Palin's Pseudo-Prophetic Proclamation

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/15/sarah-palin-email-message-written-as-though-from-god/

No, this isn’t about Palin’s politics, but I almost wish it was. This time, we have a letter she wrote to her family before her fifth son, Trig, who has Down’s syndrome, was born. He was the center of a bit of a spat over a year ago with Family Guy that I blogged on in “Palin Versus Peter, or How Family Guy Makes Fun of ‘Retards’ (Not Really)” . Palin and her daughter Bristol both claimed that the show was making light of Trig’s condition and also taking a stab at Palin when a character with Downs syndrome in the episode “Extra Large Medium” said her mom was the former governor of Alaska. Even if the butt of the joke was Palin, she took it too seriously. But this time, she’s taking a position of sorts that, even with the qualification that it’s based on her personal belief in God, might be crossing a bit of a line.

In the email to family members looking forward to Trig’s eventual birth, she explains that Trig will be different, as well as a challenge to his parents and siblings, but will also bring more joy into his family’s life because of his special attributes, being mentally disabled in a particular way. She then makes a point that I think we all could agree on: just because someone’s flawed in one way or another doesn’t mean they’re not valuable as a person. The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, is how she ends this. She had already indicated technically throughout the letter that this was from another perspective, not her own. That would’ve been a better angle on this, I think. She could’ve said that God told her this and we could’ve given her some leeway. But she ends the letter by signing it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.” Of course, she doesn’t think she’s actually channeling God; I certainly hope not.

But even the mere presumption or appearance of talking from God’s perspective could be said to be a bit on the blasphemous side. Saying that God did all this planning about the birth of one baby suggests the same problems I observed with Rick Perry’s prayer celebration in “Idle Hands Are God’s Plaything”. When you think God cares this much about every event in your life, you’re giving yourself a bit too much entitlement in the eyes of a creator that’s supposed to treat everyone justly, fairly and impartially. That’s why God doesn’t usually spare believers when he throws a tornado through Joplin, Missouri. But then people start saying God was involved because a single church’s cross is saved. Pure coincidences are made to be the benevolent hand of the creator and even tragedies are accepted as God’s plan instead of supposedly the consequences of a sinful world, which is at least a simpler and more consistent explanation.

Palin’s problem here is not that she’s a Christian, since there are many Christians more than willing to believe such things like a snake originally had legs before it diversified from the common ancestor it shares with lizards today. Of course, they’ll jokingly reference the biblical story where the snake that tempted Eve is implied to have had legs which God then removed as punishment, forced to crawl on its belly and eat dust (not even getting into the second part, since it’s only a half-truth). Palin’s issue is a similar one to any theist that insists that God has an active part in human history. Faith healings, miraculous survivals or recoveries from cancer, the births of children, all these and more are prayed over and praised after the fact as God’s handiwork. No one’s saying you can’t be eager, happy, or just generally excited about things like a grandchild or sibling being born or grateful that the people you love have recovered from disease or survived a terrible event like a 400 mph funnel of wind that tears steel apart like tissue paper as it blows through their town. But, like many things, I think people are exaggerating what can be an already inspiring sort of occurrence.

The miraculous will happen, no doubt about that, but the nature of the miraculous is what is at issue here. When you view a child being born or see it soon afterwards as a newborn, you might be inclined to think of its birth as a miracle of sorts, but these days, a real miracle would be a child born premature surviving, which does happen. But if you take something more understandably amazing and unusual, like cancer going into remission suddenly, the miraculous nature is almost instinctively attributed to God or the power of prayer (or both). Just being grateful for the person’s healing is satisfactory enough for me, as a Buddhist. Many might call me ungrateful in that I’m not giving proper credit, but to be frank, I don’t see the hand of any divinity in such things, neither from a scientific/medical perspective or a more spiritual/philosophical one.

Things being unexpected or random do not imply a violation of the laws of nature or even some consistency through the perspective of a creator who sees everything. If such a show like House indicates anything, people’s diseases can have such a variety of etiologies (causes) that their sudden healing by a stroke of fortune in choosing a certain treatment is not anything related to the supernatural, but simply a part of the natural we don’t fully understand at the moment. Perhaps this is something we could agree to disagree on, but Palin just tends to emphasize these things in a way that makes other people look smart by comparison. But I live in the South where this sort of thing is probably pretty common as well, so I’m hardly being fair in criticizing a woman from the furthest north state in the U.S. who sounds like she’s from Canada sometimes. Concluding point being: while you might believe God works in mysterious ways, it seems all too convenient to have God’s mysterious ways work in your benefit more than in your suffering. Though of course, there is the recourse to the heaven option, so it’s not as if God’s completely absent when you feel such loss, but it’s not nearly as satisfying as saying, “Yep, God’s got my back,’ is it? Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Palin Pathetically Pleads Persecution

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/12/palins-use-of-blood-libel-invokes-ancient-myth-about-jews/

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/12/palin-criticized-for-using-blood-libel/


http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/12/my-take-sarah-palins-bogus-persecution-complex/

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/laurilebo/4021/new_theory_for_tucson_tragedy:_blame_the_atheists/

I can’t say I’m surprised that Sarah Palin has gotten into my blog again after half a year of nothing since Christine O’Donnell took her place for inept female politicians (and there are adept ones, don’t misunderstand me). And now she’s painting herself into a corner with her ignorance on Jewish-Christian issues. In particular, she thinks the term “blood libel” can be separated from the history it has of Christians slaughtering Jews; since many thought that the Israelite descendants kidnapped and killed Christian children and used their blood for various occult rituals. Any appropriate use of the term would have to involve actual persecution of Jews. But Palin says she, a good Christian woman, is the target of a blood libel against her since she can’t admit she might be somewhat guilty in using decidedly gun heavy rhetoric in rallying Tea Party members to fight against big government, by any means necessary, I imagine. And this rhetoric persisted in using what appeared to be target signs on various politicians in Arizona, including Gabrielle Giffords, nearly killed by a shot to the head from Jared Lee Loughner, who killed at least 6 people in his rampage in Tucson. Some claim Palin’s use of the targets may have motivated Loughner to the act against Giffords by association the target with a gun and Palin’s own phrase that she throws around of “Don’t retreat, reload,”

There’s a tragic irony in this, since Giffords herself was a Reform Jew, so it’s like twisting the knife in her parent’s wounds. Saying you’re the victim of a “blood libel” from people accusing you of influencing a maniac to make an assassination attempt on a Jew is like a Christian using the term “witch hunt”, which I imagine might not be uncommon in some areas today even with Wicca becoming more popular (though Wiccans are NOT witches, I must clarify). The Anti Defamation League strongly objected to Palin’s use, along with scholars of religion, such as Stephen Prothero and Mary C. Boys, who concentrates on this area of religious studies. While it has become part of English parlance, not unlike the phrase witch hunt, to use “blood libel” with a meaning separate from its historical context of Christian anti Semitism; which I admit is a minority today, since it is popular in Christian circles now to pray for Israel and such; it seems unfair to Jews in some way to use that term in such a nonchalant fashion, as if the Jews have just forgotten it, like the Holocaust, or just silently accept that people will always indirectly use anti semitic phrases in new unrelated ways. The medieval paranoia that might have just been a cover for anti Semitism under the similar hysteria around vampires; the Jews allegedly used blood in their rituals, therefore in the medieval mindset, they were kin with vampires. Makes as much sense as any other conspiracy theory.

I don’t think anyone is going to outright criticize Palin for her attempt to defend herself against these accusations, which, while plausible on some level, seem no different from scapegoating that has happened throughout times of crisis, creating someone to be the one to take the blame and otherwise become a pariah. Palin’s rhetoric might have only been a slight factor alongside Jared Lee Loughner’s alleged favorite books, including Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He may very well have been unstable from the beginning and the outside environmental influences may have triggered what was already somewhat genetically predisposed. There’s little reason to place the blame completely on any one person for even triggering Loughner’s insanity or his behavior, since he might have been behaving in what he believed to be a rational course of action, even if everyone else around him would have thought otherwise. There’s a justified criticism of sorts by Democrats of Republicans, Tea Party supporters especially, of the ease with which the assassin got a weapon with which to commit his crime, since they’re all for gun rights being increased (right?). The fact that Jared Loughner had no previous mental health evaluations or even any significant crimes on his record eliminated any difficulties that would’ve been clues from the start that he was someone that probably should not have gotten a gun at all. His belief in conspiracy theories was one of many manifestations in recent years that he was unstable, though the reason he was never forcefully taken for evaluations was because his erratic and outright insane behavior was nonetheless regarded as not posing any direct danger to anyone else around him. He was expelled from community college for this behavior, only allowed back in if he got a certified examination demonstrating his sanity. Later on, the military rejected his application on the grounds that he was mentally unfit. I would think at this point the military might’ve suggested that Loughner get evaluated by a psychologist/psychiatrist, but again, by this point, he may’ve been so far gone that it didn’t register.

And one last irritant in this whole terrible incident are claims that Loughner’s actions were motivated by his alleged atheism. There are already issues with this, since his reading list varies from theistic to atheistic authors, Plato and Hitler both having theistic tendencies and Ayn Rand and Karl Marx atheists of one stripe or another. The picture showing what appeared to observers to be a shrine with a skull doesn’t seem to show anything of atheism, since an atheist wouldn’t probably feel any need to erect any kind of area of worship, since it would be unnecessary to make pleas to divinities to dole out rewards or punishments. Not to mention that, regardless of whether you believe or disbelieve in the divine, when you’re stark raving mad, I don’t think you’re going to rethink that existential question so quickly when you take a Glock and starting firing wildly into a crowd. It’s pretty clear that the individual is the primary agent of responsibility in committing a crime, but there’s always room for considering a secondary agent as responsible by negligence. If you suspect someone is a danger to others by their behavior and thought patterns as far as they indicate them and you don’t do anything about it, then one can say you are nearly as culpable on some level as the person who takes a box cutter to a stranger’s throat. All in all, the blame game everyone’s playing is a start, but with Palin’s particular term being used outside of actual Jewish persecution, it’s no wonder that she’s spiraling down into mediocrity both politically and culturally to the level of Michael Jackson still being used as the punch line. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Prayer For Politicians, Meditation For The Mind

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/christine-odonnell-says-prayer-impacts-her-polls/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/26/can-meditation-change-your-brain-contemplative-neuroscientists-believe-it-can/
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/meditation-focus-on-now/

I can’t believe Christine O’Donnell keeps making herself a target for my articles. It hasn’t been weekly, but she can’t seem to stop herself from succumbing to what must be some genetic idiocy that was recessive beforehand. Honestly, is she just addicted to this attention? I guess that would be an excuse to get into politics and have people shower you with praise. She was formerly a witch, so now she can relate to the pagan, but doesn’t know the First Amendment so she can make herself seem teachable (she’s not, it appears). Now she thinks people praying for her campaign actually affect the popularity she’s been gaining. You couldn’t be more narcissistic if you tried; to think that people praying to God would actually have effects on your political run for Senator is incredibly naïve, not to mention selfish. To think God cares about whether you win or the Democrats? This is the same ridiculous tripe that’s been persisting since the 50s when people thought that teaching that the U.S. was a Christian nation would beat the “Godless Communists”. Evidently Christine O’Donnell has bought into this alteration of history and culture that communicates what is to a neutral observer a laughable proposition.

The idea that our country was founded on supposedly unique Biblical principles fails on two levels. The first one I’ve brought up at least once before: why would God care about any nation if its kingdom is not of this earth or if it is, it’s got to be way better than any worldly government could promise. But apparently people, educated or otherwise, can be swayed by patriotism and emotional bondage to feelings of guilt to believe either: God either wants our country to prosper or that the rules of Judeo Christian religion should be given favor in law. This may not be the case with all conservatives, but it leads right to my second point. Even if the majority of the founding fathers were Christian, it follows in no way that they wanted to enforce Christianity as some favored religion or place its laws in a political context. The First Amendment alone gives any sensible person a hint that the writers of the Constitution did not favor Christianity in terms of a government and did not design the country as a “Christian nation”. If anything could be noted as a Christian property of the U.S., it’s demographics. There are more self professed Christians (Protestants, Catholics and Mormons altogether) in the U.S. than any other religion, so that’s the closest you could brag about America being a Christian nation. To say we favor Christianity any more in why we develop our laws is not only mistaken in terms of how jurisprudence should work, impartial to faith, but protecting its practice nonetheless, but selectively observes the monuments and such that exist in government centered buildings, like the Supreme Court and Arlington National Cemetery. Religion and ethics are not dependent on each other; in fact, you could say we develop the latter before we even care about the former.

Most importantly, though, I’m just disappointed that someone would really have any kind of regard for prayer in relation to things that are for all intents and purposes separate from what are genuine religious concerns: famine, disease, natural disasters, adoption, anything but whether a Democrat or a Republican wins an election! The fact that you depend on pleas to some deity, singular or plural, is pitiful when you direct even a fraction of your energy in begging that someone wins an insignificant election for an insignificant country.

On a much more interesting, though still a bit questionable, note is the growing field of contemplative neuroscience. To be brief, it is an area of psychology that specifically studies brain function in the process of varying forms of meditation. I myself haven’t done any persistent meditation beyond some Tai Chi and Wado Ryu breathing exercises, which I admit do have an effect if only by basic physiological observations of how we can calm ourselves without recourse to drugs. The studies are still new from what I’ve read, not to mention the samples are both small and potentially biased so that the brain could very well be tricking the subjects. The tests have shown that different areas of the brain are activated or function at higher levels based on the particular kinds of meditation they do, which range from mindfulness to concentration to empathy. What is of especial relevance is the somewhat agreed upon notion that the brain can be trained in a similar, though distinct, sense that we train our bodies. With the brain, it’s not as if you’re exercising muscles so much as you’re channeling neuron firings in ways that begin to affect the brain’s processing. The best example coming to mind is that of a computer and enhancing it through software that cleans or defragments various areas. Similarly, if you alter various habits that the brain has built over time, you can alter how the brain takes in information, processes it and affects our behavior in general with our environment, people and non people both.

If Christine O’Donnell wants to improve anything with her campaign, maybe she could advocate people combining meditation with their faith journey with God, Jesus and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Not that she would eschew prayer, but suggest that people also look inwardly as well as outwardly. Maybe she could even try it herself and figure out how to save herself from such a grand disappointment that may be around the corner. One can only imagine the future of these polls already starting a week or so ago. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Liberty and Libertines of Faith

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/28/knight.beck.bunch/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/30/6245/


With Glenn Beck’s recent rally as a source of yet more politico-religious fervor and controversy, I thought it appropriate to comment on others’ commentary on the importance of the gathering that happened to coincide on MLK Jr’s “I Have a Dream Speech” at Lincoln Memorial. There were obvious observations that Lincoln was not exactly the most limited government supporting president, along with the potential opportunism that Beck utilized to make his alliance of Tea Party supporters seem less racist since they are honoring MLK Jr. The civil rights leader’s niece, Alveda King, was in attendance, along with Sarah Palin, somehow rounding out the general consensus that this was a mixed bag of political minds. Beck called for people to return to God, honor and to ally together to accomplish this task. At first glance, there seem to be sympathetic ideals within this message, particularly the concluding virtue of cooperation. But the presumption that America has somehow turned from God and honor seems not only mistaken but short sighted.

The loss of honor alleged is potentially the only justified claim in some sense. Any loss of honor would be due more than likely to inaction on the part of people that tend not to care about politicizing everything that happens in the news or just don’t feel that they make a difference in the system of voting for representatives that supposedly speak for them but then turn around and do the opposite. In this way, Beck at least tried to bring back a sense of worth in the individual to try to change things one person at a time.

However, when you start shifting from political apathy to religiously censured morality, you’re just shifting the conversation from fruits to vegetables. It’s not as if people demographically have become more atheistic or generally shifted away from their Abrahamic religions they were raised in, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Islamic or otherwise (since Beck is Mormon, which was an issue I won’t even get into). The claim that people need to “turn back to God” seems to be founded on a particular idea of how one follows “God” to begin with. Not to accuse anyone of explicit theocracy, since there is in the rhetoric of such people as Beck an equally dangerous ideology of theonomy. This is only distinct from theocracy in that it puts the power more squarely in the hands of the clergy, whereas theonomy just places the authority of the law within a sacred text instead of socially/communally derived contracts. For all intents and purposes, the two are almost inseparable. Advocating some kind of civil religion that the majority of the citizens agree upon seems to me still risky and problematic in that you assume that the minority will go along with the suggestion that even though there are groups in America that have no belief in God or no interest in God, they should just quietly sit to the side while the God believers revel in the fact that they can be so outspoken about their theism, while the atheists and agnostics are silenced either by apathy or desire to stay within social propriety, as if being a nonbeliever in God was a sentence to social ostracism or exile from the community; which by the way, it should not be at all. As one of this minority, I cannot stand by apathetically when some people take their liberties too far and abuse them to the detriment of people not like them only in their particular beliefs.

If anything, America should seek out ideals that are shared by everyone as much as possible. Liberty, equality, individualization without fear of isolation or alienation by peers, minority protection along with majority rule, as well as others I could list off that, regardless of creed or lack thereof, I imagine that people ranging from devout Christians to pragmatic hedonists could agree to being ideals that America should advocate. The fact that we can allow tolerance to the extent of permitting the practice of things we would find otherwise reprehensible outside of adherence to laws is already a legacy we should have pride in. A return to honor or God should not be the first thing we should be concerned with. Rather, a return to liberty and liberalism (particularly in the classical sense it was founded in around the point of America’s founding) should be our goal for the future. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha