Religion

I Get It – At Last


Why would senators and congressmen intentionally force the United States to the brink of financial disaster?

Why would legislators drive us to default on our national debt and tell us that default will be a good thing?

Why would billionaires fund grass roots organizations that have their members wave Confederate flags and spout hateful lies?

Why would Bible thumping go on everywhere, such that no speech can end without invoking God?

Why would otherwise sensible people in Kansas, Texas and elsewhere deny verified facts and long proven theories and instead be promoting science as seen through the eyes of relatively ignorant people of thousands of years ago?

Why has congress been gridlocked for so long?

The answers to those questions and more can be found by taking a step back from vilifying the (insert your own epithet here) extremists and railing at the stupid things they say and do.  Instead of thinking they are (re-insert your epithet here) irrational, assume that they are sensible and determined warriors fighting for their desired goal.  What would their goal be?

That is the answer I found in reading Deborah Caldwell’s article in the Huffington Post.  The insanity of current events disappeared with the clarity that hordes of powerful people want to eliminate our government and put in its place a Christian theocracy.

Doubt that?  First read Caldwell’s article.  Follow through to the links she provides.  Then test it all with your experience of hearing Ron Paul tell us he wants to eliminate government support of public education (what would that leave for our children?) and Grover Norquist wanting to shrink the government so that it can be drowned in a bathtub (what would take its place?).  Test it against Michele Bachmann glorying in the coming end times that will be hastened by the destruction of our American structure.  Don’t dismiss that just because Bachmann says crazy things most of the time, because there are thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands – of Americans who agree with her and 50 of them are in congress right now and they are destroying our government.

I had long thought that they did that because they got off on the power trip and the attention they received that fed their self-promotion.  I had thought that the people in the streets spouting radical stuff were just venting their anger and hoping that finally someone was listening to them and that for a brief moment they had a little bit of control.  I may have been right, but that is not the big story.

The big story is that there is a huge number of Americans who want this country to be a Christian theocracy.  They will say and do anything to make that happen and they care not at all about the destruction they will cause to America and the world with their fundamentalist, literal interpretation zeal.  They think that our Founders wanted America to be that way, this in spite of the fact that the Founders specifically designed the Constitution to prevent America from being a theocracy and they wrote about the importance of that extensively.  And that perfectly captures the denial of reality that goes on for our current day extremists.

Now imagine if the zealots had all the power, that the only law of the land was the Christian Bible and that those in charge believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible.  America would look a lot like fundamentalist, theocratic Iran.  Get ready for public stonings.

Are you scared yet?

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Bedrock


A good friend sent a long response to my recent political essay, taking issue with my comments about what is being said publicly regarding the inclusion of contraceptive care in the health insurance plans of church owned institutions (not the churches themselves).  He and I view things quite differently and the way he explained our differences is significant.

He offered his views in concrete detail and concluded his remarks by wishing that I would “  .  .  .  check [my] thinking in light of [my] experiences.”  He wrote, “I know you have the depth, but apparently not the will – and I wonder why.”

There is a weighty assumption in his comment that I harbor a willful insistence on blindness.  I suppose that’s better than his telling me that I’m too stupid to get it, but a willful blindness?  Why the personal attack?

In another section of his comments he asks if I am, “  .  .  .  so corrupted by the left that [I] cannot look at an issue objectively  .  .  .  “  Of course, the answer to that is no, I can’t look at an issue objectively, any more than anyone else can.  What is more troubling is his notion that I have been corrupted, this view apparently springing from my not seeing things his way.  Through some magical transition, the discussion jumped from the issue of contraceptive care to a personal attack – a charge of corruption.

The admonition to avoid discussing either politics or religion in social discourse exists as a warning based upon limitations of the control we have of our own behavior and the consequences we unwittingly engineer.  Perhaps the weight of the admonition should be squared when both politics and religion are included in a single conversation.  Very often such conversations drift into personal attack, like the comments from my friend and often it gets far worse than his broadsides to me.

To get a finger hold of understanding about this, I consulted The Heart of Conflict, a most accessible text on dealing with conflict.  It was written by my friend Brian Muldoon, who has years of experience working to help people resolve their legal and personal conflicts.  Here’s a piece of what he has to say:

“There are many kinds of intractable differences, but virtually all of them can be reduced to threats against identity  .  .  . “

“When we breach that boundary between what is me and what is not, when my innermost chamber is threatened, the powerful instincts of the survivor are invoked.  At all costs, we defend the “self” .  .  .  Because we humans derive our identity more from our consciousness (who we think we are or imagine ourselves to be) than from our physical form .  .  .  we will fight harder for our ideas than for our actual corporeal survival.”

Muldoon is telling us that we humans have a set of bedrock beliefs that we use to define ourselves and they give us a sense of solidity in a shifting and sometimes dangerous world.  Our religious foundation is key among these bedrock beliefs and our safety is anchored in that bedrock.  When anything comes along that appears to be different, that threatens to shake our bedrock, we sense the threat to our identity, we man the battlements immediately and, “  .  .  .  we will fight harder for our political and religious ideas than for our actual corporeal survival” (added italicized words mine – JA).

That’s how we get religious extremists willing to blow themselves up in a crowded market.  That’s why it’s so difficult to talk about politics and religion with those whose bedrock beliefs seem to be different from our own.  That’s why my friend and I won’t be having any more discussions about politics as we enjoy our occasional lunch together.  Our friendship, after all, is more important than our political differences.

Yet we have a country of 300 million people, each having their own notions of bedrock, many lobbing personal attack bombs on those whom they see as both different from themselves and, consequently, wrong.  Somehow we have to find a way to deal with our quite substantial national challenges, even with our existing bedrock differences.  How will we do that?


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

You Can’t Tell Me What To Do


Back in colonial days there was a powerful and well-grounded fear and loathing of central authority, this stemming from very bad experiences with King George III.  He had a habit of controlling the lives of the colonists in ways they did not appreciate and they fundamentally disliked being told what to do.

Following the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation was the binding document among the 13 states.  It allowed for a pitiful central government that was barely able to function because nearly all power was in the hands of the states in the name of “states rights.”  The Articles of Confederation was so puny that General George Washington balked at it.  Ten years later the Constitution was hammered out and it gave the central government the muscle it needed to do what central governments must do.

They called it “states rights” another time and the Civil War erupted.  Of course, the economic costs and social issues of slavery and its abolishment were the heart of the dispute, but there was a powerful rebellion against authority that helped to fuel passions.  That passion lives on today in the hearts of those who call the Civil War the “Northern War of Aggression.”  That battle – the “you can’t tell me what to do” resistance – has continued unbroken, not just in the south, and today it has become nearly as virulent as at any time in our history.  Indeed, it is the ultimate wedge issue.

Since President Obama took office the Republicans have primarily been a stop sign even to things they formerly proposed, endorsed and co-sponsored.  The result has been legislative stagnation in the face of enormous national need.  What is even more telling is the language that has accompanied their obstruction.  It can be simply described as, “You can’t tell me what to do.”

Most recently the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act has elicited histrionic claims of a war on religion and violation of the First Amendment.  The proudly independent types bellow that the government can’t tell them what to do and it most certainly can’t tell their church anything, either.  Let this example be a placeholder for a key cause of the resistance to reform of anything in Washington and it will be pretty close to the center of the bulls eye.

Surely, there is room for discussion about the implications of requiring institutions owned or run by churches (not the churches themselves) to include birth control in their health care insurance plans for employees.  Suggesting that this is a war on religion, though, is hyperbolic nonsense and stubbornly railing against authority raises the question yet again:  Can the government tell us what to do?

Irrespective of your personal preferences, the government says that you may not own a nuclear weapon.  The government requires you to stop at stop signs.  The government says that you may not poison your neighbor’s dog even if he barks through the night (the dog, not the neighbor).  The government says that if you run a meat packing plant that you must follow rules of cleanliness and you can’t include in your sausage the rat that fell into the kettle.

The point is that we have laws and regulations because, as the saying goes, your absolute freedom stops at the tip of my nose.  That means that we must have some agreement about what each of us may do, what each of us may not do and what all of us must do in order to have a civil society and to arrange for what is best for all of us.  That comes at some expense to each of us, surely in the abridgment of our absolute freedom.  The absence of those laws, though, would be far worse than the presence of them.  The trick, of course, lies in finding the middle ground that serves best.

So, yes, Virginia, the government can tell you what to do.  You have the right to not like it.  You have the right to attempt to change the laws.  And you have the right to obey the laws or suffer the consequences of violating them.

But for those who want to push back against anything Obama, please be considerate of the 80% of Americans who don’t want to hear histrionics like “war on religion,” nor do we want to hear the latest installment of “You can’t tell me what to do.”  The battle that has real value is the battle for the kind of America we want this to be for all Americans, not just the impassioned, vocal few.

“Remember that knowing a tomato is a fruit is knowledge, but knowing not to put it into a fruit salad is wisdom.”       Dan Keding


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

I’m A Christian


That’s what the caller said to the talk radio host.  Then he proceeded to make his comments about health care reform.

I can’t help but wonder what, “I’m a Christian,” means or why he invoked his faith as preface to his comments about a hot political issue.  Actually, I’ve heard many people declare their Christianity as part of their expression of their opinions, which, as it turns out, were mostly offered as absolute facts rather than their personal opinions.  What does the caller’s thinking he’s a Christian have to do with health care reform?  Sure, we can manufacture a connection; still, the more interesting part of this is his intent of saying, “I’m a Christian.”

Does he want us to ascribe certain values to him because of his pronouncement of his religious beliefs?  Are we supposed to see him as merciful or generous or caring?  Of course, I’m making up those qualities, since the caller didn’t explain the meaning behind his declaration, but that was the sense I had.  And isn’t it odd that he would find it necessary to make this religious declaration, as though we would then know something useful about him?

James Earl Ray said he was a Christian and then he murdered Dr. Martin Luther King.  Robert Chambliss was the ringleader of the gang who blew up the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, killing four little girls as they sat in their Sunday school class.  He said he was a Christian, too.

Less dramatic but insidiously damaging are the fervent Evangelicals and people on the religious far right who are certain in their beliefs, clearly unable to discern the difference between their beliefs and truth.  They have a satisfyingly simple view of the world: They got it right and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong.  Unfortunately, there are, they believe, consequences to being in the group they call “wrong”, as they announce with impassioned, vaguely compassionate certainty that all who don’t believe as they do are damned and will go to hell.  What a bummer for so many of us.  They may pray for the salvation of the wrong-ies, but either way they call themselves Christians as they marginalize and sometimes demonize all who are not just like them.

King Ferdinand II of Spain was the 15th century poster boy for that kind of thinking and he was all about action in support of it.  He murdered everyone who would not declare themselves to be a Christian. He, too, it seems, saw himself as a Christian.  There were a number of popes like him, some of whom sent armies to kill the non-Christians in the middle-east.  What could be more Christian than that?  It turns out there is something.

Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, Inc. (now called Xe Services LLC), the “contractor” hired by Cheney-Bush to kill Iraqi’s, thinks he’s a most devout Christian.  He wants to eliminate Islam and kill all three billion Muslims in the world.  He must really be a Christian.

When people invoke their Christianity as some sort of placeholder for values they think ascribe to them by such a declaration, rest assured that they’re only creating a smoke screen, something to hide behind while they believe whatever they believe and go about doing whatever they do, either good or evil.  So, if you’re inclined to preface your opinions by declaring you’re a Christian, you can save the pious label, because, knowing that it’s used to justify nearly anything, I have no idea what it means.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Means, The End and Freedom


I was reading a news magazine recently about Pat Robertson, former candidate for President of the United States, owner of the Family Channel on cable TV, and head of the very conservative Christian Coalition.  It said that he plans to go to Congress and introduce an amendment to the Constitution that would allow “moments of silence” in public schools.  It said he figures this should be acceptable because he thinks it doesn’t violate the principle of separation of church and state in that it doesn’t prescribe prayer in school, just moments of silence.  That scares me.

I remember my mother telling me when I was young that the end doesn’t justify the means.  I think there’s sound wisdom in that.

Don’t  get me wrong:  I like the idea of instilling family values.  I like the idea of mom and dad marrying and raising children to be positive, healthy, contributing members of society.  These are good things, as I see them.  And, as I understand the people of the religious right, I think these are the kind of family values that they want and which most of us agree with.  But achieving the end of instilling family values does not justify whatever means are used to achieve them.  History teaches us that from such well intentioned actions have come some of the cruelest hatred and oppression.

In Sam Keen’s new book, Hymns to an Unknown God, he says that when people,  “ . . . claim to possess the only true revelation of God, they provide themselves with a theological justification for war.  There is a high degree of correlation between true believers, known gods and high body counts.”  If you have trouble with that, review your history book for what happened in the Roman Empire, during the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades, and even today in Rwanda and Bosnia.  In each case, the true believers started with what seemed like good intent and eventually used it to generate high body counts.  Somehow we humans always seem to gravitate that way and I don’t think that we in the United States are somehow immune to that terrible gravity.

So far, we’ve managed to avoid legally declaring this to be a country of one particular religion, thus leaving room for all of us and our potpourri of beliefs.  We’re all the richer and safer for it.  Our Constitution mandates that there be no laws restricting freedom of religion.  That prohibition is there because the people who crafted the Constitution came from places where there was no such protection and they knew full well the terrible price that is eventually paid when religion and the state are mixed.

We as a nation have consistently said that freedom of religion also means freedom for all religion and from religion.  That specifically means that we have the right to practice religion as we see fit, but that freedom does not give us the right to force others to do as we do.  Institutionalized “moments of silence” in our public schools would violate that freedom with a tacit instruction to pray in the prescribed manner.

The place for formal prayer in schools is in private institutions; prayer doesn’t belong in the state arena.  I don’t want prayer in public schools forced on anyone’s children.  I don’t want us to take this step backward to having a state-endorsed We and They society.  Indeed, it’s taken decades of civil rights work for us to agree that we can all eat at the same restaurants, use the same seats on busses and not be subject to employment discrimination based on gender and race.  Let’s continue to break down the We versus They mentality, not build it up again.

I don’t want those who want us to conform to their views to use principles that most of us support to manipulate us because it will inevitably lead us into a downward spiral.  The end does not justify the means.  What history teaches us is that when true believers attempt to force us to their way, their means will likely separate us and become the beginning of the end.  And that end is cruel and, ironically, even god-less.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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