What a piece of work is Man

Lovely meal, nice restaurant, best company, but the people at the next table were telling each other just what the Universe thought about this or that and how the Universe had solved some problem one of them had had. You don't get this at the Taco truck or the Wendy's drive through.

Perhaps they were Northerners.  The locals would simply have substituted the word God with no embarrassment, or perhaps they were the last holdouts of Deism, the folks who seek God in nature and not in churches or scriptures.  Who knows? But I hear this a lot.  I'm even wondering whether our practically  infinite universe is large enough to contain an ego of the size required to believe it had such significance in comparison to all there is or was or ever will be.  I'm guessing none of them were astronomers or astrophysicists or even of sufficient awareness to question the idea that something of the nature of nature itself was sentient or of  good intentions toward men -- men of good will or otherwise.

But say for the purposes of cynical condemnation, that the universe was a brain that somehow coalesced from a primal particle of infinite energy and infinitesimal size.  What can be a brain like that be composed of? Given the speed of light, and make no mistake, the universe does give us the speed of light -- given an all-there-is, the extremities of which can never, ever be reached in an infinite amount of time,  the allegedly sentient universe isn't old enough to have noticed us yet and never could be, even if somehow it were interested in our dining pleasure or our marital problems.  That which we can see of the universe is 30 billion light years across, a combination of  absolutely nothing and absolutely everything: violent on an unimaginable scale, both random and predictable and driven by principles we don't fully understand - but it can suggest to Shirley that she break up with Dylan or Cody or that I buy a new car. A sentient universe must need be speechless.

What a piece of work is man -- what quasi-demonic deity could match us for arrogance, for self-importance? 

Swear Words

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

-  Article VI, paragraph 3 -

Florida has had its problems forcing school children to publicly swear allegiance to a 'Nation
Under God' every day of the school year, but that abomination isn't enough for the State of Arizona, or at least for their State Legislature. A bill has been introduced requiring that before high school students can be given a diploma,  they must  swear to God.

"I, _________, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; So help me God."  

Does this bypass the religious test prohibition?  Well of course this is a requirement to graduate, or would be if it's passed and not a requirement for office, but is the granting of a diploma the granting of public trust?  As it is a requirement for employment in many cases, I would argue that it is and the oath is therefore unconstitutional, but we're talking about Arizona, a place where many Republican citizens are unhappy with that constitution and the Nation it defines, except of course for the guarantees it may make which further their attempts to persecute the freedoms of others and back up their threats with God and Guns.

It makes no provision for non believing people such as I am or for anti-believing people or for Quakers or  Mennonites and others whose creeds forbid oaths, to "solemnly affirm" rather than swear, but even if it were amended to that purpose, is an oath taken under duress valid and can one force someone to swear "without any mental reservation?"  But we're talking about Arizona where there is a test for looking American and penalties for failing it.

Actually I'm tired as hell of talking about Arizona and its cynical attempts to exclude and persecute all in the name of a Constitution they delight in selectively ignoring.  The hell with their nonsense about secession, their legislators have all sworn to uphold the constitution and if they can't do that, revoke their citizenship and deport them.

A few thoughts on religious extremists

Anybody who meets me will slowly come to realize that I have no time for religious extremism. Adding even more stupidity to an already illogical belief system is just compounding the brain damage.

On a (potentially unrelated) side note, I like to say that I use Facebook much in the way most people use their refrigerator door: as a place to hang things I find interesting/funny/unbelievable. I think it's a better idea than sticking things to my computer with refrigerator magnets.

(This is not a non-sequiter - it just looks like one. I once worked with an older woman, and one day I caught her using a magnet to put a picture of her grandkids on her hard drive. And just to make it better, she was putting it over her air vents. She didn't appreciate my input on the subject.)

My sister, the Episcopalian priestess, gets a little cranky with my lack of respect for her chosen profession. (By the way, she really dislikes the term "priestess." Just so you know...) She even wrote me, on Facebook, to ask why I kept putting down Christianity, and no other religion. You can probably insert a little "why do you hate god?" into that, too, if you'd like. Entirely subtext, of course.

My answer included the fact that there were plenty of other people out there bashing Islam, so they don't need any help on that front.

But overall, my opinion of religion is pretty much like the somewhat-overused joke:

Religion is like a penis. It's fine to have one and it's fine to be proud of it, but please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around... and PLEASE don't try to shove it down my child's throat.

There's a thousand variations on that one, but there it is.

With all that being said, I came across the following video clip, which is worth the ten minutes out of your day that it will take to see it. It's a bit from Russell Brand's talk show, where, inexplicably, two members of the Westboro Baptist Church agreed to appear.

For any of you that are unaware, Westboro Baptist is a cult dedicated to the idea that the Prince of Peace wants them to picket funerals and sporting events holding up colorful signs saying that "God hates fags" and explaining that you're all going to hell.

There's a lot of people out there, who've spent a lot of time and venom talking about the Westboro Baptist Church, so I'll let you look them up on your own. (At this point, all you need to google is "Westboro," so it isn't like the material is difficult to find.)


So, a couple of takeaways from this.

1. Russell Brand has a talk show? I mean, admittedly it's on FX, so how many people actually see it? But still... really?

2. Nobody should be surprised about them appearing on this show. The Westboro Baptists have made a life out of putting themselves on display, so this is just a logical extension of their standard behavior.

3. The guy with the hair, Steve Drain, can at least fake having some kind of charisma. The head-shaver, Timothy Phelps, can hardly hide his disdain for this crowd of heathens. Even when he tries for a crappy joke, his hatred for everyone and everything peeks out: "Well put. Other than the accent, very well put."

3a. Really? You dislike the fact that he's British? When there's so much else to hate there?

4. That being said, Russell Brand definitely came out on top here. (There's no double entendre there. Trust me.) He was polite, kept his audience in line, and, although he was in full Tease mode, he managed to keep it friendly and avoid most of the snark. But he didn't really take it easy on them, either.

Brand: "Have you considered that the Bible, like all religious doctrine, may be allegorical and symbolic to direct us toward one holy entity of love, as opposed to a specific litiginous text to direct the behavior of human beings? The Bible wasn't literally written by a cosmic entity. It was written by people."

Drain: "It was written by the holy spirit."

Brand: "The holy spirit ain't got a pen!"

And really, that's the only way to deal with people like that. Point and laugh.

Such are the heathen converted

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news

Isaiah 57:12

I can understand what it's like to be given a last minute reprieve. After a week spent with tubes and machines and embarrassing hospital gowns -- after being probed and scanned and punctured and pestered for days, the message came down that apparently, there's nothing really wrong and I could go home.

Being hospitalized, of course, gives one time and a reason to contemplate matters of life and its inevitable end and when it comes to hospitals and jails and other places of misery, it seems there are those good folks wandering about that would like very much indeed to offer one the comforts of their beliefs. Being all but trussed up like a sacrificial lamb and being fairly certain that the Mayans would have to hold their apocalypse without me, perhaps one can forgive me for being disinclined to being sociable to salesmen, for such I do see them. Yes I loathe having myths and ludicrous beliefs being sold to me as though I were some primitive, but it also seems like a hell of an ugly thing to go out rudely and in an undignified fashion by being nasty to them. The nearness of death, that great equalizer, should really teach a bit of compassion -- and so it does.

The first gentleman in a bright blue volunteer blazer identified himself as a chaplain and looking at his clipboard, he seemed puzzled that I had answered "none" to the question of religious preference.

" No, I don't have one," I said. " I don't prefer one over the next."

"Well that's OK, said he. "But if there's anything you need, you can call on me." Thank you very much," I answered, meaning it.

The following day, a woman perhaps a few years older than I am arrived with the same clipboard and heavenly blue jacket.

"I'm not religious," I replied to the same question.

"So does that mean you don't believe in God?"

"It means I don't feel any reason to believe in gods or souls. I'm just not religious."

"Neither was Jesus," she responded, sensing an opening.

"OK, fine"

She seemed perturbed.

"You know Jesus wasn't religious either"


"I can understand that"

I said, being as terse as possible and not wanting to get drawn into the programmed dialog she's been trained to draw me into as though I couldn't lecture her for days on Jewish messianic movements, I retreated into my Kindle and ignored her as she went on about peace and how she had it and how we all needed it and she of course had it from Jesus. Any sarcasm would of course been lost and a bit out of place anyway and eventually she left with an odd expression that must have been the result of some inner peace that surpasseth all endurance, especially mine.

The next day, awaiting with some trepidation the results of a CT scan, a pair of Baptist chaplains approached the man in the next bed, behind a curtain who thanked them politely but as a Roman Catholic felt he needs better served elsewhere.

"Well all right." They said cheerfully. "We hope everything works out well for you."

Approaching me next, the elderly, black (about my age) woman in the chaplain coat looked at her clip board.

"It says you don't have a religion but I thought maybe you could use a smile."

"You know, I really, absolutely, could and that's the best one I've seen in a long time. Thank you!"

And thus is the light spread. Stepping out into the afternoon sun and sea wind, it was as though everything was new.

Thus is the light of your virtue still on its way, even when its work is done. Be it forgotten and dead, still its ray of light lives and travels. That your virtue is your Self, and not an outward thing, a skin, or a cloak: that is the truth from the basis of your souls, you virtuous ones!

-Friedrich Nietzsche-

Happy Eostre Ishtar Easter!

OK, so it's been a long weekend of religious observances. I mean, two days ago it was Good Friday (mine was just OK, but that doesn't matter here).

Friday was also the feast day of Saint Epipodius of Lyon (then known as Lugdunum). He was tortured and martyred during the second century in France, and is the patron saint of bachelors and people who've been betrayed or were victims of torture. (Which you could say covers the entire male gender. * rimshot *)

(Funny story - Epipodius had a companion, a Greek named Alexander. Both were lifelong bachelors, and they lived and worked together. And were tortured and killed together, when it comes to that. And both were canonized. All this in spite of the Catholic Church's hatred of homosexuality. Hmmm...)

Yesterday was St George's Day, which is an unofficial national holiday in England. And today, of course, is the annual celebration of the Great Zombie Uprising of 33 A.D.

No, I'm serious. It's right there in the Bible:

and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:52-53)

Fortunately for the people of Jerusalem, these were all holy zombies, so they couldn't hunt for brains on the Sabbath.

Now, I self-identify as an agnostic, but that's mostly because I don't put the time into thinking about things that don't really matter to me. I'm probably better identified as a doubting agnostic, because if there is such a thing as a god, I'm pretty damned sure (heh) that he or she isn't the one the Christocrats want to promote.

But for whatever reason, these idiots don't want to stop trying to brainwash everybody else into their tiny-minded philosophy. They even end up in court over this kind of behavior, and almost alway lose. And really, that's the way things should be - it's right there in the Constitution - but some people don't want to accept that. So they can't remember little things.

Simple things, like the fact that public schools, paid for by our tax money, shouldn't have blatantly religious banners hung in the auditorium,

The "War on Easter" never really caught on (although that doesn't stop the idiots from trying to resurrect it, because irony is beyond them).

In Illinois, a Circuit Court judge just ruled that pharmacists can refuse to sell "morning-after" pills if they feel like causing an unwanted pregnancy that it's against their religious principles.

Over in Texas, Governor Goodhair was able to declare this "a Weekend of Prayer for Rain," despite the fact that God obviously wanted the drought. (You kind of expect it out of Texas, though - the home of Poledancing for Jesus.)

But these people keep getting voted back in, because there are enough of the certifiably insane people out there: you know, the types of people who think a home circumcision is a good idea. (Because, you know... Jesus!)

Various government agencies keep wasting time and tax dollars by starting meetings with a prayer .

The God-swallowers keep trying to claim that America is a Christian nation and founded on "Christian values" (mostly hatred and homophobia), despite the fact that most of the Founding Fathers were deists (most of whom believe that God may have started it all, but really doesn't care about us any more). Mike Huckabee is the latest guy to try and argue that only Christians should be elected.

A lady in Kansas was approved for a state-funded liver transplant which will save her life. Of course, that wasn't good enough for her - she's a Jehovah's Witness, and she's suing the state to pay to send her to Nebraska, where she can get a bloodless transplant. (You know, since she believes dead folks go to "a better place," why is she trying to save her own life?)

See, folks, it's simple. You can believe whatever stupid crap you want, but as soon as you try to force your religion on the rest of us, that's when you need to be stopped.

Joey the Rat was late

Just for giggles, because I've found a similarly twisted soul at work, I established "Blasphemy Wednesday" last week, as an opportunity to tell jokes that... well, that my boss probably wouldn't appreciate.

So, today, on Thursday, I find out that "irony" has been, once again, defined. This time, the pope has written a book where, it turns out, he's determined that the Jews aren't responsible for the death of Jesus.

Now, to begin with, the former Hitler Youth declared that Jews are innocent after all? And I learn this on a Thursday? Where the hell was this info on Wednesday when I needed it?

Past this, let me just point out the words of Max Canning over on Inebriated Discourse. Having pointed out that, in order for Christianity to exist, Jesus pretty much had to die, he throws in a little logic (always a mistake with religion, but still...):

Given the terms of this odious quid pro quo, the Jews—far from being villains in this sordid story—were crucially necessary players in god’s Divine Plan of human sacrifice and vicarious salvation. Without the Jewish elders’ entreaties to Pilate to persecute Jesus of Nazareth, the crucifixion does not happen, the sacrifice does not happen, and the salvation does not happen. Without this atrocious occurrence, there is no everlasting life, only darkness. The Jews are therefore heroes, deemed by god as such, who carried out this dastardly deed as foreordained by god himself. They were merely acting as the instruments of god, who knew damn well what was going to happen when he impregnated Mary, while poor Joseph was left to wonder whether his wife had been sleeping around on him.

Dividing by faith

Oh, little children, I believe
I'm a Methodist till I die
I'm a Methodist, Methodist, 'tis my belief
I'm a Methodist till I die
Till old grim death comes a-knocking at the door
I'm a Methodist till I die

-traditional-

The author Robert Pirsig traces his collapse into madness to a casual statement by a colleague, that "they don't teach quality any more." I've had many, and because I'm not schizophrenic, they are far less bathic descents that quickly float back up like Queequeg's coffin. Like Job, I've escaped to entertain thee and I won't be talking about motorcycles, the doctrine of transubstantiation or the Metaphysics of Quality. It's been done. This is about bumper stickers -- the ones that come in colors and proclaim:





I continue to see these stickers on cars, proclaiming the concept of belief as a virtue and by the fact that it is being so advertised; a virtue that in some way is meaningful to advertise. Like all philosophies and especially those condensed into two words, it conceals a philosophy. Like all words Believe is a prejudice.

So let's ask what qualities define belief and make it something to wave like a banner? Does it need any, is the quality of all belief the same and indeed can the nature of belief have a quality beyond the nature of the belief?

I can guess, knowing some of the people to whose vehicles the stickers are attached, that it's an advertisement for some specific assertion and that it's a religious assertion and that it's displayed as a rebuttal. I say this because there's so often some specific attention being payed to a challenge; a real or fabricated challenge to a religious proposition or assertion that is congruent to the cyclical outbreaks of these printed adhesive credos available on line for $4 plus postage. Every time it's Christmas, every time someone complains about his kid having to say "under God," every time someone repeats Washington's and Jefferson's claim that ours is not a Christian Nation and needs to remain so, out come the stickers. Thus, I have reason to doubt that the thing behind the assertion of belief is the natural born citizenship of Barack Obama, the antiestablishmentarian nature of our Constitution or confidence in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Many of the vehicles do have other stickers advertising themes and shibboleths of the religious right such as the chrome fish and the logos of football teams and motorcycle manufacturers. But of course I BELIEVE does not specifically say that the owner of the vehicle believes in Krishna as the Lord of Light or Osiris as the ruler of the underworld: that he likes Harley-Davidsons and the 'Gators' is beyond the scope of this investigation and its doubts. Nonetheless, I have some degree of confidence that I know what the sticker means.

So is it belief as a virtue of absolute value in and of itself that is to be applauded or is it the specific nature or quality of the belief? Perhaps the ambiguous silence of a sticker is a way to avoid the explanation that might be required by an inquisitive intellectual, should one be found in these parts. As any belief, abstract or specific, rational or irrational; any disbelief in fact can equally be expressed by I BELIEVE , the probability of a specific credo justifying the immodest bit of sticky-backed braggadocio is strengthened if not proven.

Let's propose that I believe there are no spirits or gods or souls and no purpose to existence that concerns us in any way. Can we say that belief then has only an absolute value and the polarity, the direction, the vector is meaningless? Perhaps I've shown that to be logically true but still, owners of sticker emblazoned trucks will not think so.

No, it's a particular belief or set including certain beliefs that is virtuous to a degree to specific individuals and sets of individuals -- and others to a different degree. Have I shown that belief as belief can have any value and so must be as un-virtuous as it is virtuous? If there can be an equal and yet opposite belief to any belief one can assert, it must be so.

If, of course the vehicular assertion is not to be applauded, or at least not universally to be applauded, one has to consider that it's intended to be an affront, a rebuttal to one or many who do not believe in general or in a specific proposition. It could be intended both ways, making it serve as a tribal totem distinguishing between those who do and those who do not: a more literate and up-to-date version of the untrimmed beard, unusual dress or even circumcision.

I'm different because I believe and because I'm proud of it, I say I'm better because I BELIEVE. That would of course make a specific belief, or as some prefer to say 'belief system' a test of virtue and of membership. Does belief , if belief has all possible values, allow everyone into the group of believers? It does not, only belief that lies substantially within that system or universe will do. Again we see that I BELIEVE has no value independent of the content of the belief. The virtue to be proud of lies not in the believing itself.

So it's likely, I should think, that the virtue of the virtue lies in the object of faith; the specifics and not the faith itself even though some seem to think of faith in and of itself as being worthwhile and not necessarily only virtuous by virtue of the content. One has to ask, would the faith promoter see virtue independently and I suggest that the simple substitution of objects would produce at least a spectrum, a ranking of value. Is faith that Refafu will make the rain stop or that we hear the hammers of Thor in the storm or that Jesus is Lord whatever that means, the same as faith that there is an intelligence behind the universe or behind the manifestations of existence? And of course, can we rank faith by it's intensity? Am I better if I'm willing to die so as not to contradict my faith or allow anyone else to contradict it. Am I best if I'll kill you to stop contradiction? Martyr or madman, it depends on whether it's your belief or some other. I suspect that here again, the virtue of the virtue is a virtue that hinges on the personal faith of the faithful. Both faith and belief can and so do have all possible values, ranks and properties.

Indeed can we say that one belief is better than another if all belief is beyond any comparison that involves observable demonstrations? At least one common belief is that God cannot be tested -- at least not successfully -- and of course most religious beliefs cannot be successfully exposed to experiment. We can't show that prayer works in any unambiguous way. The weather is what it is, justice is what we make it and even if you postulate that God is behind our sense of justice, we can't demonstrate it as God is so often used to support injustice and there are more convincing arguments for it from other sources.

There are no valid proofs of the existence of anyone to pray to and all attempts I have yet seen to prove any god would, if not essentially fallacious, prove an infinite number with infinitely different attributes. How then can we assign relative values to belief in divinities; one or many?

Dividing us by faith, by belief, whether by the existence of these or the nature of these is the virtue of putting an I BELIEVE sticker on your car. Further, since no one would be putting an advertisement for inferiority on his property, it's an assertion of superiority; an assertion that seems to fit the definition of vanity and indeed, if any belief will do, a gratuitous vanity. If only one belief will do, it's still a self appointed vanity since belief is optional if we are rational. If we are not rational, why are you reading this? I'm better if I believe in anything and I'm better still because I choose to believe in the divinity of a mythological figure, but at any rate, whether it's Jesus or John the Baptist, I'm at least one of the better sort.

When we divide by belief, are we dividing by zero? Well, when the denominator decreases in value or absolute value, the result approaches the infinite: approaches all values. Can I say that the attempt to divide us by something of no determinable relative value results in a meaningless number? I think I just did. To get back to Heisenberg; back to things that are beyond the need for belief or faith, the only universal certainty is that the more of it we ask for, the less we can possibly have and there's no way around it. It's not faith, it's the law.

Tat Tvam Asi. You are that you are, no more, no less -- and that applies, I think, to everything else that is. The sticky piece of plastic ruining the finish on your car makes you no different than the convictions it pleases you to have and nothing you do and nothing you believe extends to the world outside your head. How you treat other people will however.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.
You too shall pass away.
Knowing this, how can you quarrel?

-The Dhammapada-

The Right's Doublethink

One unexpected side effect of the Internet was, not the unprecedented access to information available to the public, but the widespread propagation of openly ignorant, easily debunked bullshit. The easy availability of knowledge has been balanced by easy availability of conspiracy theories, lies, and unintentional errors. Add to that the unprecedented ability to cherry-pick preferred oversimplified answers to complex situations, and one thing becomes obvious.

Despite the potential inherent in what evolved from the ARPANET, it has become apparent to those of us who think about stuff that we've actually entered the Misinformation Age.

For example, today’s front page story on that flaming stack of ignorance and mendacity calling itself Conservapedia is a fascinating story called “Atheism and obesity,” where they determine that, apparently, if you don’t believe in God, He makes you fat (as you could probably tell from the title, but I thought I’d spell it out for you).

The crux of this theory (so to speak) is a Gallup poll, which reached the conclusion (repeated in the first line of the Conservapedia story):

Very religious Americans are more likely to practice healthy behaviors than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious.

Now, I could get all statistical and point out that a poll measures how people answer questions, not how they behave. And religious people are more prone to guilt, so wouldn’t they be more likely to lie when answering questions like “Do you do things you aren’t supposed to?”

But that would be the easy answer. (Plus, some actual atheists, as opposed to one nameless doubting agnostic, are cheerfully ripping this one apart.)

Instead, let me point out that, two weeks after the Gallup poll was released, we hear from New York that 1300 people are now in danger of contracting Hepatitis A, because they all took drinks from the same communion chalice. And remember, very religious Americans practice healthy behaviors. Like sucking down the backwash of other diseased Catholics.

Should I point out that they’re all at risk because they came in contact with the blood of Christ? Has He been shooting up with dirty needles again? Or should I just move on, since it's probably endangering your immortal soul to be taking religious advice from people with the balls to rewrite the "inalterable Word of God"?

Maybe the easiest answer is to show the following two maps? First, this.



See that? That shows how religious Christians claim to be, in various parts of the country. The greener, the Godlier, right? OK, then. Now check this out.



Now, that one shows the distribution of weight, per capita, in these United States. The more red, the more rotund.

See how the dark green and the dark red tend to match up? It’s kind of like Christmas, isn’t it? I guess you can’t spell faith without F - A - T.

Not a new thought to me, by the way. We already knew this; it's one of those pesky "fact" things that the GOP is so desperate to rewrite.

The Ten Commandments? Again?

Over in Texas, yet another legislator wants to find a way to sneak the Ten Commandments into public buildings. This time, they're using the "foot in the door" theory of governance: this bill will "protect public school teachers who have chosen to have the Ten Commandments displayed in their classrooms" by claiming it's a "patriotic exercise," not a religious one. (Just proving he doesn't understand either history or religion.)

In Florida, the mayor of Cape Coral thought that posting the Ten Commandments in City Hall was a spiffy idea, but the City Council didn't agree.

This comes up at least a couple of times a year, as some thoughtless theocrat tries to commit religious bukkake and squirt his personal theology in the faces of everybody around them.

Let's start, of course, with the fact that this act is automatically exclusionary. Even past the objections of the irreligious (you know, the people who might not want their tax money spent on somebody else's silly damned belief system), what about the folks who actually believe in this stuff? Whose version of the Decalogue are you going to post up there?

The Ten Commandments are normally pulled from Exodus 20:2–17 (which is mirrored in Deuteronomy 5:6–21). And despite the customary image of the two stones, in neither book is there a neat, tidy set of ten bullet statements, so different religions split things up differently.

The best example, of course, is the first three Commandments, which are widely variable. Reading from Exodus, we take the following verses:

I am the LORD thy God... Thou shalt have no other gods before me... Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image... (nor) bow down thyself to them, nor serve them

(As always, we'll be sticking with King James version. Because, you know, "breathed out by God" and all... but mostly because I like the poetry of the language.)

Now, if you happen to be Jewish, "I am the Lord thy God," all by itself, is the First Commandment. Most Protestants, on the other hand, essentially treat that as a preface to the actual list, while the Orthodox sects fold it into the "no other gods" part; Catholics and Lutherans, meanwhile, slam the whole thing together into one big lumpy First Commandment.

This means, of course, that the Third Commandment is "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain." Unless you're Catholic (or again, Lutheran), who believe that's the Second Commandment.

And this one-off numbering continues on down the list until you get to those pesky "covets," which most of the God-swallowers lump together.

Except, of course, the followers of the Pope or Martin Luther, who split off the first "covet" and have their own personal Ninth Commandment. Where everybody else just pretty much says "don't covet anything," the Catholics and Lutherans figure that not coveting another man's wife needs its own place in the list, separate from more mundane covetousness, such as the ass.

As for coveting the wife's ass, they don't like to talk about that. (Ba-dum ching! Thank you! I'll be here all week!)

So, in posting the Ten Commandments, which religion do you honor over the rest? The Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant? (We'll ignore the Lutherans this time; they're just following in their trouble-making founder's footsteps.)

But just for fun, let's consider the Ten Commandments (all three versions) themselves.

I am the LORD thy God... Thou shalt have none other gods before me... for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God...

Do you notice that God doesn’t say that there ARE no other gods? Just that you shouldn’t worship them, because He doesn’t appreciate the competition. I’ve always thought that was interesting.

But then we get to Deuteronomy 5:8-9: Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them...

Kind of puts art out of reach of the common man, doesn’t it? It’s only later translations of that verse that change "graven images" to "idols" – the original Hebrew doesn’t have any "sacred" subtext attached to the word for graven image (pecel). Since the two statements are seperable (“Make no graven images” and “bow down and worship them”), it makes one wonder what God thought of Michelangelo.

In fact, this same prohibition, sans the "bowing down" bit, is echoed earlier in the same book (Deu 4:23-25).

Further along, we come to this: Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. (Deu 5:12-14)

A strict reading of that would indicate that taking Saturday off is in opposition to the Word of God. He's telling you to work for six days, not just five.

Which also brings us to the fact that the Sabbath is supposed to be on the last day of the week, not the first – but that goes back to the antisemitism of the Council of Laodicea: Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.

Makes you wonder about the people who claim that "the Ten Commandments are the source of the American legal system!" Yeah, not so much.

Basically, even if you include perjury (which doesn't always qualify), there are only three Commandments that count as laws (the other two being murder and theft). Three out of ten; 30% isn't a passing grade on any test I've ever taken.

Taking God's name in vain? Sorry, freedom of speech.

Adultery? Hardly a crime; practically a way of life in some places.

Honoring fathers and mothers? Well, we try, but they keep trying to tear down Social Security.

And you really can't ban coveting. Wanting something better is the driving force of capitalism, after all.

So how important are these ten little rules again?
______________

Update (10/19/10): It has been pointed out that the choice of which day should be the Sabbath was covered in tbe New Testament.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days... (Col 2:16, ignoring that whole "jot and tittle" argument)

A statement that was, of course, ignored until the 4th Century, when the Council of Laodicea got all post-Jewry on their asses. But there it is.

John Shelby Spong

There have been times when I've sided with some of our 'founding fathers' in contempt for the religious practitioners who have conflated that poor, unsuccessful, would-be Jewish leader into a re-incarnation of Thor and the mouthpiece for their own miserable and ignorant minds. Ok, it's been more than many times and the Jesus I hear about most often is merely the blunt instrument in the hands of the angry and the ugly and the stupid.

Yes, I've read Dom Crossan and the Jesus Seminar people, but since he still implies that I'm the village idiot for not believing that the man he portrays as a man is more than a man, he only gets a partial pass from me. But then, on occasion, I bump into people like Bishop Shelby Spong who would restore that humanism, that tolerance that was amputated when Christianity was refashioned in the age of Constantine onwards, to its original place.

Of course I disagree profoundly about the nature of things, but about the nature of what we think and do and do to others, he restoreth something in me, even if it's not quite faith.

What we know

So you're religious? That's a shame because I like to talk about the subject I've been interested in and have studied for at least 50 years -- but not with people of "faith." Scholars, linguists, archaeologists with and without faith are another matter entirely, but mentioning even the most elementary things about the Bible that one would learn on the first day of your first college class usually produces a reaction similar to Bela Lugosi encountering a cross, or a resounding and peremptory NO!

I've given up mentioning obvious facts like the separate and interleaved Genesis stories; one talking about Yahweh and the other, in a different voice, talking about the Elohim. The details differ remarkably. Ask your Sunday School teacher about the 100 days and nights of rain and Noah loading animals 6 by 6 and watch the reaction.

I'm talking about minutia, of course and I'm staying away from the conclusions to be made from them, but the level of ignorance amongst the most faithful is as astounding as the refusal to actually read the approved source documents much less the banned and earlier documents archaeology has provided us. It requires more than most can or will apply to the task -- and takes all the fun out of it, of course.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life took a poll earlier this year and the results didn't surprise me at all. It appears that Americans are a pretty ignorant lot in terms of how much they know about the Bible, the other religions of the world and things related to the status of religious life in the US, the urge to make public displays notwithstanding. Atheists and agnostics seem to know a good deal more than the general run of the faithful, although you're welcome to ignore the question of whether it's knowledge itself that produces doubt in the places certainty likes to dwell. It does seem that the more educated are -- well, more educated about these things.

Jews seem to do best of all in terms of broad spectrum religious knowledge, but that's not too surprising as religious education in that group is a much different sort of thing and educators may be less shy of difficult questions. They're less likely to get their theology solely from the polyester preachers on TV whose continued existence defies claims of divine forces at work in the world.

The most important lack, in my opinion, is that shown by American Protestants and Catholics who know very little about other religions compared Jews and Mormons and Atheists and that's something I can't explain easily. Less than half of us know that the Dalai Lama is a Buddhist or that most people in Indonesia are Muslim. A tiny 8% 0f us know that Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides) was Jewish and I'm sure most of those were Jewish as well.

Apparently the one fact we're most likely to know, is that teachers in public schools may not lead students in prayer and one of the things we're least likely to know is that it is indeed constitutionally permissible to study the Bible and other texts in a comparative religion course. The answer to that opens a whole new perspective in strategic public anger management, but I won't go there either.

Of course all of us seem to know that Islam is inherently and unavoidably evil and some can supply all sorts of reasons to substantiate it and even more reasons to be angry with you if you don't quite agree with it all, but ask what Ramadan is about and only half can tell you it's an Islamic holiday.

So what does all of this mean? Beats me. I do know that too much speculation about these things is likely to get my neighbors and associates to beat me too. After all, as a people we're quite possessive of what we don't know and have good reasons for not knowing it: and of course we are, as always, number one.

Christian Politicians Deliberately Twist Constitution To Gain Votes

If you can pay the price you can buy almost anything you want in this country -- car, home, toothpaste, clothes, food or a charcoal grill. If you can pay the price you can buy services such as sex and votes. It doesn't matter if you don't know your history or your Constitution but it matters how hard you can thump the good book.

Liam Fox sets out to prove this on News Junkie Post.

Religions demand tolerance and acceptance of their own views, practices, prescriptions and prohibitions, when all they offer to others is intolerance. Religions requiring that others be forced, or coerced, to adhere to their tenets are nothing more than fascist political systems, and belief systems that regard their doctrine as being above a democratically elected legislature are seditious.

The founding fathers engineered the separation of church and state to protect America from Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, Islam and all other politically insistent theologies while simultaneously protecting those and all other religions from the interference of government.

In the desperate political climate that they find themselves in, Politicians lacking a clear understanding of or commitment to the First Amendment line up in favor of sectarian measures in the hope of garnering votes and winning elections. . . . Politicians can knowingly violate the constitution secure in the knowledge that the support for their unconstitutional decisions will be provided by those that they have benefited.

TED POE, TEXAS REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN: His web page is headlined "National Day of Prayer is constitutional whether federal judges like it or not."

Displaying monumental ignorance, he goes on to say, ". . .James Madison knew more about the First Amendment than anybody else since he was the author; yet, in 1813, President Madison proclaimed a National Day of Prayer. . . ."

Wrong. Liam Fox writes: "In 1789, James Madison proposed twelve amendments that ultimately became the ten amendments. In this respect, Madison was the person who wrote the First Amendment, but he wasn’t the one who initially came up with the idea. In fact, there are several factors that qualify the claim that he is the sole author." See here

Although President Madison did issued prayer proclamations during the war of 1812, at the behest of congress, he later expressed regret for these actions. In an undated essay believed to have been written in the year 1817, referred to as ‘The Unattached Memoranda‘, Madison discusses the issue in detail providing five particular reasons for disagreeing with his prior actions of proclaiming a National Day of Prayer and espousing some insight that we would be wise to heed today. See here.

BRADLEY BYRNE, ALABAMA REPUBLICAN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: He was attacked by the True Political Action Committee "for his previous support of teaching of evolution in public schools and reportedly having the gall to suggest that the Christian bible may not be entirely true."

In a switch reminiscent of John McCain, Byrne became a Born Again Christian and wrote on his website:

“I believe the Bible is the Word of God and that every single word of it is true. From the earliest parts of this campaign, a paraphrased and incomplete parsing of my words have been knowingly used to insinuate that I believe something different than that. My faith is at the center of my life and my belief in Jesus Christ as my personal savior and Lord guides my every action."

SARAH PALIN (no introduction necessary): In a Fox News interview with Bill O'Reilly Palin with all blinking eyed ga-ga smiling sincerity declared:

“I have said all along that America is based on Judeo-Christian beliefs and, you know, nobody has to believe me though. You can just go to our Founding Fathers’ early documents and see how they crafted a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that allows that Judeo-Christian belief to be the foundation of our lives. And our Constitution, of course, essentially acknowledging that our unalienable rights don’t come from man; they come from God. So this document is set up to protect us from a government that would ever infringe upon our rights to have freedom of religion and to be able to express our faith freely.”

Someone at Fox, if they even know it, should explain to the Palin that neither the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence mentions a particular religion, Jesus, the Bible or God. The Constitution does mention a "Nature's God" a few times but not Christianity or Judaism.

The principle misunderstanding of Mrs. Palin’s, is that her interpretation of “our rights to have freedom of religion” translates in her mind, as it does in the minds of most fundamentalist evangelicals, to ‘the right of Christians to impose their beliefs and practices on American law, politics, society and education.’

STEVE PEARCE, NEW MEXICO REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE, states on his website that one of his political goals, and a promise to voters, is that he will "protect our right to prayer and against the government halting expressions of faith."

It is due to the fact that America is a secular nation that no ones religious freedom is threatened. No ones religious freedom is threatened because America has a constitution that charges it’s government to remain neutral and to not get involved in religion or make any law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The only threat to the religious freedoms of all Americans comes from religious organizations and their inability to accept a non-theocratic secular government.

Freedom of religion is not the freedom to impose ones religion on others and the First Amendment is not the property of politicians to trade off for votes. Politicians desperate for votes need to get a platform and leave the constitution, and the American people’s freedom of religion, alone.

Who would Jesus blackmail?

A high proportion of the atheists and agnostics I know are, or have been Roman Catholic and I have to say a good number of my favorite comedians as well. The sense of alienation and the sarcasm of such people no mystery to me when I read stories like the Washington Post's piece on the Archdiocese of Washington DC and its threat to discontinue being all charitable and Christlike about feeding and sheltering the homeless and hungry if a proposed bill allowing same sex marriage passes.

Although the Church would not of course be required to perform or to lend their floor space to such unions, they would be required to obey the same laws forbidding discrimination against gay men and lesbians as the rest of us.

"The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem" said Archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs.

No, the city is saying that to be a partner with a publicly funded service, you don't hold the city hostage until they deny civil rights to law abiding citizens. Consider the homeless of the streets, shall we let them starve if only two gay men are allowed to marry? Shall we let them die if we allow people to divorce? What other taboos must we as citizens observe before the Archdiocese of Washington will deign to obey Biblical commandments to help others?

I do understand that they have a problem recognizing certain lay employee's right to share employment benefits, I just can't see Jesus making an issue of it or attempting to use the homeless as a hostage if the Romans refused to implement Jewish law.

Of course the peanut gallery will respond with nonsense about religious persecution and freedom and there will be no reasoning with them, but if a religious test to receive public services is repugnant, the demand that the public go along with their dogma or the poor will not be served is more so. It's another example lending credibility to all the warnings about "faith based" initiatives. It's another example illustrating just why Congress shall make no laws concerning an establishment of religion.

Look, up in the sky. . . it's a bird, it's. . . .

I'm constantly accused of making gratuitous and unfair fun of religion. Whether or not that's fair to say, I couldn't begin to approach the creativity of some pious people who having no sense of humor, much less the knowledge or ability to see their creations in the context of history, in giving us their truly American and truly hilarious concept of the holy.

I'm indebted to Libby at The Impolitic and Gymo at The Spork for pointing out the work of Merritt Ministries of Tracy, California who found a unique, reverent and authentic way to represent the love and compassion of Jesus as he descends from the clouds on his apocalyptic mission, (which includes the horrific immolation of Jews and other infidels) with "compassion and love."

And what better way to do it than to flip the bird at the Second Commandment by making a likeness of the heavenly Jewish offspring, with Northern European features and straight, chestnut brown hair, wearing purple and gold robes like a the Roman Emperor under whose auspices Jesus was tortured to death? And what better likeness than a huge hot air balloon to provide that reverent touch? After all, if you're going to create God in your own image, isn't hot air the perfect filler for this flying apocalyptic cream-puff?

Just as the secular right finds all they need to know of the Constitution in the Second Amendment, all a large segment of the Religious Right requires to serve the needs of 'authenticity and reverence' is the Book of Revelation, written far away and in another country and selected for the cannon almost a quarter of a millennium later by the high priest of Sol Invictus.

I'd love to see this catch on though. I'd love to see the sky filled with lighter-than-air deities of all sorts, from YHWH blimps to Buddha balloons; soaring Shivas and zooming Zoroasters and gas-bag Ganeshas. Launch them all and let the real God sort them out!

lying for God

I don't expect much from anything attached to the Breitbart enterprise, whether it's politics or religion or movie criticism and in part because such things are all the same in that venue.  Take the review of Ricky Gervais' new movie The Invention of Lying by the Great S. T. Karinick.  The movie was made to lampoon Christianity, he says, yet it proves, despite itself, that not only are we better off with God ( the Christian God ) but because belief is the source of all that's good, belief proves itself valid.

" The godless society is unpleasant and uninspired."

he says, never mind that most people would find much more inspiration and cultural development  in increasingly Godless and humanistic Europe than in the bigoted, gay hating Bible Belt. Most normal people that is, rather than failed people who find life so horrible and frightening that they have to invent another mystical one to mystically be transported to. Perhaps withdrawal from the opiate of the masses is indeed unpleasant for the addicted, but for others, like me, the flowering of humanism and liberty is to be preferred.

Freedom of belief is all well and good but if they would stop mocking and persecuting the sane for their efforts to improve the human condition and further the cause of secular liberty fewer of us would need that fantasy world they find so comforting.

"So what we have here are two worlds. One, without God and controlled by thoughts of evolution, is a spectacularly dreary, unhappy place without love or meaning. On the other hand, even a fictional God brings the world meaning, joy, liberty, and wonder."

Can it be that only someone trapped in the fictional world we call "conservative" could read this without sadness, pity and yes, horror?  I find precisely those things in a meaningless and hostile universe. I love the more because of love's futility, I treasure life more for it's evanescence and meaninglessness.  I wonder more at the spectacular  and vast and complex universe of reality than at the childish little one born of ignorance and legend -- and most of all I'm free without Gods as no man could be with their jealous tempers and wrathful deeds, their narrow minded  priests, preachers and divine retributions trapping him in a world of guilt, fear, original sin and self-loathing.

"Thus although Ricky Gervais has publicly said that his film takes an atheist position, it appears that even he cannot imagine a happy, emotionally fulfilling world that does not acknowledge a good many fundamentally religious thoughts, and in particular Christian ones."

What a smug and loathsome statement and how offensive to other religions -- as though love compassion, emotional fulfillment  and the rest of the fuzzy, fulsome package belonged exclusively to any form of extant Christianity other than the ad hoc and ephemeral chimera he puts together for this argument -- as though history, it's wars, persecutions, tyrannies, oppressions and inquisitions  could be disregarded as anomalous and never anywhere was there a Buddha or an atheist willing to lay down his life for his family or his country.

Regardless of how I loath this man's precious, smug and egotistical disdain for non-believers and non-Christians, I have to smile a bit at how he claims Gervais' movie "undercuts" his atheist position,  because if even a fictional God is as good, as he says, as a real God; if objective reality is less important than the noble lie,  then truthfulness, objectivity and indeed honesty are unnecessary and perhaps dangerous in his happy world of fiction, a conclusion which undercuts everything that, in his conceit, he attempts to prove.

Off with the habit, sister!

Some Republicans have been speaking up and saying they wish Barak Obama would be more like French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Considering the Republican obsession with French cowardice and perfidy, it's remarkable in itself, but Sarko made a rather more blustery statement about Iran and tyranny than did Obama and bluster is what Republican foreign policy has come to be.

I have no doubt that some Republicans, including those who fill my mail box with serial hoaxes about foreign leaders railing and howling about throwing out the Muslims, would be quite happy with such a president and his support of a ban on religious attire in France - at least as it pertains to Islamic attire.

France has launched a parliamentary inquiry into whether women should be allowed to wear the burqa in public. Sarkozy is on record as saying it's "not welcome" in France. Consistency requires, at least in a land of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, banning other forms of sartorial identification, such as Sikh turbans, large Christian crucifixes and Jewish yarmulkes as well and so it is proposed. I'm unable to discern their attitude toward the Roman Catholic burqa as worn by nuns, but I'm sure some accommodation could be reached.

Because we are a secular government, not a Christian one, our US constitution protects the freedom to practice our various religions as we choose and it's hard to see any such legislation being proposed here, but it must be of comfort to our resident bigots to know their favorite "surrender monkeys" are considering the surrender of another increment of freedom in service of bigotry and xenophobia.