Belief.net offers Belief-O-Matic:

Even if YOU don’t know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic™ knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice…or ought to consider practicing.

I took the quiz tonight.  The questions were straightforward and well thought out. It turns out that I am a Unitarian Universalist.  A close second is Secular Humanist. 

Here is how Belief.net describes itself:

Belief.net is the largest spiritual web site. We are independent and not affiliated with any spiritual organization or movement. Our only agenda is to help you meet your spiritual needs.

If you enjoyed Belief-O-Matic, Belief.net also offers a second survey you might enjoy: What’s Your Spiritual Type?  This second quiz is “meant to help you learn about your self, see how you compare with others, and have a little fun.”  This second quiz indicated that I am a “Spiritual Dabbler–Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed.”  Hmmm . . .

As reported by Think Progress, President Bush is now arguing that war is a healthy catharsis:

President Bush proudly declared that American foreign policy no longer seeks to “manage calm,” and derided policies that let anger and resentment lie “beneath the surface.” Bush said that the violence in the Middle East was evidence of a more effective foreign policy that addresses “root causes.”

In other words, people are like trees and groups of people are like groups of trees.  How do you prevent BIG forest fires? By allowing little forest fires:

By the 1940s, ecologists recognized that fire was a primary agent of change in many ecosystems, including the arid mountainous western United States. In the 1950s and 1960s, national parks and forests began to experiment with controlled burns, and by the 1970s Yellowstone and other parks had instituted a natural fire management plan to allow the process of lightning-caused fire to continue influencing wildland succession.

Controlled burns are a great theory, except when they aren’t.  For instance, in 1988:

On the worst single day, August 20, 1988, tremendous winds pushed fire across more than 150,000 acres. Throughout August and early September, some park roads and facilities were closed to the public, and residents of nearby towns outside the park feared for their property and their lives . . .  About 1.2 million acres [were] scorched; 793,000 (about 36%) of the park’s 2,221,800 acres were burned. Sixty-seven structures were destroyed.

Check out Bush’s video.  How do you prevent big wars?  By not getting in the way of little wars. Thus, we’re doing a “controlled burn” out in the Middle-East right now–everyone’s letting off a bit of steam.  Peace, it turns out, is an obstacle to peace.

We’ve got everything under control.  How do we know this? Because Bush says so.  No problem, except for the hundreds of lives being lost and the thousands of lives being ruined.  And the millions of people of the Middle East who, unbelievably, have much more reason to hate the United States now than they did before we winked and nodded while Israel started setting fires.

This is a plug for Bill Moyers’ PBS program ‘Faith & Reason.’  The byline for the program reads, “In a world where religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how do we live together?”  It features interviews with renowned authors, scientists and religious leaders, talking about the intersection (and conflict) between religious faith and intellectual reasoning.  If you haven’t been watching the series, you can find transcripts and audio downloads of past programs at the PBS website:  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/watch_audioarchive.html.  The home page, which contains more information and links, can be found here:  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/index.html

Paul Rieckhoff raises this issue in Huffpo.  Good insights, along with a wide range of comments. 

Let’s imagine you want to buy two pounds of Golden Delicious apples.  Unfortunately, you are too busy to go to the grocery store yourself, so you send your son to buy the apples.  Now, suppose that instead of going to the grocery store and buying the apples, your son goes out and finds a dozen strangers, tells these dozen strangers several stories about the types of food you enjoy eating, and then tells the strangers to go out and buy you some food.  Does it seem very likely that they will buy you two pounds of Golden Delicious apples?

Now, let’s imagine you are God.  Imagine you have realized (in your infinite wisdom) that the laws of the Old Testament aren’t working very well, so you decide to make a new covenant with the people of earth.  Unfortunately, you are too busy to go to earth and tell them this new covenant yourself, so you send your son, Jesus.  Now, suppose that instead of just going to earth and telling the people of earth what you want written in this new covenant, your son goes out and finds a dozen strangers, tells these dozen strangers various stories about the type of new covenant you want, and then tells the strangers to go out and, in their own words, communicate your new covenant to the people of earth.  Does it seem very likely that they will accurately communicate this new covenant?

Have you ever played the game of Telephone?  The game of Telephone consists of making a line of people, whispering a story to the first person in line, having that person whisper the story to the second person in line, having that person whisper the story to the third person, etc., until the story reaches the last person in line.  The last person in line then tells the story out loud so everyone can hear, and then the original story is read out loud so everyone can compare the original story to the story that reached the end of the line.  There’s a good chance the story has changed a lot.

So, here’s my question:  why did God play a game of Telephone by sending his son to earth, having his son find a dozen strangers to tell God’s new covenant to, and then having those dozen people go out and communicate God’s new covenant to the people of earth?  Wouldn’t it have made a whole lot more sense for God to simply communicate his new covenant directly to the people of earth?  Couldn’t God have…oh, I dunno…just broadcast his voice over the entire planet, so everyone could hear directly what God wanted in his new covenant?  Why all the hassle and delay of conceiving a son, raising that son to be without sin, putting that son through all sorts of tribulations with pharoah, crucifying that son on a cross, raising that son from the dead, etc.?  Why not just go straight to the people and tell them what you want?  Indeed, wouldn’t that have made a much bigger impression on us earthlings — everyone on the planet suddenly hearing the same voice (in each person’s own language) with the same message?  People would have been asking each other, “Hey, did you hear that voice?  Yeah, I did, too.  Wow, there’s no doubt about it now — God really exists, and now we know just what he wants!”

But even if God didn’t want to go that route, why didn’t he at least have Jesus write his own book of the Bible:  the autobiographical gospel of Jesus?  If God wanted a written record of the life of Jesus and of the new covenant that God wanted to create, then why not simply have Jesus write it?  Wouldn’t that have made a lot more sense than playing an elaborate game of Telephone with a dozen strangers?

I can tell you one thing:  if I were God, I’d have gone directly to the people with a nice speech…maybe some fireworks for entertainment…helium balloons for the kids…maybe even a fancy PowerPoint presentation highlighting the main features and benefits of my new and improved covenant.  Sure would be easier than raising a son to do the job for me.

I didn’t know that they had amusement parks like this, until I recently saw this advertisement . . .

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Americans are unfairly deprived of what it’s like to be a genuine civilian war victim.  Americans experience the effects of bombs and bullets from a distance, through antiseptic television reports and glitzy video games.  Our research has shown, however, that many of you want a much more up-close, detailed, exciting and visceral experience.  We also realize that Americans have a difficult time learning anything at all in the absent of a concurrent entertainment experience.

It is for this reason that we have built Civilian Casualty Theme Park to give you the Adventure and Experience of being a civilian war victim.  We offer you the thrill and exhilaration of BEING THERE while your own neighborhood is ripped apart by warfare. This is no ordinary theme park.  We give you up-close and personal real-life action where the bombs actually explode.  If you like haunted houses and slasher films, you’re going to love Civilian Casualty Theme Park!

We use state-of-the-art computer simulations and pharmacology combined with hundreds of highly trained actors and technicians to give you the gut-wrenching and mind-twisting experience of what it is like to be a civilian war victim.  For starters, our experts and technicians will construct a replica of your own neighborhood in anticipation of your scheduled visit. 

After allowing you to settle in at your own residence in your own personalized Hollywood-caliber “neighborhood,” your heart will start to pound when you first hear the lifelike buzz of incoming cruise missiles and the percussive detonations of dozens of warheads. You will jump as you see “your” windows shatter and you will moan as you begin to feel the pain of simulated glass shards in your own flesh.  Your electric power will go down in the early-going, triggering pandemonium throughout the neighborhood.  In the darkness you will hear and feel a symphony of explosives, some of which will periodically knock down portions of the walls of your “residence.”  Looters will run wild.  Fires will rage (putting them out without water earns you bonus points).  Your “family” will be huddled within your “home,” which will fill with additional dust and debris by the hour. Falling bricks and plaster will knock you silly and test your will to survive (you will be graded on your performance—high point earners win certificates good for redemption at our gift shop). 

Because we want to give you the full experience, we arrange for you to stay overnight so that you can feel the rumbling and percussions of ordnance all night long.  (We also offer three-day and seven-day customized adventures).  Based on family photos you provide, our technicians will prepare and project laser images of your dad’s dead body in your front doorway.  We will really test your mettle with holographic images of your mom hobbling around screaming as she tries to stop the bleeding of her freshly amputated lower right leg.  EVERYTHING will be extremely realistic.  (more…)

One of the most fundamental principles of any war is that, to win, you must divide your enemies and unite your friends.  This principle is know by various names, including “divide and conquer” and “strength in numbers.”

How well has the Bush Administration applied this principle?  Throughout the Middle East, radical Muslims are more united than they have been in decades, while Western allies are more divided.  In Iraq, for example, Bush’s idiotic invasion has undermined Sunni power, thus enabling radical Shiites in Iraq to unite with radical Shiites in Iran, paving the way for anti-Western control of the region.  Meanwhile, Bush’s invasion has alienated virtually all of America’s traditional allies:  virtually none has given any support — not militarial, not financial, not material, not political nor even rhetorical.  The result:  there is unity among America’s enemies and deep division among America’s friends.  Even worse, the momentum is moving strongly against America:  the unity among its enemies is accelerating and the divisions among its friends is widening. 

Likewise, in the Levant, the Bush Administration’s knee-jerk support for Israel’s appalling response to Hezbollah has helped unite Muslim radicals against both Israel and the U.S.  Muslims throughout the region — and many even outside the region — see the Israelis, and their American ally, as cruel and unhuman, and they are rallying behind Hezbollah for revealing this cruelty.  Indeed, even the Bush-backed president of Iraq has conspicuously failed to condemn Hezbollah, a clear sign that even moderate Muslims in the region are siding with the radicals.  Meanwhile, Bush’s blind support for Israel has attracted no support from its own allies, except of course from Britain.  Again, the result:  unity among America’s enemies and division among America’s friends.

Indeed, even here in America, Bush’s misguided policies have deeply divided the nation, creating “red states” and “blue states” instead of one unified country. 

Bottom line:  we cannot know where Bush’s so-called “war on terrorism” will be in five, ten or fifty years, but we do know that, right now, Bush is failing disastrously to divide America’s enemies and unite its friends.  In the six years of Bush’s moronic mismanagement, radical Muslims who were previously separated into isolated pockets in disparate countries are now more united than at any time in recent history.  The notion of a radical Islamic state stretching from Africa to Asia — something that would have been laughable just ten years ago — is not laughable anymore.  Meanwhile, Bush’s unending string of foreign policy failures has alienated America’s allies (except for Britain), divided the American people, exhausted the American military, depleted the American treasury, and stretched American resources to the point that its influence around the world is but a shadow of what it was when Bush took office.  All these years that Bush has been strutting around and telling America that he is “winning the war on terrorism,” he has actually been uniting America’s enemies and dividing America’s friends:  he is, unquestionably, losing this war.

In a political climate drenched with debate as well as petty fighting, many people embrace bipartisan cooperation when it makes one of its rare appearances. A no-brainer of a bill feels like a relief, and it indicates that Congress actually has the ability to conduct business in a productive way. The uncontested passage of a bill feels particularly sweet when the bill deals with an emotionally gratifying issue, like the recent creation of a national sex offender registry.

No one urged President Bush to veto this bill. Named for the America’s Most Wanted host’s kidnapped son, Adam Walsh, this bill had all the trappings of legislative gem: widespread bipartisan support, quick, painless passage, and the emotional pull that only arresting child molesters for 25 years can elicit.

The law establishes a national-level database of past sex offenders’ names and locations. Many states have implemented databases of this kind before, but this law penalizes past offenders more harshly for not providing current information, and increases criminal penalties for child predators as well. It certainly sounds like a Congressional slam-dunk, providing all Americans with more access to information, and better protecting the nation’s children from proven sex criminals. Most people would support such a piece of legislation without a moment’s thought.

But any issue that prompts you to think with your heart rather than your head can have disastrous results. Botched legislation has enjoyed widespread gut-reaction support before, after all. And sex offender registries have not had a shining history.

This April, a vigilante in Maine used a sex offender registry to track down and kill six convicted sex offenders. The victims included the rapist of a 13-year-old girl. But the vigilante’s prey also included an entirely harmless adult man who ended up on the state registry just for having sex with his girlfriend before she turned 16.

Vengeance-minded maniacs don’t go on sex offender registry killing-sprees that often, but the registries nonetheless come with a deep flaw: they don’t differentiate between potentially dangerous rapists and child molesters, and more innocuous offenders who have merely committed consensual statutory rape. Yet all offenders face the same treatment once they have served their time in prison: sex offenders can’t live near public schools or parks, and wherever they do move, a long line of harassing phone calls, neighborhood flyers, and police inspections tend to follow. This story on NPR follows a man who has received numerous death threats from community members who have found his name on a local sex offender registry. His crime? At age 20, he had sex with a 16-year-old, now his wife. (more…)

A few weeks back, one of my teachers asked the class to make a five-minute PowerPoint Presentation on any topic of our choice. I chose to address a question which has long intrigued several people around me, including my classmates: “Why am I vegan?”

I thought long and hard on how I should present my views on the subject. I finally decided that my presentation would consist of pictures of factory-farmed animals being ill-treated. The presentation was appreciated by everyone but, in reality, those pictures barely account for my being vegan. Make no mistake, the depravity of the manner in which animals are treated on farms does disturb me. But my convictions about vegetarianism are rooted in a larger moral framework, one which recognizes the rights of all forms of substantial intelligence, including animals.

I was recently discussing animals’ rights with my friend, who remarked, “Rights? They are just animals for god’s sake!”

His remark that they were just animals revealed a common attitude held towards animals. Many people see animals as no different from other resources which can be harnessed for human use. They do understand the concept of rights, but this word for them, applies only to humans. I wonder if these people have thought through the concept of human rights at all. Are these rights given to humans, simply because they possess the “form” of humans?

Today, most people have a decent understanding of human rights. We generally deem it to be important for all humans, irrespective of age, race and nationality. This is because we realize that we share certain aspects that we value most in ourselves, with all other humans. These aspects include the singularness, or “individuality” which we can sense about ourselves. They include our consciousness, which helps us distinguish ourselves from our environment and understand our surroundings.  Most importantly, they include  our emotions, which characterize our daily lives.

Thus human life is assigned a “worth,” an importance, on the basis of these factors. But come to think of it, these are possessed by animals other than humans as well, though perhaps to a slightly lesser degree. (more…)

Yes, these are giddy and unnerving times, but it’s also time to bring out popcorn and balloons.  It’s time to celebrate the end of the world!

You can hear it 24/7 on evangelical radio, (I’ve been listening to radio station KJSL, based in St. Louis).  Each passing month, the voices of those radio preachers are getting faster and higher-pitched. It’s all intensely festive, in a macabre sort of way.  All the signs are there, the preachers proclaim.  This is really “it.” 

Syndicated talk show host Paul McGuire is among the many radio preachers leading the cheers with their own gnashing teeth.  McGuire just wrote a book entitled ARE YOU READY?  WELCOME TO THE END OF THE WORLD.   What’s his new book about?  Check out McGuire’s website:

A NUCLEAR ATTACK ON AMERICA; THE COMING MEXICO, U.S. & CANADIAN MERGER; ISRAEL & THE PALESTINIAN STATE; GLOBAL GOVERNMENT; TERRORISM; HURRICANES, FREAK WEATHER & EPIDEMICS; PREDICTIONS OF THE ANCIENT HEBREW PROPHETS; SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Any time the radical Christ crowd gets this excited (excited enough to use the Caps Lock key so extensively), it’s worth checking out.  Just because they’ve been wrong about the end of the world so often before doesn’t mean that they aren’t on target this time. 

But there’s this other thing on my mind—why have those evangelicals gotten so enamored about protecting their very very very good friend, Israel?  It turns out that these two things—the end of the world and the existence of Israel–are connected.

Remember Pat Robertson’s “crazy” statement last January? 

Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.”He was dividing God’s land, and I would say, ‘Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,’” Robertson told viewers of his long-running television show, “The 700 Club.”

“God says, ‘This land belongs to me, and you’d better leave it alone,’” he said.

If you read Robertson’s statement carefully, you can see that the evangelicals don’t really care about the Jewish people.  God will eventually toss many of them into the fires of hell; no great loss (more on this in a minute).  What the evangelicals are really concerned about is the land, the political existence of the state of Israel.  Why?  (more…)

People who believe in god(s) are inclined to say that one reason they believe in god(s) is because they would find their lives “meaningless” otherwise.  So, here’s my question:  how does belief in god(s) create “meaning” in life? 

Let’s consider an example.  Many Christians are inclined to say that one reason they believe in God is because they would find their lives “meaningless” otherwise.  According to this worldview, the “meaning” their religion offers them is to suffer through life until God is satisfied they have suffered long enough, then (if they are “united with Jesus”) they go to heaven to worship God for all eternity or (if they remain “fallen”) they go to hell to suffer for all eternity. 

Does that really seem like a meaningful existence?  God creates us merely to play games with us for a few dozen years here on earth — in order to “test” us — and then God sits in judgment of us to decide where we will spend the rest of eternity?  Our “meaning” in life thus reducees to praising God throughout our lives just to earn the right to praise God for the rest of eternity?  Indeed, the story of Lucifer demonstrates that even after a person gets into heaven, his failure to continue praising God might still put him in hell for all eternity.  Where is the meaning in being nothing more than a praising chorus for a God who already knows He is omnipotent?

Let me put it another way.  Think of Adam and Eve — arguably the best models we have for what human life in heaven is probably like.  Exactly what meaning did they have in their lives?  They had no struggles, no pain, no death, no successes, no failures, no challenges, no accomplishments, no learning (because they were forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge), etc.  The Bible does not even describe them as having any joy.  Their lives consisted of being specimens in God’s little zoo.  Where is the meaning?

Now, imagine you are in heaven and imagine you are surrounded by people who are perfectly happy to have no successes, no failures, no challenges, no accomplishments, no learning, etc.  You spend eternity either praising God or discussing how you are going to better praise God.  Where is the meaning? 

Indeed, can we think of any earthly place that is similar to heaven — where people can be perfectly happy to have no successes, no failures, no challenges, no accomplishments, no learning, etc., and to, instead, spend all of their time praising some god-figure?  I can think of one:  psychiatric hospitals.

Sorry, maybe that’s too harsh, but my question remains:  if you tell yourself (and others) that your religion gives your life “meaning,” but you ignore the details of the “meaning” that your religion promises you, then in what way does your religion actually give your life “meaning?”  Said another way:  is having no answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life,” so frightening that any answer — even a vague, self-contradictory one — becomes better than none at all?

When the news this morning reported yet more staggering profits for big oil companies, I realized that I could think of only three groups of Americans who have benefitted in a big way — i.e., with obscene profits — since George Bush took office:  big oil companies (Bush’s former business colleagues), Halliburton (Cheney’s former business colleagues) and the ultra-rich (Bush’s and Cheney’s political base).  I hate to sound cynical, but it seems to me this is either a truly amazing coincidence or it has been their hidden goal (and the basis for their lies, deceptions and misguided policy decisions) since the day they took office.

I understand now why so many Republicans distrust big government:  they believe that everyone else would abuse governmental power the same way they do — by screwing the public to pay off their friends.

What is it to be loyal?

According to Merriam Webster, to be “loyal” is to be

1 : unswerving in allegiance: as  a: faithful in allegiance to one’s lawful sovereign or government   b: faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due   c: faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.

I don’t have a problem with this definition.  I do object, however, that “loyalty” has been given a free pass in modern American culture, as though loyalty is always a good thing.  In particular, the mass media has bought into this linguistic sleight-of-hand: according to the mainstream media, it is always a good thing to be “loyal.” 

Loyalty is undoubtedly a virtue when we are dealing with pet dogs.  We like our dogs to be loyal. We like our dogs to do what we tell them to do.  The loyalty of a human being is not necessarily a good thing, however.

Loyalty is a matter of committing oneself to a person, to a group of people or to a cause.  But people and causes can be either praiseworthy or despicable (or something in between).  If a cause to which I am loyal is that all babies should have basic medical care, loyalty to such a cause would be a good thing.  If my idea is that we should all give homage to Hitler, loyalty to this cause would be a horrible idea. Therefore, how can it be said that loyalty is per se a good thing unless one first examines the merit of the person(s) or clause(s) to which a person is being loyal? 

For these reasons, loyalty is not necessarily a virtue.  Thus, it shouldn’t any longer be spoken of as though it is always a good thing.  In actuality, loyalty is an amoral commitment to people or causes.  In and of itself, loyalty cannot and should not be praised.  Why should we honor loyalty any more than we honor talking or putting things in our pockets, for example?  Whether talking or putting things in our pocket are “virtuous” depends upon what we’re saying or what we are putting in our pocket, right?  What if our act of talking is spreading harmful lies?  What if we’re putting poison in our pocket in order to carry out a plan to kill an innocent person?

Sometimes, it is a terrible idea to be loyal.  Consider a wife’s loyalty to a husband who beats her.  I know that there are some neocons out there who think the wife should stick it out, patiently reading the Bible for inspiration when he’s not actually in the act of smacking her, but I consider it sick to be “loyal” to a person who causes one physically harms.  This brings to mind another aspect of being “loyal.”  We don’t usually talk about “loyal” husbands, “loyal” employers or “loyal” governments.  It seems that loyalty is often a duty that usually falls upon those who are relatively powerless. That’s why the word fits so well with dogs–and common citizens.

Patriotism is a subclass of loyalty. Can it really be said that it is a good thing to always be patriotic, to always show allegiance to one’s country even when one’s country is doing dreadful things?  If there is any doubt, a rereading of our founding documents is in order. The Declaration of Independence is proof that patriotism is not per se a good thing.  Some forms of government are worthy of loyalty and some are not. The declaration indicates that it is the right and duty of the governed to overthrow governments that do not serve them well.

Yet somehow, loyalty (and patriotism) have been co-opted by the powers that be, twisted in meaning and foisted onto the people.   The relatively powerless citizens are constantly told that loyalty (and patriotism) are unquestionably good things. Somehow, the media has gotten away with telling us that it was a good thing that Colin Powell was loyal to his boss, even when his boss asked him to stand before the United Nations with a sincere face and tell the world numerous lies that have resulted in the needless deaths thousands of deaths. Loyalty is good.  Dead bodies are bad.  But loyalty that causes dead bodies is good. (more…)

Here’s an interesting example on how intuition can go awry.  What would you guess to be the primary factor for determining whether a scientist is receptive to new and innovative scientific theories?  Education? Economic resources? Gender? None of the above! 

In Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives (1996), a meticulously researched book that has now withstood a decade of criticism, Frank Sulloway concluded that those people who tend to cling to old paradigms, who are not confortable with new innovative scientific theories, have something surprising in common.  They tend to be firstborns. Sulloway based his conclusions on the analysis of the written views of 3,890 persons associated with scientific controversies.

Firstborns are significantly more likely to “identify more closely with parents and authority,” and more “conforming, conventional and defensive—attributes that are all negative features of openness to experience.” [pp. 21-22.] 

Sulloway analyzed the attitudes of the writers of published commentary regarding the theory of Copernicus during the early stages of that controversy:

[I]ndividual laterborns were 5.4 times more likely than individual firstborns to support Copernicus’s claim that the earth revolves around the sun.  Copernicus himself was the youngest of four children.

[p. 38] There are many books written for a lay audience on the topic of birth order, but very few of them are carefully documented with statistical analyses.  Sulloway’s book is a shining exception to the rule.  It is a highly detailed work that presents statistics that are not merely suggestive of his conclusions, but off-the-charts in an eye-popping way.  He has carefully integrated his findings with Darwinian theory to give it a deep understanding.  Anyone reading this book will never again think of sibling rivalry as a laughing matter.  It can’t be over-emphasized the extent to which Sulloway has squeezed his data in a wide variety of ways to yield numerous fascinating findings.  I’ll start with firstborns: (more…)

There are two kinds of people, right? That’s how many analyses begin.

Here is one that I humbly offer, with little optimism that sufficient numbers of people will have the courage to take it to heart.

What is the opposite of Islam?

Most Americans would say that the answer is “Christianity.” This simple misconception, though, is the beginning of all kinds of mischief. I would submit that the opposite of Islam (and also the opposite of Christianity) is freethinking. In my view, Christianity and Islam both involve the refusal to deeply question one’s own motives, instincts and mental vulnerabilities.

The convoluted doctrines of these religions (and all religions and many political doctrines) serve as social truths only, not literal truths.  In my view, religions serves only as “flags” around which people gather to do what they do, for good or for evil. Individuals following these religions do plenty of both.  Knitted out of ambiguous platitudes, oxymorons and tall tales, such flags need not be literally true to serve well as a situs for social cohesion.  The components of religions need not be literially true to be important

The “opposite” of fundamentalist Islam, then, it’s “solution,” is not Christianity, certainly not fundamentalist Christianity. That is my perspective and my faith. In fact, in the modern world, a rampant version of any type of fundamentalism is the “opposite” of another only in that it tends to function as to provoke an “equal and opposite” reaction: another version of fundamentalism. The more any one of these religions gains adherents and tries to take over, the more another version of fundamentalism grows in strength to resist. It’s not a matter of whether one of these versions of fundamentalism is literally “true,” then.

The literal truth of these religions (e.g., whether a virgin can have a baby) can never be proven to willing and patient objective outsiders. Attempts at such proofs generally proceed from earnest invocations, to in your face earnestness to yelling with clentched holy books to shooting bullets with clentched holy books. Intellectual positions need not ignite fires, not inevitably. Outside of religious thinking, though, it’s common.  Intellectual explorations need not involve antagonism or aggression.  A case in point: How many wars have been started by agnostics?

Hasn’t more deep learning resulted from good questions than from beating people over the heads with oxymorons? Instead of attaking each other with holy books, wouldn’t it be utterly refreshing were allreligious believer to base their actions on humility, skepticism, self-critical thought and unbounded curiosity? Why not deep breaths, intellectual courage and empathy, instead of bullets? These things are the opposites of fundmentalisms of all stripes.

I have been away from home for the past week, without much access to media or the Internet. This has been good for me, I believe. Whenever I do get a glimpse of the news it seems, more than ever, to be less and less useful to think in terms of “us versus them,” and more and more senseless.

I offer this test, then (what is the opposite of Islam) as a litmus test for whether one is too entrenched to see the big picture. When one is too close to all the antagonism or too involved in either of these religions, one simply cannot see the numerous things all versions of fundamentalism hold in common, especially the unwillingness to follow evidence where it leads.

The true opposite of both Islam and Christianity, then, is critical thinking melded with empathy. Those who see this truth today, seem to be a dying breed–dying in the crossfire.

The official Bush policy in Iraq is that “when the Iraqis stand up, America will stand down.” Does it look to anyone like that is happening?  See here.

The Founding Fathers of the United States feared the effects of a largely uninformed populous. In the 1700s, Democracy still struck many people as a dangerous proposition, reliant on the education and devotion of the masses. With an unaware voting public, the logic went, Republic could turn to tyranny. We cannot idly expect the government to afford us our basic rights; we instead must always fight to retain them. Thomas Jefferson said it succinctly: “If the nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.” Fellow Virginian James Madison explained it this way:

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both. A people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

How ironic that Virginia voters have some of the worst access to candidates’ positions of any state in the nation.  Public ignorance doesn’t get the blame this time, though. The majority of Virginian candidates up for election this November have neglected to fill out the nation’s foremost position survey, Project Votesmart’s National Political Awareness Test (NPAT).

Project Votesmart launched nationally in 1992. The nonpartisan organization, created by the diverse likes of George McGovern, John McCain, Bill Frist, Michael Dukakis, and Jimmy Carter, aims to create the most comprehensive database of information on candidates bidding for office. Project Votesmart’s website features background information and incumbents’ voting records, vast collections of public statements, and the ratings of hundred of interest groups. But the organization’s crown gem, the NPAT survey on political positions, has seen a steady decline in responses over the last several elections.

Unfortunately, the problem just begins in Virginia. Fewer and fewer candidates have chosen to respond to surveys all over the nation. In Montana, only 16 legislative candidates returned NPAT surveys, out of an estimated 250. Gubernatorial candidates in Kentucky and Indiana have refused the survey several times. Californian politicians, like Virginians, have reached an all-time low in response.

Both bewildered and curious, I went to Project Votesmart’s database and looked up the candidates in my state, Ohio. Look at what I found. Dismal results across the board. (more…)

Uh-oh, I’m annoyed again. Nothing new, just a recycled annoyance that popped into my craw today and won’t leave, I suppose, because this particular instance, while merely a minor irritation on the surface, indicates a raging cultural infection coursing underneath.

I’m easily annoyed by words used incorrectly in the hopes of making either the subject matter or the speaker sound more important or intelligent or valuable or necessary than it probably is. This happens regularly; verbal faux pas have been catalogued, column-ized and syndicated. Corporatespeak has created a behemoth of misuses and our own president plays with English as if it were a Nerf football to be tossed about, squished, stepped on, soaked in mud then caught in the dog’s teeth, and hey, don’t worry if a few chunks of actual meaning are missing.

This day, however, the word wasn’t grammatically trounced, but it assaulted my senses nevertheless, leaving an irksome sensation of unpleasantness, a bad taste on my cultural tongue. I was listening to news in the car, as most of my city lay without power after treacherous storms roared through the region. I mention this only because I normally listen to CDs in my car, music to soothe rather than news to agitate. I need calming when I drive so as to avoid my propensity toward early-onset road rage. Anyway, in the midst of the news, a commercial ran for a plastic surgeon who promises to make us all beautiful. He can create perfection. Upgrade us from our current, obviously sub-standard condition. He can make us better. He can “help you achieve the you you’ve always dreamed of.”

Huh? I mean, aside from ending the sentence in a preposition (which, duh, is just wrong), how exactly is going under the knife in the hopes of coming out better than you went in “achieving” anything? This is an achievement? Sorry, no. For the doctor, maybe. For the money guys who invested in his profitable little practice, perhaps.

But this is not an achievement for the patient choosing to suck off a bit of fat here and there instead of say, power-walking. Or for the patient who chooses to have her face sliced and stretched so she can pretend she’s younger than she is, instead of embracing herself in all her decades-old glory. And especially not for the patient who decides to poke a pair of unnaturally large and perky breasts into the peripheral vision of every seeing human who happens to pass her way. Oh NO, making sure breasts get more unnecessary attention than breasts already get in our painfully superficial culture is most certainly not an achievement.

(more…)

I’m halfway through a brand new book by psychologist Thomas Kida, titled Don’t Believe Everything You Think. Kida does a good job of collecting and summarizing a huge number of cognitive traps and frailties that afflict humans. The book focuses on the following six categories of cognitive traps:

• We prefer stories to statistics
• We seek to confirm, not to question, our ideas.
• We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in shaping events.
• We sometimes misperceive the world around us.
• We tend to oversimplify our thinking.
• We have faulty memories.

The Notes section of the book annotates the examples well, complete with citations to original studies and additional material.

Kida cites a poll showing that 41% of Americans believe in ESP, yet no study has ever substantiated such an alleged power. He notes that the CIA spent $20M on its Stargate program, which attempted to use psychics to investigate phenomena hundreds of miles away.

I’m going to keep this book handy as a reference. It’s easy to read and a good value in paperback. This book provides a good reason to each of us to be humble about our perceptions and beliefs.

The inventive minds at freeway blogger have one solution:

With some ordinary cardboard (taken from big box retailers’ dumpsters, of course), some poster paint, and a bungee cord, you too can reach a captive audience of thousands in the span of a few minutes.

In the age of corporately owned media outlets and million dollar candidate campaigns, sometimes guerilla tactics seem necessary to break through the static. Freeway blogger also has put together a short video on their exploits, seen here.

Just when we thought the chaos in Iraq was about as bad as it could be, darned if the violence in Baghdad hasn’t managed to increase by 40% in just the past week:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060720/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Here’s what MSNBC reports regarding the newly passed bill “to protect the pledge of allegiance.”

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., said America was a nation of God-given inalienable rights and that’s why the country is in a war against “radical Islamists.” Democrats wouldn’t want to “cut and run” in Iraq, he said, “if they understood the importance of those basic principles and that inalienable rights are impossible without a recognition of God and that’s why the pledge bill is important and not irrelevant or trivial.”

Nothing about WMD.  Nothing about creating a democracy for Iraqis (now that we know how they’d vote). 

For Akin, by the way, there’s only one true version of God.  The Christian version.  In fact, Akin has shown support for  Christian Reconstructionism, a movement calling for the intentional subordination of American civil law to biblical law.  Other members of this organization have called for the death penalty for homosexuals, abortion doctors and women guilty of “unchastity before marriage,” among other moral crimes.  Akin personally attended the April 7, 2005 gathering of the Christian Reconstructionists to give a welcome message (Tom Delay gave a welcome by video hookup).

Your tax dollars at work.

As reported by Think Progress, Karl Rove –”told the Denver Post that ‘recent studies’ show researchers ‘have far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells.’”  This provoked the people at Think Progress to do some digging.  Here’s what they found:

The Chicago Tribune contacted a dozen top stem cell experts about Rove’s claim. They all said it was inaccurate. So who wrote the “studies” that Rove was referring to?

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius on Tuesday could not provide the name of a stem cell researcher who shares Rove’s views on the superior promise of adult stem cells.

The White House knows that it just can’t win a fair fight, it seems.  At the risk of sounding petty or obsessed or trite, has anyone been meticuously documenting each of the White House lies and categorized them by topic?  Not that 29% of this country’s voters would ever care.  

By a vote of 63 to 37, the Senate passed a bill to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on Tuesday. President Bush has promised to use his veto power for the first time in 5 ½ years on this bill, which the current vote can’t override.

The public opinion on stem cell research has changed over the last few years, as their overwhelming medical potential has become radiantly clear, and as even conservatives have followed Nancy Reagan’s move and pledged support. Bush steadfastly remains by his initial impression on stem cell research, however confident in his view because “murder is wrong”.

Among the bill’s opponents, Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas made a spectacle on Monday when he used a 7-year-old girl’s explanation of stem cell research to make his point. How comforting that the Christian right has such a wide range of authorities to quote on the issue. Senator Brownback’s source, a girl named Hannah, came from an “adopted” frozen embryo, which the Senator no doubt thought illustrated what the bill puts at stake very well. He explained it this way:

“This is not just a group of a few cells. This is not a hair follicle. This is not a fingernail. You know, this is Hannah. And if nurtured, grows to be just this beautiful child, and we got a lot of them, of frozen embryos. And I hope people will consider put putting them up for adoption, because there’s a lot of people that want to adopt them.”

Unfortunately for the Senator, at least 90% of the stem cells considered by this bill currently end up discarded, without a use to anyone, and therefore not adopted at all. This brings me to the title of my post, garbage-picking for stem cells. If President Bush, Senator Brownback and their ilk label the stem cell research of garbage cells “murder”, and would prefer that we pitch the embryos rather than put them to use, let’s just dumpster-dive for them. That way we can get around Bush’s senseless veto, and the conservative right can go on pretending that droves of people want to adopt embryos (just as people eagerly claim all of the children available for adoption that otherwise would have ended up aborted, right?). (more…)

It’s been a long week, and it’s only Tuesday.

As my bio indicates, I work at a community college. I teach English and am a writing tutor in our campus learning center, which not only provides help with writing, but with math, science, and foreign languages. We are a multipurpose facility although the individual tutors only work within the areas of their specialization. It is a chaotic place in which to work, not only because of the multiplicity of disciplines represented, but because, while each discipline occupies a specific area of the large room that houses us, there are no walls separating us, and staff are forced to share offices rather than having private spaces to which they can retreat.

Or, at least that is the reason given by some of the staff for the pandemonium. What they say contains a grain of truth, but it is only part of the story, I believe. The real cause of the difficult working conditions, in my opinion, is the lack of respect for boundaries displayed by some of the tutors who behave as though no one else works in the center except themselves. They conduct loud conversations about personal matters wherever and whenever they want, gossip maliciously in front of students, crack jokes and laugh raucously, treat students who come to them for help with something close to contempt, and disrupt the concentration of everyone around them constantly. They seem obdurately oblivious to the needs of those with whom they work, including the students. They simply take what they need and ignore everyone else’s needs.

What intrigues me about this scenario is how our workforce breaks down politically. (I’m not making this up.) We are divided between Republicans and Democrats. I think you can probably see where I’m going with this. Yes, there are no Democrats in the self-centered group (although there are a couple of Republicans in the cooperative group). There are fewer in the self-centered group than in the other group, and yet they dominate. The self-centered group relies on the other group to do most of the work of actually helping students.

And, inevitably, there is political discussion. The members of the self-centered group are vocal and heavy handed with their opinions. They voted for George Bush twice, support his wars, his domestic policies, his religious beliefs. The believe in the manifest destiny of the United States. They are highly offended if someone expresses any opinion that diverges from their own, becoming strident and irrational to drown out their opposition. Even though there are more of us than of them, most in our group simply say nothing, having been effectively intimidated into silence, unwilling to create confrontation. Those of us who refuse to be intimidated maintain an uneasy truce with the bullies, demonstrating both our unwillingness to be cowed or to engage in shouting matches.

What I’m claiming here, although simplistic, is that I work in a microcosm of our larger society. (more…)