Since before the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco has been reviled by conservative Christians as a place of hedonism. Back then it was nicknamed Frisky City, and not a few religious figures of the time interpreted the great fires that burned the city to the ground as God's retribution against the city's sinfulness, likening it to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Not a whole lot has changed. There continues to be some truth to the characterization of San Franciscans as hedonistic-- we believe in enjoying ourselves and we do. The best word I've found to describe San Franciscans is gay-- in the classic sense (in addition, of course, to the newer sense). On sunny weekend days, San Franciscans dress lightly, fashionably, and in bright colors. They eat brunch with mimosas or seek out the best bakery in town for pastries. They bring their dogs to the park or picnic with friends. San Francisco is truly a gay, happy city. It's also, truly, the most moral city I've ever called home.
San Francisco is a bastion of "radical humanism", as my friend so aptly put it. That lends itself to investing in social programs, ethically produced food and bike lanes. More personally, San Franciscans believe in doing what they enjoy and encouraging others to do the same, whether that be drinking blow-your-mind-good coffee or wearing red pants and a brilliant paisley scarf or having gay sex or smoking weed in the park or getting a sex change or... I think you get the idea.
That may sound dangerously unbounded to people from more religious parts of the country, but it is actually very simply and rigidly bounded by a second principle: not infringing on or diminishing others' happiness. The minute the crazy homeless guy shoves someone is the moment when tolerance turns to intolerance. The minute a public discussion invokes racial epithets is when the eyes of every bystander's eyes darken.
As extensive as San Franciscan acceptance is, the rules of humanism follow right along. Humanism is, after all, a moral tradition at least as venerable as Christianity, predating it by a fair margin. There is no slippery slope here. For example, orgies do happen in San Francisco. They're not commonplace but everyone knows someone who's been to an orgy. However, there is none of the Bacchanalian destructive abandon associated with Roman orgies. Real San Franciscan orgies, by every account I have heard so far, are extremely structured environments. That everyone be safe and comfortable is of primary importance. The implicit assumption is that such a thing is not worth doing if it causes harm. San Franciscan morality is outlined in black and white, just along different lines than conservative Christian morality.
San Francisco's combination of hedonism and moralism is also embodied by the kink community. The Society of Janus describes itself on its website thusly: "SOJ is a not-for-profit, all volunteer, San Francisco-based education
and support organization devoted to the art of safe, consensual and
non-exploitative BDSM." The society's mission is to teach people about BDSM, to share what they enjoy and likely have enjoyed for a long time. My experience reading dating profiles of people so inclined reinforces the impression that people in the kink community treat BDSM with strict sobriety and a careful eye for ethical pitfalls. Bestiality (which conservatives are so fond of mentioning in the same
breath as homosexuality) is not remotely ethical, because an animal cannot give consent.
The BDSM community is only a small part of the city, but that emphasis on ethical behavior characterizes San Franciscans more broadly. Since I have moved here, many things that I have done thoughtlessly
have been questioned by people around me, and discussed reasonably. The extreme moral conscientiousness of this city is remarkable, and the only people I've met of comparable moral conscientiousness are truly devout Christians. The difference is that instead of citing verses to explain why doing a given thing is wrong, San Franciscans will tell you exactly how it hurts people (or animals). Frankly, I find the moral intensity of both church groups and San Franciscans to sometimes be oppressive, but I appreciate the commitment.
San Franciscans are very familiar with how difficult it is to come out of the closet as gay. Every gay person has to deal with a feeling of non-acceptance from society at large, even those who were born and raised by accepting parents in the city itself. Being gay is far more difficult and alienating if someone comes from a conservative Christian family. Gay sons or daughters coming out of the closet to a conservative family risk disownment, but the reality for most gays is more subtle. There will be a certain distance created by the revelation and a certain sustained discomfort for both parties, because neither side can truly accept the other's viewpoint without giving up their own. Religious families are inclined to attempt to persuade their wayward sheep away from "the gay lifestyle". Even if a family resists this impulse, a certain level of frustration is an inevitable product of the rub between religious convictions and gay realities. It is a softer estrangement, but it still leaves lingering damage, damage that any gay person can tell you about (if they're comfortable doing so). Gays who grew up with strong religious convictions are forced into a crisis of faith, as
they try to reconcile the teachings etched into them with their own
nature, and must grapple with religiously-derived guilt. Gays, and San Franciscans more broadly, see firsthand the damage that religion can and does cause. This damage piques our San Franciscan sense of morality. When it comes to gays versus conservative Christianity, there is no question with which side this morality sides.
I think there's an unvoiced sentiment among conservative Christians that true love can only exist in a heterosexual relationship, or that romantic love in a heterosexual relationship is somehow different from romantic love in a gay relationship. We here in Frisky City know differently from experience. Of course, it's not rocket science. For every vocally happy recovering gay who has returned to the fold, there are a million vocally happy practicing gays. San Franciscans know that decisions have consequences, and further they know what decisions have what consequences, because they've tried out the options in true rational humanist fashion. We know that the only way for a gay person to find true romantic love is in a gay relationship, and that finding such love is among the most gratifying and fulfilling things in life. From the perspective of humanism, the truly immoral thing is trying to dissuade people from finding that love.
San Franciscans also know quite well what innocent fun is. This brings me, finally, to Hunky Jesus. The Hunky Jesus Competition, put on by the in-drag charity organization Nuns of Perpetual Indulgence, is innocent fun. The competition may be irreverent, but in San Francisco this is an integral part of its moral appeal. There is a need, particularly in gay San Francisco, to dance on Jesus' grave a little bit, to poke fun, to make light of the force of conservative Christianity, clearly discernible despite the distance (media carries it to us), that presses in on our little bastion of humanism with at best disapproval and at worst unabashed hostility.
That irreverence is entirely harmless unless, say, some idiot would deliberately troll and upset his conservative Catholic uncle by sending him an article about the event. Like I said, I'm not entirely in agreement with San Francisco's intense moralism, but I think I at least understand it. I hope you understand it better now too. San Francisco is a very different world from middle America, but despite both regions' best intentions, they are still one America.
If you visit me on a sunny weekend, I will suggest we get brunch in the Castro and order mimosas and eggs benedict. We can watch people go by, living their lives gaily. I promise you will enjoy it.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Friday, April 5, 2013
Saturday, August 4, 2012
How to Vote Like a Christian
Voting morally is an essential duty of every true Christian. If your church's congress or Pope or local Priest/Minister make suggestions it's easy, but if they don't provide sufficiently extensive guidance or if you want to figure out for yourself how to best carry out God's will, you may find yourself in a quandary.
For all the lip service that is lent to the Ten Commandments being the foundation of good law and for all the tablets and inscriptions of those commandments in American houses of law, you may be shocked to learn that only two of the commandments are written into law: thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not kill. Considering that America is an overwhelmingly Christian nation, it seems puzzling that we enforce only the two commandments that every nation on earth, Christian and heathen alike, enforce.
There are a few famous examples of Christian-run governments that attempted to enforce God's law to a more thorough extent, but unfortunately they were infamously harsh and/or authoritarian (Geneva circa the Reformation comes to mind). Let us dispense with past mistakes and begin anew.
Sodomy and all manner of sexual perversions should of course be prohibited. Until these things can be outlawed, nothing resembling acceptance or tolerance of such behavior should ever be passed into law. This behavior is never okay and we as Christians should make this holy truth clear with our votes.
For all the lip service that is lent to the Ten Commandments being the foundation of good law and for all the tablets and inscriptions of those commandments in American houses of law, you may be shocked to learn that only two of the commandments are written into law: thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not kill. Considering that America is an overwhelmingly Christian nation, it seems puzzling that we enforce only the two commandments that every nation on earth, Christian and heathen alike, enforce.
There are a few famous examples of Christian-run governments that attempted to enforce God's law to a more thorough extent, but unfortunately they were infamously harsh and/or authoritarian (Geneva circa the Reformation comes to mind). Let us dispense with past mistakes and begin anew.
Unfortunately, modern American law only partially encourages observance of God's commandment "thou shalt not kill". We
should do everything in our power to make abortion illegal once again,
but that's just the beginning of voting according to God's law.
Just as Jesus stayed an entire crowd's hands by saying "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her", so too should we depart from the institution of capital punishment, as the blood of those criminals is on all of our hands, as voters.
We
should also vote against unnecessary warfare. It is one thing to
protect ourselves from a genuine invasion and quite another to bomb vast
countrysides on the other side of the world, killing tens of thousands
of innocents, for some theoretical insulation from a repeat of 9/11,
which killed a relatively paltry two thousand. This sort of violence is
appalling and decidedly unChristian.
As
taxpayers are currently footing the bill for the massive killing
machine that is our military and this military facilitates an aggressive
attitude toward international politics, we should also downsize our
military to one reflective of an attitude of self-defense, not of
aggressive enforcement of worldwide dominance. This will also promote a
greater sense of humility across our nation. Our international actions
this past decade have frequently been grounded in pride, selfish fear
and an insufficient love of our neighbors. Downsizing our military budget by an order of magnitude would
go a long way towards stifling those American sins.
Sodomy and all manner of sexual perversions should of course be prohibited. Until these things can be outlawed, nothing resembling acceptance or tolerance of such behavior should ever be passed into law. This behavior is never okay and we as Christians should make this holy truth clear with our votes.
Even more important for protecting our country's social fabric, though, is preventing divorce and sex before marriage-- the two biggest contributors to social fragmentation and destruction of the family unit. The legalization of "no fault" divorce across states in the early 1970's had an appalling affect on the social fabric of America. One of the most important steps to bringing that fabric back together is going to be reversing that legislation and forcing married couples to work things out.
The problem of sex before marriage is a more difficult snarl to untangle. Abstinence-only sex education has done little or nothing to stem the rising tide of babies born out of wedlock. There is a deeper root cause at work here: young people are waiting until very late in their lives to marry and have children intentionally, and they are succumbing to temptation in the meantime. This is a result of a shifting economy, but Mormons have demonstrated that marrying early and having children within wedlock is feasible. Mormons consequently have a much lower rate of out-of-wedlock births. We should start by prohibiting sex before marriage and then institute a program to encourage marrying early, perhaps just out of high school as was typical in the 1950's.
An important topic of the Lord's teachings that we also need to take into consideration at the voting booth is that of poverty and wealth. Jesus said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." He also suggested to his apostles, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." Between these two quotes I think we have a clear God-given mandate for how to structure our government's tax and entitlement systems.
First of all, American government should take money from the rich until they are no longer rich, and in so doing save their souls. We should then take this wealth and distribute it to the poor and save America's soul. It is very simple and it is very much in keeping with the gospel. The fact that America, as the most God-fearing of first world countries, does the least redistribution of wealth in this most moral of directions quite frankly boggles my mind.
These are the first and foremost things we need to vote for to save our souls and the soul of our nation. There are many further things we could do, such as formally recognizing America as a Christian nation and enforcing all ten of the commandments, but those must wait until America is ready for our holy vision. Baby steps, my fellow Christians, baby steps.
For those of you who enjoyed this dose of common sense, I recommend checking out my friend Rob's Reasonable Person's Guide to the Bible.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Gay Marriage Part 2: After Reason
I have tried approaching this topic reasonably. I attempted to craft a logical, facts-based argument in favor of gay marriage. The impact was unfortunately negligible. My mistake was in treating gay marriage as an issue for which reason plays any role. Living in San Francisco has also changed my attitude towards the issue. I had spent a lot of energy trying to understand the conservative viewpoint, but it turned out I didn't adequately understand the liberal viewpoint. The following is an adapted version of a letter I wrote to my uncle. Pierre, I apologize for singling you out when you are no more guilty than anyone on your side, you were just the catalyst.
I know it's surprising and potentially upsetting to think that so many Catholics are ignoring the Pope, but excluding Hispanics from the statistics in the article wasn't actually that disingenuous. The second article I sent says, "For all the opposition by leaders in the Catholic Church, their flock isn’t following. 'Nearly six-in-ten white non-Hispanic Catholics (59%) favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry,' Pew reports, 'as do 57% of Hispanic Catholics.' This shouldn’t come as too surprising. Catholics have been leading the way on same-sex marriage for some time now."
I agree that the emphasis on white Catholics of the first article raises an eyebrow, but at a 2% difference it's hardly something to get up in arms about. Considering that both Hispanic Catholics and non-Hispanic Catholics are roughly 10% more in favor than the national average of 48% from the same report, it doesn't seem far-fetched to generalize that Catholics as a group are a major demographic leading the charge on gay marriage.
As to the question of whether or not these are "real" Catholics, the pollsters do their best, but it would be much more difficult/expensive to parse an additional variable for cross-control (ie. churchgoing rates of respondents). By the flip side of the coin, are you really so interested in disowning the vast majority of those who call themselves Catholic? "You're not a real Catholic unless you single-issue-vote for theocracy, have had sex the same number of times you've had children and flagellate yourself every morning before coffee."
The argument that legalizing gay marriage represents a slippery slope or opens a Pandora's box is absurd. California or New York would sooner pass Jim Crow laws than legalize first cousins marrying (both are cut from the same Southern cloth, in our minds). There is no other "rights" group looking for an expansion of marriage law with even a trace of the sincerity, fervor or political legitimacy of the gay rights movement.
Based on your own very technical definition of "deviant", I will disagree that gay marriage is "merely an attempt to make themselves non-deviant." By your definition, they will never be "non-deviant", but they can be treated like first-class citizens and granted rights that cost the rest of us nothing. Gays are looking for their (theoretically secular) government to acknowledge that they exist in the most sensible legal way available. Don't tell me extensive legal documents or civil unions are the same thing. They are clumsy workarounds to a glaring hole in contemporary law. The hole is one generated by a social reality that's at least 40 years old: gay people act remarkably like heterosexual people. They find someone they want to spend their lives with, they own houses together, they adopt children, etcetera. The elegant solution staring us in the face is legal marriage-- but that's not the argument to endorse it. The real argument to endorse it is that to willfully ignore and actively lobby against that elegant solution is insulting. You're telling people, "fuck you, this may be a secular government, but it's a democracy and you will play your charade of open, legally-recognized homosexuality over my dead body and every other REAL christian this country can muster."
Do you have any idea how ugly your side is? Do you have any idea how many people hate Middle America, the Pope, Jesus because of people like you? I have heard so many people in this city speak fervently about how ugly religion is and, coming from my background, I didn't understand at first. Living here for awhile you realize that nobody cares if a person gay. People don't play guessing games, they don't gawk, they don't ask, they just don't care. That is true non-judgement, not the silly mainline christian charade of "hate the sin, love the sinner". Do you have any idea how liberating, how utopian that feels, even to someone who isn't gay? It becomes very easy to understand why people here think of Middle America as a hell pit of judgement and scorn. I've seen it from both sides and I know your heart is in the right place, but I understand people here when they wrinkle their nose at the idea of living in Louisiana-- too much racism and religious zealots and judgement, they say-- and it's true! Isn't judgement for the afterlife? When did Jesus say that good people should tell other people how to live with their words and, when that becomes socially uncouth, with their votes? Y'know, I don't even care what Jesus said, because that wouldn't make it less ugly.
I know it's surprising and potentially upsetting to think that so many Catholics are ignoring the Pope, but excluding Hispanics from the statistics in the article wasn't actually that disingenuous. The second article I sent says, "For all the opposition by leaders in the Catholic Church, their flock isn’t following. 'Nearly six-in-ten white non-Hispanic Catholics (59%) favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry,' Pew reports, 'as do 57% of Hispanic Catholics.' This shouldn’t come as too surprising. Catholics have been leading the way on same-sex marriage for some time now."
I agree that the emphasis on white Catholics of the first article raises an eyebrow, but at a 2% difference it's hardly something to get up in arms about. Considering that both Hispanic Catholics and non-Hispanic Catholics are roughly 10% more in favor than the national average of 48% from the same report, it doesn't seem far-fetched to generalize that Catholics as a group are a major demographic leading the charge on gay marriage.
As to the question of whether or not these are "real" Catholics, the pollsters do their best, but it would be much more difficult/expensive to parse an additional variable for cross-control (ie. churchgoing rates of respondents). By the flip side of the coin, are you really so interested in disowning the vast majority of those who call themselves Catholic? "You're not a real Catholic unless you single-issue-vote for theocracy, have had sex the same number of times you've had children and flagellate yourself every morning before coffee."
The argument that legalizing gay marriage represents a slippery slope or opens a Pandora's box is absurd. California or New York would sooner pass Jim Crow laws than legalize first cousins marrying (both are cut from the same Southern cloth, in our minds). There is no other "rights" group looking for an expansion of marriage law with even a trace of the sincerity, fervor or political legitimacy of the gay rights movement.
Based on your own very technical definition of "deviant", I will disagree that gay marriage is "merely an attempt to make themselves non-deviant." By your definition, they will never be "non-deviant", but they can be treated like first-class citizens and granted rights that cost the rest of us nothing. Gays are looking for their (theoretically secular) government to acknowledge that they exist in the most sensible legal way available. Don't tell me extensive legal documents or civil unions are the same thing. They are clumsy workarounds to a glaring hole in contemporary law. The hole is one generated by a social reality that's at least 40 years old: gay people act remarkably like heterosexual people. They find someone they want to spend their lives with, they own houses together, they adopt children, etcetera. The elegant solution staring us in the face is legal marriage-- but that's not the argument to endorse it. The real argument to endorse it is that to willfully ignore and actively lobby against that elegant solution is insulting. You're telling people, "fuck you, this may be a secular government, but it's a democracy and you will play your charade of open, legally-recognized homosexuality over my dead body and every other REAL christian this country can muster."
Do you have any idea how ugly your side is? Do you have any idea how many people hate Middle America, the Pope, Jesus because of people like you? I have heard so many people in this city speak fervently about how ugly religion is and, coming from my background, I didn't understand at first. Living here for awhile you realize that nobody cares if a person gay. People don't play guessing games, they don't gawk, they don't ask, they just don't care. That is true non-judgement, not the silly mainline christian charade of "hate the sin, love the sinner". Do you have any idea how liberating, how utopian that feels, even to someone who isn't gay? It becomes very easy to understand why people here think of Middle America as a hell pit of judgement and scorn. I've seen it from both sides and I know your heart is in the right place, but I understand people here when they wrinkle their nose at the idea of living in Louisiana-- too much racism and religious zealots and judgement, they say-- and it's true! Isn't judgement for the afterlife? When did Jesus say that good people should tell other people how to live with their words and, when that becomes socially uncouth, with their votes? Y'know, I don't even care what Jesus said, because that wouldn't make it less ugly.
Friday, March 25, 2011
On Militant Atheism
The following was compiled from a debate with Rob about a post of his titled Schmutz about ridiculing a passerby for having ash on his head on Ash Wednesday. For the purposes of this post, please read "religion" as "Christianity". Also, and this should go without saying on my blog anyways, if you have hate for this post, please don't remain silent. Address me directly and thoughtfully, either by comment or email.
For what it's worth, Rob, I don't consider you militant anything either. You say that in defending religion I am "defending the indefensible"? Lines like that ensure a long return letter from me.
So you say it was your laughter after being angry, bigoted and confrontational that made it ok? I guess it depends on the kind of laughter. I laugh a hard, cruel laugh when I've made a particularly witty joke at someone's (or an implied group's) expense. That was the laughter (maybe muted, but the spirit anyways) I envisioned in your post. It is a laughter at one's own horribleness, but it's also a sort of victory lap, a twisted embrace of all that is unholy about wit and being born to, frankly, a superior mind. It has its place in my life and I expect it has its place in yours. I'm just saying that if that kind of laughter has made its way to strangers simply for having ash on their foreheads, you've gotten a little far afield.
Life is not nearly so simple, and I'm not talking about the minority of nonbelievers who will wear ash each year. I'm talking about the bivalent nature of something as enmeshed into human life and culture as religion. It can be very bad for people, but if you miss its capacity to genuinely be very good for people or indeed miss the extent to which it genuinely helps most people within its clutches, you are missing something very important.
Living in Davis taught every person of notable intellect how boring militant atheism can be and frankly, how crass it is. I've lived the dream of a majority atheist/agnostic society and I can tell you for certain that it is a place of rationalized persecution, bigotry and, this is especially important, a notable lack of philosophical thought. Can you believe we have an atheist/agnostic club in such a place? What the hell do you think they discuss at their meetings? Seriously, all I can think of is getting out "the word" and why non-non-believers suck. They certainly don't have much to discuss in terms of personal philosophy. I can't imagine a UCD organization less likely to include an individual of insight and imagination.
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that I was just as helpless in not believing in god as so many people are helpless in believing in him. To think otherwise is to give oneself too much credit. There is no minority of people who came to religion by choice. There is a minority of people whose environmental inputs were balanced enough that their decision was decided by native personality rather than those environmental inputs. People are simply not that freethinking. I'm not a determinist, I just recognize genuine free choice for being the intensely rare thing that it is.
I know a handful of enormously intelligent believers. That's not enough, by itself, to give me pause before deriding poster boys for a largely retarded sort of follow-the-leader mentality. It was hearing intelligent people talk about the significance of religion to them that explained to me why religion has existed as something enduring and powerful with deep relevance to the human condition rather than as some transient fad. That, is enough to give me pause before deriding even people who are obviously floatsam upon the tides of religious alignment. It's even enough to give me pause before deriding a person who so clearly is being negatively affected by their floatsamesque religious affiliation, because I cannot easily estimate the positives that religion contributes to their life.
The "is religion more good or bad?" topic is an especially poignant one for me, because my very favorite "intelligent believer" has been affected both so positively and so negatively by her religion. I've tried to imagine what kind of person she would be without her religion and I find it just too inextricably tied. The knee-jerk agnostic reaction would be a revulsion that somebody could be so consumed by a human institution, particularly under the false notion that the institution was superhuman in origin, but being affected by religion is no different from being affected by anything else and there is nothing inherently wrong with being affected so deeply by human institutions. Individuality is, after all, just another value of human construction.
Back to my point, though. My friend is affected in incredibly positive ways by her faith and in dangerous and potentially limiting ways. She lives a life with both more pain and more joy than I think she would live without religion. As to whether religion made her already-intense personality "gel" into the amazing person she is or whether it has straitjacketed her true potential or paved a road for her eventual self-destruction, I cannot say. Surely there is an example somewhere for every case. For now, I have decided it is best that I take it on faith that it does more good than bad. Whether or not that is true, though, I think her life is unquestionably the richer for having religion.
My highest hope for the world is not that people live happy lives free of the worst kinds of sorrow. My highest hope is that people live rich lives, full of both enormous happiness and enormous sorrow. My hope is that somewhere in the process that experience imparts to them tremendous insight into human nature. If religion makes the world a more painful place on the balance, that is still worth the richness and wisdom it brings to the world. Peace and happiness always sounded terribly boring, anyways. I concede that my belief as to what the balance comes to can be reduced to simple faith in my own educated guess. I also believe that if you had any kind of appreciation for its good, you'd see it "being more good than bad" for the very likely possibility that I see it. You say the hurt unleashed on the world by religion is unfathomable? The good unleashed is certainly also unfathomable. To think otherwise is hubris. Who are you to call the balance in religion's disfavor?
Militant atheists often write-off religion's appeal as grounded in fear of "meaninglessness and death". Let me open by saying people respond poorly and inconsistently to ultimatums ("Go to church or burn in hell! Donate a dollar to Red Cross or burn in hell! Wash your hands or go to hell!"). In practice, it only gets you so far in coercing action and loyalty. Cults are just religions without the staying power. Religion survives because there is wisdom inlaid in the tradition, rules and ceremony with genuine human relevance that resonates with people and their children.
To be sure, there is also the appeal of escaping "meaningless and death", but from my vantage point that appeal is rooted much deeper than such a predictable write-off would suggest. Religion is a beautiful and sophisticated allegory for dealing with death and meaninglessness. Just like old school fairy tales deal with childhood fears and traumas by conveying understanding and acceptance through allegory (ie. Little Red Riding hood is about sexual predation), so too does religion, albeit on a more sophisticated and encompassing scale. Religion, understood in my terms, does not deal with fear of death and meaningless through providing escapism, but by teaching understanding and acceptance through allegory. It is the best kind of coping mechanism.
This, perhaps, is the core of my belief system regarding religion. Religion is allegory that never breaks the fourth wall. Treated as such, it is not strident, it is not threatening, it just pushes gently and inexorably onto your skull, whispering how to live a good life, how to prepare for death, how to deal with problems both large and small. I've been working with this belief system for most of my adult life and I have yet to iron out all the wrinkles, but the beauty and reasonableness with which Christianity has opened up to me since then has assured me that I am onto something real and powerful.
Hopefully this clears up at least some of the enigma of my love for and defense of a religion I don't believe. I'm not an enigmatic person. I sometimes wish I was, which is why my first reaction to being called enigmatic is flattery. My second reaction, learned with time, is a recognition that any perception of enigma is simply a failure of mine to convey myself. I don't really want to be enigmatic anyways.
At the end of the day, these are arguments of belief and experience. There is a hard wall between us which you and I may or may not be able to bridge. Barring the success of such an appeal, I have this: Indulging in militant atheism and then posting it on your blog is cliche and contributes nothing to public discourse. Maybe in New Jersey militant atheism seems like an important voice that needs to be heard, but I assure you that your message is out there. Repeating it will only accentuate the misunderstanding and blind hostility on both sides.
Your post will provide no emotional comfort for militant atheists emotionally traumatized by the thought that their position is crazy. I've never met a militant atheist who thought their position was remotely crazy. Every one has been unwaveringly convinced that their position is the most sane position possible. Militant atheists need no comforting. What they need is a dose of reality. The crazier they think of themselves, the better. Their position is not valid. It is understandable, but it is not valid. Crazy is a label societies have traditionally utilized to cope with unconscionably destructive behavior. Militant atheism is destructive. It is hypocritical. It foments everything it seeks to combat. Its existence does no good for anybody, let alone people as a whole. What you are doing is at best, slightly bad for the world and at worst, extremely ugly. In either case it is not constructive in any artistic, philosophical or political sense I can think of. That post of yours is poison and it, my dear friend, is indefensible.
A friend of mine (a nonbeliever), after reading your post and my defending of your character, said, "well, still, you can be the nicest person and then turn around and say you hate niggers". I mean, unless that was the point, unless this was all an exercise in how slippery a slope hateful militant atheism is from a place of thoughtful agnosticism?
For what it's worth, Rob, I don't consider you militant anything either. You say that in defending religion I am "defending the indefensible"? Lines like that ensure a long return letter from me.
So you say it was your laughter after being angry, bigoted and confrontational that made it ok? I guess it depends on the kind of laughter. I laugh a hard, cruel laugh when I've made a particularly witty joke at someone's (or an implied group's) expense. That was the laughter (maybe muted, but the spirit anyways) I envisioned in your post. It is a laughter at one's own horribleness, but it's also a sort of victory lap, a twisted embrace of all that is unholy about wit and being born to, frankly, a superior mind. It has its place in my life and I expect it has its place in yours. I'm just saying that if that kind of laughter has made its way to strangers simply for having ash on their foreheads, you've gotten a little far afield.
Life is not nearly so simple, and I'm not talking about the minority of nonbelievers who will wear ash each year. I'm talking about the bivalent nature of something as enmeshed into human life and culture as religion. It can be very bad for people, but if you miss its capacity to genuinely be very good for people or indeed miss the extent to which it genuinely helps most people within its clutches, you are missing something very important.
Living in Davis taught every person of notable intellect how boring militant atheism can be and frankly, how crass it is. I've lived the dream of a majority atheist/agnostic society and I can tell you for certain that it is a place of rationalized persecution, bigotry and, this is especially important, a notable lack of philosophical thought. Can you believe we have an atheist/agnostic club in such a place? What the hell do you think they discuss at their meetings? Seriously, all I can think of is getting out "the word" and why non-non-believers suck. They certainly don't have much to discuss in terms of personal philosophy. I can't imagine a UCD organization less likely to include an individual of insight and imagination.
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that I was just as helpless in not believing in god as so many people are helpless in believing in him. To think otherwise is to give oneself too much credit. There is no minority of people who came to religion by choice. There is a minority of people whose environmental inputs were balanced enough that their decision was decided by native personality rather than those environmental inputs. People are simply not that freethinking. I'm not a determinist, I just recognize genuine free choice for being the intensely rare thing that it is.
I know a handful of enormously intelligent believers. That's not enough, by itself, to give me pause before deriding poster boys for a largely retarded sort of follow-the-leader mentality. It was hearing intelligent people talk about the significance of religion to them that explained to me why religion has existed as something enduring and powerful with deep relevance to the human condition rather than as some transient fad. That, is enough to give me pause before deriding even people who are obviously floatsam upon the tides of religious alignment. It's even enough to give me pause before deriding a person who so clearly is being negatively affected by their floatsamesque religious affiliation, because I cannot easily estimate the positives that religion contributes to their life.
The "is religion more good or bad?" topic is an especially poignant one for me, because my very favorite "intelligent believer" has been affected both so positively and so negatively by her religion. I've tried to imagine what kind of person she would be without her religion and I find it just too inextricably tied. The knee-jerk agnostic reaction would be a revulsion that somebody could be so consumed by a human institution, particularly under the false notion that the institution was superhuman in origin, but being affected by religion is no different from being affected by anything else and there is nothing inherently wrong with being affected so deeply by human institutions. Individuality is, after all, just another value of human construction.
Back to my point, though. My friend is affected in incredibly positive ways by her faith and in dangerous and potentially limiting ways. She lives a life with both more pain and more joy than I think she would live without religion. As to whether religion made her already-intense personality "gel" into the amazing person she is or whether it has straitjacketed her true potential or paved a road for her eventual self-destruction, I cannot say. Surely there is an example somewhere for every case. For now, I have decided it is best that I take it on faith that it does more good than bad. Whether or not that is true, though, I think her life is unquestionably the richer for having religion.
My highest hope for the world is not that people live happy lives free of the worst kinds of sorrow. My highest hope is that people live rich lives, full of both enormous happiness and enormous sorrow. My hope is that somewhere in the process that experience imparts to them tremendous insight into human nature. If religion makes the world a more painful place on the balance, that is still worth the richness and wisdom it brings to the world. Peace and happiness always sounded terribly boring, anyways. I concede that my belief as to what the balance comes to can be reduced to simple faith in my own educated guess. I also believe that if you had any kind of appreciation for its good, you'd see it "being more good than bad" for the very likely possibility that I see it. You say the hurt unleashed on the world by religion is unfathomable? The good unleashed is certainly also unfathomable. To think otherwise is hubris. Who are you to call the balance in religion's disfavor?
Militant atheists often write-off religion's appeal as grounded in fear of "meaninglessness and death". Let me open by saying people respond poorly and inconsistently to ultimatums ("Go to church or burn in hell! Donate a dollar to Red Cross or burn in hell! Wash your hands or go to hell!"). In practice, it only gets you so far in coercing action and loyalty. Cults are just religions without the staying power. Religion survives because there is wisdom inlaid in the tradition, rules and ceremony with genuine human relevance that resonates with people and their children.
To be sure, there is also the appeal of escaping "meaningless and death", but from my vantage point that appeal is rooted much deeper than such a predictable write-off would suggest. Religion is a beautiful and sophisticated allegory for dealing with death and meaninglessness. Just like old school fairy tales deal with childhood fears and traumas by conveying understanding and acceptance through allegory (ie. Little Red Riding hood is about sexual predation), so too does religion, albeit on a more sophisticated and encompassing scale. Religion, understood in my terms, does not deal with fear of death and meaningless through providing escapism, but by teaching understanding and acceptance through allegory. It is the best kind of coping mechanism.
This, perhaps, is the core of my belief system regarding religion. Religion is allegory that never breaks the fourth wall. Treated as such, it is not strident, it is not threatening, it just pushes gently and inexorably onto your skull, whispering how to live a good life, how to prepare for death, how to deal with problems both large and small. I've been working with this belief system for most of my adult life and I have yet to iron out all the wrinkles, but the beauty and reasonableness with which Christianity has opened up to me since then has assured me that I am onto something real and powerful.
Hopefully this clears up at least some of the enigma of my love for and defense of a religion I don't believe. I'm not an enigmatic person. I sometimes wish I was, which is why my first reaction to being called enigmatic is flattery. My second reaction, learned with time, is a recognition that any perception of enigma is simply a failure of mine to convey myself. I don't really want to be enigmatic anyways.
At the end of the day, these are arguments of belief and experience. There is a hard wall between us which you and I may or may not be able to bridge. Barring the success of such an appeal, I have this: Indulging in militant atheism and then posting it on your blog is cliche and contributes nothing to public discourse. Maybe in New Jersey militant atheism seems like an important voice that needs to be heard, but I assure you that your message is out there. Repeating it will only accentuate the misunderstanding and blind hostility on both sides.
Your post will provide no emotional comfort for militant atheists emotionally traumatized by the thought that their position is crazy. I've never met a militant atheist who thought their position was remotely crazy. Every one has been unwaveringly convinced that their position is the most sane position possible. Militant atheists need no comforting. What they need is a dose of reality. The crazier they think of themselves, the better. Their position is not valid. It is understandable, but it is not valid. Crazy is a label societies have traditionally utilized to cope with unconscionably destructive behavior. Militant atheism is destructive. It is hypocritical. It foments everything it seeks to combat. Its existence does no good for anybody, let alone people as a whole. What you are doing is at best, slightly bad for the world and at worst, extremely ugly. In either case it is not constructive in any artistic, philosophical or political sense I can think of. That post of yours is poison and it, my dear friend, is indefensible.
A friend of mine (a nonbeliever), after reading your post and my defending of your character, said, "well, still, you can be the nicest person and then turn around and say you hate niggers". I mean, unless that was the point, unless this was all an exercise in how slippery a slope hateful militant atheism is from a place of thoughtful agnosticism?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
On the Persuasion of Words
My friend Rob prefaced a confessional story with a preamble about how the use of words is nearly always an attempt to persuade people to like us and love us. He explained that he did his best to use words for the greater good and ignore what light his confessional story might portray him in. This was my response, cleaned up for your reading pleasure.
Your discussion about the persuasion of words was an awesome thought, but it's hard to be convinced that your attempts at making people love you with words are anything other than more complex and self-consciously twisted than the majority of people's. Attempts to subvert the impulse to try to be loved are never true subversions. I don't think we can free ourselves of that motivation and our resulting actions to even a small degree, only try harder to cover our tracks.
I can strongly empathize with your thoughts. I think I've tried harder to subvert those impulses in myself than most I know. I've watched my smartest friends go through the same calculus, though. That's had the dual benefit of showing me what it looks like from the outside and illustrating to me that the impulse is completely normal for individuals of our intellect. It also illustrates that the impulse makes people's personas far more interesting even if they never succeed in displacing, subduing or even hiding their selfish desire to be loved.
I remember my effort at that began with Christianity. I remember being in catechism, wondering whether good deeds counted if they were based in a desire to feel better about oneself and/or be treated with the gentleness reserved for "nice people", to say nothing of being motivated by the promise of heaven. Because God knew our motivations perfectly, I concluded they did not qualify as truly good deeds.
The next step in my thought process was that the only way to do good things without the inevitable morally-compromising reward was to play my good intentions off as bad ones and convince both those around me and myself that my actions were selfish and wicked. This corresponded with an increasingly perverse altruism that I mixed freely with my most overtly evil impulses as well as an increasing obsession with compartmentalizing my mind for the purpose of insulating my conscious from the fact that I was doing things that I believed to be good.
This formed the basic tenets of my high school class persona that earned me so much hate and ultimately love. I managed to almost perfectly conceal that I was an essentially loving, conscience-driven individual haunted by insecurity and loneliness. I came across as an arrogant, self-obsessed dick who was too smart for his own good. The persona meshed smoothly with my slacker-who-loves-school thing. I refused to take notes to my teacher's chagrin and asked hard, merciless questions that sometimes went over the teachers' heads and always kept them on their toes.
Picking at flaws in logic and person became a favorite outlet for many impulses at once, including my altruism, though I would have rightly insisted then that I was venting displaced anger by pointing out my teachers' weaknesses. I did the same essential thing to fellow students for even raising their hand if they wasted class time. Not only was there such a thing as a dumb question, there was such a thing as people too dumb to be entitled to a voice.
By the time I entered college, I'd entered a new phase of activism that was more nuanced and less overtly conflicted and confrontational than my high school days, but I still have great respect for the person I was in high school. I've only built upon the moral calculus that formed my high school persona. I've given up on thinking that compartmentalization or cultivated hatred will allow me to do good without reaping the benefits. I've given up avoiding the benefits. Part of that is probably because of how high school ended. I was eventually respected and adored for my refusal to conform or parse words.
My blog is a complete embrace of the "look at me" and "love me" implicit in writing so many words in a place where so many people can see them. I make no bones about trying to persuade people that my way is the right one, but more importantly I make no bones about playing up the quirky charm of my personality. I am shameless about my efforts to persuade people into loving me via my blog. Haven't I already earned your liking?
That persuasion has always been a filtering process, though. I've never had any ambition to be loved by all or even most. When somebody thinks I'm insane, sociopathic or perverted my normal reaction is to say screw you. I work hard enough at being correctly understood that when explanation fails I have few qualms about judging people for judging me. Were I not so articulate and careful to justify my thoughts, I might be more lenient, but as it stands, fuck'em.
Your discussion about the persuasion of words was an awesome thought, but it's hard to be convinced that your attempts at making people love you with words are anything other than more complex and self-consciously twisted than the majority of people's. Attempts to subvert the impulse to try to be loved are never true subversions. I don't think we can free ourselves of that motivation and our resulting actions to even a small degree, only try harder to cover our tracks.
I can strongly empathize with your thoughts. I think I've tried harder to subvert those impulses in myself than most I know. I've watched my smartest friends go through the same calculus, though. That's had the dual benefit of showing me what it looks like from the outside and illustrating to me that the impulse is completely normal for individuals of our intellect. It also illustrates that the impulse makes people's personas far more interesting even if they never succeed in displacing, subduing or even hiding their selfish desire to be loved.
I remember my effort at that began with Christianity. I remember being in catechism, wondering whether good deeds counted if they were based in a desire to feel better about oneself and/or be treated with the gentleness reserved for "nice people", to say nothing of being motivated by the promise of heaven. Because God knew our motivations perfectly, I concluded they did not qualify as truly good deeds.
The next step in my thought process was that the only way to do good things without the inevitable morally-compromising reward was to play my good intentions off as bad ones and convince both those around me and myself that my actions were selfish and wicked. This corresponded with an increasingly perverse altruism that I mixed freely with my most overtly evil impulses as well as an increasing obsession with compartmentalizing my mind for the purpose of insulating my conscious from the fact that I was doing things that I believed to be good.
This formed the basic tenets of my high school class persona that earned me so much hate and ultimately love. I managed to almost perfectly conceal that I was an essentially loving, conscience-driven individual haunted by insecurity and loneliness. I came across as an arrogant, self-obsessed dick who was too smart for his own good. The persona meshed smoothly with my slacker-who-loves-school thing. I refused to take notes to my teacher's chagrin and asked hard, merciless questions that sometimes went over the teachers' heads and always kept them on their toes.
Picking at flaws in logic and person became a favorite outlet for many impulses at once, including my altruism, though I would have rightly insisted then that I was venting displaced anger by pointing out my teachers' weaknesses. I did the same essential thing to fellow students for even raising their hand if they wasted class time. Not only was there such a thing as a dumb question, there was such a thing as people too dumb to be entitled to a voice.
By the time I entered college, I'd entered a new phase of activism that was more nuanced and less overtly conflicted and confrontational than my high school days, but I still have great respect for the person I was in high school. I've only built upon the moral calculus that formed my high school persona. I've given up on thinking that compartmentalization or cultivated hatred will allow me to do good without reaping the benefits. I've given up avoiding the benefits. Part of that is probably because of how high school ended. I was eventually respected and adored for my refusal to conform or parse words.
My blog is a complete embrace of the "look at me" and "love me" implicit in writing so many words in a place where so many people can see them. I make no bones about trying to persuade people that my way is the right one, but more importantly I make no bones about playing up the quirky charm of my personality. I am shameless about my efforts to persuade people into loving me via my blog. Haven't I already earned your liking?
That persuasion has always been a filtering process, though. I've never had any ambition to be loved by all or even most. When somebody thinks I'm insane, sociopathic or perverted my normal reaction is to say screw you. I work hard enough at being correctly understood that when explanation fails I have few qualms about judging people for judging me. Were I not so articulate and careful to justify my thoughts, I might be more lenient, but as it stands, fuck'em.
Friday, April 10, 2009
A Slice of Good Friday Mania
Today is Good Friday and I feel good. Really good. One cup of coffee and I feel like a demigod: potent, wise and I can practically see Fortune's broad grin beaming down at me. If this is what cocaine feels like, I ought never to try it.
I'm surprised it took me this long to find coffee. My first tentative steps towards the drink left me jittery. Somehow, its effect changed once I drank it with frequency. My hat is off to the people who predicted that. A coffee addiction sounds like fun. I haven't acquired one yet, but I hear it takes a little time.
My neurobiology professor is talking about sodium channels and action potentials and all I can do is silently laugh at the the phrase "refractory period". I wonder if I'm the only one in class who finds that uproarious. I guess information transmission is a beautiful thing...
If I was born to be anything, it was a critic. I love to make fun of people. Of course, it's a sign of familiarity and affection, but that's always been a tough sell for people who didn't grow up in a family like mine. Maybe one of the hangups is the ambivalence implicit in my critiques-- I'm as likely to say something flattering without prompting as harsh. I impose objectivity on unusual circumstances and it throws people off.
I'm surprised it took me this long to find coffee. My first tentative steps towards the drink left me jittery. Somehow, its effect changed once I drank it with frequency. My hat is off to the people who predicted that. A coffee addiction sounds like fun. I haven't acquired one yet, but I hear it takes a little time.
My neurobiology professor is talking about sodium channels and action potentials and all I can do is silently laugh at the the phrase "refractory period". I wonder if I'm the only one in class who finds that uproarious. I guess information transmission is a beautiful thing...
If I was born to be anything, it was a critic. I love to make fun of people. Of course, it's a sign of familiarity and affection, but that's always been a tough sell for people who didn't grow up in a family like mine. Maybe one of the hangups is the ambivalence implicit in my critiques-- I'm as likely to say something flattering without prompting as harsh. I impose objectivity on unusual circumstances and it throws people off.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Law and Marriage
As riveting as the prospect of two well-qualified presidential candidates may be, the most exciting decision to be made remains California Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment to define marriage as heterosexual and thereby reverse the California Supreme Court ruling that allowed gay marriage. While this will certainly not reverse the fact that thousands of legally binding same-sex marriage contracts have already been issued or that plenty of other states now offer same-sex marriage, the fact remains that California is a big deal and both sides are approaching it with the urgency of a nuclear bomb threat.
I'm here to weigh in on the American legal system and its relevance to the institution of marriage as well as the battle for America's soul. Just as with prostitution, fireworks or most famously abortion, the American legal system was devised to promote a permissive society. Before Roe v. Wade, abortion was legal in several states and to anyone willing to travel to those states abortion was effectively legal across the country. Such is the nature of our system that it makes it difficult to legislate morality (and fire safety). The Constitution does not prohibit values voting, it merely stacks the deck against it.
It is important to consider that marriage is something of two distinct but overlapping definitions, legal and religious. Marriage has had legal ramifications and thus civil definition since law itself came into existence and religious definition likely since religion came into existence. This means that while the religious definition probably predates the civil one, Christian matrimony is certainly predated by civil marriage. While in countries with state religions the two were nearly inseparable, in a country of religious pluralism marriage is ultimately defined by the state. Consequently, many sects only recognize marriages they themselves have officiated and refuse to recognize civil divorces, including Mormonism and Catholicism.
The religious argument for discouraging homosexuality is fairly sound and I won't dispute it here, but we should remember that in a country of many faiths the government should act as the common denominator rather than a tool of one faith against another (I speak here of Christian sects whose Biblical interpretation allows for gay marriage). In a permissive society such as ours, the side granting personal rights is never the aggressor.
We can only conclude that the present point of contention is one of the formal acceptance of homosexuality and societal definition rather than religion per say. Though the California Supreme Court holds otherwise, extending marriage rights to same-sex couples is not necessarily intuitive. Polygamy flouts traditional Western marriage to the same degree as gay marriage (an expansion of numbers rather than gender) and actually has more anthropological precedent. What makes something “intuitive” is inevitably culturally dependent, so it was not the court's place to decide our state's policy. It is the court's place to interpret law.
Of course, there is hardly any practical argument against gay marriage. The state's recognition of marriage is founded in the binding power of monogamy. It grants rights to same-sex couples that have been sorely needed to reduce legal disputes and psychological strain. In addition to the talked-about hospital visitation rights and divisions of estate, gay marriage provides the stability required for raising families. I hear that this is being used to rally the religious right, but let us consider it for a moment. Personally, I love the idea of converting statistically promiscuous, otherwise non-breeding gays into family people. I think it's tragic that orientation obfuscates the joys of parenthood and that society allows perfectly good potential parents to provide nothing more to our country than workforce.
Before you conservatives jump on me for this, consider that children raised by gays are no more likely to be gay than children from liberal families. It illustrates that in liberal America, acceptance of homosexuality is such that roughly one hundred percent of individuals with homosexual impulses come out of the closet. That is to say, the Christian Right might as well prohibit marriage of secular couples if the goal is to discourage children from growing up gay. Homosexuality is only something that “multiplies” in sexually repressed hardcore Christian circles. That is, only among people resisting homosexual impulses is it possible for gayness to act like a contagion and “turn” people gay.
So the argument remains one of permissivity vs. cultural conservatism, and I would urge both sides to refrain from lies and name-calling. Schools don't teach marriage nor does the first amendment allow government to tell people/churches whom to marry and supporting Proposition 8 does not make one a bigot, a hick or a hypocrite.
I'm here to weigh in on the American legal system and its relevance to the institution of marriage as well as the battle for America's soul. Just as with prostitution, fireworks or most famously abortion, the American legal system was devised to promote a permissive society. Before Roe v. Wade, abortion was legal in several states and to anyone willing to travel to those states abortion was effectively legal across the country. Such is the nature of our system that it makes it difficult to legislate morality (and fire safety). The Constitution does not prohibit values voting, it merely stacks the deck against it.
It is important to consider that marriage is something of two distinct but overlapping definitions, legal and religious. Marriage has had legal ramifications and thus civil definition since law itself came into existence and religious definition likely since religion came into existence. This means that while the religious definition probably predates the civil one, Christian matrimony is certainly predated by civil marriage. While in countries with state religions the two were nearly inseparable, in a country of religious pluralism marriage is ultimately defined by the state. Consequently, many sects only recognize marriages they themselves have officiated and refuse to recognize civil divorces, including Mormonism and Catholicism.
The religious argument for discouraging homosexuality is fairly sound and I won't dispute it here, but we should remember that in a country of many faiths the government should act as the common denominator rather than a tool of one faith against another (I speak here of Christian sects whose Biblical interpretation allows for gay marriage). In a permissive society such as ours, the side granting personal rights is never the aggressor.
We can only conclude that the present point of contention is one of the formal acceptance of homosexuality and societal definition rather than religion per say. Though the California Supreme Court holds otherwise, extending marriage rights to same-sex couples is not necessarily intuitive. Polygamy flouts traditional Western marriage to the same degree as gay marriage (an expansion of numbers rather than gender) and actually has more anthropological precedent. What makes something “intuitive” is inevitably culturally dependent, so it was not the court's place to decide our state's policy. It is the court's place to interpret law.
Of course, there is hardly any practical argument against gay marriage. The state's recognition of marriage is founded in the binding power of monogamy. It grants rights to same-sex couples that have been sorely needed to reduce legal disputes and psychological strain. In addition to the talked-about hospital visitation rights and divisions of estate, gay marriage provides the stability required for raising families. I hear that this is being used to rally the religious right, but let us consider it for a moment. Personally, I love the idea of converting statistically promiscuous, otherwise non-breeding gays into family people. I think it's tragic that orientation obfuscates the joys of parenthood and that society allows perfectly good potential parents to provide nothing more to our country than workforce.
Before you conservatives jump on me for this, consider that children raised by gays are no more likely to be gay than children from liberal families. It illustrates that in liberal America, acceptance of homosexuality is such that roughly one hundred percent of individuals with homosexual impulses come out of the closet. That is to say, the Christian Right might as well prohibit marriage of secular couples if the goal is to discourage children from growing up gay. Homosexuality is only something that “multiplies” in sexually repressed hardcore Christian circles. That is, only among people resisting homosexual impulses is it possible for gayness to act like a contagion and “turn” people gay.
So the argument remains one of permissivity vs. cultural conservatism, and I would urge both sides to refrain from lies and name-calling. Schools don't teach marriage nor does the first amendment allow government to tell people/churches whom to marry and supporting Proposition 8 does not make one a bigot, a hick or a hypocrite.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Election
It's that time of year again. Can't you feel it in the air? The winds emanating from the campaign trail are sweeping the wasteland that is nearly-post-Bush America, and it's time for me to throw in my two cents.
I'd like to begin by observing that both major candidates are fundamentally excellent by political standards. They make the candidates from the last eight years look like idiot monkeys or statues. It should be unsurprising that this election brought out the Democrats' finest, because the playing field has been tilted deeply left ever since it occurred to the American public that Iraq was one of the stupidest decisions they'd ever signed off on. However, that the Republicans fielded a legitimate competitor is something that can only be explained by chance. McCain, after unfortunately getting his ass kicked by said idiot monkey, spent the last eight years biding his time, growing wrinkles and superficially compromising his convictions for the glory of the Christian right. This is McCain's last shot at the White House.
I believe my estimation of the candidates was affirmed upon their first debate. Each had moments of crystalline clarity, and they battled thoughtfully and with finesse. The second debate was a different story. Neither demonstrated substance nor reason the entire night, rather, they simply impugned each other's character and values. My faith in the candidates was shaken, but in the final debate each of them made a return to form. Though the subjects of debate illicited redundancy, McCain and Obama found new and exciting points to make, and because the pacing was somewhat more spry than on their first encounter (which was weighed down by bickering concerning foreign policy) the final debate was likely the best.
Obama should be criticized for aspiring to spend too much on government programs in a time of financial crisis and for playing the starry eyed visionary in a time that demands realism. I guess he's a good politician, and a liberal one, but I appreciate McCain for having the balls to tell it like it is. We can't afford a New Deal. Arguments based on Obama's inexperience are fair critiques. While Obama is a long way from being unqualified, he lacks familiarity with the precedents and mechanics of a system he hopes to run.
McCain has not run a perfect campaign, however. At this point, it is almost universally accepted that naming Governor Palin as his running mate was a grave error. It was almost a foregone conclusion that he would choose a fundamentalist, but he could certainly have found a more qualified one. Also, McCain's health plan is problematic. It is simultaneously ineffective and inelegant. He proposes to simultaneously raise taxes and give a "tax credit" aka a government subsidy to medical costs, all the while not making any attempt to change the system that is so clearly broken. Republicans are less forgiving of this sort of mistake than their opposition. Maybe the plan was better than nothing, but why didn't he just make a straight argument against government health care? It's not like it's hard. As necessary as it may be, socialized health care is rife with potential for mismanagement and failure.
After his landslide victory in earning a Senate seat, I pronounced myself a supporter for "Obama '08"! I had no idea such wishful thinking would become fact. His sensibility is earnest and astute. His demographics align with my own (and I don't mean that I'm black). The man embodies everything that is great about the backlash against Republicans and the Bush Administration. I am concerned about a party once again controlling every branch of government, but not nearly so much as last time. He is an individual that America can rally around.
By all accounts, the election is already won in Obama's favor. I expect a dumptruck of mud to unload in the next week or two, but I doubt it will overcome his substantial lead.
I'd like to begin by observing that both major candidates are fundamentally excellent by political standards. They make the candidates from the last eight years look like idiot monkeys or statues. It should be unsurprising that this election brought out the Democrats' finest, because the playing field has been tilted deeply left ever since it occurred to the American public that Iraq was one of the stupidest decisions they'd ever signed off on. However, that the Republicans fielded a legitimate competitor is something that can only be explained by chance. McCain, after unfortunately getting his ass kicked by said idiot monkey, spent the last eight years biding his time, growing wrinkles and superficially compromising his convictions for the glory of the Christian right. This is McCain's last shot at the White House.
I believe my estimation of the candidates was affirmed upon their first debate. Each had moments of crystalline clarity, and they battled thoughtfully and with finesse. The second debate was a different story. Neither demonstrated substance nor reason the entire night, rather, they simply impugned each other's character and values. My faith in the candidates was shaken, but in the final debate each of them made a return to form. Though the subjects of debate illicited redundancy, McCain and Obama found new and exciting points to make, and because the pacing was somewhat more spry than on their first encounter (which was weighed down by bickering concerning foreign policy) the final debate was likely the best.
Obama should be criticized for aspiring to spend too much on government programs in a time of financial crisis and for playing the starry eyed visionary in a time that demands realism. I guess he's a good politician, and a liberal one, but I appreciate McCain for having the balls to tell it like it is. We can't afford a New Deal. Arguments based on Obama's inexperience are fair critiques. While Obama is a long way from being unqualified, he lacks familiarity with the precedents and mechanics of a system he hopes to run.
McCain has not run a perfect campaign, however. At this point, it is almost universally accepted that naming Governor Palin as his running mate was a grave error. It was almost a foregone conclusion that he would choose a fundamentalist, but he could certainly have found a more qualified one. Also, McCain's health plan is problematic. It is simultaneously ineffective and inelegant. He proposes to simultaneously raise taxes and give a "tax credit" aka a government subsidy to medical costs, all the while not making any attempt to change the system that is so clearly broken. Republicans are less forgiving of this sort of mistake than their opposition. Maybe the plan was better than nothing, but why didn't he just make a straight argument against government health care? It's not like it's hard. As necessary as it may be, socialized health care is rife with potential for mismanagement and failure.
After his landslide victory in earning a Senate seat, I pronounced myself a supporter for "Obama '08"! I had no idea such wishful thinking would become fact. His sensibility is earnest and astute. His demographics align with my own (and I don't mean that I'm black). The man embodies everything that is great about the backlash against Republicans and the Bush Administration. I am concerned about a party once again controlling every branch of government, but not nearly so much as last time. He is an individual that America can rally around.
By all accounts, the election is already won in Obama's favor. I expect a dumptruck of mud to unload in the next week or two, but I doubt it will overcome his substantial lead.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Man With The Sign
Yesterday something called Chamber Day inundated the quad with the booths of businesses and campus organizations. I happened upon my friends tabling Davis College Democrats' voter registration drive. Before I knew it, Don had me tabling with them. My friend Akhil pointed out a man with a sign a few dozen yards away. The sign said in big, bold letters "Jesus Saves" and underneath were words like baby murder, Muslims, sports nuts, homosexuality, Mormons, drunken party animals and rebellious women. Akhil said he'd given the man a "No on Prop 8" sticker for a cookie and that I could have a cookie if I did the same. "He'll tell you you're going to hell!", Akhil said enthusiastically. I agreed to give the man the sticker.
The man was in conversation with some argumentative undergrad boys. Evidently, they were contesting some belief he held. One of the boys was flipping through a pocket bible, searching for the quote he had asserted. The man responded, "I don't think you're lying, I simply think you misremembered".
I walked up to him and shook his hand, saying, "I like the work you're doing here." This was true because I believe in representing viewpoints, especially where they may be received with hostility, and because I think Jesus really does save. I showed him the sticker and explained that I was against Prop 8. He genially asked me what Prop 8 was. I told him the full story, mentioning "activist judges" and explaining that I believed in a "permissive society". He looked a little confused and asked, "So this Proposition, is it for or against gay marriage?" "It's against, and this is a 'No on Prop 8' sticker," I explained. He said, "Oh, ok. That part about 'permissive society' confused me, what do you mean by that?" I explained that I believed that a civil society such as American should allow individuals to do what they want so long as it doesn't hurt other people. He shrugged his shoulders agreeably and said that it just depends on what you consider to be hurting other people. I agreed, and bid him farewell.
The man was reasonable and courteous. Even under unrelenting assault by smug, combative boys, he managed to be, well, "christian". Just goes to show...
The man was in conversation with some argumentative undergrad boys. Evidently, they were contesting some belief he held. One of the boys was flipping through a pocket bible, searching for the quote he had asserted. The man responded, "I don't think you're lying, I simply think you misremembered".
I walked up to him and shook his hand, saying, "I like the work you're doing here." This was true because I believe in representing viewpoints, especially where they may be received with hostility, and because I think Jesus really does save. I showed him the sticker and explained that I was against Prop 8. He genially asked me what Prop 8 was. I told him the full story, mentioning "activist judges" and explaining that I believed in a "permissive society". He looked a little confused and asked, "So this Proposition, is it for or against gay marriage?" "It's against, and this is a 'No on Prop 8' sticker," I explained. He said, "Oh, ok. That part about 'permissive society' confused me, what do you mean by that?" I explained that I believed that a civil society such as American should allow individuals to do what they want so long as it doesn't hurt other people. He shrugged his shoulders agreeably and said that it just depends on what you consider to be hurting other people. I agreed, and bid him farewell.
The man was reasonable and courteous. Even under unrelenting assault by smug, combative boys, he managed to be, well, "christian". Just goes to show...
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
On Philosophy
A friend of mine recently asked me what I had against philosophy. Had he known me better he would have suspected me a hypocrite in addition to suspecting me ignorant and hostile. In fact, judging from my blog, it would seem that I either think very much of philosophy or very little of you the reader.
I have long been a slave to curiosity. Though it breeds wisdom, it is a blessing and a curse. I have found in my life that the more I know the farther I find myself from answers. Philosophy, politics, life choices, no matter the subject, if a question is worth asking the search for answers will inevitably disappoint.
Our society suffers from having renounced old ways of thinking. Common sense and faith have been trampled to our own detriment on our quest for a universal morality. I believe that any proper search requires an appreciation for the grace that existed in simpler paradigms. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.
Ray Bradbury, in writing Fahrenheit 451, burned his fair share of books by indicting old ways of thinking. Though his was an impermanent eradication, it nevertheless illustrates how "moving forward" has merely opened one door and shut another. Never mind that our present door opens to a larger room with a better view, we should be able to have our cake and eat it too. Only once we learn this may we have a chance to truly understand.
Because conflicting paradigms cannot coexist in a logical mind, opening multiple doors requires a partitioning of thought. Though this might seem impossible, the tools already exist within each of us. We humans partition thought unconsciously. Sometimes it merely separates chess from checkers. Sometimes it maintains the delicate balance of self-delusion required for daily life. The trick is to do so with your ego at the helm.
This has been a project of mine for many years and I can assure you it is neither a simple nor an easy solution. It requires a strong ego to wrestle one's knowledge into stupidity, but it is possible-- and worth the effort. With mental compartmentalization, we can live the bliss of ignorance while possessing and acting on the wisdom of the world.
I have long been a slave to curiosity. Though it breeds wisdom, it is a blessing and a curse. I have found in my life that the more I know the farther I find myself from answers. Philosophy, politics, life choices, no matter the subject, if a question is worth asking the search for answers will inevitably disappoint.
Our society suffers from having renounced old ways of thinking. Common sense and faith have been trampled to our own detriment on our quest for a universal morality. I believe that any proper search requires an appreciation for the grace that existed in simpler paradigms. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.
Ray Bradbury, in writing Fahrenheit 451, burned his fair share of books by indicting old ways of thinking. Though his was an impermanent eradication, it nevertheless illustrates how "moving forward" has merely opened one door and shut another. Never mind that our present door opens to a larger room with a better view, we should be able to have our cake and eat it too. Only once we learn this may we have a chance to truly understand.
Because conflicting paradigms cannot coexist in a logical mind, opening multiple doors requires a partitioning of thought. Though this might seem impossible, the tools already exist within each of us. We humans partition thought unconsciously. Sometimes it merely separates chess from checkers. Sometimes it maintains the delicate balance of self-delusion required for daily life. The trick is to do so with your ego at the helm.
This has been a project of mine for many years and I can assure you it is neither a simple nor an easy solution. It requires a strong ego to wrestle one's knowledge into stupidity, but it is possible-- and worth the effort. With mental compartmentalization, we can live the bliss of ignorance while possessing and acting on the wisdom of the world.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Blood, Ash, and Hard Pews
During my junior year of high school while in Calculus, a girl once asked me, "Are you Christian or Catholic?" At first I replied "Catholic", but then the logical error hit me across the face. I said, "You mean am I Protestant or Catholic?" She replied, "No." Me: "You know that Catholics are Christians too, right?" Her: "No they aren't." This escalated into a heated, fruitless argument that continued for the next few minutes until the bell rang. By the time the class let out I was seeing red. It is easy to forget that such ignorance continues to exist in the world.
My relationship with Catholicism is a strange one that extends back to elementary school. At that time I was a self-proclaimed atheist. My parents weren't much of churchgoers, but around fifth grade my parents (aka my mom) started taking us to Mass semi-regularly and sending me to CCD in preparation for my confirmation. CCD stands for Catholic Child's Dungeon.
By this time my atheist zeal had settled down and I approached the classes with an open, if skeptical, mind. I asked a constant stream of questions that were sometimes hostile, othertimes curious, always trying to give my teachers a run for their money.
With my parent's breakup and the nasty fallout that ensued, my mother turned to religion. Because I recognized the solace of believing in a higher purpose and because I wanted to be saved on the off chance that Christianity was correct, I came to want very much to believe. I approached religious things with complete respect. I made the sign of the cross, I prayed, I went to confession and I seriously contemplated the readings and sermon. I almost convinced myself that I believed in God. I certainly told people I did when it would smooth things out.
Still, I like my mother held reservations about some of the more dubious teachings of the church. I remember on my only religious retreat, when they separated the girls from the boys and the deacon explained how masturbation and sex before marriage were sins and how he and his wife did not use contraception, but instead only had sex at certain times of the month. The abject silliness of not using contraceptives but timing sex to avoid having children resonated with the Catholic Church of the history books. I had recognized the contradictory nature of Catholicism.
There were glaring logical impossibilities in many aspects of the doctrine. For example, that we are only free of sin immediately after confession, but if we die with a mortal sin on our conscience (a few of which I committed on a routine basis) we are condemned to hell. So if we die on our way home from confession we go straight to heaven, and if we die on our way to confession we go straight to hell. More famous is the Trinity paradox in which God is held to simultaneously be one whole God and three separate entities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Catholicism is not a rational religion, and I came to respect that. I understood that things don't always have to make sense to be true. It allowed for a more perfect separation of religion and science. It taught me to separate my modes of thinking into compartments. I could put on my Catholic cap and think in terms of rites, sin and redemption and then I could put on my science cap and think of religion as a product of people's tendency to believe in magic.
Coming to terms with Catholicism was among the most important formative events of my life. I recognized that many of the rituals made sense on a humanist level, even if completely backwards and superstitious on a religious one. I understood that Catholic theology was the product of a long line of brilliant thinkers with tremendous human insight. I saw that Catholicism possessed the wisdom of millenia.
In my sophomore year I imbibed European History. With it came a host of new modes of thought. The most important of these was Nationalism. I applied Nationalism to Catholicism and then mentally tore Protestantism to shreds as we studied the Protestant Reformation. Not that I disliked Protestants, I just arrived on why their religion was an inferior expression of Christianity. I came away with a complete intolerance for Protestants who looked down on Catholicism.
During high school I shed my religious pretense. I was eager to go to church with my mom or stepmom, I prayed occasionally and I still wanted to believe, but I no longer tried to delude myself into belief.
So I am still Catholic in a sense. I owe a lot to the religion and I have an affinity for the culture. Watching my roommate lose his faith was sad for me, but I understood it was inevitable. Untempered rationalism and religion should not cohabitate, unless you're Mormon and then everything makes sense.
Protestants are pussies for using unadorned crosses.
My thanks to Blaise Pascal for his wager.
My relationship with Catholicism is a strange one that extends back to elementary school. At that time I was a self-proclaimed atheist. My parents weren't much of churchgoers, but around fifth grade my parents (aka my mom) started taking us to Mass semi-regularly and sending me to CCD in preparation for my confirmation. CCD stands for Catholic Child's Dungeon.
By this time my atheist zeal had settled down and I approached the classes with an open, if skeptical, mind. I asked a constant stream of questions that were sometimes hostile, othertimes curious, always trying to give my teachers a run for their money.
With my parent's breakup and the nasty fallout that ensued, my mother turned to religion. Because I recognized the solace of believing in a higher purpose and because I wanted to be saved on the off chance that Christianity was correct, I came to want very much to believe. I approached religious things with complete respect. I made the sign of the cross, I prayed, I went to confession and I seriously contemplated the readings and sermon. I almost convinced myself that I believed in God. I certainly told people I did when it would smooth things out.
Still, I like my mother held reservations about some of the more dubious teachings of the church. I remember on my only religious retreat, when they separated the girls from the boys and the deacon explained how masturbation and sex before marriage were sins and how he and his wife did not use contraception, but instead only had sex at certain times of the month. The abject silliness of not using contraceptives but timing sex to avoid having children resonated with the Catholic Church of the history books. I had recognized the contradictory nature of Catholicism.
There were glaring logical impossibilities in many aspects of the doctrine. For example, that we are only free of sin immediately after confession, but if we die with a mortal sin on our conscience (a few of which I committed on a routine basis) we are condemned to hell. So if we die on our way home from confession we go straight to heaven, and if we die on our way to confession we go straight to hell. More famous is the Trinity paradox in which God is held to simultaneously be one whole God and three separate entities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Catholicism is not a rational religion, and I came to respect that. I understood that things don't always have to make sense to be true. It allowed for a more perfect separation of religion and science. It taught me to separate my modes of thinking into compartments. I could put on my Catholic cap and think in terms of rites, sin and redemption and then I could put on my science cap and think of religion as a product of people's tendency to believe in magic.
Coming to terms with Catholicism was among the most important formative events of my life. I recognized that many of the rituals made sense on a humanist level, even if completely backwards and superstitious on a religious one. I understood that Catholic theology was the product of a long line of brilliant thinkers with tremendous human insight. I saw that Catholicism possessed the wisdom of millenia.
In my sophomore year I imbibed European History. With it came a host of new modes of thought. The most important of these was Nationalism. I applied Nationalism to Catholicism and then mentally tore Protestantism to shreds as we studied the Protestant Reformation. Not that I disliked Protestants, I just arrived on why their religion was an inferior expression of Christianity. I came away with a complete intolerance for Protestants who looked down on Catholicism.
During high school I shed my religious pretense. I was eager to go to church with my mom or stepmom, I prayed occasionally and I still wanted to believe, but I no longer tried to delude myself into belief.
So I am still Catholic in a sense. I owe a lot to the religion and I have an affinity for the culture. Watching my roommate lose his faith was sad for me, but I understood it was inevitable. Untempered rationalism and religion should not cohabitate, unless you're Mormon and then everything makes sense.
Protestants are pussies for using unadorned crosses.
My thanks to Blaise Pascal for his wager.
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