Thomas Jefferson’s Bible

Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the Bible, which is currently featured at the Smithsonian:

[Thomas] Jefferson was devoted to the teachings of Jesus Christ. But he didn’t always agree with how they were interpreted by biblical sources, including the writers of the four Gospels, whom he considered to be untrustworthy correspondents. So Jefferson created his own gospel by taking a sharp instrument, perhaps a penknife, to existing copies of the New Testament and pasting up his own account of Christ’s philosophy, distinguishing it from what he called “the corruption of schismatizing followers.”

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Much of the material Jefferson elected to not include related miraculous events, such as the feeding of the multitudes with only two fish and five loaves of barley bread; he eschewed anything that he perceived as “contrary to reason.” His idiosyncratic gospel concludes with Christ’s entombment but omits his resurrection. He kept Jesus’ own teachings, such as the Beatitude, “Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God.” The Jefferson Bible, as it’s known, is “scripture by subtraction,” writes Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University.
Here is a link to the Smithsonian's copy of Jefferson's Bible.

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On thinking carelessly about happiness

I recently watched Daniel Kahneman's TED lecture a second time (here's my first comment), because it relates to some of the material in Kahneman's excellent new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman dissects the term "happiness," explaining that it is so fraught with ambiguities that we should probably dispense with this word. Complicating things, we confuse experience (being happy in your life) and memory (being happy about or with your life). Making things even worse, we suffer from the "focusing illusion." Namely, we can't think about any circumstance that affects well being without distorting its importance. Kahneman describes the "focusing illusion" as a "real cognitive trap" that we have no hope of getting right. The remembering self depends on stories that we construct, and what is especially salient about our stories are the changes, significant moments and endings. Whereas the "experiencing self" lives a life of a series of moments, most of these moments are lost forever--they are not remembered. Each "psychological present moment" is about 3 seconds long, meaning that there are 600 million of them in a lifetime (600,000 in each month). Most of them don't leave a trace in our memory. We forget almost all of them no matter how much we try to remember them and no matter how much we think that they should all "count." Because the "remembering self" has no access to most of the moments of our lives, it substantially relies on the stories we construct about our lives. It turns out that these are two extremely different selves that bear heavily on how "happy" we are.

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Greatest country in the world?

To what extent do candidates for President need to declare their belief in "American Exceptionalism"? More specifically, is the United States of America the greatest country in the world? If ever patriotism dovetails with religion, this has got to be the place, because the typical user of these phrases has no interest in real world factual inquiry regarding either the United States or of other countries. In other words, those who use this phrase almost never engage in any comparisons based on evidence, yet the use of these phrases denotes that a factual comparison has been conducted. At his well-researched article at Huffpo, Jerome Karabel explores the historical use of the term "American Exceptionalism."

What might be called the "U.S. as Number One" version of "American exceptionalism" enjoys broad popular support among the public. According to a Gallup poll from December 2010, 80 percent of Americans agree that "because of the United States' history and its Constitution ... the United States has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world." Support for this proposition varied somewhat along party lines, but not by much: 91 percent of Republicans agreed, but so, too, did 73 percent of Democrats. For President Obama, the issue of American exceptionalism could be his Achilles' heel. In that same 2010 Gallup poll, Americans were asked which recent presidents believed that "the United States has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world." Reagan was highest at 86 percent, followed by Clinton at 77 percent, and George W. Bush with 74 percent; President Obama was a distant fourth at 58 percent. Obama's vulnerability on the issue may be traced in part to his response to a question in April 2009 from a Financial Times reporter about whether he subscribed, "as many of your predecessors have, to the school of American exceptionalism." "I believe in American exceptionalism," declared Obama, "just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Though taken out of context, the remark serves as Exhibit A for Republicans making the case that Obama does not believe in "American exceptionalism" and, by extension, in America's greatness.

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Jack Abramoff: How to fix political corruption

At LA Weekly, Paul Teetor interviews Jack Abramoff, who has recently released his memoirs, titled Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist. I focused on these parts of the interview:

Politicians have to beg constantly for money, but you say that's not the primary problem. What is the primary problem? Power. The primary problem is them wanting to stay in power. It's not just campaign contributions; it's also people giving each other meals, taking them on trips. Anytime a gratuity is given to a public servant, that is a bribe. You say the best way to get control of a congressman's office is to offer a future job to the chief of staff. How does that work? I would say, "I would like to talk to you about working for me." The minute that conversation started, I had basically bribed them. From that point forward, I found, they were basically working for us. Is that part of your reform recommendations? Members and their chiefs of staff cannot become lobbyists? I would include every member of their staff.
These are the conclusions of a man who manipulated the system for decades. Although he attributes much of the corruption in Washington, D.C. to the lust for power, all methods of playing the system involve the exchange of money and other things of value. Politicians should be making their decisions solely on the merits of the legislation being considered. The solution is to pay our representatives well but take all other money and other things of value, direct and indirect, out of the equation. No junkets, no special book deals, no lecture money, no special consideration for jobs for relatives and friends. I would also pass a constitutional amendment to undo the damage of Citizen's United. I would offer meaningful public funding for political campaigns. Although I don't agree with everything Abramoff now says, I think he is right that corruption often starts with the little things and builds up. Therefore, I would agree to ban all of the little things too: no dinners, no small gifts and nothing at all of value. In the aggregate, these things constitute the only approach for freeing up the consciences of politicians so that they can make decisions based only on what is best for their constituents.

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