Why Pray? 

Perhaps my previous post sounded a bit harsh.  Why “mock” those who call upon their Creator for a bit of help in a time of need?

Skeptics have obvious reasons for doubting the power of prayer, but it seems to me that Believers should have even stronger reasons to avoid bothering God with their requests.

God either exists or not.  If He (I’ll use “He” rather than “She”) exists, then He either cares and listens to us, or not.  Either He has to power to intervene in our lives or not.  If one believes that God exists, cares, listens and has the power to intervene, why not ask Him for help? Here’s why.  

Almost everyone who believes in an empathetic God who has the power to intervene in our affairs also believes that God is omnipotent (He’s all powerful) and omniscient (He knows everything, past, present and future). 

Would you walk up to Leonardo and tell him how to draw the Mona Lisa?  Would you interrupt Lennon or McCartney while they were writing songs to tell them that you could do better?  Who knows better about both the overall design and the minute details of the universe, you or God? 

Those who pray never question God’s acts or motives, not even when He destroys entire cities for slight offenses by a few individuals.    They don’t question Him when He purportedly allows his own Son to be brutally murdered.  They don’t question His motives or soundness of mind when he stokes the fires of hell, an eternal horror chamber He designed for people who ask too many questions.  They don’t question Him when He allows 40,000 children die every day from malnutrition and other preventable causes.   But they do question Him when Uncle Fred, who has lived a reasonably long life, has a heart attack.  They question Him and ask him to revise His grand scheme for the universe.

People who pray (at least, those who pray out loud) constantly admit that they are hopeless little nothings compared to God.  God is smarter than a billion Einsteins and the rest of us are hopeless bumblers.  Here is a sample: 

Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep,
we have followed too much the devices and desires of our
    own hearts,
we have offended against thy holy laws,
we have left undone those things which we ought to
    have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to
    have done.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us,

It would seem that people who have such strong beliefs in their own inadequacies would have the good sense to leave the Creator alone.  Nonetheless, despite their publicly professed ignorance, they regularly interrupt Him to instruct or beg Him to rearrange the universe for their own personal benefit. 

From God’s perspective, it would be like allowing a two-year old to take the steering wheel of a crowded bus as it speeds down the highway.

Sorry, I don’t get it.

Researchers have just spent a whole lot of money determining that prayer does not seem to work. 

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.

As usual, when science is not of benefit to Believers, Believers disparage science.  Says Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, “why would God change his plans for a particular person just because they’re in a research study?” Of course, if this study had shown a positive correlation between prayer and health, Koenig and his peers would be marching through town to proclaim this wonderful new finding.  

But maybe the researchers shouldn’t give up so quickly on the power of prayer.  Perhaps a modified prayer study could check out a few possible wrinkles.  Although the people in the original study certainly prayed, perhaps they prayed improperly or ineffectively.  New studies might show that the power of prayer becomes more detectable when the people doing the praying make the sign of the cross, pray standing up, pray louder or pray by reciting formal prayers rather than in conversational tone.  Maybe the power of prayer is stronger when those praying are kneeling, using a rosary or praying at a time of day when God is more attentive (perhaps we should avoid praying during HIS afternoon nap).

A new improved study could also shed light on a current Middle East dispute: half the participants could pray to God and the other to Allah. Based on the health of the respective heart patients, we shall truly see which Deity is superior.  It could be arranged prior to this study that those whose Deity is proven weaker will begin worshiping the other side’s Deity.

Or maybe, instead of spending substantial money on more prayer studies, that money should be used to assist real life children who lack food, clothing, medicine and education. Children International is one organization that gives great bang for the buck in helping such children.

The public grade school in my neighborhood has a science classroom, but no science teacher.  I’m not a teacher or a scientist, but I’ve been asked to help teach science there.   You see, there’s no money in the budget to hire a science teacher.  Therefore, all 350 of the children at that school are being “left behind” in science.  This same school has other unfilled teaching and tutoring positions too.  They just can’t afford to properly educate the children.  My neighbor Kate and other volunteers are filling in to help out, but the school is desperate for money and the students are desperate for a quality education.

Let’s make the assumption that it costs $50,000 to hire a teacher for a year.  If hired, assume that each teacher would educate at least 100 students each year and that those students would each benefit from that instruction for the remainders of their lives.

By the end of 2006, the Iraq Invasion and occupation will have cost this country $350 Billion.   That’s an awful lot of money.  That’s enough to hire two teachers for 3 ½ million years.  Or it could have hired 100,000 teachers for 70 years each.  This would have enriched the lives of 70 Million students, benefiting each of them for the rest of their lives.

This is why I think of Iraq every time I see dozens of educationally neglected children walking down my street toward the public grade school.   This is why I think of Iraq when I read that America’s children are not testing well on science, math or English. 

Because this Administration refuses to assign any metric to this War and because none of the stated goals of this War have been achieved, it is difficult to give a name to this War. I would recommend the following:  The Seventy Million Children Left Behind War.

This Country has a tomb for the Unknown Soldier from each major war.   I don’t know for sure whether we yet have recovered the remains of an unknown U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, but we now have a name for the resting place for those remains:  The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of The Seventy Million Children Left Behind War.

The current edition of Time Magazine (April 3) warns us that global warming is not just a vague fear, but a reality.  The 14-page article contains disturbing photography of displaced animals and receding glaciers.  The cover warns us to be “Very Worried.”

Even though I’ve often seen publishers use hyperbole to sell magazines, I am truly concerned.  I am concerned even though many environmental worries have been overstated in the past. 

On the other hand, I know that past warnings have generally been wrong only about when, not what.  I also know that the great majority of scientists are in accord on this issue. global warming is occurring and human use of fossil fuels is a major culprit.  Prudence, then, would cause reasonable people to be concerned.

I wanted to be sure to consider all perspectives, though, so I tuned into my local 24/7 Christianity radio station, KJSL, to hear the wisdom of syndicated radio host Paul McGuire. 

McGuire addressed the Time article directly.  “Global warming is mere mythology and propaganda of the left.”  The problem, he solemnly said, is that the sun is in one of those hot cycles.  That polar bears are being stranded has nothing to do with fossil fuel.  He cited the work of Michael Crichton and Climate Scientist John Christy in support of his denial of global warming.  Christie, according to McGuire, holds that Co2 is not a “pollutant,” and that it is a “gift to plants.”  McGuire repeatedly asserted that there was “no real science on global warming.”  Well, more on this in a moment. (more…)

Unfortunately, no one took His photograph.  Had they done so, Jesus wouldn’t have had a prayer recruiting most of his potential followers.  It is hard to imagine western Europeans falling in love with a dark-skinned Savior from the Middle East, especially a Jewish one.

For many centuries, Western Europeans haven’t paid meaningful attention to dark-skinned writers, musicians, painters, architects, teachers, politicians or philosophers.  In fact, they’ve openly discriminated against anyone who didn’t look “European.”  Nor would Jesus have had much of a chance today (“Hey, isn’t he one of those guys who attacked us on 9/11?”). We certainly wouldn’t tolerate any dark-skinned man who told us to give up our extravagant (i.e., suburban) lifestyles.

Because there are no photographs, Believers have had much artistic license to imagine Jesus in comforting ways.  Jesus always resembles the people who believe in Him.  He likes the things they like.  He feels their pain when they don’t get asked out to the prom.  He cries for them when they don’t get that promotion.  He applauds if we finish assembling the best Christmas lighting display on the block (He shouts “Way to Go!” and gives us the thumbs-up.). 

But most strikingly, even though His Believers don’t resemble each other, Jesus physically looks like each of them.  That’s how He looks in their dreams and prayers, as well as in publicly displayed art.  (more…)

Subtitle: Fear and Darkness

On June 26, 2005, I attended the 9:00 a.m. service of the first Evangelical Free Church of St. Louis County as an amateur anthropologist. The large physical church is a spacious modern structure that appears to seat about 2000 people. As I approached the parking lot I encountered the “Church police.” Wearing safety vests marked “police,” they directed traffic into the large parking lot. Large and expensive automobiles populated the parking lot. I attended the early service. Another service was scheduled to begin at 10:45 a.m.

I sat toward the right side of the pews, facing across the large expanse toward the large stage where the services was to be held. I immediately noticed the large stage and extensive stage lighting of the nine musicians on duty. They performed several songs at the beginning of the service, many of these having a gentle beat and lush harmonies characteristic of 70’s folk rock. The 70’s were probably the era during which many of the worshipers in came of age. Most of the adults looked to be between 35 and 55, all of them squeaky clean and looking content. There were almost no elderly people to be seen. That’s too bad, since the evangelicals have invested good money on first rate cushions are kind to old bones.

Every churchgoer I saw (there were probably 1500 people in the building) was Caucasian. Several hundred of the worshipers were wearing T-shirts printed with a quote from Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

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Many of us don’t consciously choose some of the most important aspects of our lives.  This includes the choice of religion.  Many people claim that we don’t really choose the religion we end up following.  After all, many of us end up adopting the religion of our parents. Is there a problem with this approach?  There often is.

Those of us who fail to constantly raise such important questions on our own are falling prey to what Hannah Arendt termed “the banality of evil.”

Of Adolf Eichmann, Arendt wrote that he “never realized what he was doing . . .  He was not stupid.  It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period.   Arendt claimed that “such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together . . .”

Therefore, it is not saintly, or even OK, to thoughtlessly take important aspects of one’s self as givens.  It is not OK even if most of us do it most of the time.  Being thoughtless and unquestioning is, more than anything else, dangerous.

I like to listen to what’s going on out on the streets.   One way to do this is to talk to a cab driver.

Since I was taking an extended cab ride in Long Island yesterday, I decided to ask the driver about religion and politics.  He was a 40-year old divorced Greek man.  Here’s what he had to say:

He fears the “lunatic” Muslims.  “They” will stop at nothing.  “They” are all fanatics. “They” want to see all of “us” dead, for no reason.  We did nothing to them.  We are good Christian nation.  We’re “good people.”  “How dare they execute that fellow in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity!”

My cab driver was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church, but he doesn’t attend services anymore.  The problem is “fornication.”  His church forbids it but he wants it, maybe even “needs” it.   He isn’t going to get married anymore and that’s that.  But he needs sex.  This, as he explained it, is quite a conundrum for him.  He was sincere and his voice trembled a bit as he described his struggle.  

I asked him where the Bible clearly forbids sex outside of marriage.  He’s sure it’s there, mentioning that the Bible specifically forbids “fornication.”  Therefore, he knows that he is fornicating his way to hell.  But at least it’s not celibacy or marriage, he reasoned.

I asked what he knew about when the books of the Bible were written and by whom.  He knew nothing.  He knew nothing about the Council of Nicea, Constantine or the Gnostic Gospels.  He showed no interest in knowing any of this.   For my cab driver, the Bible simply is what it is. 

He dropped me off at the airport and continued on his journey to hell.

I’ve often wondered why there is such a strong split between people who believe in science and people who believe in religion.  Certainly, there are many people who believe in both, or neither, but I think the vast majority of people believe in one or the other.  Then, I finally realized one possible source of the split:  for people who don’t understand science, what sources do they have for spiritual enlightenment, other than religion?  Perhaps the reason why so many non-scientists cling so tightly to their religion (even in the face of conflicting scientific evidence) is because they have nowhere else to turn.

No, this isn’t one of the many religious end-of-the-world warnings based on dusty books or personal revelations. It’s much worse. It is the story of “peak oil,” based on the sort of evidence that leaves both disciplined scientists and conservative bankers tossing in their sleep.

Exhibit A is the refusal of oil companies to build any additional refineries. They won’t build them anymore because refineries won’t be needed, even as demand for oil is relentlessly soaring. Why won’t refineries be needed? Because there won’t be any new oil to refine.

The story of “peak oil” is so huge and horrifying that the American public probably couldn’t bear to hear about it, even if the national media bothered to cover the issue. Of course, the American media is still too busy telling us about Janet Jackson’s nipple, Aruba murders and teachers having sex. If you want to be truly informed–if you want to be the person who destroys the mood at the next party you attend, read the next few paragraphs.

Here’s the problem in a simple picture representing the discovery and production of oil over time:

Matt Savinar is a California attorney who has worked incessantly to spread the word about global “Peak Oil.” A visit to his detailed and sober website is like a brutal kick in the stomach. It leaves one wondering who is going to take care of all of us and how “they” are going to do it. No such luck, according to Savinar. We’re all headed toward the “post-industrial stone age.” All you can do is disgorge yourself of all those retirement plans, for a simply reason.  Everything is oil.  Houses are warmed and people are able to get across town with oil. Food is fertilized and transported with oil (the average piece of food travels more than 1,000 miles before landing on your plate).   The world is simply not going to be the way you previously imagined.  (more…)

A dollar bill is approximately 0.0035″ thick.  So, a stack of one billion dollar bills would be 55.24 miles high.

A stack of 224 billion dollar bills (the approximate cost so far of invading Iraq) would be 12,373.76 miles high.  That’s halfway around the earth’s equator (the earth’s circumference is 24,900 miles).  

A stack of nine trillion dollar bills (the current US debt ceiling) would be 497,159 miles high.  That’s twice the distance from the Earth to the Moon. 

One thing I still don’t understand about Iraq is why nobody in the Bush Administration apparently anticipated this long-running insurgency.  Wasn’t it reasonably foreseeable that some of Iraq’s tens of thousands of Republican Guard troops, and hundreds of thousands of regulars, could simply hide their weapons and melt back into the population so they could live to fight another day after the US invasion?  It’s not as though this scenario is unprecedented in history, or even in American history.  Isn’t this the textbook solution for how to fight a more powerful invader?  Let the invader come in, and then wear him down with skirmishes until he runs out of money, soldiers, and support back home.  All those military experts who were trained at West Point and who were (presumably) advising Bush…did they forget about Viet Nam?  Or the Soviet invasion of Afganistan?  Or the American Revolution?  How stupid does a person have to be to not know this?

People who don’t believe in God are constantly disparaged as immoral by those who do.  Many conservatives believe that most of what they perceive to be wrong with the world can be traced to secular humanism, a phrase they can barely utter without spitting.  For them, secular humanism is a nasty weed that sprouts from the fact that it is secular.  According to many Believers, humanists are immoral because they follow a secular approach—they fail to honor God.

Those who don’t give homage to a God are thus seen as incapable of holding political office, as declared by George H. W. Bush:

No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.  

Believers are certain that those who don’t adore a Supreme Being have no moral fiber.  When Believers learn that I have a naturalistic worldview free of supernatural and mystical elements, they often express surprise that I have any basis for loving and caring for my children or assisting a stranger in need.  They are puzzled why I don’t go around setting random fires and eating my children.

This raises an interesting and fair question:  Who has the superior moral character, the person who refrains from shoplifting because she doesn’t want to go to jail or the person who refrains because she thinks it’s not a decent thing to do?  Or think of it this way: Who has a more admirable moral character: people who are motivated to show kindness because they fear that God will otherwise throw them into a fiery pit, or those who show kindness because it springs naturally from within them?  Who is more trustworthy?  Someone who obeys a set of commandments because someone commanded them to do so, or someone who consciously expresses empathy, just because (no commandment needed).

Whether people see God as their buddy or their threatening Parent-in-the-sky, there is no denying that some people are motivated to act with kindness and courage as a result of sincerely held religious beliefs.On the other hand, believing in God is no guarantee that a person will act morally.  For instance, Hitler believed in God:  Surveys regularly bear out that Believers are more likely to spend time in prison  and Believers have significantly higher divorce rates than non-Believers.  

But how could goodness and empathy spring from a person with no supernatural moral compass? Take a look at our biological cousins for some clues.  In Our Inner Ape (2005), primatologist Frans de Waal has written extensively on the behavior of chimpanzees and bonobos.  [Those of you who are convinced that evolution is evil will have to take a few long and deep breaths to get a foothold, but you will be amply rewarded.]  Careful detached study of these marvelous animals shows that they are intensely social, capable of deep empathy and geared toward collaboration.  The same is true of human animals.  Because violence and competition are unusual and disturbing, such incidents can distract us from recognizing the ubiquitous cooperation among humans.  This cooperation can be found in the establishment of libraries, hospitals, charities and random acts of kindness.  It can even be seen in the establishment of churches.

How, then, are non-Believers capable of kindness and self-sacrifice?  Though it’s going to take much more study, de Waal and other scientists have given us a terrific start.  De Waal’s research has shown that altruism is natural, as natural as competition, and much more common than violence. 

Non-Believers are decent, then, for the same reason that decent Believers are decent.  It emanates from a source that runs counter to the faulty introspective efforts of Believers.  Kindness is an instinct that is deep in our bones. 

When my friend Doug wrote that “God loves us like an abusive parent,” it sounded so very harsh, but it then reminded me of that most troublesome of concepts:  hell.

I was raised Catholic, where hell was portrayed to be a very bad place to go.  Many Catholics, however, and many liberal Christians, don’t believe that hell is a place where people are literally tortured.   Check out today’s conservative Christians, however, on your local AM radio station.  You’ll hear them fervently arguing that the version of hell taught by moderate Christians is way off the mark.  Hell is not a metaphor or a mere figure of speech.  Here’s what it is:

The reality of hell is the most horrifying, terror striking, fearful truth known to man. It encompasses the worst possible fear and the meanest conceivable existence, continual never-ending torture. “And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever (Revelation 20:10).”

Therefore, many fundamentalists believe that someone sent to hell will be (literally) tortured (literally) forever.  It will be like being forced to go to Dachau, the Rape of Nanking, Abu Ghraib or worse, for eternity.

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When did careful planning and execution become un-cool in real life? Probably about the same time it became un-cool in Hollywood. 

Think how the American hero has evolved. He used to be smart, principled and disciplined.  Not anymore.  Where we used to have student-of-the-game Ted Williams, we now have Barry Bonds.  Where we used to have Atticus Finch, Rick Blaine and Jefferson Smith we have hot-headed Lt. Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise).  Planners and careful executers include heroes as diverse as Rocky Bilboa and Gandhi.  Heroes-who-plan include soldiers from starkly different backgrounds, such as the soldiers in The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen. 

Modern television and movies don’t offer heroes who intelligently plan and collaborate with others to save the day.  A television show offering this in the 60’s was Mission Impossible.  The Impossible Mission Force was a group of specialists who actually sat down to plan their mission at the beginning of each show. 

Modern heroes rarely sit down to plan their missions.  They bristle at the thought of collaborating.  Modern protagonists are reactive, not planners. Think of Indiana Jones, Han Solo, Terminator II.  These are individualistic hot headed rejecters of collaboration.  When they succeed in the end it is because they got lucky at that last desperate moment, not because they pondered contingencies before setting out.   Interestingly, if you want planning and execution, look to Hollywood’s villains, people such as Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader or Batman’s Joker.

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Salon.com offers a review of Mike Davis’ distressing new book:  “Planet of Slums.”

According to Davis, most of Earth’s growth “is occurring in shantytowns and tenements stretching from Karachi, Pakistan, to Lima, Peru, where people live crowded together in densities that sometime dwarf those of such notorious 19th century human anthills . . .”

Planet of Slums is not an optimistic book:

the explosive growth of modern third-world cities stands the model of Europe’s Industrial Revolution on its head: It is not generally driven by economic growth. In East and parts of South Asia, the new jobs are there, but not in Latin America and certainly not in Africa, where countries have been losing industrial jobs since the 1980s even as their cities ballooned. Today’s migrants are not lured to the city by the promise of prosperity, but are driven from the countryside by ever direr poverty, population growth, environmental damage, war and the increasing global domination of high-tech agribusiness. “‘Overurbanization,’ in other words,” Davis writes, “is driven by the reproduction of poverty, not by the supply of jobs.”

See the review by Matt Steinglass.

Three years ago, my 96-year-old grandfather was dying and he was upset.  But he wasn’t upset about dying. He approached his own death with great inner strength.  What made him upset was that his government had needlessly invaded Iraq.  Because Iraq was not a threat, he said, we were squandering precious resources better used at home. The Iraq invasion was an alien idea to my grandfather’s conservative values.  Until his death in May of 2004, he lamented that the invasion would result in an intractable mess with no palatable solution. 
 
His assessment has proven correct.  Every day, we are paying 200 million more dollars to prolong this bloody occupation. That’s $100,000 per minute.  That’s a lot of money.  St. Louis baseball fans who revel at the near completion of the new stadium for the St. Louis Cardinals might appreciate that this war effort is the financial equivalent of buying a new major league baseball stadium every two days.  The cost of the Iraq war so far could have paid for 32 million children to attend a year of Head Start.

The $350 billion we will have spent on this war (by the end of 2006) amounts to more than $3,500 for each American household.  There is also a more precious resource to consider; the occupation is killing more than sixty American soldiers every month, almost 2,400 troops killed to date. This is the equivalent of crashing a packed airliner every other month. Nor must we forget that this war has inflicted terrible injuries on more than 17,000 U.S. soldiers.   If you lined them up (you’ll have to falsely assume that they are each capable of standing), the line of wounded soldiers would stretch more than ten miles.
  (more…)

On March 19, 2006, 900 demonstrators converged on Forest Park in St. Louis to make the following statement: “Stop the War-Feed the People.”

The demonstrators set up a cemetery with 2000 tombstones honoring people killed in the Iraq war (each tombstone contained the name of one American and one Iraqi citizen):

This St. Louis demonstration today was part of a series of anti-war demonstrations across the country.

Let’s see . . .  We attacked Iraq because “they killed 3,000 Americans.”  Besides being racist (it assumes that all people from the Middle East are the same, when we’ve always known that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks), this war cry has proven to be a grossly irrational wasting of lives and national resources.

We’ve now killed more than 30,000 Iraq civilians to “right” this wrong of 9/11.   And we’ve spent $300 billion to get the job done. And we’ve proudly employed torture.  And we lie that we are trying to establish “democracies” when we are actually trying to empower thugs who will be friendly to U.S. business interests–witness the Palestinian elections and our constant meddling in Iraqi politics.  In the process of waging this war in Iraq, we are enraging millions of middle-eastern people who are making the destruction of America their lives’ work. (more…)

The following is a letter I wrote to an acquaintance who asked me to contribute to a “Pregnancy Resource Center” in order to assist them to do their “important work.”   As you can see, my investigation revealed that Pregnancy Resource Centers are unwilling to plainly admit their real agenda.

Dear ____: 

I was intrigued when you invited me to contribute to the “Walk4Life” to support the Missouri “Pregnancy Resource Center.”   I took your invitation as an excuse to learn more about the PRC.  The more I learned, however, the more I disagreed with its work.  I decided to respond at length.  Though this email might seem out of proportion to your short request, it is commensurate with my strong feelings on these topics. 

I applaud the efforts of the PRC to offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds to women.  Assisting women who really want to give birth to a baby is great.  Making parenting assistance available to pregnant women is laudable.  And I certainly agree that adoption is a genuine worthy alternative to abortion, for those who freely choose this option.

The web site of the Missouri PRC (like the sites of many of the numerous “Pregnancy Resource Centers”) says very little about what PRC actually does when a pregnant woman walks through the door.  Clicking on the topic buttons of the PRC website brings up only blank email forms (see http://www.prcmo.net/ ). I thought it quite odd that the Missouri PRC wouldn’t clearly state its true mission on its website.  This lack of candor suggested to me that the Missouri PRC is one of the numerous “pregnancy resource” establishments designed to resemble legitimate health care facilities that are actually operated by fervent anti-abortionists, not health care professionals. 

To learn more, I called a St. Louis area Pregnancy Resource Center and spoke with a woman who advised me that the Center does not provide any information regarding the morning after pill, not even to victims of rape. She laughed and thought I was joking when I inquired.  She made it clear that use of the morning after pill was the equivalent of an abortion.

I find this policy disturbing, given that rape is not a rare occurrence that can be ignored when offering “pregnancy resources.” More than 15 American women are raped every hour in the U.S.. Every year, an estimated 25,000 U.S. woman are impregnated by their rapists.  Ninety percent of these rape pregnancies can be prevented with the prompt use of the morning after pill.  (more…)

According to this article, the national debt is also increasing by $350 billion per year, which is about $1100 for every man, woman and child in America, or about $100 per month.  That’s a debt that Bush and our Republican Congress is spending, and handing you the bill for.  That’s on top of the taxes we already pay.

This is the Republican version of a tax cut.  Yes, you pay less tax today, but the government simply takes out a loan instead…with your name on it.  You’re not getting a tax cut; you’re getting a loan that will someday need to be paid back.

In March 2004, U.S. Representative Tom Feeney (R-FL) announced his proposed “Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution.”  Co-sponsored by dozens of U.S. representatives, the aim of this resolution was to keep our federal judges from considering any “foreign” laws, court decisions, or pronouncements of foreign governments unless they “are expressly approved by Congress.”

This resolution has now apparently spurred death threats directed toward Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and recently retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Rep. Feeney’s website is concerned that our federal judges might rely upon the judicial wisdom of “India, Zimbabwe or the European Union.” According to Feeney’s site, this resolution “Is Congress’s way of saying NO!” 

It would seem that Rep. Feeney is convinced that foreigners have nothing of intellectual or legal value to offer to Americans.   If this resolution passes, the next logical step would be to place warning stickers on books by and about “foreigners” so that our children can avoid them.   This will require lots of stickers, of course, but it’s apparently worth it to keep America’s thoughts pure and wholesome.   If this purification campaign is successful, we can move on to book burning.  Let’s see how big a pile can we make of the books of John Locke, Plato, Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine (both of whom spent a little too much time in France), Gandhi, Ann Frank, Nelson Mandela and Shakespeare.   I don’t really know what to do about the Bible-I don’t remember reading whether God ever became an American citizenship.

I almost got through this entire post without saying xenophobia. 

Consider, that many religions consider it immoral to do any of the following:

• Ask certain obvious questions (Is there a God? Will God decide to abolish hell?)
• Follow evidence wherever it leads. (Many Believers refuse to consider indisputable indicators demonstrating that the earth is actually more than 6,000 years old).
• Admit that one does not really know (or that one doubts) the basic religious teachings of one’s church (Did Jesus actually and literally multiply loaves and fish?)
• Depersonalize the study of why religions exist (They abhor the use of psychology, biology and the other sciences to consider whether there are demonstrable reasons other than truth that motivate religious Beliefs).
• To buy enthusiastically into the scientific method (except to cherry-pick science to attack other people’s religions).

It’s not surprising, then, that religious differences are so often resolved by the use of force and violence.

On one of the local Christian radio shows (KJSL - St. Louis) one of the callers was upset last week. He really liked sex, he explained to Paul McGuire (the show host). The caller liked sex so much that the thought of going to heaven concerned him. 

The caller asked the sage host whether it was true that there was no sex “up there.”  McGuire carefully explained his answer by reference to the Bible: “there is no sex in heaven, but we won’t miss it. What IS in heaven is MUCH BETTER than sex.”

The caller asked whether it was like an orgasm?  “It’s better than an orgasm,” explained McGuire.  “It’s Like an eternally growing orgasm. It’s so much better than sex that you’d laugh if anyone in heaven ever asked you whether you missed sex. It’s like asking a grown man whether he misses riding a tricycle.” (more…)

In yesterday’s NYT, an op-ed pointing out a group likely to practice religious tolerance: atheists.