Ten Commandments

Does anyone really know what the 'Ten Commandments' are?

First of all, there are seven distinct traditions which divide the seven verses in Exodus differently regarding the numbering of the so-called ten commandments.

Almost all (6 of7) agree that the first is "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me", one makes it the second, counting the prologue "I am the Lord your God" as the first

Some (4 of 7) count "You Shall Not Have False Idols" as the second, two other combine this with the first and call it the first

The next few have 4 of 7 agreeing, while the other 3 are one step behind:

"You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain" is third/second

"Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy" is the fourth/third

"Honor Thy Father and Mother" is the fifth/fourth

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" is the sixth/fifth, although one version counts it as the seventh commandment

"Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" is the seventh/sixth, although since one source reverses this and the previous command, it is 3 for seventh and 4 for sixth

"Thou Shalt Not Steal" is eighth/seventh

"Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (Lie?) Against Thy Neighbor" is ninth/eighth

"Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House" is 6 for the tenth (some combined with the following) and 1 for the ninth

"Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" 5 of 7 combine it with the previous for tenth and two call it the ninth

"Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Stuff" - all call it the tenth combined with either one or two of the previous

(4 of 7 combine all 3 "covets" into #10, 3 combine 2 of them in various ways)

Even though there are actually thirteen commandments, if you count every one that at least one tradition considers a separate commandment, the bible, just before the listing, specifically calls them ten commandments (or words, sayings, or matters), but does not clearly delineate where one "saying" ends and another begins. Maybe whoever wrote it thought it would be obvious, or that it was unimportant. Here they are separated out and listed in order:

1. I am the Lord your God
2. You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me
3. You Shall Not Have False Idols
4. You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain
5. Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy
6. Honor Thy Father and Mother
7. Thou Shalt Not Kill
8. Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
9. Thou Shalt Not Steal
10. Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (Lie?) Against Thy Neighbor
11. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House
12. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife
13. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Stuff

Periodically there are legal disputes about posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses and in government buildings. The rationale being that the commandments are all basic moral/ethical stuff and no one should have any problem with them, even if hey did originate in a religious book. There are some problems with that position. Some of them are hard core religious and not just "do unto others..." stuff.

The first three to five, depending on how you're counting, address who you should be worshipping, when you should do it, and how you should talk about the god who is the object of this worship. For anyone who worships a god different from the god of the bible, this is not something that they they would want to do and it certainly shouldn't be displayed in a government setting. If you think that the whole world, or at least the whole country, consists entirely of Christians and Jews (and depending on how you view Allah, Muslims), then you might have no problem with this. But that's not the reality - there's a large number of people who worship or honor different gods (or no gods at all) - in addition there's that pesky First Amendment.

The "covet" prohibitions are also problematic. Most people would agree in theory that these are things that you shouldn't do, but when you get down to it they are prohibitions against thought not actions. So once again, this comes down to strictly religious rules, not anything that could or should be encoded into secular law.

Honoring your parents (unless your parents are evil bastards), no stealing, lying, killing or cheating on your spouse...I'll give you those. The Five Commandments.

Disagreement is Dead

I'm pretty sure that I commented on this once upon a time, how no one talks to each other any more, how we engage in warring memes and refuse to have a real discussion about anything. People post a picture with a caption that reduces a complex situation to a misleading and overly simplistic one-liner, often in a confrontational manner. Then, when someone points out that the meme is wrong, or even that they simply disagree with it, then all discussion is shut down. And that's the best case. Many times the act of disagreeing is treated as an attack or something that one should just not have a right to do.

Maybe it's always been this way and the internet has just made the situation more obvious. After all the adage "Don't talk about religion or politics" has been with us for a long time.

False Equivalency

I've seen several things posted this past week, making a comparison between the shooting of unarmed black men by police officers and in one case, the shooting of police officers in the line of duty, sometimes at traffic stops and in another case, the shooting of a white waitress by three black criminals. The first evidentaly came from a police officer or the family of a police officer making the point that many officers are shot and killed in the line of duty and no one protests; there is little if any media coverage. The writer makes the rhetorical point that maybe cops' lives are viewed as less important than the lives of criminals, or as the writer calls them "low-life scumbags". The other article is a bit more racial in orientation. It refers to a killing of a white waitress by three black men. Similar examples circulated following the killing of Trayvon Martin. The article about the waitress mocked President Obama's comments that if he had a son he would have looked like Martin. The point was that we sensationalize the killing of blacks by whites and somehow the killing of whites by blacks is ignored.

I'll adress the second example first. The majority playing the persecution card is not an unknown phenomenon. The most common example in the United States is the frequency of Christians, the overwhelming cultural and numerical majority in this country, complaining that atheists, a tiny and marginalized minority if there ever was one, are "taking the country away from them". Other countries are not exempt - the huge Hindu majority in India is run by a political party that makes paranoia about Muslims their main policy. The United States is still majority white and its power elites are overwhelmingly white, notwithstanding a half black man in the White House. Yet many white people get enraged when there is news coverage of a white person killing a black person. Examples of black-on-white crime are trotted out as examples of the media conspiracy. But other than the recent focus on police officers and last year's Martin-Zimmerman case, can anyone think of an example where there was extensive media coverage, outside of local coverage, of a white person killing a black person? Can't do it? Me neither, because it's usually not news. The principal reason that Zimmerman's shooting of Martin became news was the highly unusual nature of the shooting. Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch guy, in contact with the police through the 911 operator, who shot an unartrmed teenager who was in his own neighborhood doing nothing but walking home. He was where he was supposed to be and there is good reason to believe that he would not have attracted Zimmerman's attention if he had been blonde, blue-eyed and wering a polo shirt instead of a hooded sweatshirt. Other anomalies can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/blackonwhite-crime-and-th_b_1521775.html

The other issue is the number of police killed in the line of duty versus the number of police killings of unarmed civilians. There is a hint of "suck it up" in this equivalency. But it is a false equivalency. Police know that they will encounter criminals who will resist arrest and try to kill them. It is not a surprise that a criminal will act in a criminal fashion. As the son and brother of police officers, it saddens me whenever I hear of a police officer dying in the line of duty. But it's part of the job. And police kill criminals every day as well. To quote a few figures that I found while researching this issue - there have been between 700 and 800 killings of police officers nationwide since 2009, that's about 130-135 per year; this figure comes from several websites in support of the police (the FBI reports just 27 for 2013). On the other hand, the FBI reports that in 2013 alone there were 461 reported "justifiable homicides" by police. Some estimates put this figure as high as 1000 per year, since many jurisdictions do not report to the FBI. Taking even this low figure for the police on civilain and the high figure for civilain on police there are 3 1/2 times the number killings by police as there are of killings of police. And of those hundreds of police killings, how many made the national news? A handful? Hardly a media conspiracy.

What makes some of these killings newsworthy is when an armed police officer kills an unarmed man, often in situations that suggest racial profiling if not out and out racism. The Michael Brown case, while there was evidently serious provocation from Brown himself, was in the end another example of an officer killing a man who did not have the capacity for deadly force. Other cases are more egregious and do not have the questions that the Brown case did. We expect the police to act with restraint, to ascertain that there is no other alternative before shooting someone. We expect the police to be trained, to know how to handle unruly or dangerous people. We do not expect them to act like the criminals, the thugs, the scumbags that are gunningb their fellow officers down. We expect them to be professionals, not just, as the character Sam Vimes observers in Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, another gang.

A Religion of Peace? Part One

The first time that I heard the phrase "Islam is a religion of peace", George W. Bush was attempting to forestall a vigilante backlash against American Muslims while at the same time trying to paint our response to the 9-11 attacks as something other than a "crusade" against Islam and Muslims.

The typical American perception of Islam and of Muslims has never been particularly enlightened. The mainstream has never really accepted "the other" in our society, preferring to view the United States as a "Christian nation" while, at best, ignoring the presence of other religions as well as the non-religious. While the images of Muslims post-9/11 became worse, Arabs and other Muslims have long been referred to by derogatory names such as "towel-head",  "camel jockey" and "sand nigger" long before the 2001 attacks.

With some religions which have violent adherents, a case can be made at least for some, like Christianity and Buddhism, that the founders were peaceful men, and that it is only their followers who used violence to advance their cause. This is called the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. It refers back to a apocryphal story about someone accusing a Scotsman of some crime. The accuser is then told that it couldn't be, because Scotsmen don't do that sort of thing. The accuser responds that, yes, the perpetrator was a Scotsman whereby he is told that no true Scotsman would be guilty of such. We see this all the time when Christians do un-Christian things and other Christians rationalize it by stating that they aren't really Christians. Sure, it's a logical fallacy, but the fact that the founder of Christianity was peaceful makes it at least plausible.

The same cannot be said for Islam. Their founder, Muhammad, if he existed as described in the Koran, was manifestly a man who spread his new religion by the sword and his successors did the same. There are numerous sections of the Koran that advocate violence: killing of "unbelievers", killing of apostates, killing of conquered people who resist. There do appear to be sections that advocate living in peace with "the people of the book", i.e. Christians and Jews, but others that advocate their eradication. It appears that the Koran defines "peace" as "The Muslims are in charge and everyone else are second-class citizens (if that)". "Peace" is submission to Allah - "Islam" means submission.

There are certainly many Muslims who are not violent, do not support violence in the name of their religion and sincerely believe that Islam is a religion of peace. It seems to me that, similar to many Christians who cherry-pick their beliefs in order to deny the more unsavory parts of the bible, these "peaceful" Muslims mentally edit out the parts of the Koran that they disagree with or find morally repugnant. I do not believe that all Muslims are extremists,  or are potential terrorists, but the book upon which they supposedly based their lives is a book of violence.

I Feel the Rain

I feel the rain in my mind
slippery wet pavement
anchors my sight
Cloudy skies
will speak softly
and I quickly  know
what I didn't know before

Waiting

Waiting
for the other shoe to drop
and for the lightning bolt
to strike
twice

Gaps of Ignorance

The supernatural
ain't so super
Maybe it's unknowable
'cause it's not there
or mysterious in its ways
'cause we haven't
figured out the facts
and insert magic
into the gaps of ignorance

Faith Part Three

In Faith Part One I discussed the cultural influence on people's perceptions and upon their decisions to hold religious faith. One cannot completely escape the opinions and viewpoints of the dominant culture or its impact upon our thought patterns, and any supposed thought-through decision will naturally occur within the context of the majority culture. An example in my own life is my time involved in The Way International. I broke with my family religion, Catholicism, and congratulated myself on my critical thinking skills that I employed to question many of the assumptions of that faith. However, I left unquestioned and unassailed the premise that the bible was a holy book given or inspired by God. All of my questioning was predicated upon the basis of the existence of a God whose attributes were laid out in the bible. Even now, having left Christianity behind, I puff out my chest, impressed with my own logic that leads me to conclude that the bible is myth, yet I still cling to the belief in gods, spirits and an afterlife. Go figure.

Part of what motivates spiritually minded people is laziness. Sticking with your family's religion doesn't really take a lot of effort. How tough is it to just stay on the family faith train without investigating other religious systems, or for that matter, atheism? Lazy...I've never thought of it in those terms until today, but that's what it is. How do you know that [fill in the blank with your favorite religion] is "the truth", is the best way to go, is the ultimate moral authority? You don't, because you've never checked! 

A similar phenomenon occurs when a person with no apparent religious faith, or for that matter any visible moral or ethical compass of any kind, encounters a challenge or change in life and suddenly, magically becomes a religious person! Usually a reversion to the family faith takes place, mainly due to the reason I mentioned earlier - laziness. The change or challenge varies - sometimes it's the birth of a child, an illness, the death of a loved one or some other crisis. they wake up one day and decide that their life "lacks meaning" - and what defines "meaning" better than religion?

The ease with which someone slips back into the familiar religion makes me wonder about what was going through their minds while they were wandering away from the family faith. Were they truly rejecting their parents' god during that time? Or did they just reject the consequences? Or perhaps they were rolling the supernatural dice, hoping that they could do as they pleased without divine retribution? At any rate I have seen enough people who were completely secular run back into the arms of religion later in life to cause me to scratch my head in wonder.

A different type of non-religious person that I find fascinating are the ones who flout the rules of religion, perhaps they're binge drinkers, or drug users, maybe small-time criminals; at the very least they don't go to church! They are not "God-fearing" and seem to hold those that are in contempt, reveling in their  rebellion, yet they will make statements about "going to Hell", or getting struck down by lightning. I'm sure some of these people are just using religious jargon to mock the religious, but I'm fairly sure some of them are serious and have decided that a religion-free life is well worth an eternity of divine punishment. 

Finally, there's the religious people who feel the need to "prove" the existence of their god and the truth of their religion, despite saying that they need no proof. They pray - when things go according to their prayer, then their god is praised, but when things don't go as prayed, then an excuse is made. Coincidences that work in the believer's favor are touted as proof that their god is acting in their favor. Vague feelings are interpreted as a message from the divine. In my observation, the same feelings are interpreted differently depending on ones preconceived notions of spirituality, incidence of answered prayers are never statistically analyzed.

Laziness, wish fulfillment and confirmation bias.

Faith Part Two

Despite the evolution of my beliefs regarding the bible and the god described therein, I still stayed within the mainstream to the extent that I operated under the assumption that there is a world of spirit and that there are supernatural phenomena. Perhaps at some future time I will also reject any belief in the supernatural, but that time has not yet come. I am well aware of the contradiction inherent in my forsaking one set of bronze age beliefs for another.

What I tell myself, and use to convince myself that I am not another religious dupe, is that I leave open the possibility that I am all wrong. The 'spirits' that I encounter may be hallucinations or they may be real. Contact with the dead may be legitimate or wishful thinking. Otherworldly messages might very well be a part of my own subconscious.

In part One I discussed how I moved away from Christianity in general and Catholicism and The Way International in particular. My move toward paganism was somewhat related.

As I was casting about for a religion/philosophy to replace what I had set aside, I reread a book by my uncle, entitled "Celtic Christianity". The references to the ancestral religion of the Irish Celts fascinated me, so I began to do some reading on the subject. Most of what I found on the subject was about modern reconstructions of Celtic religion, as well as books on Wicca and Witchcraft. I had just begun to sort through all the different points of view that I encountered when I met my future wife Susie, a self-described witch who participated in rituals with a group of Wiccans.  I participated myself for a while and later moved on to a five-year course of study with a teacher from New Hampshire, partly through self-study and partly through face-to-face meetings at weekend seminars. I decided to pass on a more personal course through an online apprenticeship, but used his teachings to give me some general direction and a framework of study.

Currently I describe myself as a pagan, although sometimes I use the term "witch" as well. I don't argue with "Wiccan", even I don't think it is accurate, since people are more or less familiar with the term. I honor the wheel of the year during the eight sabbats and wear some pagan jewelry. I honor several gods/goddesses, mainly of the Celtic pantheon and some Irish heroes such as Manannan, Bridget, Lugh and Cu Chulain. I meditate and do shamanic journeying. I look at the gods alternatively as archetypes and higher spiritual beings. I like the quote that I saw once attributed to the Buddha regarding the gods being "silly". In other words I think that they exist, but that they have no more right to dictate how I should live my life than any mortal. I think that there is some form of afterlife, but don't really believe that our personality and "self" as we know it in life survives wholly, if at all.

I reserve the right to change what I believe with no notice as more information comes to light!

Faith

I was raised as a Catholic. As a Catholic kid with two religious, church attending parents, an uncle who is a Catholic priest, educated at Catholic school, and surrounded (mostly) by neighbors who were also Catholic, I did not question the essential correctness of the Catholic worldview throughout my formative years. In this I was quite inside the mainstream of American religious life: most people hold to the religion of their parents, who followed the religion of their parents and so on back through the generations. Despite being surrounded on all sides by Catholic people - family and friends alike - this is not to say that everyone practiced their Catholicism the same way. Many people whom I knew picked and chose what aspects of "the faith" they would act upon and which aspects they could safely ignore. However, even those who did not attend church and for whom the tenets of "The Church" held only a tenuous grasp on their daily lives, the framework, the overall worldview of Catholicism still held sway. There was seldom a conscious thought that it was all wrong, but that one simply didn't follow the rules. There was no real questioning of the basic assumption: that there was an omnipotent, omniscient being who created the heavens and the earth and somehow ran the whole thing.

When I was 19 I encountered through a family member an organization called The Way International. This group claimed to have an understanding of the bible that no one else had; they also claimed to be able to teach keys to interpreting and understanding the bible that anyone could use. Although in retrospect their logic and conclusions were somewhat suspect, they provided me with an alternative to what I had been raised believing. At the time what they were telling me made sense and seemed to be consistent in a way that mainstream Christianity, including Catholicism, was not.

 As it turned out, no one else in my family or circle of friends (with a couple of exceptions) was at all interested in what The Way International had to say about anything. I eventually left The Way for reasons that I'll relate shortly, but during that time, no one in my family, despite their opposition to my involvement, ever took the time to really investigate what The Way was promoting. Most of them were influenced by the anti-cult rhetoric of the times. My parent even considered having me deprogrammed. 

In retrospect I assume that their opposition was primarily to my changing my religion, no matter what it turned out to be. My family wasn't really any different than many others - they did not question the basic rightness of what they were brought up believing. Any differences in what The Way (or anyone else for that matter) taught from what the Catholic Church taught were dismissed as wrong, or even "bizarre" without any real understanding of the biblical or historical basis of either. It was wrong, not because of any objective analysis of its tenets, but because it was different and possibly because I was public and vocal about my beliefs. To this day there are family members who privately question the basic assumptions of Catholic doctrine and the legitimacy of the organization of the Church, but who publicly adhere to the rituals. Relatives who have told me that they don't believe in God, but still cross themselves and murmur the prayers. On some level I understand this: most people have no desire to rock the boat or upset their more religious family members.

Following some internal scandals I took a long hard look at what had been taught in The Way as well as the actions of the leaders of the group and ended up being kicked out for my dissenting views. Up to this point in my life, despite changing religious affiliation, I still believed the basics: that there was an all-powerful, all-knowing God who created everything and that his son Jesus accomplished something, although there are differing interpretations and opinions regarding precisely what that was. Even though The Way and Catholicism seemed worlds apart, they still had the root beliefs in common - they just disagreed about the specifics.

My initial "long hard look" involved comparing what the second president of The Way, Craig Martindale, was promoting compared to the foundational teachings of The Way that had been taught in the Power for Abundant Living class (their introductory, or "foundational" class, which all new Way people sat through before becoming truly involved). My first try at it yielded ten pages of discrepancies. At that point I still believed in the effectiveness of utilizing the keys to interpreting the bible that I had learned in The Way and used these keys to analyze what was being taught. I was not at that time comparing Way doctrine to mainstream, orthodox, Christianity but to what The Way said about itself, judging by their own standards.

There isn't anything, in and of themselves, wrong with the "keys" as taught by The Way. They're pretty simple and at first glance without bias or doctrinal point of view: read what is written, (rather than read into what is written) read the context, understand words in light of how they were used when the bible was written (and when the translation/version being referred to was written), understand biblical era customs, understand figures of speech. Check to make sure that words were accurately and consistently translated from the original languages into English. Pretty standard stuff, obvious stuff.

To me it was obvious that what the current (at the time) leaders were promulgating did not line up with the bible according to their own standards. When my concerns were ignored and rationalized away by Way leadership I began to dig deeper. I began to find problems with what had been taught and accepted in The Way since the beginning. Despite the consistent message and promise that we were being taught how to read, interpret and understand the bible ourselves, if at any time anyone's interpretation or understanding deviated from what VP Wierwille, The Way's founder, promulgated, then a number of things could possibly happen: (1) You could be nicely told that you just don't get it and need to study further and you would be instructed to "hold it in abeyance" until you did get it (2) You would be mocked for your ignorance (3) You would be thrown out of the organization (especially if you knew the talk as well as the leaders) - but it always ended up with Wierwille's view holding sway.

At about this time I became aware of various Way offshoots, or splinter groups, that had split off from The Way in the wake of the death of the founder, VP Wierwille. To my surprise at the time, all of these groups had deviated from what had been taught in The Way, even though they all claimed to be faithful followers of Wierwille and all claimed to be using the "keys". What I got from this nugget of information was that the method of studying and interpreting the bible was nowhere near the foolproof path to truth that I had thought it was. While I had previously thought that the multitude of Christian denominations (and any dissension within The Way) was simply the result of fallible humans refusing to just "read what was written" - I now saw that it was the result of the bible being an extremely unclear set of books that defied an authoritative interpretation.

The contradictions, which The Way always called "apparent contradictions" and bent themselves into pretzels to explain, and the mainstream churches just ignored, were just that...contradictions. And with so many contradictions, how could this collection of writings realistically be anything other than a work of man? And if it were merely a work of fallible men, what compelling reason would there be for believing anything contained therein? The life and sacrifice of Jesus, the ministry of the apostles, the miracles, the existence of God himself was based on a book that has no more authority or reliability than any book in the fiction section of the public library.

At that point I took a bigger step in some ways then the one that I took when I left the Catholic Church behind to join The Way; I stopped believing in the god of the bible.  I stopped praying, I stopped thinking about an afterlife, I stopped viewing anything taught in the bible as binding in any way upon me. 

In some sense I have The Way to thank for this. Despite my discovery that they were doing what they accused everyone else of doing, i.e. reading into what the bible said and devising their own interpretations, what they got me to do was think about what I was reading and to question the conclusions that mainstream churches had come to. 

I have not taken what might be thought to be the logical step of becoming an atheist. Right about the time that my belief and faith in "God" and the bible began to fade, I became fascinated with the pre-Christian beliefs of the Irish, the ethnic group with which I most identify). This led to studying modern Wicca, magick and other neo-pagan beliefs, which I will discuss in a part two.

In my early days of disbelief in the divine inspiration of the bible I gave the authors the benefit of the doubt, that they were sincere people who attempted to put into words their own experiences with the divine, with the world of spirit. The contradictions were the result of there being multiple authors, that every book of the bible was written by a different person, all of whom had differing viewpoints and experiences. However, the more that I really thought about what was in the bible, the less I held on to this view.

Look at the first book of Genesis - a straight up creation myth, not all that different in kind than any other creation myth from any other culture, and like all other creation myths, completely lacking in anything that could be viewed as factual. Look at it metaphorically and it's in the same category of any other myth. Following on the heels of the creation myth is a Flood Story and then the legendary beginnings of the nation. Flood stories are pretty common and most nations and tribes have a legend or myth to explain their origins. Exodus completes the origin legend, then we have 3 ½ books of rules and regulations, many of which don't make sense. Then we have the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, a supposed history of "God's people". Scattered throughout this "history" are exhortations to genocide as well as death sentences for egregious sins such as touching the holy bookmobile or working on Saturday. And let's not forget the Book of Job, a story about how God allows Satan to kill Job's family, plus his hundreds of servants, give him a horrendous disease...all on a bet. Then berates Job for daring to question him. How about the gospels? How about four accounts of the life of Jesus that contradict each other on multiple points? Or the epistles? Read them carefully and they contradict each other as well, and read like propaganda pamphlets reacting to the opposition parties.

Not only is the bible not divinely inspired, but it has so few nuggets of actual morality, so little actual helpful information. It is useless, if not actually harmful. And this is what the majority of people in this country base their lives upon. Or at least say that's what they base their lives upon, without actually knowing the details, or at least ignoring them or rationalizing them away.

At this time in my life, I am not at all surprised that most people are uninterested in logic, consistency rational thought. Back during my days in The Way, I frequently encountered people who got angry at the suggestion that what their church was teaching might be at odds with what the bible actually said. While I now know that much of what was taught in The Way was just as much based on a man's opinion as anything any church was putting out, the concept of wanting to reconcile biblical contradictions and to line up what one was preaching with the holy book alleged to be the basis of said preaching would seem to be what any Christian would want. But even back then I saw that most people wanted  to stick with what they were comfortable with and not be burdened with the responsibility to think. 

What has changed for me since those days is that I have abandoned the idea that the bible is inerrant, or even that it derives in any way from a supernatural being. In the past, even though I did not accept the specifics of my family's faith, I still clung to the belief that the bible was somehow given to us by a supreme being and that it was possible to determine exactly what that supreme being had to say about...everything. Without that presumption, upon what would a belief in anything that's in the bible be based? I know that there are plenty of people who do not hold the belief that the bible is an error-free, god-inspired book yet still "believe in God", or even consider themselves Christians. What mystifies me about these people is that I just don't see what they are basing their beliefs on. If the bible is anything less than perfect, where does your conception of "God" come from?

I'm sure that believers would come up with different answers, if they would even deign to answer the question, but what I see is that most people believe what they believe because they are culturally conditioned to believe so. Even people who have never cracked open a bible or heard a bible verse buy into the culturally dominant view that there is a supreme being-creator-god and that there is a heaven and a hell. People who haven't done anything to align themselves with the bible or "Christian principles" or even actively stand against them still define themselves according to the biblical theistic worldview, talking about their behavior causing them to "go to Hell" upon death, or "God striking them with lightning". They reject the lifestyle, but still on some level acknowledge the supposed consequences of that rejection.

Now the ethical, moral and behavioral framework is an altogether different thing. If someone wants to adopt a lifestyle that reflects what they think Jesus taught, I really have no problem with that, but only if they are doing it because they think that it makes sense, rather than because  they will burn in Hell otherwise or because some deity says so. Living ethically because you are threatened or blackmailed is not really ethical, and blind obedience is just as bad. Is something right because God says it is, or does God say it is because it is right? If the former, then you will likely make all kinds of excuses why genocide, slavery and rape are okay...because the god of the bible endorses them. If the bible were just full of rules for good living with "God said" tacked on, I might chalk it up to personification, but "God said" to do a lot of things that most reasonable people would be appalled at.

Faith...an excuse to refrain from thinking.

Otherside

As part of my spiritual path I meditate. When I meditate I "go" to a place called the Inner Temple where I meet with various gods and spirits, or sometimes just visit landscapes that fit in with the purpose of a particular meditation. Whether this Inner Temple is "real" in an objective sense, or just a part of my consciousness isn't important to me; whether the spirits are actually sentient entities or are a part of my mind and personality is also not important to me. This area of otherness is accessed through the roots of what some cultures call The World Tree. In a meditative or dreamlike state I descend through openings in the roots of this massive tree, down a flight of stone steps that open into a roughly circular room, also hewn from stone. A circular stone altar stands in the middle, with various tools that represent the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Around the circumference of the room are doorways that lead to other areas of the underworld that I utilize in these meditations and shamanic journeyings.

A few months ago I descended in meditation into my Inner Temple. As I reached the bottom step I heard a voice from one of the doorways on my right: "What are you doing here?". I was confused; entities that I had encountered, helpful or hindering, friendly or unfriendly, had always known who I was and what I was doing there. The voice repeated itself and in the shadows of the doorway I thought I could make out the figure of an old man. He stepped through the doorway and I saw my father as he appears in the picture above, how he looked in the last year of his life. I stammered a little and answered "What do you mean? This is my space, I'm always coming here! - What are you doing here?" He started to laugh, and as he did, he changed before my eyes into a younger version of himself - late teens or early twenties and said to me "I don't have time right now, I have things to do." He then (very athletically) sprang through the doorway, which before it closed I could see opened upon a scene of sunny summertime.

I know that most of my family pictures Dad "in Heaven", and surely that's where I'm sure he imagined he would be at life's end, with God and Jesus and Angels and what have you, looking down on us. Maybe. But what I have seen in a few visions since then is that when he went out through that door, he was having fun. That sunny summer scene that I glimpsed through the closing door held a baseball diamond, and a basketball court, and a hockey rink, all the sports that he loved to play and excelled at in his youth, and that he encouraged us kids to play (with varying degrees of success). For most of his life he took care of others and never turned down one of his family if we were in need. He had detailed plans to take care of Mom after he left this world, and even if we didn't need financial help, or specific advice, he was always there to support us. He wouldn't have had it any other way.

The visions that I have seen in meditation show me that he has been shown that he, to paraphrase the bible, has fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith and that he has attained the "crown of righteousness" and can now relax and let the seeds that he has planted and watered, come to fruition. His reward is that he gets to play, knowing that we will all be just fine.

Fundraising

Every time you look up from your smart phone these days it seems like someone is raising funds for something. And all of those someones want local businesses to donate to their fundraising efforts. I can definitely understand a non-government-supported organization that provides community or social benefits needing to solicit donations. For example, I give money to Big Brothers/Big Sisters every year during their bowling fundraiser simply because I believe that they're a worthy cause. As a manager of a local business I donate to local groups as well when they are doing charitable work. What I don't get are situations where fraternal or social groups want a donation so that they can basically throw a party. The Treacle Mine Street Block Party Committee is seeking donations for their annual block party, or The Sam Vimes School of Dragon Training wants some free centerpieces to auction off for their quarterly dragon grooming fest. Or groups of parents wanting you to donate so that their little tykes can go to Paris this Fall. Hell, I want to go to Paris too!  I do have respect for groups that go door-to-door selling candy, or wash cars, or set up a grill (after paying in full for the meat and condiments) to sell hamburgers or hot dogs to raise money for their event. I've been there; when my kids were in the Boy & Girl Scouts we sold popcorn, cookies and even Christmas Trees to raise money. And mostly the money raised for the organization and it's expenses, not to send the scouts to South America for the summer. If you are providing a good or a service in exchange for funds, then you are engaging in good old fashioned capitalism, otherwise, you're simply panhandling.

Another category of people for whom I have huge amounts of sympathy, but deep down don't understand, is the folks who have a stack of medical bills, and no insurance. Sometimes the finances just weren't there, or they lost their job just as they got sick, but often they rolled the dice and gambled that they wouldn't need the insurance and lost. So now the whole town is chipping in to cover the expenses. This is a cause for teeth-gritting when you know that the person lived the high life for a long time, diverting those funds that should have gone to insurance into other activities. It's hard to get holier-than-thou about finances though when someone is dying...being the voice of reason in those situations really makes you seem like an ass.

So the bottom line is that if you want to send your kinds somewhere, or need to pay some bills, or want to throw a party, get a second job, or do a car wash, or just cut back on the beer and cigarettes, stop asking everyone else to chip and and help you pay for it. Or at least stop griping about the people on welfare.

"Ruining"

One might suppose, that with a black/multiracial president occupying the White House, that we as a culture had moved past racism, but it seems to me that in some respects it has gotten worse. While overt racism is frowned upon in the mainstream, it still survives in the little nooks and crannies of life, buoyed by code words and innuendo. Granted, there are some people who "play the race card" when there is no racism, simply to garner sympathy, or maybe because in their minds it's always someone else's fault. However, to believe that every accusation of racism falls into this category is a mistake. Attitudes about groups of people have a certain momentum; the popular conceptions and perceptions invade our minds and shape our viewpoints whether we want them to or not - often even meeting people who do not conform to the stereotypes do not dispel those stereotypes.

But racism is alive and well in the United States and so are those that pretend it doesn't exists and mock those who experience it.

A few recent examples:

Recently there have been some headlines about a guy who is suing McDonald's because "they wouldn't give him more than one napkin". In our culture of  "Don't make me read something longer than a sentence fragment and you'd better include a picture" that has flourished recently several people re-posted the headline and commented about it, without actually reading the article that accompanied it. The man was called an idiot for filing such a frivolous lawsuit. So I read the article and discovered that the man had received only one napkin and was refused more, but that's not what he was suing about. The McDonald's employee, who turned out to be the manager, not only refused to give him a couple of extra napkins, but was rude and eventually abusive toward the customer, who accused him of making racist comments. Now, having been in the customer service business in one form or another for most of my life, I can't understand why the manager just didn't give the guy a handful of napkins and be done with it. Maybe the customer was a dick, but one of the quickest ways to deal with problem customers is to just give them what they want. After some additional research I discovered that the customer in question is a serial filer of frivolous lawsuits, so maybe he is exaggerating the whole experience. But when I pointed out to other posters that the suit wasn't really about napkins, but about horrible customer service and racist behavior, the following response was posted:

 They have napkins by the drinks if someone is to lazy to walk over and get one the wow! We need to stop making everything about discrimination!!!! We are all living on the same earth for Pete sake. Get ALONG!!!!!!!! - 

I do not know the person who posted this response, and I can only assume that further discussion with her would be futile, (as would grammar lessons) but it is typical of a person who is of the opinion that black people make "everything about discrimination". Should we "get along" with people who treat us poorly because of our race, religion, gender, sexuality? I would think that it is more incumbent upon those who are bigoted to stop being prejudiced than it is for those who are the recipients of bigotry to "just get along".

The other example arose from a discussion about changes in neighborhoods in New York City over the last 30 years. The person with whom I was conversing suggested that "black people ruin neighborhoods". He gave me several examples of neighborhoods that were prominently white a generation ago that are now run down and crime-ridden now that they black neighborhoods. He spoke approvingly of the self-appointed neighborhood patrol that kept a sharp eye out for "Negroes" when we were teenagers as men who were just trying to protect the value of their homes. Ah yes, "White Flight" from the cities and the decline of property values. Not a myth, but why did it happen? Why would the sale of a few homes in a white neighborhood to black families cause property values to decrease and for the neighborhood to eventually go to Hell? Obviously the initial black buyers would be paying full value for their new homes in the formerly all White neighborhood; why wouldn't they? Unless there was something about the neighborhood that (before black home ownership and White Flight) that was causing whites to stay away. So with the neighborhood now .002% black, what is causing property values to go down? A lot of white people all wanting sell at once, causing the laws of supply and demand to cause property values to steadily decrease. What is causing all these white people to want to sell at the same time? Some are racists and don't want to live in the same neighborhood as black people, some are afraid that all these blacks are going to cause the value of their home to plummet (because that's what blacks do, right?) so they get out quick, hastening the very thing that they fear. It's not blacks that cause property values to go down, but white fear and racism. It's the simple application of the law of supply and demand in action: the supply is increasing so the price must drop to cause a corresponding increase in demand.  So what happens next? The white neighborhood that was home to white professionals, white middle-class and working class folks and white union workers, and where home ownership was common, now has many of the homes bought up by landlords who snap up the cheap houses and rent them out. Many of these renters are good, hard working people but many of them are ne'er do wells who trash the rental homes, don't keep up the lawns, and standards go down. More and more white people leave, since now their fears have come true and the black people who are moving in are not black professionals, black middle class and working class folks and black union workers as at first, but poor blacks, among them criminals; and fewer and fewer homeowners. It becomes a death spiral. As the bad elements move in, the working class people, the homeowners, both white and black, move out, and even the poorer people, if they can afford to, get out, leaving more room for the criminal element.

So who ruined the neighborhood? Blacks? Or the white people who ran away and sold out to landlords out of fear and racism? What caused property values to go down? Not black people, but an increase in the supply caused by fear of property values going down and the racism of those who left early on - after that Economics 101 kicked in and the prophecy was self-fulfilled.

If you are going to hold the position that "blacks ruin neighborhoods", then you have to believe that there is something about black people, perhaps cultural, or maybe even genetic, that causes them to ruin neighborhoods, that makes them incapable of mowing their lawns or getting off welfare. Of course, when examples are presented of predominantly black neighborhoods that are not crime-ridden, that are not "ruined", then some excuse or rationalization is presented - these must be the "good" blacks - or the phenomena is simply ignored.

A related subject is the idea that one can be truly "color-blind", or "post-racial" or that everyone is the same. We're not all the same. We are all products of the cultures in which we were nurtured. I grew up in a virtually all-white neighborhood and could readily see differences in attitudes and behaviors among the predominant ethnic groups. You could usually tell who was Irish, or Italian, or Jewish after a few hours on a weekend afternoon that included a Sunday dinner. Similarly there are generalized cultural differences between blacks and white, but just as an Italian is not better than a Pole or a Scot, a white person is not better than a black person. And even taking into account cultural differences, we are all still individuals who decide to what degree that we will adhere to the cultural norms "good" or "bad". For example, in some areas there is an undeniable "culture of poverty" including high male incarceration rates and high percentages of dependence on welfare. There are also undeniable examples of those who break free of the cycle. (One might also note examples of people who have been given every advantage, including being "raised right" and still manage to piss it all away.)

When homeowners in the neighborhood in which I grew up began banding together to "keep the blacks out" they may have convinced themselves on some level that they were protecting the property value of their homes, but it was racism, plain and simple. And racists often have some rationale for their racism, maybe so it seems on some level rational rather than the unthinking idiocy that it is. I find racism to be reprehensible and disgusting. I include in my view sexism, homophobia, and all the other ways in which we pigeonhole people into neat categories to excuse or bad treatment of them.

When I first moved to Nebraska I belonged to a religious group that was looked down upon, feared and reviled by many people in the small town where I resided. I was fired from a job due to my religion, I was refused service in some businesses, I had things thrown at me on the street, I was harassed and just generally treated badly all because I belonged to a group that the majority didn't like. As bad as that was, I could have passed as "one of them", or could have made it all go away by reverting to my childhood religion or some other acceptable faith. What if my skin color or facial features marked me as other rather than my beliefs? That experience has stuck with me for my whole life and has shaped my opinion of prejudice in all its forms. (Ironically, this group - to which I no longer belong - eventually became as intolerant and hateful as the people who targeted me those years ago). For this reason I become particularly prickly when someone with whom I disagree, or am arguing with, "throws down the race card", accusing me of racism or any other kind of "-ism" for that matter. I find it insulting and an example of someone who is grasping at straws, unable to actually win an argument or coherently make a point without baseless accusations. It cheapens and distracts from the countless examples of actual racism and bigotry out there.

Use your mental faculties! Judge based on individual words and behavior, not perceived group traits.

Dad

On Tuesday February 25 I woke up to several text messages on my phone, which had been on silent mode overnight – my store has been instructed to call my landline after 10:00PM – one was from my brother Michael, which was unusual because we almost never call each other to chat, the other from my sister Patty. Both messages informed me that my father had experienced a stroke and was in the hospital. I was scheduled work go to work at 3:00PM, so I had plenty of time to digest this information and call my siblings. When I reached them they both told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should “come home”…now. Considering that this particular brother and this particular sister never agree on anything, I did not consider any other course of action other than going to New York.

After several hours of dealing with a series of un-empowered morons I booked my flight for the following morning. I arrived at the hospital at about 5:00PM Wednesday in a rental car after depleting my cell phone battery using the GPS directions function. All of my siblings, and eventually all but one of my father’s nieces and nephews and most of his grandchildren were on site. Dad was opening his eyes and appeared to be somewhat responsive to our presence, at one point meticulously rearranging his hair that one of us had absent-mindedly mussed up. At one point, as I sat at his side holding his hand and silently looking at him, he turned toward me and opened his eyes wide in what I interpreted as a sign of recognition. We all had those little moments. He seemed to be improving and we all held on to that little bit of hope.

On Thursday morning our hopes were proved to be wishful thinking.

It was soon evident that Dad would never fully recover, and any hope of even a partial recovery was at best a long shot. Conversations ensued and Mom informed the medical staff that Dad’s wishes, outlined in his living will, would be honored; no heroic measures. By Friday night Dad was transferred from Intensive Care to Hospice where we all gathered around be with him until the end.

Anyone who knew Dad knew that he had a crazy sense of humor, and was the source and subject of numerous hilarious stories. What I did not realize was the shear overwhelming number of funny incidents that he was a part of. We told stories for days, with hardly any repetition. There were many that I had never heard before, like when he was dozing on the subway on his way home from work and two thugs stole the hat right off his head. He was so angry, but everyone laughed about it, which made him madder! Or his set of “tools” that might have been brought over from Ireland in the 1800’s that Michael and my brother-in-law Scott jokingly argued about.

On Saturday night March 1^st, after several of us went to watch my niece Bridy win a talent competition at her school, we gathered in his room, telling more stories, playing Bridy’s winning song and Dixieland music on Pandora. Eventually everyone headed home, I decided to stay behind, since I had not had an opportunity to be alone with him since I had arrived. I pulled up “Making a Snowball” on my cell phone and read it to him. If you've read it, you know it’s as much a tribute to Dad as it is a recounting of the waning days of my first marriage. I then talked to him, assuring him that Mom would be taken care of, and thanking him for all that he had done for me…for all of us. I encouraged him to let go and accept the ride to the other side.

Just before 8:00AM the next morning Dad indeed let go of the physical and embraced the eternal.

For as long as I can remember Dad was a man on a mission, dedicated to taking care of those whom he loved. Uncle Tim described him as a dutiful older brother. We all saw how dedicated he was to taking care of his mother, despite her many provocations, taking her shopping and calling her every day. He was devoted to Mom and took care of her in so many ways. He was a loving and protective father to the five of us, and even as adults he was always there for us. He was a great help at his church, setting up for mass, which he attended every morning. He was also there for his grandchildren, babysitting when they were younger. He was diligent about his finances, and our family never wanted for anything. He is now at rest.

Resting is how I picture him now. If there is an afterlife, which he surely believed in and I am leaning toward myself, he is taking advantage of it by simply taking a break. Sitting on the back porch of The Summerland of Irish myth with a Scotch or a beer or a cup of coffee looking out on us all; content in the knowledge that we’re all fine, and that we’ll be fine in large part due to what he instilled in us. 

Is Historical Accuracy a Necessary Component of Religious Belief?

Is historical accuracy a necessary component of religious belief? Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims would certainly argue that it is. I would argue that the teachings of most religions that apply to everyday behavior, to relations among people and communities, do not bear an inseparable link to divine guidance. In fact, the rules of everyday behavior do not vary much from one religion to another. The so-called Golden Rule can be found in most faiths, and even outside them in secular teachings. Outside of the Sabbath and "Don't worship other gods", the Ten Commandments are pretty much  good common sense rules for how people should demonstrate basic respect for each other. Most of what is in the Koran, other than all the circular logic about how the Koran is revelation because God revealed it, and the conquer the infidels stuff, is good solid advice on how to be a responsible adult. Outside of those two Abrahamic faiths the stories of the gods and heroes are, as far as I know, not taken seriously as historical fact; the god and heroes may or may not have literally existed, but their historicity isn't the point, the lesson that the stories are telling is the point. But when we get to Christianity and Islam, somehow the literal, physical, verifiable, historical accuracy becomes the point. When so much weight is put upon the truth that Jesus or Mohammed existed, or that the Koran or Paul's epistles were divinely inspired, the emphasis switches from how one should act to what one should believe. If one takes the teachings in the Christian Gospels at face value, then it really makes no difference whether the Jesus mentioned therein was an historical figure, an invented character, a distortion based on a real person, or an amalgam of several different people, because the teachings in the Gospels stand or fall on their own logic and practicability, without reference to who promulgated them. One very common logical fallacy is appeal to authority - which is saying that just because "an authority" said it, then it must be true. Jesus, if the accounts are true, is the authority, he is the son of God, so what he says must be true, so any logic, or self-evident truth must now be subordinated to the reign of the authority. But if what is contained in a holy book is true, then what is said will still be true, no matter who said it and who wrote it down. Within Christian belief, where we run into problems is the doctrine, promulgated in the Pauline epistles, that it was Jesus' death, resurrection, ascension bodily into heaven and future return that is most important, pushing the moral and behavioral teachings off to the side and making belief more important than action. In fact, the idea that it is "faith alone", as opposed to "works" that is at the core of Protestantism, initially put forth by Martin Luther. Interestingly, several, if not many, pagan traditions have stories of sacrificed gods killed and reborn. None seem to try to connect these characters to real historical figures and place the importance on the lesson, rather than attempt to prove that they are "true".

So, I suppose the answer is that it depends on what your religious beliefs consists of. If your faith is built on an appeal to authority and on the quasi-magical attributes of a specific human or demi-god, then it matters a lot. But if one is focusing on morals, ethics, behavior, community and relations among people, then no, it matters not in the least.

Using Religion to Justify Bigotry

While a rant against religion may be justified, that's not what I'm going to be doing this afternoon, rather ranting against those who use religion as an excuse for their bigotry and intolerance.

One of the big "headline" controversies these days is gay marriage. Many religious people resort to passages from their "holy" books to back up their view that gays are variously misguided sinners, poor souls apart from God or even abominations. Some even shake their head sadly, as if their bigotry wasn't their idea...they're just following God's instructions. Some are indignant that there are those who will criticize then for their bigotry, as if this criticism is infringing on their First Amendment rights of free speech and free exercise of religion. I'll start by looking at things from my own experience.

For many years I was part of a religious group that, among other things, preached that homosexuality was the most heinous of sins and that homosexuals were the "lowest of the low". This was interesting in that the initial teachings that you encountered with this group made a big point that there was no degrees of "badness" with sins: sin was sin. But somewhere along the line, preaching against homosexuality became a focus, even to the point of a purge of those who supposedly had "homosexual thoughts" or were, as the leader called them "homo sympathizers. Now, despite there being a  host of other non-biblical beliefs and behaviors that the leaders of this group classified as sin, homosexuality bore the brunt of their hatred and vitriol. The way that this translated down to the unwashed masses of this group seemed to depend on how homophobic they were to start off with. While I admit that I had swallowed the interpretation of the bible that condemned homosexuals and homosexuality during this time period, I had been friends with and associated with gays and lesbians before this became a major focus, and quickly repudiated this mindset after I left the group. Many people that I knew in the group seemed to take it to heart mucway too enthusiastically. From what I could see they had always had a revulsion against homosexuality, but now they had a divinely sponsored excuse to engage in their prejudice.

This doesn't mean that all religious people are like this. There are some, maybe even a majority, or at least a significant minority, who for one reason or another have not chosen to put their interpretation of the bible first and foremost - above common sense, reason, or even evidence to the contrary. These are people, absent anything that they heard in their churches, who would have no problem at all with their gay neighbors.

This rant is also not meant to suggest that homosexuality is the only area affected by this mindset or that Christians are the only people who practice this spiritually sanctioned idiocy. Look at the areas dominated by fundamentalist Islam. This part of the world is characterized by relegating women to, at best, second-class citizenship, or at worst, non-person-hood, without rights or recognition. Women in many of these regions are wrapped up in layers of cloth, sometimes with only their eyes visible, sometimes not even that, ostensibly to protect them from men who would be moved by lust if they happened to see any female flesh. In some situations, men who sexually assault a woman who is not dressed "modestly" are not at fault...the woman is. All of this in the name of some god.

While none of this would be reasonable under any circumstances, it would at least be consistent if the holy writings of these religions were unambiguously understood in the same way by all adherents. But as we all know, this isn't the case. Hard core religionists in both Christianity and Islam insist that the writings are plain and it is only the ungodly who come to conclusions and interpretations differently than they do. Those who come to different conclusions are not "real" Christians or "true" Muslims. No one really has a good answer to the question of why there are so many different interpretations, other than the damn things aren't as plain as the true believers think that they are.

Both the Bible and the Koran are claimed to be "inspired by God", which the fundamentalists in both religions understand to mean a word-for-word dictation by God to the writers. Much has been written about the origins of the Bible and the problems found therein, but there are just as many problems with the Koran, although most Muslim scholars are unwilling to question the myth of its origin. What many people do not know is that Mohammed, assuming that he existed in the fashion that Islamic history says he did, did not write down anything. He was apparently a combination religious-political-military leader, and it was only after his death that his successors sought to compile his sayings into one book. In the early days of Islam there were competing versions, until eventually all versions that did not have official sanction were burned.

So getting back to the competing versions of religious faiths, I believe that people gravitate toward versions of their religion that reflect what  they already believe, and mirror their pre-existing prejudices. For every scholar who insists that the Bible condemns homosexuality, another can make a perfectly good case that it does not. For every Muslim mullah who insists that women must be covered and prohibited from driving, another can make a perfectly good case that women should be treated as men's equals. So, with two interpretations of your holy book floating around, what would be the rationale for following the group that espouses the more hateful stance? In my view it's because the more hateful position "makes more sense" to you, because of your own predisposition to the hateful point of view.

You're not taking a principled stand against the ungodly and defending your religion from outside attack, you're using your version of religion to defend your myopic and unreasonable hatred.

Good luck with that