hereafter.
[5:34] Exempted are those who repent before you overcome them. You should know that GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful.

To me, it's discouraging that such a clear condemnation of violence is followed by such harsh punishments for people who would oppose Islam. But after looking at the verse and going over their translation, the دارس الاسلام (student of Islam) explained it to me that the intention is to protect society as a whole; that the motive is to stop people who would afflict and harm others through their influence and keep the majority of people "safe." Sura 5:33 applies to both Muslims and non-Muslims, he was careful to point out. Anyone who willfully or deliberately was an aggressor against Islam was subject to their retribution; the same as how an anarchist or revolutionary in a secular society would be subject to what would be an exception to the laws of freedom. A lack of tolerance aside, the intention is to stop harmful elements of society from interfering with the faith of others.

For me, personal freedom is very important; each person comes to their own place where they decide on their beliefs, what those beliefs are, and they make the individual, conscious choice of following that. Otherwise their faith seems insincere; like a mere social order, rather than a metaphysical orientation. The problem is most religions and spiritual practices establish themselves as social orders or a means for society to communicate it's values over the ages. This is why leaders and demagogues love to tap into religious language in order to reinforce their policies and gather easy support. But anytime people try to acknowledge their preferred theology as the ultimate source of social order in their countries, you always wind up with a system that excludes unbelievers from justice. It leaves the freedom of choice each person has to believe or not believe completely in the gutter, and instead oppresses everyone with man's theology, rather than behavior one assumes from divine inspiration as a means of obedience. People's obedience in faith is righteous based on his ethics, but people's obedience to law is servile and arbitrary based on the lawmaker.

A pretty terrible painting by Jon Mcnaughton with embedded info online helping support the myth of Christian America

A common trait to all fundamentalists, be they Christian, Muslim, or Zoroastrianism is that they take the transcendent, spiritual kingdom that is ideal in the faith, the "new order" established by divine revelation and they look to impliment it in the world around them. But doing so depends on the cooperation of everybody else, and not everyone is privy to that special understanding or revelation the fundamentalists have. In some cases, fundamentalists "rewrite" the history of their government in the name of nationalism to justify it's existence. Though typically it would be part of the sinful, material world, it's made righteous when colored through the lens of fundamentalist revisionism. Of course, most of us don't see things through that unique lense, and aren't as eager to take the mental gymnastics course required to make the way we see things more like they do. On that note, while this verse sticks in my mind,

2 Timothy 3: ¹⁶All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

It's important to also remember that God does not expect unbelievers to adhere to his rules.

Galatians 2: ¹⁵"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

While that may have been the case for the Hebrews (at least from a biblical perspective), it's certianly not the case for anyone else, and the text goes on to say

¹⁷"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

For me, this is the essence of of faith; Kierkegaard suggested that parodoxes in Christianity (the divinity and humanity of Jesus, for one) demanded that believers make a leap of faith, a personal choice to believe. Most people would agree that faith is a choice, without going into a deeper explaination. Nearly all beliefs are a matter of choice; we can prove facts, but subjective analysis or understanding of those facts is up to personal understanding. And, continuing with the Christian perspective, the author of Romans writes,

12: ²And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
³For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

I could go on with citations, but the point I'm trying to make is that each person is at their own place in their understanding of God; whether they have made the leap of faith or not, whether they agree or disagree on how each other should behave, and so on. No person is perfect or rightous in their understanding or behavior. But to summarily make laws and rules that supplant the freedom of choice each person has, and shortcuts their process of understanding is a terrible thing that both oppresses them and makes us all hypocrites, servile to the state rather than obedient to our beliefs.

Benjamin Disraeli wrote, "When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken." This reminds me of a quote attributed to Plato, who wrote, "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." Laws ultimately must be made in a democratic process that reflects the individual freedoms of all men, rather than a contriving system that is full of bad faith and sanctimony.They cannot suggest to reflect the morality of God, because it's presumptuous to assume people are capable of the same reasoning or understanding God has. This being an absurd world, the efforts of men to establish "Babylon" in opposition to divine order can only absurd and ultimately illegitimate, no matter how much they try to emulate divine inspiration.

After all, for those who followed Yahweh this was why Jesus came to fulfill the law, rather than attempt to enforce it as the Jewish revolutionaries hoped; ultimately they would have become hypocrites themselves.

Romans 1: ²⁰For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
²¹Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
²²Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
²³And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
²⁴Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
²⁵Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

I can't speak for Muslims, and by no means do I mean to make any offensive presuppositions, but as Christians we have to walk by faith and not by the law, least we lift up the text more than the author, the law more than our lawmaker, and the text more than the author.

Protesting and Disagreement

2010-04-08T18:14:00.002-05:00

Today I went protesting; the third time I've done so. I joined this guy who tried to organize a demonstration to get signatures for a petition regarding Obama's decision to overturn the moratorium on offshore drilling. As I was the only other person who showed up, we failed to attract much attention; there was the usual slew of people who didn't know anything about it, a few enthusiastic supporters, some reluctant, unsure signers, and then a few interactive ones, who stopped to argue, discuss, what have you.

At the very end I got off track because I saw a Polisci classmate who I know is extremely conservative/reactionary. In good spirits I called him over and asked him what he thought. His response was that he would rather we drill our own oil that import it from countries that support terrorism. I asked him which countries he was thinking of (curious to see his answer, and I'd always thought drugs were larger sources of revenue for terrorists orgs). He mentioned Iraq and Iran, and went on to say how they funded terrorist like the Palestinian Authority.

Hold up, I said. Explain how the PA is a terrorist organization. After all, it's the legitimate governing body for the West Bank and Gaza. He went on to outline how Palestine is an illegitimate state, the Arabs were stealing land from Israel, and that they all just shoot rockets to kill Israelis.

Now this guy and I had been in a Foreign Policy course, during which I wrote a briefing book on US policy in the Mideast and the Roadmap, US participation in the peace process as a member of the Quartet, and having read a few dozen CRS reports about it I felt myself fairly knowledgeable on the issue, and told him there's nobody out there who agrees with him, or who feels that Palestine is an illegitimate state, except maybe John Hagee and some more extreme members of the GOP. Further more, he really offended me because he was suggested that the 5 1/2 million Palestinian refugees "voluntarily relocated" after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. He obviously didn't have his facts right, and he went back to justify Israel's claim on the nation to the time of Christ before the diaspora.

If I haven't been clear before on this, that's a pretty weak justification for the modern theft of people's homes. I could have gone on arguing, but I felt that it would do no good; despite the facts I threw at him, our arguments circled around silly analogies and questions of "when's it ok to say how the borders are set" and his ultimate (conservative) believe that might makes right - literally, when I asked him if the strong decides who owns the land, he agreed. I was incredibly frustrated and annoyed, and I excused myself, very irritated. When later I regretted the way I behaved myself (although I don't think I was too extreme, and he deserved to have his views torn to shreds) I worried that I had offended him; ignorance begets ignorance, and ferverous argument is no way to educate or enthrall people who simply know no better, and have been eating the lies they've always been fed. I found myself in the same area he was a short while later, and came up to apologize. He seemed completely nonchalant; I said "I'm sorry if I offended you, I didn't mean to be personal or anything."

Although it seems important to others to play it off as cool, I know that there is nothing they can say anyway. But it's important for me to also go and make sure that I'm not making myself out to be a jerk, and to humble myself. It's important to be passionate, and to show respect for the capabilities of others to form their own opinions, but at the same time, if you conduct yourself like a tool, nobody will care what you have to say and nobody will respect you. So I would hope not to offend and alienate, not just my own sake, but for my ideas. However, I think it's just lost on some people; I'm apologizing to you because I really am not a jerk, but I still vehemently disagree with you. I just don't want you to think what you probably do think; that I'm scared I hurt your feelings. Hardly. I'm not so worried about that as that I could be capable of it. If I make sure to put myself in that position, it keeps me from becoming unsympathetic and narcissistic. I know I didn't hurt your feelings so much; if I did, then the apology would be more for your sake. But since I didn't, the apology is for me, to prostrate myself because it is better not to be proud, when no good was done.

The one truly serious philosophical problem: world wide suicide

2010-04-07T09:18:00.001-05:00

The title of this post comes from a phrase written by Camus and the title of a Pearl Jam song

There are few things that make sense to me about the world we live in. The Problem of Evil suggests that if God is, then we either cannot presume to understand God's workings or intent. We have gone through all sorts of mental gymnastics to attempt to explain the presence of suffering and pain in this world. If free will is the answer, it seems that from the beginnings of human existence, since humans came out of the proverbial garden, the torment of being overcame the torment of survival. Sartre and the existentialists examined this problem of damnation to choose our existence and self-determination.We are "condemned to be free," which is a common point theists and irreligionists can agree on (but presumably not Calvinists and determinists, who are silly anyway). Whether it is the free will offered by "God" or the natural freedom of individual action that exists in the world, we can also agree that we are influenced by forces greater than ourselves; sociological factors, such as family, peers, society and ideas, but whether our behavior is determined by that leaves the capacity of an individual to decide for themselves in question. Ultimately, we are doomed to find our own frameworks of thought in a world operating by forces outside the ecology which made our hunter-gathering lives much simpler; and the efforts we place into rationalizing the absurdity of our existence produce a strain on the limited creative powers of each man. Beyond this, there are the conflicting interests of our beast-like nature; the hunger of a people versus others. The ideologies and justifications for brutality, exploitation, pursuing satisfaction at a cost to others, and seeing the psychologically twisted whims of some men met despite the irrational and barbaric torment inflicted to the dispossessed.

John Singer Sargent's "Gassed", 1918

We seem to define our existence through conflict and struggle, and Kierkegaard recognized this better than most, when he wrote

Is despair an excellence or a defect? Purely dialectically, it is both. The possibility of this sickness is man's superiority over the animal, for it indicates infinite sublimity that he is spirit. Consequently, to be able to despair is an infinite advantage, and yet to be in despair is not only the worst misfortune and misery—no, it is ruination.

Intelligence seems to be a self-defeating concept, some sort of evolutionary anomaly that begs for self-destruction. Daniel Quinn suggested that when man took fate into his own hands, through the agrarian method and domesticating plants and animals to provide a dependable food source, he gained the power "to decide who lives and who dies" and took that out of the hands of "the gods." Here it was metaphorical for the natural, ecological balance. Yet we have seen a few millenia of our species asserting its superiority, gaining its dominance over the earth, and now we see the expense it causes to the ecology. We can see as the world becomes more interconnected, or smaller as some say, and we gain a wider, broader perspective, with more accurate information about history, behavior, and so forth, our justifications for our existence falter and become somewhat arbitrary validations of our own pet beliefs. Those of us who stop for a moment and take a break from killing each other, pillaging the earth and hoarding up materials we cannot take with us past death are confused by the fixations of others; on "precious" stones, on forcing one's will on another,

There is a sociological model that likens individuals and groups to the organs of a body (I can't remember what it's called or who's responsible for the comparison). If that's the case, and we take the perspective of an social evolution, we can see the rapid advances in the last 200 years since industrialization as though our mouths have learned to chew food better, our arms have become stronger, our stomachs are more tolerant and have a wider pallet. Our feet are swifter, we can traverse the globe in a day or so. Our eyes are more keen, we can see further and sharper into things distant and close. If there's one part of our anatomy that's lacking, it's the brain.

Illustration by Fritz Kahn

Obviously I mean to contrast our scientific advancements with our philosophical ones. Despite all our advances in convenience, automation, and ability, we still seem to be lacking a responsible control mechanism for those abilities; our festering id is placated by a healthy, strong ego, which suits the rationalists, free-market theorists, international relations experts and "just war" theorists who love to see reason suited to meet their needs, bent on one knee to shovel sustenance into the gaping maw of their first world appetites. Meanwhile the super-ego languishes in the care of belittled idealists, people discarded and ignored because "the real world doesn't work that way." It is the story of anyone who has worked for an end to war - with the overarching goal of an end to not just the current war, but all wars. Labeled as naive, some see all wars as part of a continous stream of aggression in various forms and incarnations; like a manifestation of some subconcious demon, war can be construed as a class phenomenon, a mark of religious extremism, or simply the human race trying to kill itself yet again.

What is happening is the hands and arms, strong and nimble after 200 years of progress, have no fine motor control, an under-developed reasoning process, and malicious memes and thought-process like the viruses Richard Dawkins likened them to have taken over and are trying to suffocate the head before these parts of the brain can develop. Like an umbilical cord wrapped around the head of an infant, the selfish desires of men lacking a developed ethical and critical thought process are swiftly removing all the oxygen from the room. While donning their own masks, they are quickly choking the life out of dissenting voices, still in their infancy, still working for that answer that extends beyond the immanence of personal understanding and individual revelation. As this suffocation increases exponentially, is their hope for humanity? Will we discover the "divine" answer that we left the garden to search for? Or is this entropic mistake correcting itself, and will the universe eventually abide in restored equilibrium?

Peace is War/War is Peace - Happy Easter

2010-04-05T11:44:00.004-05:00

Perhaps a little belated in its message, but worthwhile watching nonetheless.

The administration legitimizes the continuing war actions by tying them to popular religious holidays and historically whitewashed conflicts from "the greatest generation," making our current involvement somehow as noble and righteous as any past endeavor to end human life, en masse.

The Fantasy of Israel Pt.. 2 (political invocation of the myth)

2010-03-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

Christian and American Zionism is not new, and it remains a strong root for the nearly unshakable pro-Israeli policy adopted by the US. Despite a half-century of violence, the bombing of a US spy ship in 1967, ongoing crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank, and sometimes conflicting interests, the US has been a steadfast ally of Israel. The AIPAC and pro-Israel lobby works hard to demonize anti-Zionists as anti-semites, and for the establishment, criticism of the state of Israel and Knesset is nearly synonymous with hatred for Jews, thanks to their efforts. This creates a polite, cordial, even cloying swarm of US leaders who continually reaffirm their support for the state as "the only democracy in the Mideast."

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the house and frequent target of the reactionary right, is actually firmly in line with the establishment policy of supporting Israel regardless of it's actions;

There are hundreds of college students here today. Allow me to speak directly to the students. Thankfully, you are too young to have witnessed the darkest chapters of the last century - the Naziism, communism, and authoritarianism. But in your eyes I see the glow of one of the brightest stars of the past century- the founding of the State of Israel... On behalf of all who cherish freedom, thank you for your commitment to the ideal sand values that define our two democracies- the United states and Israel. My grandchildren tell me that this week begins the month of Nisan, the month of miracles, the month of deliverance. And over the coming weeks, Israelis and Jews everywhere will mark the miracles that have brought us to this day: The survivors who endured the darkness of the Shoah and who braved their way to the light of Israel; The heroes of Israeli independence who prevailed against overwhelming odds, And all those who have defended Israel through decades of struggle and sacrifice - including a fallen hero Americans and Israelis mourned together - Space Shuttle ah Columbia astronaut Colonel Ilan Ramon, who literally took the Torah to the stars. This is the spirit that defines the American-Israeli partnership. America stands with Israel now. America will stand with Israel forever. We will never abandon Israel. We will never abandon Israel.God bless you. God bless our men and women serving on the front-lines today. And God bless our special relationship between the United states of American and the State of Israel.- Nancy Pelosi, AIPAC speech, 2003"

"As Israel continues to take risks for peace, she will have no friend more steadfast than the United States. In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel "as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land." The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever. -N. Pelosi, AIPAC speech, May 2005

In the first speech, Ms. Pelosi draws a contrast between light and darkness - the oldest dichotomy of good and evil. The creation of Israel is directly contrasted with Nazism, a reflection of the Western powers guilt and sympathy after the atrocities of Germany were revealed at the end of World War 2. Israel's status as a fellow democracy is re-affirmed, drawing into mind the joys of minds like Francis Fukuyama at the prospect of international globalization and secular free-market democracies triumph over all other types of government, effectively "ending history." Because democracies never attack democracies, there is a subtle suggestion that everyone else is fair game. When speaking about Nisan, Pelosi implies the religious belief in miracles, literally from Moses's exodus to astronauts with sacred texts in space. The heroes of independence she references were responsible for the murder of nearly 800 civilians and prisoners of war, the emptying of nearly 400 Arab villages and towns, and the exile of 650,000-750,000 Palestinains who either fled the country or were expelled from their homes by Yishuv forces.

The strong affirmation of US-GOI relations is linked to the "heroic spirit" of citizen-soldiers both Israeli and American, linking that bond to the powerful image of the warrior in mythology, a strong figure to cultures and states going back to ancient Greek epics, and still significant to nationalistic patriotism (a central theme of recruiting efforts). Finally, she invokes the Judeo-Christian God which Jews and Christians, lapsed and otherwise, can recognize as the same.

In the second excerpt, Pelosi directly cites a biblical theme where each man's nobility is recognized in a kingdom of righteousness, and guarded from the elements of chaos, but she applies that as parallel to America's special protectionism of Israel, an interesting twist of scripture. As Boer points out in Political Myth, the United States has stepped into this text, and the implication of "now and forever" indicates the enduring presence of America into the past as well as the future, The US is the protector of not just modern Israel, but biblical Judea and Israel, and would have surely battled for them against the Romans, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, repeat ad infinitum.

Pelosi is obviously not the only mythmaker for the US, Boer cites Condaleezza Rice as another distortionist for the cause. I'll cite at greater length than Boer:

"In 1776, cynics and skeptics could not see an independent America, so they doubted that it could be so. They saw only 13 colonies that could never hang together and would surely hang separately. But there were others who had a vision, a vision of the United States as a free and great nation, a democracy, and one day, a complete multiethnic society. With perseverance, the American people made that vision a reality. In 1948, cynics and skeptics could not see the promise of Israel, so they doubted it, said it could never be fulfilled. They saw only a wounded and wandering people beset on all sides by hostile armies.
But there were those who had another vision, a vision of a Jewish state that would shelter its children, defend its sacred homeland, turn its desert soil green and reaffirm the principles of freedom and democracy. With courage, the Israeli people made that vision a reality.
Today, cynics and skeptics cannot see a democratic Middle East, so they doubt that it is a realistic goal. They focus only on the despotism that has shaped the region's past and still defines much of its present. But ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake, freedom is on the march in Afghanistan and Iraq and in Lebanon and in Georgia and Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and in the Palestinian territories.
Yes, it is hard and progress is uneven. There are violent men who will stop at nothing to prevent democracy's rise. Yet people all across the Middle East today are talking and demonstrating and sharing their vision for a democratic future. Many have given their very lives to this noble purpose.
The United States and Israel must defend the aspirations of all people who long to be free. And with our unwavering support, we can help to make the promise of democracy a reality for the entire region." - Condoleeza Rice, May 23, 2005

Wow. First, by referring to the "promise" of Israel, Boer points out the way this echoes the "dual promise to Abraham and Jacob of a great people and a great land." "Wounded and wandering" obviously refers to not just the disposia but the 40 years spent in the wilderness while the Hebrews got their act in order and stopped worshiping golden calfs (but started worshiping golden snakes). Sacred homeland is the promised land, which the Canaanites had been wiped out of once, and suggestably must be removed again (incidentally, I remember hearing something awhile back about how settlers call Palestinians "Canaanites" or some slur a variation-therof, but I can't confirm it). "Turn its desert soil green" both suggests a biblical theme of a harvest for those with God's vision, and that the land was not put to use effectively before the foundation of Israel. The truth is the Palestinians are/were an agrarian society that depended on farming, especially olive and pomegranate trees. The IDF has a healthy policy of destroying such orchids or separating farmers from their lands with "the wall" (formally known as the Israeli West Bank barrier).

"Freedom is on the march" sounds eerily like that statist nationalism that loves goosestepping and spit-polish uniforms. It raises the question, who is being marched over? The rest of the excerpt contains the same sort of suggestive overtones that excuse civilian casualties, blames everything on single, insane despots, and justifies, legitimizes, and sanctifies the actions of Israel and the United States in the Middle East to "defend the aspirations of all people who long to be free." As I've wrote before, the United States is less concerned with the human rights of those people than the economic liberties they have and the potential for new markets; or else their concerns would extend to Saudi women who are treated as inferior and frequently murdered in honor-killings by their own family members, Israeli liberal groups who are targeted by their own administration, much less native Palestinians who are likened to Africans under apartheid, due to "a system of control including separate roads, inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and access to land and resources between Palestinians and Israeli residents in the Israeli-occupied territories."

The Fantasy of Israel Pt. 1 (end-time prohecy)

2010-03-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

(For this series I owe a lot of thanks to Roland Boer, an Australian biblical scholar and cultural theorist, for helping to flesh out my own understanding about America's special relationship with Israel through his book Political Myth:On the Use and Abuse of Biblical Themes)

Being raised in a fundamentalist style household, our beliefs were tied to our politics through the works of men like Irvin Baxter and other "End-times" dispensationalist ministers who studied and taught on the book of Revelation. In anticipation of the end of the world, Baxter and others project biblical prophecy onto current events, attempting to identify themes and motifs that could be construed as fulfillment of the text and a mark of the second coming of Christ.

I'm sure most are familiar with at least the general idea. A negative head of state or popular figure is typically identified as the potential anti-christ. Political organizations like the UN are eyed as the prototype for a one world government or a "new world order" as Bush Sr. put it, accidentally inferring those negative overtones. Interestingly enough, globalization and expansive neoliberalism is never considered a threat on the scale of "The Beast"; although suspicions definitely exist in the evangelical and fundamentalist community about a potential single currency like the Euro or the transfer of all their wealth to electronic values, the preconception is that democracy and free markets everywhere is better because individuals will have personal economic liberty. They never seem to question the notion of predatory multinational corporations and the interconnectedness of those interests with state actors.

But anyway, Israel holds a special role in the end-time story because it has a central role in the world war that will summon God back to Earth; it's relationship to Armageddon is endearing to men like John Hagee, a Texas minister who actively and fervently supports Israel to the point where he is synonymous with Christian-Zionism, a belief that the Jews remain the chosen people of God, have retained their special relationship from the old covenant, and must retain the integrity of their state (with all the racial and nationalist overtones that entails).

The relevance of America from a scriptural foundation comes from a unique interpretation of Revelation's vision of four beasts. Revelation 4 references Daniel's vision in Dan. 7, and the first of these beasts is described thus

^"4The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it."

Baxter and others interpret this in a modern day context to represent America. Wait, what does a lion have to do with America? Well, they point to the colonies roots under the British Empire. The lion was long a symbol of England since the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II, as it was part of the coat of arms of the Duchy of Aquitaine, and her son, known as the Cœur de Lion (hidden reference to the title of this blog!) popularized it through his slaughter of Muslims in the Holy Land (while all the while ignoring the problems of his people, according to William Stubbs). Obviously we're talking about Richard the Lionhearted. Anyway, the wings break off the Lion and presumably stand for America... though eagles have long been the symbols of other empires, including the Third Reich, the Romanovs and other extinct regal dynasties, the Napoleonic empire, ancient Rome, and the Byzantines. The above link offers a more interesting source of explanation for the vision, relating it to the Assyrians and Nebuchadnezzar's madness.

The other beasts in Daniel's vision include a bear eating three ribs - which when these interpretations arose was presumably Soviet Communist Godless Russia consuming Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan, or any other 3 arbritrary central Asian or eastern European country - a leopard with four wings and dominion - which they interpreted as Germany (because they have "Panther" tanks! no joke, that was the justification) in it's "Fourth Riech", a boogeyman of political theorists during the 60s and 70s - and "the beast". This last one makes all the others look pathetic, with seven heads, ten horns, iron teeth, "terrible" and strong, which stomps all over everything and basically ruins everybody's day. It also has a little horn with a mouth and it talks and says important stuff, at least in this vision. This and the others are referenced in Revelation, so presumably Paul had the same vision or something.

I keep getting off track. Anyway, dispensationalists with this special belief where end-time prophecy is applied to modern day politics are not the only ones where American consesus for Israel's significance takes root. But I think it's important to recognize their importance to the myth of Israel in the religious conciousness.

Going back to the wings of the eagle, in Revelation 12 there's a "great wonder in heaven", a woman with mystical, celestial adornments who gives birth, and then a dragon (the Devil) comes out of nowhere, casts the stars around her to earth, and is ready to eat her baby (who delivers a "man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron), but he gets away, and she runs into the wilderness, and there's a war in heaven, and eventually...

"to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent."

So, now that we've established all that, Baxter and others interpret this as America's providence to defend Jews in disposia, nearly consumed by Nazi Germany, and then the new nation of Israel, nearly consumed by the heathen hordes of Semetic people not Jewish unfortunate enough to have been born in Palestine. The problem with this thinking (not to mention the preferential interpretation to suit the Zionist ideology's political motives) is that it continues to propegate the idea of the Hebrew race as a chosen people with a special covenant to God, while Jesus and even the diciples went to great legnths to redefine the covenant throught the gospels, Galatians, and other epistles. As Paul writes,

"glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God."

Hebrews was arguably written because of this debate; whether the Jews ought keep being Jews to please God, or that others need bother with the old law. The current attitude of evangelicals and fundamentalists is puzzling; while they certainly don't retain the anti-semetic scorn for "the people that killed Jesus," onenesss apostolics and other evangelicals do not have a very accepting doctrine: "one God, one faith, one baptism" usually means that Jews who are not messianic are still hellbound. Yet they have a special consideration for Israel, despite that the majority of Jews in Israel feel that simply living there and speaking Hebrew is sufficent for God without any other religious observations. Hiloni or Political Zionists enjoy rich herritage and religosity of their country without practicing the more arcane spiritual behaviors. Christian-Zionists (that is, their Jesus-following fans in the US) are oblivious to this; in fact, Hagee claims in his 2007 book that Jesus never claimed to be a savior for the Jews, just for Gentiles. Others have criticised him for this and his apparent claims that Jews should not be converted, yet he denies that he believes this and has promised to explain himself.

Ultimately, the fundamentalist tie to Israeli-American relations is just one aspect of the various cultural roots the Israeli lobby can depend on for support.

More clarifications and random thoughts

2010-03-22T17:19:00.002-05:00

I've set up this blog to make several automatic posts, most of which have published, and I just (again) wanted to go back and explain myself, and I'll try to do it in English.

I'm not trying to say America sucks for the sake of saying America sucks. While anti-americanism is popular, it's completely unproductive and retarded if it's just some fashion statement, or something fashionable people say to sound smart. Like anarchist kids whose political foundation lies in the Dead Kennedys, you can shoot your mouth off about anything abnormal or out of the ordinary to make yourself seem more interesting. Anyone who knows me knows I am not one of those people. Today my wife told me (in her larangitis-induced rasps of semi-intelligent communication) that I looked "preppy" in my new shorts. I told her any time I accidentally adopt the image of first world subculture it's clearly by accident or the subtle works of the great unconciouss manipulation of marketers, as I don't follow those things. She glared at me with eyes that said "I've known you for two years, you said all that to feel good about yourself."

Anyway, the last series of posts (and any others written on that subject) were not written with the purpose of bashing America for the heck of it, or because it's cool, but to provide a very realistic reminder of the sort of manipulation those in power use to justify their actions. If we could all agree that people are terrible in general, and that everyone has done good and bad things, then maybe I'd settle down. But there is an active and powerful force that says "We're better than others" and then serves to justify the exploitation, manipulation, and destruction of those without power.

On another note, I'm finding a very hard time being optimistic about this new health care bill. The pros are considerable; it ensures that you can be covered regardless of pre-existing conditions, it holds insurance companies more accountable than ever before, more coverage for more people, pharma companies get an annual fee imposed on them, and it pisses off the conservatives to no end. On the other hand, it won't cover everybody, we're bound to get a poor quality of minimum coverage, people are still going to get charged tens of thousands of dollars for necessary, life saving proceedures, and compared to single payer UHC, it sucks.

Meanwhile, the weather is beautiful, I'm happy to be alive (I assume it's better than the alternative), and honestly, that's good enough for now.

The Mythmaking of American Exceptionalism Pt. 3

2010-03-21T11:00:00.001-05:00

Based on the last two posts, it's pretty much obvious that conservatives base the pathos of their rhetoric in the Christian lexicon. But it doesn't really explain how the roots of exceptionalism lie in religious language and thought. For that I'd have to turn to one of two books (the other of which is not around right now, and I'll use it later in a post about the Israel myth and America's role in it). Richard Hughes is a great writer who basically destroyed the myth of a "Christian America" in his appropriately named "Christian America and the Kingdom of God." In this and other books of his, he identifies and analyzes several claims, including that America is a "chosen nation". This is a nationalistic myth that's been repeated many times over around the world; from the Third Riech to "Rule, Britannia!" and further back. Any nation with imperialistic aspirations has to justify it's intentions and even its existence with mythological overtones that tie it to deeper cultural roots for greater significance (something I discussed in the previous post). I would argue especially the United States: as the country has no significant cultural identity it hasn't appropriated from outside itself, aside from the Hollywood creation of the "Old West"and the WASP dominated homogeneity of the 40s and 50s. While there are significant American cultural achivements such as jazz, baseball, and some literary and artistic movements, none of them are as identifiable with the country as they are with the people who inspired them, all of whom were influenced and led by forces outside the country. And some would argue that's true of everything; nobody lives in a vaccum. But I digress!

The chosen nation myth, Hughes writes, has been repeated from the Puritans to the present day. William Tyndale was a biblical translator that lived in the 1500s who found the twin themes of covenant and chosen people especially compelling; that God would bless those who honored "Him" (I use the language of the day) , and smite those who disobeyed. He felt this applied to England, and the concept stuck with the Christians who made a literal exodus to the colonies. A national coveneant is central to the theme of the old testament, and "New England Puritans typically understood themselves as God's New Israel", led out of bondage into the promise land. Amazing that the anti-semites of old England likened themselves to the Jews and Jeruselam through their hymns (" And did those feet in ancient time/Walk upon Englands mountains green") and religiousness, as an exceptional kingdom beset by enemies (the continent & everybody else).

Hughes reflects how "numerous New Testament passages redefined the meaning of chosen to point not to Israel alone, but to all in every nation." American ministers and politicians ignored this as it failed to suit their purposes, and men like Albert J. Beveridge, senator of Indiana, used Christian justification to support imperialist agression, in the United States and Teddy Roosevelt's annexation of the Philipeans in the early 1900s. As cited by Hughes, he said

God has not been preparing the English-speaing and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration... he made us master organizers of the world to establish systems where chaos reigned... and of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the redemption of the world.

The "redemption" of the Phillipeans included the Moro Crater Massacre, in which more than 600 unarmed Muslim villagers (including many women and children) were slaughtered by American troops. God's will (at least according to Beveridge) was indeed furious, to put it mildly.

To jump ahead, a similarly selfish and ignorant justification existed when Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize recently - although he has done a great deal to avoid promoting American exceptionalism, he said

I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests -- nor the world's -- are served by the denial of human aspirations. So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal.

These statements, although in oposition to the blatant patriotic fervor of Bush, still echo an Americentric perspective (which is natural for an American president to have!), but more seriously, ignore a long and rich history of underhanded aggression motivated by personal and selfish interests - whether they be strategic, economic, or containing ulterior goals (such as the many, many "externalities" of cold war interference for the sake of global posturing with Russia. Obama is honest when he links the "denial of human aspirations" to America's interests. As Coolidge said, the business of America is business, and as I'd extrapolate from that, expansive neoliberal globalization is closely related towards an individual's ability to be manipulated by those open markets. We are not so much worried with the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (at least 869,720 deaths as of Feb 16, 2010 according to this site) as we are with the economic liberties and opportunities of the markets there. That's why a corrupt, US approved government is so important.

There's more to write on this, but limited abilities with which to do so. Most important is to remember that American exceptionalism is a nationalistic tactic that will always extend to US interests regardles of their implications, and to a lesser extent, the behavior of allies such as Israel, the UK, and so forth.

The Mythmaking of American Exceptionalism Pt. 2

2010-03-19T11:00:00.000-05:00

Brian Calfano of Missouri State wrote a paper entitled "God Talk: Religious Cues and Electoral Support," which is pretty great stuff:

...Republican candidates employ a type of religious code in their political speeches. Their intention is to cue the support of religiously conservative voters without alienating other voters who may not share the same social issue agenda. We assess the efficacy of this GOP Code on the support of voters in specific religious traditions in an experimental setting. As expected, the Code proves to be an effective cue for white evangelical Protestants, but has no effect on mainline Protestants and Catholics. The form and function of the Code expands our understanding of religious influence, and broadens the spectrum of cues the electorate uses.

Three statements from Kuo's "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction" (which I really gotta read) are specifically recognized:

“We have this land, and we’re told to be good stewards of it, and each other” (land statement).

Each of these references a biblical theme or specific example from scripture which ties to conservative and traditional religious values. Stewardship (not in the sense of Environmental Stewardship discussed in my last post) is a great conservative concept because it entails the ideas of individual responsibility versus social responsibility, personal privacy and economic liberty, etc. This first statement reflects the importance of property rights to the conservative, neoliberal, corporatist ideology. Not that the Republicans are the only ones with these values, but they certainly don't hide their love for capitalism, externialities and all. Because if you don't have land, who cares? There are many sources for this biblical value, including Luke 16:1-17:10

“I believe in an America that recognizes the worth of every individual, and leaves the ninety-nine to find the one stray lamb” (worth statement).

This is a little more tricky. Conservatives are not exactly known for valuing human rights and civil rights, but the key here lies in the usage of the word "worth." By worth, what is meant by "potential" - potential for profit, production, success, economic potential, whatever. "Leaving the ninety-nine to find the one stray lamb" refers to the way that America is not worried about abandoning its domestic priorities to find hapless, defenseless poverty stricken peoples under the boot of American-supported dictators they can dispose of at their leisure to justify a grossly inflated military budget. But the parable they're referencing is found in Matthew 18 (among other places), and exemplifies the care of a shepard for one of his many sheep. Only politics could distort that message of compassion to use it as a subtle justification for war.

“There is power, wonder working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people” (power statement).

This one is just a "hey aint we great" statement so I don't really see the point in deconstructing it.

What I personally think (right now)

2010-03-18T14:20:00.000-05:00

Since I'm going to be publishing a lot of stuff on the way other people think, it's probably important to write this down; I most defiantly do not agree with a majority of what I'm writing about. While ideologies and paradigms are typically rooted in some form of reasoning, and respectfully, each person can speculate about whatever they want, there are obviously more negative and detrimental ideas out there that potentially exclude and harm others. Despite the possible hypocrisy of excluding the people I'm writing about from what I consider "reasonable," I think there is a lot of ground for lunacy out there as well.

Honestly, "what I think" is a very selfish sort of phrase. It suggests that somehow, your personal feelings and ideas are original and unique to you, the singular, when in truth we are all affected by the forces, influences, and arguments beyond us. Philosophies and beliefs trickle through various reinterpretations of subconscious sentiments to where they have crystallized into a single idea, which is weighed against and countered by other ideas, crystallized from their own heritage of thought. "What I think" is the personal accumulation of all the conflicting ideas in my head one has been exposed to through their society (and one's own personal explorations outside of that society, if you're into reading weird stuff or music from other countries or watching foreign film and that sort of thing).

So, when I write about people who believe in America as the divine protector of the defenseless, hopefully you'll recognize the sarcasm and it won't be lost amidst the verbiage. I have a bad habit of argumentum verbosium, which is a fancy way of saying I may pretend to sound smart to legitimize my arguments, but really, I'm just typing whatever comes to mind. I'm not a particularly pretentious sort of person, because pretentiousness implies insincerity and exaggeration. I just have a lot going on upstairs (mostly confusion), and limited means to explain myself.

I've had a very religious start to my life, and as I contrast the ethical, biblical example of a pacifistic, altruistic, compassionate divine example with the bloodthirsty and spiteful backstabbery of humans outside and in the chuch (any church really, it doesn't matter) I've grown extremely hostile towards the efforts of some to dissolve a separation of church and state, or to use Christian themes and justification for unjust and amoral behavior. It's mere manipulation of others personal beliefs for ones personal gain. I'm more fond of Tolstoy's idea of Christian anarchism, where spiritual disciples who meditate on this positive, compassionate example are like the pure men Disraeli imagined when he said "Where men are pure, laws are useless. Where they are corrupt, laws are broken." As for secular government, nobody can force their personal beliefs on others if their not based on shared values.

Of course, I don't believe I can define myself by a specific set of values; existentially it would be dishonest, "bad faith." For now I'm working towards a greater understanding within the framework of my own personal experience, as I think we all are. But it's important to also not get "tunnel vision" on this journey; ethnocentric or cultural bias against alternative ways of thinking is a highbrow means of bigotry. Arguments must be substantial and meaningful, and you can't dismiss ideas because of superficial reasons (like the use of entheogens, for example). I'm a big fan of Jungian thought, and Campbell's work on mythology, so I think we all have similar psychological roots in prehistory, and the evolution of human thought echoes subconscious themes we all share. Unfortunately most of the diversity of thought in the world has been destroyed in favor of Western thinking, Daniel Quinn's Taker society, capitalism and irreligious Christianity.

I probably sound crazy. I'll stop now.

The Mythmaking of American Exceptionalism Pt. 1

2010-03-18T01:28:00.000-05:00

This is a fun one for me. It's a pretty simple thought process to look at countries from an existentialist standpoint and ask "what makes one nation 'better' than another?" Most the sentiments and reasons people give are superficial, and the feelings we have about our preferred state actor are typically arbitrary. Making an argument with logical reasoning, there are plenty of ways to rank a country, from indexes like the Global Peace Index and the Fund for Peace's Failed States Index, to raw numbers like GDP, GNP, troop levels, military spending, but given the myriad amount of factors that go into each number, it's nigh impossible to say one state is objectively better than another simply because of some logistical data. More often, those figures are used to enforce an argument of exceptionalism which ties into cultural or subjective bias. The rhetoric of such arguments is pathos, and they play on personal prejudices and bias for a nationalistic theme, which demagogues effectively weave fallacies together for impassioned speeches. Example:

At the time when this famous historical battle was fought in Kosovo, the people were looking at the stars, expecting aid from them. Now, 6 centuries later, they are looking at the stars again, waiting to conquer them. On the first occasion, they could allow themselves to be disunited and to have hatred and treason because they lived in smaller, weakly interlinked worlds. Now, as people on this planet, they cannot conquer even their own planet if they are not united, let alone other planets, unless they live in mutual harmony and solidarity. - Slobodan Milosevic, 28 June 1989

Arguments for American exceptionalism don't exist, as the concept was long ago integrated and accepted in Western thinking. These days, most of the effort goes into deconstructing the myth and putting it in it's legitimate context. It may seem like a moot point to some, as there's been a steady decline in trust for the establishment since Watergate, and everything from Zinn to Haliburton has put a healthy disdain for the government in a large percent of the population, but exceptionalism continues to thrive when people reshape it's meaning to apply to the spirit of the American people, rather than our institutions. And the myth grows stronger each time it's referenced for the motives of the moment. Often, it's tied to biblical themes - as in the "city upon a hill" parable from Matthew 5:14, which was referenced by JFK in 1961, and then again by Ronald Reagan in '84 and '89. GWB was very fond of using Christian themes to reinforce his points; on 9/11/02, he said "Our prayer tonight is that God will see us through and keep us worthy. Hope still lights our way, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it." His use of biblical-style rhetoric during the war of aggression in the Mideast earned him a great deal of (deserved) criticism from those who saw it as a modern day crusade. Obviously, reworking the historical Jesus, or even a redemptive positive, merciful, forgiving, accepting Jesus is necessary for tying political goals to deeper religious sentiment when those goals fly in the face of anything but the most fundamentalist version of Christianity.

That's why it's usually necessary to either be specific about what aspects of Christianity one wants to refer to. Unless you transform the radical, socially and personal Jesus into something that inspires Weber's idea of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, you have to count on YHWH for the blood and guts and fire and brimstone stuff. In his time, Jesus emphasized the compassion of God rather than God's holiness which put him at odds with the Pharisees of the day. These challenges to the social structure inspired by the Pentateuch made the social barriers of clean/unclean an affront to divine compassion. That made his gospel one of personal relationship rather than social order, making it a personal cause rather than a nationalistic one concerned with social norms.

Stewardship vs Dominance

2010-03-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

I'm taking an Environmental Policy course as part of my Political Science minor, and something we've discussed is the role of the Dominant Social Paradigm versus the New Environmental Paradigm. Another name for the DSP is a Human Exceptionalism Paradigm. Paradigms are epistemological thought patterns: "a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind", similar to ideologies, memes, a frame of mind, way of thinking, what have you. All of which interest me greatly, because our personal behavior is dictated by the cultural values of our society, which can be compiled into these paradigms. Paradigms are like a religion with (most of) the mysticism distilled and removed. Anyway, here's a flowchart that explains the relationship between a DSP/HEP and the NEP (though I don't understand the purpose of the arrow marked "social change". I wish I could get ahold of the paper)

HEP is the traditional way of thinking - anthropocentric and industrialized sociological progress, which progresses towards a consumptive culture because of its disregard for biodiversity and ecology. NEP suggests a new philosophical framework, or a different cultural value system, the likes of which people like Derek Jensen are screaming for...

"there absolutely needs to be the creation of a new culture with new values (or, really, tens of thousands of cultures, each emerging from its own landbase, including the re-emergence of extant indigenous cultures). But the people involved in that cultural creation must see themselves as part of a resistance movement that supports and encourages action against the forces that are dismembering our planet, or, at least, that doesn’t actively discourage organized resistance whenever the subject is raised."

Of course, paradigms are more powerful when they have a mythological base to build the superstructure upon. Artificial social movements with an intellectual foundation like Marxism and Esparanto are usually not nearly as successful as a culture with a long, colorful history of art, literature and philosophy justifying and extolling its virtues, like Christianity, capitalism, and just about every state actor on the planet from France to Japan. You could extend that argument to help explain the failure of African countries, created from artificial colonial divisions which contained and divided various tribes with their own cultural histories. But I digress...

Environmentalism in and of itself is not a very powerful paradigm for that reason; it is biocentric, seemingly irrational, and seems regressive in the light of the last two hundred years of industrialization. It has no root in Huntington's "modern" civilizations or even between Barber's "McWorld" and "Jihad," although one could certainly imagine that McWorld and globalization wouldn't care for an environmental ethos. Jihad, or third-world tribalism, doesn't care too much either, in its desperate competition it'll use whatever resources are possible to keep its integrity against its neighbors. But I don't feel like thinking about what game theory might say about the ethics of environmentalism in the anarchy of international relations and the competitiveness of world systems etc etc.

The origin of the HEP are open to speculation; though there are three very interesting extrapolations to an answer using Christianity as the root cause. Those responses come from the work of Lynn White in 1967 -

White, himself a Christian, concluded that many of our environmental problems could be traced to the Christian notion that God gave this earth to humans for their use and specifically directed humans to exercise dominion over the earth and all of its life forms. While it is questionable that this is what White intended, the effect of the piece has been to serve as an indictment of Christianity as the source of our environmental problems, and to render laughable the idea that Christianity might have anything to contribute to our environmental crisis. As essayist Wendell Berry has observed, "the culpability of Christianity in the destruction of the natural world and uselessness of Christianity in any effort to correct that destruction are now established cliches of the conservation movement."

It's an understatement to say Christians are not known for their environmental causes. Indeed, a significant percentage of them are dispensationalist, which affects their policy makers and Christian attitudes regarding the environment.

"Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the Apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the Rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a Word? Many End-Timers believe that until Jesus' return, the Lord will provide."

More succinctly put,

Now, a response to challange that type of thinking and create a new mythos for an environmental paradigm using the most popular religious framework would be to suggest an alternative set of values than the traditional, flippant dispansationalist approach. The root of this thinking usually starts in the begining... literally, with Genesis 1. I'll go KJV since that's what fundamentalists love.

²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
²⁸And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

So most look at this and say, "it's pretty cut and dry, see, God gave us 'dominion' over the earth, and that lumber would be better off in my living room as a nice chaise instead of part of that old-growth forest where it's been for a couple of decades..." and they go from there and say that Earth was created for our use. Much in the same way people used to think that the Earth was the center of the universe, they think that "Man" is the center of the biosphere. Dominance is the current, accepted social paradigm.

But there is an alternative - the idea of stewardship of the Earth still has anthropocentric roots, but in combination with relevant scriptural background, we can create a new value system that recognizes several key points, including -

God has a Relationship with All of His Creation (Psalm 96:10-13. Isaiah 43:20-21.
Deut. 32:1-2. Job 37:14-18. Psalms 104:25, 27. Matt 6:26. )
God's Power is Seen in Nature (Joshua 2:11. Romans 1:20. Psalms 104:24. )
God Calls All of His Creation to Worship (Psalm 19:1. Isaiah 55:12-13. Nehemiah 9:6. Psalm 8:3-8. I Chron. 16:7,30-34. Rev 5:13. Job 9:5-10.)
God Teaches Humans through Nature (Job 12:7-10. Romans 1:19-20. Isaiah 11:9. )
God Expects Humans to be His Stewards with Nature (Genesis 1:26. Lev. 25:23-24. Ezekiel 34:2-4. Ezekiel 34:10. Ezekiel 34:17-18. Isaiah 24:4-6. Jer. 2:7. Luke 16:2,10,13. James 5:5. Mark 4:19. Revelation 11:18. )

If Christians can recognize biocentric values through a re-examination of scripture, perhaps environmentalism can assume a powerful aid in one root of mythos - the notion of Christian Environmentalism. My personal hope is that we can transition to this state soon; if we can abandon the tradition mindset of materialist-oriented, prosperity theology, "scorched earth" ideas on how we should live, and move to the immaterial, altruistic and conscientious ideas of being and living the church in the here and now, maybe, just maybe, we can see a new trend emerge... or maybe that's me just being optimistic.

As for what I personally think? More alienating, optimistic idealism for another post, another time. Besides, figuring out what others think is much more interesting to me.

Glenn Beck and Demagogues

2010-03-13T13:50:00.000-06:00

I've been fascinated by Glenn Beck over the years. As a kid I would overheard the angry and entertaining rhetoric of conservative talk show hosts like Jay Diamond, Michael Savage, and my favorite, Bob Grant. My dad would have News Talk 77WABC and 710 WOR out of New York playing most of the time when I was really young, and I think one of my favorite songs was The Pretenders "My City Was Gone," with its fat bass oozing out the stereo right before Rush Limbaugh would ruin it with some nonsense about whatever was on his agenda to complain about that day.

(A frame from Rush Limbaugh Eats Everything, an old cartoon floating around the web and now only available here)

In the last decade Glenn Beck has emerged to sometimes eclipse the significance of Limbaugh, now like some wizened old emperor in his $44 million dollar Palm Beach home now only emerging in the political spars of Robert Gibbs and Rahm Emannual. That would make Beck the conservative's Darth Vader, right down to his belabored breathing and deep-set, inward passion for what really matters to him: America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HWKzobeya4

Lately, Beck accidentally pissed off a large portion of his target audience, namely Christians, with comments about how social justice is a "code word" for communism and Nazism and that churchgoers who are part of congregations that emphasis such efforts should leave. This spawned a large response from the religious community, including the statements of a Rev. Jim Wallis who urged Christians to boycott Glenn Beck. Surprisingly, that's about the extend of the expected public outrage, as even though Beck reiterated his claims
and extended them to say

Where I go to church, there are members that preach social justice as members–my faith doesn’t–but the members preach social justice all the time. It is a perversion of the gospel. … You want to help out? You help out. It changes you. That’s what the gospel is all about: You.

Obviously this venerable biblical scholar is a believer in prosperity theology; 3 year ago he signed a contract for $50 million over 5 years, even he doesn't seem to have any strong advertising sponsorship, thanks to an effective grassroots effort to destroy his corporate support. But Beck's comments may be reflective of a deeper trend in American Christianity. It's a very old, very popular trend, the doctrine of Me.

Demagogues are effective public speakers who address the emotions of their audience to gather populist support for their ideas. Most modern political rhetoric works this way, but demagoguery is unique because it uses religious and nationalist themes to appeal to personal prejudices and fears in the target audience. Huey Long is a great example of a modern American demagogue, a Louisianan politician who portrayed himself as an everyman yet accumulated the largest amount of political power for one man in his time. The man went from being govenor to a senator of the state, yet retained control through his own puppet governor. Had he not been assisinated in 1935, there was no telling where his ambitions would have taken him. His methods were to speak directly to average citizens about their fears and wishes, and promise to use his limited abilities to achive their "shared" goals.

Religious ministers can do the same thing; they can appeal to the individual, about what benefits them personally, what their cares and concerns are, and how they can achieve personal satisfaction if they accomplish XYZ, or whatever the bullet point of the sermon is. Sometimes, Christianity is just a verbal framework for individuals to archive their own populist platforms of personal power. In a media theory class, I wrote a paper deconstructing Televangelism through Marxist analysis. Public figures like Joel Olsteen and Benny Hinn don't have much of a deep theological root to their ministry or any significant doctrine they follow, but they teach a strong, populist message of personal betterment and well-being through faith and positivity. The Prayer of Jabez is probably one of the best examples of prosperity doctrine taking nearly coperal form and convincing people how God's just a candy machine you can plug yourself into and get goodies out.

Social justice is the exact opposite of this mentality. On one hand we have a desire for personal power, a higher quality of life, and individual satisfaction. On the other there is a motive for decentralized power, a standard of living that's fair to everybody, and community wholeness. Altruism and sacrifice are inherit to the social gospel aspect of Christianity that stands opposed to prosperity theology. Richard Hughes wrote a great book called Christian America and the Kingdom of God that goes over this dichotomy and he writes

John Dominic Crossan's observation that the struggle between human civilization... and the kingdom of God... 'is depicted inside the bible itself... The Christian Bible forces us to witness the struggle of these two transcendental visions within its own pages and to ask ourselves as Christians how we decide between them.' Crossan's conclusion bears repeating: 'We are bound to whichever of these visions was incarnated by and in the historical Jesus.

Hear that Beck? We gotta act like Jesus. I know you're a Mormon and you wear crazy space underwear in the shower or whatever, but instead of ignoring 2000 years of philosophical thought and biblical studies on the subject, why not try out those values of altruism and sacrifice?

There are concessions on some levels. Sure, social gospel can be an ethnocentric concept that ignores the postmodern relativism necessary for cultural equity in a globalized world, but Christians can show their values of love and charity without shoving their bibles down others throats. It is possible to work in a soup kitchen without dropping a track in everybody's bowl of stew. Maybe on some level, social justice means wealth redistribution, which would definitely scare Beck and his cool $50 mil. But it doesn't mean that it's the same as Nazism or Communism. Obviously this won't matter to whoever is left in the audience, who are either willfully and deliberately ignorant or just oblivious to the differences. Beck is doing what he and his ilk do best; pandering to the prejudices and fears of his audience for a nationalistic purpose. They want people who were lazy through high school and smoked pot to die of an infection because they don't have health insurance, because it means they were right, and now those lazy SOBs are being punished for not sharing the same red-blooded values as we do, by Gawd! Reaching a hand out? I'll put a boot up your ass, in the words of Toby Keith!

The lack of public outrage is a good thing, though. As others have said, maybe we're just being Christian about the whole thing. Or perhaps, the best way to respond is to keep on keeing on:

Keep loving your neighbor, and keep fighting for the poor and the oppressed. Do everything you can to bring down whatever unjust structures you believe exist in this country and on this planet, and always keep the values of charity, hope, and love in your heart.

Anyway, demagogues are only as powerful as their audiences. Case in point:

Being lazy and stuff

2010-03-11T00:29:00.000-06:00

So, I haven't updated this blog in a loooong time. Which is OK, cause nobody's been following it anyway. Most of the time I cram whatever thoughts I have into a concise bubble others can synthesize however they like. Such is the age of twitter. But like every 100 page journal you buy at the bookstore, write 2 entries in and then promptly leave in the corner to be forgotten, these things inspire latent guilt which turns to self-loathing if your attention ever roams back over it. In light of that, I think it's fair to say I should try harder... if not for you, future generations? Hah, yeah right.