Where Religion and Politics Should Not Cross

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/churches-religious-officials-political-speech_n_1616273.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

While religious organizations and associated 501(c) 3 charitable organizations are not prohibited from having political positions and being on the side of one issue or another, the IRS has restrictions on their supporting one candidate or opposing one actively. But some preachers are scoffing at this and risking their churches all for the sake of a ridiculous idea that church needs to be this involved with politics as opposed to the more imminent issues, like saving souls or spreading the gospel. Not that I believe in souls or the value of the so called “good news”, but I think I’ve made that apparent enough. Bottom line, there are a number of reasons churches don’t need to push this envelope, notwithstanding the IRS effectively ignoring them so as not to give them any real publicity beyond what they already have. Supposedly the standards of audits are complicated and the potential legal implications are what may be primarily hindering any enforcement. The only other solution is to enact sweeping changes and enforce them more stringently. If the IRS doesn’t do something about this, it’s going to encourage this emerging movement of borderline theocrats thinking that we need to run this country by religious morals and standards instead of using reason and secular standards that everyone can abide by without infringing upon individual rights to believe nonsense. The law protects your right to practice religion even if it also says that the right itself is not absolute. This sort of practice needs to be nipped in the bud or it will just spiral into something worse than a remotely harmless resurgence of religiosity, but actual political confrontations by people both tightly and loosely affiliated with these antiquated traditions motivated by mob rule and peer pressure to try to ask for special treatment. No one wants to limit religion more than necessary, but you can’t ignore the law when it’s convenient to you and this is no different than politicians trying to get lesser sentences because of their previous contributions to society. Religion may have benefits, but it doesn’t get tax breaks and also make political statements that directly involve it with secular and civil election processes. Keep your theology out of the government and we’ll make sure the government stays out of your theology.

This practice of taking on the IRS and its threat of removing tax exempt status for churches has been going on for nearly 4 years and nothing seems to have been done. If anything, it behooves them to start focusing on this issue because the taxes that could be gained from those churches would be a benefit to deficit issues in this country. Outright removing the tax exempt status for all churches might be too extreme, but enforcing the law about political involvement as regards candidate approval and disapproval with these churches could aid in lowering the U.S.’s crippling deficit that looms over us according to many conservatives. Freedom of religion is not so absolute as to allow those in positions of authority as spiritual leaders to flaunt the law in the spirit of what can be a reasonable practice of associating political decisions with personal faith and convictions, and taking it too far in directly campaigning from the pulpit against or for a particular candidate. Of course, one might argue that churches which don’t get involved in politics in any sense might be justified in at least getting some tax breaks, even if it was made mandatory for all churches to pay some portion of taxes. Those that are especially political might not get those cuts, but that would be a choice they’d make from the start. It shouldn’t be such a big deal for mega-churches to keep preaching politics or even advocating for candidates as long as they keep getting money. And wouldn’t it be a good thing for Christians to support the U.S. with money from their churches, especially if they’re all about the U.S. being a “Christian nation”?

The Catholic groups railing against the contraception mandate in the healthcare plan put forward by President Obama are another group that is pushing their protections under the law. When they say Obama is anti Catholic in his positions and then urge their congregations to vote their “conscience”, it’s not as explicit, but it’s certainly able to be interpreted as preaching party politics. I wonder what they expect Catholics to vote for instead. If Mormonism is a cult and/or false Christianity, then can Catholics truly vote for Romney either, unless voting one’s conscience means ignoring dogma that explicitly states the church in question is against the true church’s teachings? This concern with insurance plans covering birth control and such creating a conflict of religious ethics and secular law seems to be blown out of proportion, especially with evidence pointing towards the majority of Catholics actually using birth control anyway. Of course they don’t get abortions, but if you don’t want to cover abortions, one might be justified in saying you have a right to refuse coverage for it under the plan. But birth control has other benefits besides the prevention of a particular stage of reproduction, namely fertilization (implantation prevention is a whole other treatment), such as preventing STDs and in terms of hormonal birth control, evening out one’s menstrual cycles and aiding with other issues such as painful menstruation or inconsistent menstruation. I’ve noted this before in “Catholics,Contraception and Conscience,”; birth control can be justified in terms of an overall healthcare plan as it has medical benefits aside from what the church has a person moral objection to. It isn’t compromising their religious freedom overall and will not necessarily escalate to anything further in simply saying you have to provide what is considered basic medical care even if you personally object to it. And wouldn’t it be better off to prevent unwanted pregnancies than to cause undue suffering to children you feel morally obligated to bear and then are unable to provide adequately for them?

Is it really clashing between freedom of religious exercise/expression and separation of church and state when you enforce what is a fairly simple rule of not endorsing or attacking political candidates from the pulpit? You can speak politics in general, but not be partisan about it, which is partly what the IRS is worried it will appear when it cracks down on the offenders. But you’re just being fair in applying the law to those who break it. You shouldn’t play favorites merely because the offenders in question are in a special position by cultural perspective. Religion does not deserve favors because it supposedly helps people be more moral or any such thing: in fact, since it does such things, it shouldn’t ask for more in the government’s treatment of it. Stay within your limits and no one will rock the boat of your sensibilities about politics and faith. Until next time, Namaste and aloha

Prayer and Politics

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/14/pray-for-the-president-yes-thou-shalt/

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2009/11/bumper-stickers-for-psalm-1098----a-wrong-hearted-prayer-for-obama/1

http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/morality-in-america/

http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/opinion/

I’ve already talked about President Obama a bit in relation to religion, let alone the racism that still persists in small amounts. This time, it’s not so specific. Instead of claiming Barack Obama is a Muslim or questioning his Christian credentials, now people have started praying for him, though I dunno what exactly they’re praying for, since at least a few groups advocate it in the vein of Psalm 109:8. When they say you should pray for Obama, maybe they should reconsider the one based in Psalm 109: 8. It says in context of the Psalm as a whole that the leader they speak who should not rule long and be replaced by another is a servant of Satan and that they wish death upon him implicitly. Is this a Christian thing to do, even if this is derived from Jewish tradition of ketuvim (writings of wisdom, etc)? There are verses in Christian thought that allow compassionate prayer for an official in power, such as 1st Timothy 2:1-2. Since many people seem to think Obama is ungodly, Christian or not, do they advocate something bad happening to him, God opening his eyes, or, if they agree with him, that God protect him? It all gets a bit complex, though I imagine a lot of it gets into the nature of what Christians believe in regards to people in government and God putting them there allegedly, basing it on Romans 13:1. Pastor Jeffress apparently recanted in part about his own issues I mentioned last week with telling people to vote for a Christian by saying “it is much better to vote for a non-Christian who embraces biblical values than to vote for a professing Christian like Barack Obama who embraces un-biblical values.” This is one of the fundamental things about Christian voters I observe: they focus entirely on values instead of even remotely on policies unrelated to those values or consider them without moralizing fixation on whether abortion should be illegalized or just limited, for example. This isn’t the case for all, but it doesn’t help when the loudest voice speaking is also the most divisive in Christian involvement with politics.

Understanding even a bit about the general practices of Christians in terms of their prayers for candidates is especially germane. Christians have the notion that the candidates are put in place by God, but for a few reasons. Probably one of the most common is to motivate the faithful to campaign in some way, shape or form against the leader’s immoral/non Christian policies and such. This is especially the case with those that believe the end times are upon us and that corruption will spread across the world. But nonetheless, Christians are told not to hold ill will against the leaders ultimately, which, if taking the Psalm 109 prayer for Obama into account, isn’t applied so consistently. Many Christians forget that God is the ultimate judge in their system and start making rash claims like “Obama is the Anti Christ,” even though there have been many presidents before him no doubt predicted and speculated to be the most derided person in the Bible next to Satan/Diabolos. Heck, the term is used outside the Revelation context, like 1 John, to suggest that anyone who isn’t Christian is against Jesus. That mentality of “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” remains fairly popular with the masses and isn’t dissuaded by well meaning and somewhat more understanding pastors, ministers and theologians who say that we can disagree and remain civil. The worst part of this is that the masses are likely to believe prayer has power and thus their prayers, even if they don’t work, reflect a bad tendency that I hope isn’t the case with the Psalm 109 bumper sticker mentioned earlier.

With prayer, there are a few things they wish upon the president, none of which is ultimately secure, though I suppose that’s part of praying to something that might as well not be there (to outsiders). They pray for wisdom, for protection, and for advancement of values they believe are held by non Christians as well. At least they’re being somewhat fair minded about that subject. On the Presidential Prayer Team website, which is the most prominent examples of people praying for presidents as far back as George W. Bush, it seems, they admit openly that there are values held by even “liberals” that “conservatives” like themselves advocate, though I can imagine you could polarize the issue a lot in terms of hot button issues like abortion rights, gay marriage and freedom of/from religion for just three among many others. Nonetheless, there is at least some bridging of the gap, so this isn’t so much the “us” and “them” mentality that the congregations manifest from time to time.

Fundamentally the problem lies with something much deeper. Like Rick Perry and his call to pray for help instead of trying to fix problems without pleading to entities that may not exist or care about humanity if they do, this praying for the government is a waste of time that, while they have a right to do it, I don’t think benefits anyone in the long run, but only instills a sense of delusion that prayer is your first solution to problems instead of action. One can pray when you have downtime, perhaps, but to pray in any time of crisis instead of initially acting with survival as your prime concern is a mistaken order of priority. No one’s stopping you from praying, contrary to the sensationalizing of protests by the FFRF against school sponsored prayer in the news. But praying for the president is the least of your concerns as opposed to praying for the country as a whole, right? But even if you think praying for the country will do you any good, wouldn’t it be better to devote time and energy to actually trying to change the country instead of sitting around getting encouragement from a sense of piety along with patriotism. The two don’t need each other and even Jesus says so; “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s” Matthew 22:21. Or a more pertinent one for rapture eager believers, which didn’t happen October 21st (surprise!): “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But now (or 'as it is') my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

ReFocus on the Family

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/11/focus-on-the-family-refocuses-on-well-family/

While Focus on the Family isn’t the only conservative group that’s allied itself with the religious right (the Family Research Council, headed by Tony Perkins, also comes to mind) they’ve recently had a change of leadership. The previous head of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, notorious for claiming Spongebob Squarepants promoted homosexuality, (which inspired me to start writing letters to the editor) recently stepped down, allowing a new face to take his place. Jim Daly, the new head of Focus on the Family, is moving to change the group’s focus from political engagements to a general mission for family values. While I don’t know what these values might be to Daly, it’s heartening to see that at least one of a few groups is separating itself from the politicizing squabbles on ethical issues that populate the news these days.

The common angle for groups that have some sort of religious mission seems to be to popularize and ingratiate yourself with politically minded people. Once you get into the spotlight and appeal to the desire to change the world through policy and democratic action, you can even make what would initially seem theocratic or ultra-conservative ideas more accessible to an otherwise uninterested person. These days, however, the reverse has applied. People are less interested in politically centered groups to change the world, which Focus on the Family was long associated with. Jim Daly seeks to emphasize that the group is mission focused, which means that political gain should not be their primary goal, if at all. If they want to appear as a non-profit type of organization, then they shouldn’t associate with people who are in their jobs for the money and have that sort of fixation of developing connections and generating capital for a business or campaign respectively.

The group’s original goal, according to Daly, was not about advancing an ideology or an agenda through political means, but a concentration on marriage and family advice. In that sense, there isn’t the moralizing tendency, but simply being there for people who need help and extending a hand to people. I remember watching Adventures in Odyssey, a show adapted from a radio program that it originally debuted as through Focus on the Family’s Radio Theatre.  I don’t remember much, but it certainly wasn’t so preachy to get on one’s nerves. It seems as if there was some point where James Dobson, who was the original founder of FotF, started thinking that in order to make his points made, he had to get into politics and make use of the religious backing of politicians and their concern about issues like pro-life and same-sex marriage “threatening” traditional marriage. Dobson was originally a psychologist, though I’d even question that. He published a few books and those were part of the basis of his ideas that he promulgated through this company 

that spread out to associated groups in Canada and Singapore.

The future of FotF is uncertain, since Daly only started officially within this year, it appears. But if they slowly begin to separate themselves from politics and focus more on giving the particular advice from their foundations about marriage (traditional?) and relationships in general, perhaps they’ll draw in some of the people they pushed away before. I can respect this, especially since the decision to focus on something we all tend to encounter problems with at one point or another is much better than isolating a large segment of even the Christian population with insistence that if they don’t accept exactly what they believe in terms of politics, they don’t belong. When you welcome in people with basic qualifications, it serves to bridge the gaps in a more considerate way than creating boundaries just for the sake of separation or to stand out. I wish the group fortune in their future and success in their goals. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Mormon Candidate Discrimination

http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/07/tricia-erickson-an-indoctrinated-mormon-should-never-be-elected-as-president/

Mormon candidates for president are still pretty unknown for the most part in politics and part of it might be the rhetoric that may remind people, particularly those old enough to remember JFK’s campaign, of the anti-Catholic sentiment that existed back then which is now directed against Mormons, especially Mitt Romney, though I imagine Jon Huntsman might have his share of criticism as well. The same kind of idea persists with a religion that has secretive aspects of its teachings, the modern target being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints instead of the Holy Catholic Church. Part of it might be that Catholics were still foreign in some ways to Americans in the 60s, though this is startling to me, having grown up around 20 years later when Catholics are regarded as, in most cases, little different from Protestant Christians, or at least tolerated in the same way Jews and Muslims are in many areas of the U.S. Of course, Muslims are treated with a similar, if not greater, suspicion than Mormons nowadays, since they are the new foreigners to pick on that immigrate into America, even more than Mexicans (you know, our immigration issues we’ve been having recently?). But Mormons are distrusted for different reasons. It’s not necessarily that they’re anti-American, it’s more that they reflect secessionist or separatist tendencies. They behave, to the uneducated, as a fringe group. While this might be the case for fundamentalist Mormons, more reformed Mormons, Romney included, have adjusted with the times, which is what makes former Mormons, like author Tricia Erickson, all the more skeptical of their trustworthiness. Erickson has written a book called “Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters?” In it she claims that any indoctrinated Mormon like Romney cannot and should not serve as president of the United States. Her reasons vary, but they overlap between her personal religious beliefs coming out of the Mormon church and her political ideology of how particular religions create dangerous politicians.

In terms of religious reasons, she has justification, from what I understand of Mormon beliefs and how that squares with her beliefs coming out of what she regards as a cult. I wonder why she doesn’t make a distinction between fundamentalist and reformed Mormons. It could be because she doesn’t view them as terribly different from each other in the similarities they share, such as the temple ceremonies and oaths they swear to the church. But I have to wonder if these are much different in the long run than other religions pledging loyalty to their divinity, particularly Christians of other stripes (yes, I consider Mormons Christian, at least in the basic sense of the term, finding salvation through Jesus in some form or fashion). How is a Mormon making an oath in a temple in Utah any different from a pastor in Tennessee being sworn in and making vows to serve his church and God? I don’t think it would be much of a stretch to say that both Mormons and Protestants have a capacity to distinguish between their loyalty to God and their loyalty to their country. Mormons understand, like evangelicals, that regardless of their eschatology, along with many Christians (rapture much?), they should try to be fair in their governing of people of various faiths and do what they think is best for everyone. There can be problems with making that distinction for some types of religious believers, especially those of a more fundamentalist nature, who insist that the U.S. must conform to certain basic tenets and laws derived from their holy scriptures, or it is doomed to failure. The people of the “Christian nation” mode of thought could be considered under this, especially those who insist that Christianity has and deserves a special place in our government’s eyes. When critiquing Muslims and Mormons alike for being untrustworthy in political contexts, Tricia Erickson forgets that cult like behavior she calls Mormonism and Islam on can exist just as easily in the Christian faith she embraces now. Beliefs in the resurrection of Jesus or the rapture are equally preposterous to an outsider and could make them just as skeptical of whether a committed Christian candidate can be trusted to make sound decisions for a religiously diverse populace, not all of whom share the same beliefs or even any of their beliefs concerning God and the afterlife.

Just because someone’s religious beliefs are nonstandard or irrational in one way or another does not automatically discredit them in terms of political decisions. A Mormon like Mitt Romney is not any less likely to follow American values than a Christian or a Muslim also running for president. You’d have to find some compelling evidence that he isn’t for America primarily, and his belief that he’ll be a god in the future hardly qualifies. Some Christians, for example, seem to believe God favors the United States and will rapture all the believers at some undetermined time, which is equally silly on its face. Muslims believe the same as Christians that Jesus will come back in the end times (with a sidekick), so how is that less silly than believing you will become a god by following God’s commands and such? Whether a person believes or doesn’t believe in God, an afterlife, a soul, or any other associated ideas that the U.S. population could present to a potential voter, shouldn’t affect whether they consider that person as being worthy of governing, be it as the president of the country, a congressman or a local official. I support Ron Paul, for example, because I agree with his libertarian politics, even if I disagree with his Christian beliefs. But if worse comes to worse, I will probably vote for him over even an atheist candidate who’s overly neo-conservative or an overly liberal agnostic. The religion or lack thereof of any candidate is incidental to their political beliefs, even if there can be associations between their faith and their choices about governance. An atheist politician can be just as misguided in their sociopolitical positions to me as a Christian and I would equally choose someone else over both of them even if they were a Muslim, for instance. That is how one should discern and choose a candidate to vote for: not based on agreeing with your personal beliefs about the divine, but whether they square with your political ideals. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Christians, Conservatives and Capitalists

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/29/jesus-or-ayn-rand-can-conservatives-claim-both/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-06-05-Ayn-Rand-and-Jesus-dont-mix_n.htm

I imagine readers are a bit perplexed by my unusual alliteration, though there is something of a natural association between these three words in today’s American culture. Capitalism is widely accepted and advocated by politicians on both sides of the field for the most part and from Christian politicians in particular, such as Ron Paul. It also connects neatly in the area of conservative politics, also very popular these days as a contrarian sort of position. My own home state is more diverse, from what I understand, somewhat purple as opposed to red or blue majority. I’ll admit I can find some logic behind classical conservative values, actually aligned in part with classical liberalism as it originated in the UK. Valuing individual liberty, private property, fiscal responsibility and the like are things I can agree with even as an anarchist socialist of sorts if you asked me particular socioeconomic questions.

Christianity has a natural place of respect in American history, though not to the point of putting it on a pedestal for the average person who wasn’t raised in a hyper-Christian sort of culture as a child and at least knew in part of the existence of other religious believers in this country alongside them. I myself probably wasn’t explicitly aware of other religions until at least early teens when I began to question my home faith and looked into Deism especially, though Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism also held strong interest as they would for many Westerners. In terms of demographics, Christianity is still the largest religion in the United States and there is always the lingering group of people insisting even today that we are a Christian nation. But I’m not talking about that today, but whether you can be a Christian and a capitalist, among a few other ideas associated with the contrasting figure to Jesus Christ revered by conservatives, Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant who is well known for her novel “Atlas Shrugged” as well as her system of Objectivism which was founded in three books: “The Virtue of Selfishness”, “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” and “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”. Many consider Ayn Rand very extreme in her atheist, capitalist and egoist principles of life and an antithesis on ethical grounds to the founder of Christianity. She said that altruism is not a primary virtue and that one’s own concerns should be first and foremost. Compared to Jesus she is on the other end of the spectrum of ethics ranging from other-focus to self-focus. The focus on capitalism seems a bit less obvious of a disagreement between Jesus and Ayn Rand. It’s actually, from what I understand, more contentious as to whether Jesus was or was not a capitalist. If anything, Ayn Rand’s version of capitalism, laissez-faire capitalism, could be said to be more “cutthroat” and based on radical individual rights, which is how it is defended as the most rational and moral system by Rand. According to Objectivism, only the system that enables people to realize their individual desires and protects those basic individual rights is both rational and moral. This is not to say Rand is an anarchist, which would believe fundamentally that we don’t need the state to defend our rights. In fact, she agreed with basics that Christians believe about politics, at least in the secular realm. The state is believed by both parties to be necessary to protecting people’s rights, even if Christians would argue God is the ultimate arbiter of rights to humans, being the Creator. But on basic principles, Objectivism and Christianity don’t have a fundamental disagreement except to Christians in a minority who believe Jesus was an anarchist, including most prominently Leo Tolstoy, also advocate of Christian pacifist nonresistance in The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You.

The biggest difficulty that exists here is not of incorporating parts of Ayn Rand and eliminating or ignoring the parts that you don’t think are logical or in sync with Christianity. Instead, there’s what might be called a problem of priority. On the one hand, Rand advocates and defends quite strongly in her novels and nonfiction the virtues and logic of capitalism unfettered by state control, which many Republicans today speak very strongly for in opposition to such things as Obama’s healthcare plan passed in 2009 and other actions he’s taken in his presidency. I get at least 5 emails a day, many times duplicates, from conservative groups that I subscribe to for research purposes, telling me about all the bad things Obama’s doing, only a small handful of them even agreeable to me, if any. Ron Paul’s more my kind of conservative from what I gather of his positions, even if I am admittedly also on Ayn Rand’s side of things. Ron Paul is pretty conservative in the vein of my parents’ generation, but is at least more for state’s rights on the big ethical issues and less government intervention, which I’m a bit ambivalent on at times with such issues as abortion and gay marriage.

The problem of consistency in Christian ethical and politics beliefs lies starkly with Ayn Rand’s ethics, advocating egoism and focus on one’s own interests above those of others, except when you can afford to be charitable, in the vein of billionaires like Bill Gates donating to charities. This position clashes with Jesus’ call to provide for the poor even at your own expense as a moral obligation. It’s hard to defend that you are fully following Ayn Rand and Jesus, but the two masters’ Biblical reference that Jesus himself makes is probably wasted on many politicians who only draw on Rand in terms of defending socioeconomic policy changes such as they desire. In terms of ethics they have replaced Ayn Rand with Jesus as suits them. In that sense, there isn’t an explicit conflict for politicians to say they owe their involvement in politics to Ayn Rand’s writings, but they cannot say they fully follow her not only because it would put her above Jesus, but it would also create explicit dissonance in their worldview, since Rand was not only an egoist but a huge critic of religion, an outspoken atheist used as an older representative of atheism in between Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Dawkins.  I imagine this could still pose a problem in terms of consistency, but in terms of loyalty, there is still the observation that one cannot serve two masters, for you will hate one and love the other, as said by Jesus in the Bible. Politicians don’t seem to serve Jesus in terms of secular matters, since Jesus has been argued to be an anarchist and socialist by authors, but in terms of spiritual issues, Jesus is much more strongly their leader in leading the moral crusades against abortion and gay marriage. In politics, however, it is no doubt observed that it’s very easy to serve two masters and still look as if you’re serving just one. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Dalai Lama Departs Lightly

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/india.dalai.lama/

Last time I talked about the Dalai Lama was months ago in “Christine O’Donnell and the Dalai Lama” . I briefly looked at a manga adaptation of his life which I’ve since read. I might speak on that a bit, but for the most part, I’m interested in his official announcement of retirement from being a political leader for Tibetan autonomy. He emphasized that he will still be a spiritual leader, but he also thinks it’s time for a new person to take on the responsibilities that he shouldered along with being a lama, which has its own importance in Tibetan culture, from what I understand.  If anything, this reflects an understanding Tenzin Gyatso has of his position of authority in Tibet that Christopher Hitchens critiqued him on. As much as he advocated peace and equality of humanity, the contention is that he was complacent to impoverished situations in Tibet itself, while he was treated like a king, even if he was also trained in Buddhist monasticism.

Tibet’s a difficult place to live, especially considering their funeral practices would make many people squirm. To sum it up, the body is prepared in such a way that it can be left to the elements and carrion birds to consume. It’s actually something that appeals to me, though I imagine non-Tibetans wouldn’t be permitted to actually have that kind of funeral, plus I’d traumatize many acquaintances who thought of me as still holding some of my Christian heritage of respecting the body. But to be frank, if I die, people won’t remember me primarily by my body so much as the memories I created with them. Perhaps they’ll remember my face, but I think they’d remember the goofy things I’ve done, such as getting peanut butter stuck in a toaster by toasting bread with the peanut butter already on it.

Many Tibetans seem to object to the end of the 14^th Dalai Lama’s 60 year reign, possibly because of lingering attachments to this charismatic figure who  apparently wasn’t so eager when he became the leader of the country at 15 years of age. The manga adaptation seems a decent backstory, from what little I understand. It certainly introduces it through a medium I’m always reading these days (reading about 18 series on a ‘religious’ basis whenever they update) and the historical facts don’t seem to be stretched; at best there might be technicalities about the Chinese governments’ treatment of the Tibetans, considering that, from what I understand, China views Tibet as just another part of China, like Taiwan. The issue of independence as a country was never Gyatso’s goal. Autonomy was all he sought; simply being able to practice their native culture and religion as well as manage internal affairs, the government taking care of more international affairs between both parties. All in all, the general tone seems to be a somber acceptance, though I’ve never followed the Dalai Lama significantly beyond the few stories I even mentioned him, one of which was over a year ago, “Tenzin Gyatso (In General)”. 

At 75 years old, I imagine not being involved with the political aspects of his position will be a weight off his shoulders. Focusing on the spiritual advisor position of sorts and seeking out world peace among other things is more his forte, especially considering his education was primarily in Buddhist studies since a young age, allegedly having the level of a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy on his graduation at 23. I wholeheartedly support this move, since, as even the Dalai Lama said, to paraphrase; it’s in the nature of democratic systems to balance power and delineate it to those possessed of skill in those areas. So people objecting to this change in power forget that Tenzin Gyatso does care about his people, but his area of expertise has never been politics so much as general activism of peace and nonviolence as well as other passions including interfaith dialogue and dabbling in physics from what I’ve heard. All the best to Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (yes, that’s his full name). Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Centennial Post Retrospective

This will be my hundredth post and it seems appropriate to do a retrospective and speculation on the future of my blog. I remember originally doing this for a kick more than anything, just to practice my writing, keep the prose muscles toned. But I did have a goal to communicate my opinions to people in as straightforward, but considerate, a way as possible. In that sense, I think I’ve gotten better. I seem to recall some of my older posts from 2010 being a bit more combative or ranting in nature, so I hope that’s toned down.

I’ve definitely begun advertising the blog more, putting it on my signatures on forums and profiles across the web. I’ve also shifted to a bi weekly schedule, though at the moment, I’m furiously trying to catch up from over three weeks of not having my original blog files to edit and post, which I will do in the future through a flash drive, since I have plenty. I might try to get into a tri weekly schedule, though if I do, the articles would be shorter overall. I’m also thinking of branching off into a project I’ve been contemplating for a while, which I won’t spoil much, except that it involves comics.

My topic coverage has varied a lot over the last year, especially since I commonly went with whatever was fresh at the time, which meant I was usually behind in terms of reporting. Though in the case of the updates come Thursday, there’s an excuse of me not having the blog files I would’ve posted the last three weeks, including two (count ‘em two) topics on the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, not to mention Sarah Palin’s notorious/infamous letter she sent to her family addressed as “God” (this is a shortening of what she actually signed, which was a bit verbose) among others like New York’s legislation of gay marriage and the danger some people think it poses as well as a supposed gap between millenials and pre millenials about gay marriage. The upgrade to bi weekly status was not a huge leap, since I had a backlog of articles to work with. I originally did once a week because I was either working or studying/reading for class, so I couldn’t do anything more, not to mention my interests for writing weren’t as broad as they are these days. Now that I’m breaking out into freelancing and job searching in earnest, I think this will be a good testing ground for my writing for a more editorial stance. Of course, I’m not anything of a great copy editor, since my proofreading skills are piecemeal from high school grammar more than anything, along with some advice from writing tutors and professors in college.

In terms of my popular topics, I guarantee two of them that still throw people off, especially high school classmates, are politics and GLBT (Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender). I was never one to speak out about political issues in public or really care about them for the most part and I didn’t have thoughts one way or another about people’s sexual orientation, even growing up in what many would consider backwoods areas of Tennessee, pretty far from Chattanooga or Nashville. Of course, Murfreesboro, a town of over 100,000 people, wasn’t free of controversy with the Islamic Center of Tennessee being built in its backyard. Tennessee wasn’t the worst about being backwards, but when a lot of controversy came from Texas, it kind of struck home a bit with my girlfriend being from east Texas herself, but she was free of any direct criticism of her hometown. Even recent news hasn’t spared Texas’ large swath of influence, with Governor Rick Perry’s notable issues of church/state endorsement of sorts coming up on August 6th.
Speaking of church and state, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s a big interest of mine to blog on, even if I have admittedly only a general intermediate or novice knowledge about the subject. The other interests I’ve done a lot of reading in but haven’t posted in a while on or at all are Buddhism/Zen and pacifism of one sort or another, though I referenced Anabaptist’s pacifist tendencies in the Mennonite church recently in “Separation of Church and State Loyalty” . Technically I’ve referenced Buddhism over and over, but the closest topics to any explicit reference to Buddhism as the center would be the “How Cats Help Me Learn Zen” topic as well as the occasional references to the 14th Dalai Lama, which have become more prominent these days.
On church and state, I’ve considered a wide range of topics, and even my return with surprise topics last week started with the NBC issue of editing the pledge of allegiance and associated church/state problems that came about, particularly with the Family Research Council’s indignation. There were times when I almost thought I was tapped out on certain topics, especially the Ground Zero “mosque”, which is still in progress of sorts, as well as the Quran burning by pastor Terry Jones and the issues of school sponsored prayer that bubbled up in droves within the last few months with graduations seeming more like revivals (to use an expression from an article on a particular graduation in Vermont, if I’m not mistaken).

Many might think it gets a bit boring to get all my news from CNN, but I think they do pretty good, plus I have other options if I ever hit a dry spell. I’ve done commentary and opinions on news from other sources, but I’ll admit I’m very fond of CNN. If things come up locally in my state, I also try to make an effort to speak about them in particular, since I have a vested interest in commenting on how my state is progressing (or not in some cases). But it would get boring if I was just doing topics in a narrowed interest. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I do have confidence in my skills of expression through words, owing part of it to high school education on persuasive essays.

I think my start in engagement with these kinds of issues began, however, further back in high school when I wrote my first letter to the editor at the local county newspaper. It was, ironically again, on GLBT issues, presenting a counterpoint to claims from Focus on the Family that Spongebob Squarepants, beloved by children across the country, was promoting homosexuality. I think that people could understand why I feel strongly about GLBT even if I’m confirmed straight myself, but I haven’t had such direct experience of discrimination or even understanding that prejudice against this group existed until late high school or college. And shortly after joining the Gay Straight Alliance at college, I’ve seen that some of my friends, near and far, have already shown me the stark division and opposition that exists in Tennessee alone against gay people even among family members.

All in all, this has been a learning experience, but I don’t ever think it’ll ever become boring. Looking back on my posts from the last year and a half (almost) makes me see how my beliefs have changed, how my perspective on people of the caliber of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin has mellowed and how much more things I find myself compelled to write about. I don’t regret it at all and at least this blog has continued for this long, unlike my last one on Blogger under another name which I forget. Until next time, Namaste and aloha for another 100 posts.

A New Kind of Mormon Candidate

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/21/understanding-jon-huntsmans-distinct-brand-of-mormonism/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/28/my-take-for-huntsman-a-little-faith-could-go-a-long-way/

I spoke a few weeks ago about the most popular Mormon candidate for the Republican Party, Mitt Romney and his appeal to me, which quickly faded in comparison to Ron Paul. But, unbeknownst to me, there was another Mormon candidate for president who started his campaign under my nose. Jon Huntsman Jr. was the U.S. ambassador to China under Barack Obama, having resigned a few months ago to focus on his presidential campaigning, no doubt. In comparison to Mitt Romney as a fellow member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, there are some stark differences that would put Huntsman as a possible candidate I’d vote for, even with my miniscule political aptitude and nominal conservative beliefs.

First off, Huntsman is less prominent in his Mormonism, since Mitt Romney has served in some function within the church at various points on his life. Not to mention Romney is over 10 years older than Huntsman, so he’s in a different generation of Mormons. Romney’s Mormon roots come from the 60s and 70s, where Mormons tried to distinguish themselves from American culture, which they saw as decadent and manifesting the end times of some form or another. In this sense, Romney has a disposition to make his religion a big part of his campaign, which could serve to further isolate him from the many Americans who wouldn’t vote for him because of his Mormonism even if he was well qualified. On the other hand, Huntsman’s generation is more accessible to non-Mormon Americans, associated with the “I’m a Mormon” online campaign you see across the Internet. Huntsman himself is associated with the LDS Church, but at the same time, he has an adopted daughter who was born into a Hindu culture, another into Buddhist culture, and his children also go to Catholic school to boot. So he clearly has an openness that Romney lacks in terms of religious engagement and diversity.

On issues of GLBT, Huntsman’s got my vote more than Romney at least, though Ron Paul’s advocacy of state’s rights on legislation of gay marriage, etc, has a nice ring as well. Huntsman supports civil unions, while Romney only wants them to have the basic legally equivalent rights to straight couples. But Romney was probably involved with the generation of Mormons that supported Proposition 8 in California a few years back, so his stance on gay marriage and civil unions is not too surprising. In other political terms, Huntsman and Romney are pretty similar, considering they’re running a Republican ticket: fiscally conservative, some social conservative positions, pro life in one way or another, among other talking points. Huntsman seems to be willing to engage in bipartisanship, which many Republicans are much more resistant to, if the healthcare extravaganza was any indication. Being the ambassador to China is a plus, since he sees the priority of keeping good relations with China. He no doubt had prior experience with China in his missionary trip for 2 years in Taiwan, and that was part of what got him his position as Chinese ambassador under Obama.

All in all, Huntsman seems like one of the most sensible Republican candidates so far, even with a background that might make many suspicious on its face. Mormon candidates are still low on the list of trustworthy candidates, though there is more likelihood that they’d be accepted by Americans before a homosexual or a septuagenarian, not to mention the most “untrustworthy” candidate, atheists. Ron Paul seems similar to Huntsman in some ways, though Paul has more of the Constitutionalist and Libertarian leanings that many Republicans pick and choose on, though I’m technically more anarchist than anything else, I’ve found. I imagine Huntsman will be a good nominee for Republicans, but Michelle Bachmann has become a media darling for Republicans to latch onto, not to mention others in the big pooling. Popularity in politics will be the determining factor, so we’ll see what happens in the coming months and year. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Separation of Church and State Loyalty

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/26/my-faith-why-i-dont-sing-the-star-spangled-banner/

When I talk about the separation of church and state, it’s usually from a more atheistic position, emphasizing the political problems of overlapping religion and policy in a religiously diverse country such as our own. But there is another side to this position in the form of Christians who insist that there cannot be a Christian nation in any form where Christianity is made like the state religion or given undue favor. Instead, they say that the church, particularly in the form of all believers, should function as the Church (capitalization intended) and the state should function as the state. This is controversial on its face to a majority of Christians who take what seems to be a more modern development in contrast to classical Christianity, which I reflected on in “Classical Versus Conservative Christianity”. The notion that the U.S. is blessed by God only gained significant popularity in the 50s, if I understand it right. When we changed our national motto to “In God We Trust” in 1956, printing it on our currency and altering the Pledge of Allegiance to include the words “Under God” in 1954, this reflected an ideology that persists today. The ideology I speak of is something like Christian historical revisionism; a practice of trying to make the U.S. appear to be not only a nation that has had a Christian majority for centuries, but was intended to be a Christian nation in terms of favoring Christianity as the basis for its form of government. This idea is at the core of the debate of whether a Christian can be equally loyal to both their country and God. And the minority group of Christians who believe one should be loyal first to God and then to their country is that of the Anabaptists, manifest popularly today as Mennonites, who commonly do not fly the American flag in their churches or sing the national anthem, both of which are a source of pride for many Christians.

Many people born in my parent’s generation hardly even had a chance to experience a society where religion wasn’t made to be a focus of the United States’ identity as a whole, let alone my own generation where it was the default position. There’s an excuse that is thrown around by Christian nation supporters that religious freedom does not exclude other beliefs or lack thereof, but merely recognizes that Christianity is where the values of the Constitution came from. But this doesn’t sit with reality at all, since it only tries to favor Christianity in one way and then justify favoring it in other ways, such as the incidents with school sponsored prayer being defended on the basis of school traditions of having Christian-centered prayers. This doesn’t serve as any real justification for the exclusion of every other person who doesn’t believe as they do. It gives a sense of entitlement that is not only arrogant, but unfair in recognizing the efforts to advance the American way that have come from Jews, Muslims, and other groups, including atheists. One might also observe that the principles of this country are not exclusively Christian in nature, nor does their theistic history in terms of, say, the Declaration of Independence’s reference to a Creator, mean that atheists are not citizens or possess the same rights as theists. In that sense, the Christian nation thesis is not only difficult to defend historically, but also logically, since the mere presence of Christian beliefs in the founding fathers’ values doesn’t mean that they wanted to enforce those Christian values as normative on everyone else. They wanted the general value of religious freedom, which is something any religion tends to value, even Islam, contrary to many people’s preconceptions of it. Any Christian values observed could easily be found in other religions across the world in one form or another. And even if they couldn’t, it doesn’t mean Christianity should be given any sort of favor in terms of the development of the country, since those values can be agreed upon without believing in any of the Christian faith’s tenets in, say, the Apostle’s Creed.

Returning to the Mennonites and the Christian thesis of separation of church and state; many Christians would say that this kind of thought is tantamount to treason and contempt for the country they live in. But, the Mennonites respond, they are not being disloyal to their country; they merely see a need to separate their loyalty to a country that commonly espouses beliefs that do not sync with their pacifist beliefs, such as the military theme in the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem, or the military implications of flying the American flag, a symbol used to mark victory in many wars through history. It’s the pacifist tendencies of Mennonites that strongly urge them to not support certain aspects of the U.S., as well as a belief shared in part with Jehovah’s Witnesses that you shouldn’t pledge your allegiance to any other power besides God and Jesus. Of course there’s a response that the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem are not compelling the sort of loyalty that is involved with religious belief. But every Christian group has their own perspective on it. My own home church I apostatized from had both the Christian flag and the American flag in the sanctuary, so clearly Presbyterians don’t have reservations about saying they support both their country and their church in the grander scheme of the term. But there are churches along with the Mennonites that don’t feel they are being true to their faith if they sing an anthem that can be said to glorify war as a means to advance freedom or fly a flag that has been used in those wars for freedom.

This sort of disagreement is more difficult to settle, because pacifism in Christianity has always been a significant minority, even in the early church, excluding martyrs of course. Many Christian thinkers, including Aquinas, Augustine and Luther, argued that you could be loyal to both a country and the Church (emphasis on capitalization here) without being hypocritical. Aquinas and Augustine brought up the ideas of just war theory and the cities of man and God respectively. Just war theory is a Christian philosophical theory that says war can be justified if it brings about justice. There are limitations of course, but some of them have been ignored with the advancements in military technology, especially the one against killing noncombatants. Augustine believed, similar to Luther much later on, that we can be loyal to a city of man and its laws as long as they do not conflict with the law of the city of God. In this way, Christians have had a long tradition of a truce of sorts between church and state loyalty. But Mennonites and others reject this, saying that freedom comes from God, not from human actions and to say otherwise is to betray the message of Jesus. I can’t speak myself on these sorts of things, but it makes me happy to find that there is this sort of perspective from a Christian viewpoint, when one finds more often than not Christians supporting the exact opposite: that Christianity is able to be resolved with violence and force even in contrast to many things Jesus himself said in the Gospels. There’s an unlikely ally in terms of secularism to be found in these Christians who want the Church to be the Church and not have involvement with the state. So until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Conservative Versus Classical Christianity

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/21/my-take-bible-condemns-a-lot-so-why-focus-on-homosexuality/

There’s always a chance in the news to criticize Christianity on its generally conservative political positions on GLBT issues, but this time, we have a criticism from a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School who observes that the modern church has shifted away from what could be said to be the more classical Christianity of its early history. This runs the gamut from the primacy of marriage in theological terms to issues of when conception begins.

There’s little doubt that the authors of the Bible found homosexual relations immoral, probably most commonly manifest in ritual practices of other deities or the practice of rape in ancient times to demean the enemy. But even the consensual form that manifest in pederasty from ancient Greek times and into Roman times was condemned as unnatural by the apostle Paul. It’s difficult to contest this even by the language, but people will. If we assume it was considered unnatural, though, it’s also pertinent to consider that Paul said that nature implied that men having long hair was degrading, while women having long hair was a blessing. So I guess my female friends who have short hair are degrading themselves? To be fair, Paul was a product of his times and probably also a staunch conservative, moreso than many conservatives of this age in comparison, but that goes without saying with a gap of over a thousand years.

But there are other issues many Christians are not as opposed to or are opposed to on grounds not agreed upon until later in history. The most interesting one is that of marriage being superior to celibacy. Many Christians historically argued that marriage was inferior to celibacy, probably going along with Paul himself who also voiced this opinion, saying that if you had self control, it was better to be married to God than to be married to a human, pulling your attention away from God by association. But Paul did say that marriage was good for those without such restraint upon their pleasure seeking. So it’s ambivalent in the sense of a complete condemnation of either, but celibacy was preferred on the grounds that you are focused on God and not on humanity. But marriage is definitely emphasized as a sacrament in the church or at least ordained by God in creation; there’s no doubt God blessed marriage in the Christian context, what with Adam and Eve’s pairing. And there’s the whole procreation aspect, but I won’t get into the whole anti gay marriage issue that I talked about in “Gay Marriage Does Not Equal Anarchy” Overall, the notion of family’s importance in modern times with conservatives could be said to have overshadowed the historical tendency in early Christianity to value the individual before God and focus on the interpersonal relationship that is blessed by God, but is also understood to not be for everyone.

On the issue of abortion, it’s always said by so many Christians that it is tradition that life begins at conception, but many Christians, including Augustine and Aquinas, thought that life, or ensoulment for a more particular term, began at quickening, which was around 20 weeks or so, more generally around the 5th month of pregnancy, which, ironically lines up with more scientific consensus on the nature of viability of the embryo/fetus, which indeed starts around that time, though medical technology is still in the early stages for enabling such premature births to survive. In this sense, the Christian attempt to use a minority scientific and gynecological perspective to justify illegalizing abortion is actually not backed up by early Christian thought, especially since they were considering ensoulment as opposed to when life began strictly speaking. The notion that a clump of DNA has a soul in any significant way hardly makes sense even in a Christian perspective, since a soul makes sense only for something conscious, so it would only be at the point of sentience where an embryo could even be argued to have a soul in that sense of personhood and humanity as a creation of God instead of mere potentiality in the form of a multiplying blastocyst or a zygote attached to the uterine wall. In this way, Christians seem to focus too much on the issue of life as opposed to when we gain a soul and use that to illegalize abortion entirely.

The most contentious issue, however, is the seeming hypocrisy of Christians who speak against homosexuality and their getting the right to marry, yet they also permit divorce against the general tone of disapproval of divorce in the bible with a minor exception for unfaithfulness. Apparently, Christians are more than willing to permit divorce due to problems besides adultery, which seems to suggest a flexibility they don’t have about homosexual behavior being immoral, since it could be said to be moral in a monogamous relationship, even if it’s not procreative. Some Christians are stricter about it, but the majority of Christians are oddly silent about it, speaking about it as if it’s just an unpleasant but acceptable part of life, like cancer. The only problem is that it doesn’t really seem to sync up with what the Bible teaches about it, particularly Jesus himself. He noted, to paraphrase, that a man and woman become one flesh and no one should separate them.

In general, it appears that conformity to the Bible is a matter of convenience more than actual conviction to the message. When it comes to the explicit evidence about some issues, people can still ignore it on ethical grounds, particularly homosexuality. Abortion and divorce could also be said to have changed in terms of the focus on ethical priorities. However, this seems inconsistent; if you’re for marriage, why wouldn’t you be against divorce for convenience when you’re more likely to oppose abortion for convenience? And on homosexuality, it seems like you’re more insecure about equality of sexual preferences between committed adults than actually concerned about whether it’s morally permissible to have a particular kind of sex at all. With these issues, the change of culture seems to be where the change in opinion results from, not to mention the prominence of individualism from Protestantism where people are their own priests of sorts, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as the median to God, not another human. When people cease to follow actual tradition or defenses from the bible as a whole, they can cherry pick it and follow general norms of the age, which goes against Christianity’s claim to follow an eternal law. It’s one thing to say you’re conservative, but to say you’re Christian along with that and ignore the contrasting history seems disingenuous. Being consistent on culture and convictions is something we ought to strive for, instead of conforming to culture to create our convictions. Yes, I like alliterations, did you notice? Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

No Southern Hospitality For Atheists

http://www.bastropenterprise.com/features/x2132687894/Student-challenges-prayer-at-Bastrop-graduation
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/hed7y/threatened_to_contact_aclu_for_prayer_at/
http://www.blaghag.com/2011/05/atheist-high-schooler-receives-death.html
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/standard_small_town_saga.php
http://friendlyatheist.com/2011/05/21/what-happened-at-damon-fowlers-graduation/

This topic jumped out at me due to my near addictive interest in issues of church and state. Just recently in Louisiana the graduation at the local high school in Bastrop, Louisiana proceeded with a student directly violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause; in a pretty duplicitous manner, might I add. This was a willful and unjustified protest against the changes the school put in place, responding to Damon Fowler, a fellow secularist, and his allegation that they were not only violating the Constitution, but Louisiana state law, which has a similar provision against laws that discriminated against or favored any religion. Technically atheism is not a religion, but one can instead claim that it was favoring Christianity, and since this is a state sponsored institution, a public high school, doing an invocation that favors a particular religion is unconstitutional. Here’s the first of two different videos involving willful defiance against the change in the program from a prayer to a moment of silence. The student in question, Laci Mattice, stated at the beginning of the ceremonies that she was originally going to lead an invocation, but that she was instead told to lead a moment of silence. I don’t see why leading a moment of silence is less important than leading a prayer. The worst part of this was her trying to weasel out of her official duties by disclaiming that before she “fulfilled [her] obligation” she wanted to thank God for helping her graduate; because she really needed to pray to be the salutatorian instead of actually studying. Afterwards, she tried to sound amicable to nonbelievers by asking that those who believed as she did bow their heads to pray. But she never temporarily suspended her duties with those disclaimers; it doesn’t work that way. As personal and individual as she tried to make it, she was sponsored by the school in that position and she had no right to do that prayer regardless of her personal beliefs or being offended by the replacing of the “traditional” invocation with a moment of silence. Pure and simple, she was not only in dereliction of her official duties, but she was spitting in the face of religious freedom. And don’t tell me that her letting all the Christians bow their heads was being charitable to non Christians. She wanted to shove this prayer down everyone’s throats in direct opposition to the school itself telling her that she could not do a prayer. And what does the school do? They sit by as the status quo is maintained even in spite of an affirmation to the contrary by the school authorities. There’s a time and place for being religious and thanking your creator for academic success, and it’s called the baccalaureate. Quite possibly, the first video might have been a baccalaureate, but the sources suggest this was related to, but not the same as, the graduation ceremony itself.

This video, however, seems to be the graduation ceremony, where the same student proceeds to go with a nearly identical process. She says she respects other people’s beliefs, but then proceeds to disrespect them by saying that her desire to thank Jesus trumps the rights of everyone to not hear it in a public context sponsored by the state. She asks her fellow students to join in, again trying to slip around the school sponsored prayer bit, but you can clearly hear the audience joining in, so she might as well have just announced to everyone, “Hey, we’re having a prayer, even though they told us we can’t legally do it. They can’t touch us, we’re the majority!” It’s a contemptible display of majority tyranny. Tennessee can be pretty bad about it in certain regions, but I can’t recall getting even a minute vibe similar to this travesty. And in both instances, they give a pittance of time for the moment of silence, maybe 15 seconds, while they get at least twice that length for their own public soapbox to condescendingly preach.

The student in question, Damon Fowler, was reported by his brother to have gotten death threats from some people. Couple this with the social ostracism from a class that’s practically the same size as mine in a relatively small area and it’s amazing he hasn’t been outright attacked. This whole incident was an unnecessary and unfounded vindication of a majority’s wants over a minority’s needs. Atheists don’t want to be treated like everyone else; they deserve and need to be treated like everyone else. For someone to ask their classmates, even nicely, to pray is to isolate non Christian students. But with the community at large cheering this girl on, it just reinforces this negative tradition that anyone not in the majority religion should sit by and let their supposed guarantee of freedom from state sponsored religion get trampled on.

Any Christian reader should not get the idea that I have a problem with students praying privately and reading their bible in non class contexts at school. My problem is with people being so proud of their own faith that once they’ve realized they are in a majority, they think they deserve special treatment. Even if they preface it by saying other people have their right to believe or not, when you use a position of authority like this to pray your specific prayer, you instate the exact opposite feeling which you were trying to inspire before. It only makes religious diversity seem all the less likely when you think being a majority religion or a religion of many founding fathers gives you carte blanche to speak openly about it with no fear of persecution. Not to mention it clashes with an admonition from Jesus himself in Matthew 6:5 that you should pray privately to God, so as not to seem like a hypocrite who wants to be seen by everyone as religious. Your outward behavior is not what God cares about, from what I understand; it’s your internal convictions. And aren’t we supposed to be in the last days where Christians are persecuted? Clearly these kids aren’t worried that Christians will be persecuted since they feel they can just pray a Christian prayer and no government will get on them. I only hope the ACLU and FFRF get on the school about this, though I’m not sure of the exact intervention they could do at this point. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Nothing New In Nation "Under God"

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/28/former-alabama-supreme-court-chief-justice-to-form-presidential-exploratory-committee/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/28/gingrich-fears-atheist-country-dominated-by-radical-islamists/

Since the presidential primaries are coming up next year, a lot of hopeful nominees, for the Republican Party in particular, are already setting up for campaigning. Two of particular interest are Roy Moore, a former Supreme Court Chief Justice who lost his position because he refused to remove a copy of the ten commandments he put in an Alabama courthouse, and Newt Gingrich, who needs little introduction; he’s had 2 affairs, been married three times, 2 of which are directly related to previous infidelities, was formerly a House Representative and gave up that position over 10 years ago when Democrats took over the House, becoming a pundit instead. Both of these men are looking for nomination in the Republican Party, among others, such as Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, both of whom I’ve spoken of at length. But one has to wonder if they’re even capable of getting significant support.

Moore was campaigning recently in Iowa, getting support from Tea Party supporters and middle class evangelicals, neither of which surprises me. Tea Partiers seem to be really strong on individual rights, including your right as an employee of a secular government to put up explicitly religious paraphernalia in direct opposition to the principle that the government should not reflect any support of a particular religion in its administration. If this guy wants to put up the Decalogue in his house, I have no issue. Put them on the front yard if you want, but in a court room, there’s no reason you’d need it, especially considering you’d have a distinct possibility in such a religiously diverse country as the U.S., to encounter people who don’t’ follow half of them or might know more about them than you do, such as the potential mistranslation you might be posting of number 6, even presented to me as “Thou shalt not kill,” when it’s universally agreed by scholars to be “Thou shalt not murder,” which is a pretty large restriction in lieu of the amount of indiscriminate divinely mandated or originated killing in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. It’s not like the guy doesn’t have some positions I could align with, like his opposition to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and advocating that the U.S. seek out new sources of energy so the oil crisis doesn’t reach a fever pitch. But the guy also opposes gay marriage in the same breath he’d say he opposes DADT, so the amount of compartmentalization he has to do borders on psychotic. Not to mention the obvious misunderstanding he seems to have of any idea of the First Amendment’s religious establishment clause that almost makes Christine O’Donnell look smart about it, which is hard. The guy persists in emphasizing that “Without God, there can be no ethics,” which was his response to the panel that removed him from his Chief Justice position, primarily due to his vehemently resisting a court order to remove the Ten Commandments. The guy tries to sound like he’s for the separation of church and state, but he also emphasizes that God is overarching across both church and state, which means he thinks (il)logically that we should recognize God’s sovereignty in courtrooms across the country: seems like the church is getting a bigger piece of the pie than the state is. If the state wants to restrict the use of religious monuments by a federal employee directly advocating one religion over another, especially if it’s paid with taxpayer money, then Roy Moore just shoves that restriction to the side. Since God “clearly” overrules any human law, since it made those ten rules that are somehow legally binding upon us, even though only about half of them have anything to do with law. I’d sooner vote for the next guy than this one…but not really.

Newt Gingrich has never been popular with me in politics. I did an article last year on him and Palin both railing on Obama, as if they could manage things better. Even if they put both their heads together, I can see things going much worse than Obama has supposedly made them. Gingrich, who’s also running for a Republican nomination in 2012, spoke at Cornerstone Church, headed by John Hagee, who had wanted to endorse John McCain when he ran in 2008, but was rejected on the grounds of anti-semitic sounding remarks he made concerning the Holocaust. Basically, he said Hitler was part of God’s plan to advance the growth of the state of Israel. But enough on a preacher who’s potentially crazier than Newt Gingrich and Roy Moore put together; let’s talk about Gingrich’s concern he voiced at his speech. He said he was worried that America would become “a secular atheist country…dominated by radical Islamists,” This is already a pretty clear contradiction; we’re beyond paradox. You can’t have a secular atheist country that’s run by Islam, a majority of which would support both a theocracy and a theistic religion as the source of law. If anything, he seems to think that somehow, radical Muslims and radical atheists will be willing to team up, which seems silly. If anything, there’s only a possibility that one half of the country would be Islamist and the other half atheist. But it seems like if it’s going to be one way or the other, it can’t be a shared endeavor, since Islam and atheism are at least descriptively opposed in not both being theistic. Christians and Muslims, maybe; atheists and secularists, sure, but not secularists or atheists alongside Islamists, unless they’re Muslim in name only, which is something critics of Islam say Muslims can be: that is, affirm Muslim tenets, but in reality believe only in atheist ideas (though that’s a bit of an oxymoron, since atheism isn’t a religion).

The whole concern here is focused on Gingrich’s worry that people will forget the “American ideals,” which to him are being Christian and Republican, in that order. One can understand where he might be worried people are trying to censor the Founding Father’s individual beliefs concerning Christianity and such, but history seems to demonstrate that many of the men who were the impetus to the U.S. declaring independence from Britain didn’t care whether Americans were Muslim, Jewish, Christian or atheist, among other possibilities. The basic freedoms in America are not a matter of freedom to be one of many varieties of one religion, as many fundamentalists and overly politically oriented devotees of Christianity seem to want to convince everyone around them. That was something of the original idea of the earliest settlers, but as diversity continued to expand, it only made sense that being American was not about strict standards for what constituted identity, but shared ideals. If Gingrich is worried people will forget what being an American is, perhaps he might consider that we’ve always had a good idea of what it means to be American; it’s people like him that are skewing the idea to a more narrow and exclusive perspective that pushes out any other religion from public view. They’ll say other religions, like Islam, have a right to practice, but that Christianity gets priority for historical reasons. And that’s not only unjustified, but it’s unconstitutional. Even putting favor towards a religion as an elected official is impermissible by the First Amendment, since even if it isn’t a matter of law, it’s still trying to make us believe that Christianity and the Ten Commandments are where our Constitution originates from, when that’s clearly not the case. I can’t say I’d recommend voting for either of these guys, assuming they even get in the primaries. Vote Mitt Romney before you even think of the proverbial Four Horsemen of 2012: Palin, Gingrich, Moore and Huckabee. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Obama's Faith: Personal and Political

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/03/obama-to-deliver-major-speech-on-personal-faith-white-house-official-says/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/03/president-obamas-remarks-at-national-prayer-breakfast/

President Barack Obama gave a heartening speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, held every year on the first Thursday of February, about his hopes for the future, such as Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ recovery from the shot to the head as well as her husband’s adjusting to the near death experience. He also wished for the situation in Egypt to play out peacefully and in favor of the people protesting against the one party system persisting for around 30 years since Hosni Mubarak’s replacement of Anwar El Hadat after his assassination in 1981. But throughout the rest of his speech, he spoke very candidly and publically for the first time about his faith, which many people continue to be skeptical about, due to various groups propagating the notion that he is a closet Muslim pretending to be a Christian.

While there is no absolutely conclusive evidence that Obama isn’t lying to millions of people about his faith, I fail to see what justification or benefit he could see in doing so, and why people would believe that someone would try to maintain such an elaborate ruse, when the President doesn’t get paid much more than others, not to mention his job is already quite taxing on the body and mind. His spiritual aspirations should be the least of people’s concerns; not to mention he has had plenty of associations with Christian preachers, including Rick Warren and Billy and Franklin Graham. Not to mention that Obama’s general reticence regarding his faith can be seen as a sign of discretion in times when the religious affiliation of a president should be very low on the list of concerns of the governed as opposed to what are more pressing issues of politics, economics, foreign policy, etc.
As divided as Obama admits many people might be on the issues like healthcare, the federal deficit and foreign aid, he at least strives to emphasize in this speech that he shares the Christian faith on some level with the majority of people in the United States. Some comments on the article inquired about theological specifics, but this is hardly relevant for a person that represents a diversity of millions, not all of them even finding Christianity’s story of salvation compelling in the slightest. With this unification under some theistic civil religious principles in mind, he calls for a focus on at least this common ground he has with most Americans even if there are very polarizing divisions that exist on other issues.

But the fact that people, educated or otherwise, continue to buy into the rumors of Obama’s true faith as a Muslim being deceptively disguised as God fearing and Jesus following to the majority demographic of Christians is what continues to divide people across political spheres. We still seem to want our representatives in politics to share the same faith as us, even though we can also feel sympathy and pray for Gabrielle Giffords, a Reformed Jew. But those same Christians, who eye Obama with distrust and accuse him of being both a Muslim and a Communist/Socialist/Marxist (which I can’t imagine are internally consistent with each other), will say that they can’t be anti-semitic because the Jewish people are their spiritual family, since they are also in a covenant with God, albeit they always would emphasize that it’s the Old one, not their New (and improved?) one with Jesus, who happened to be a Jew himself; which most people conveniently leave out.

I don’t have to agree with Obama’s politics or religion to still respect him as a person and as someone who represents the country in all its diversity, Christians and varied non Christians like myself as well (which he has spoken on occasionally in his speeches, giving him kudos from me that no other president to my knowledge has gotten yet). I could ramble on more about how religion and politics need a radical separation and, more importantly, a shifting of priorities. Being religious has become a negative label in my own area of the South, equated to following rituals and rules without any spirit or conviction behind their substance. And then there’s the allegation that the president needs a faith, usually a conveniently Christian faith that makes the person involved feel privileged. But the president neither has to be religious or faithful to any particular religion or faith; but at the very least should admit that he, like any politician, is dependent on those who vote for them and also has an obligation of fidelity (related etymologically to the word faith, ironically) to those constituents to follow through in some way.

Now, I admit I’m using something of the rhetoric and method that many conservative Obama critics and Tea Party followers use, but only because when communicated without politically vitriolic venom, it speaks volumes to what ought to be a reform of politics on some level, however unrealistic it might actually be to put into practice. If anything, people need to look past what people tell them and investigate those claims as individuals. But they shouldn’t let their own judgments about Obama determined through research be the end of the discussion. Exchanging opinions with others is a way to check against isolated politico-religious decisions. If you judge Obama simply by what everyone else says, there’s a problem in that you aren’t willing to think critically and objectively. However, judging Obama purely on what you think critically and “objectively” about is also a difficulty, because you dismiss any criticism as being “un-American” or “un-patriotic” or any number of other negative associations that only drive a wedge further into what is already a fragmented system, exacerbated by blind loyalty to party lines instead of choosing people based on alignment with your own political policies, regardless of being Democrat, Republican, or anything in between.

If we started accepting that we won’t agree on everything and try to find both common ground (the governed under the government) and principles of governance we share in common (benefitting people without coddling and spoiling them into becoming co dependent on any government subsidies or aid), then perhaps there wouldn’t be the need to question Obama’s faith either as individual believers or as communal citizens. We’d at least accept that when the facts point to Obama being a Christian (Methodist or Baptist or whatever) that we should take them as they are without succumbing to the media as the only source of information for our daily lives. Whether Obama is a Muslim or Christian or agnostic shouldn’t matter as long as he is honest with America. And again, I see no reason why he would need to lie about such a personal conviction when there are plenty of people that could counter any deception he might speak in a speech or prayer. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.