Living in the United States: a Thanksgiving Message

“But if you’re asking my opinion, I would argue that a social justice approach should be central to medicine and utilized to be central to public health. This could be very simple: the well should take care of the sick.” ~Paul Farmer

It was from Dr. Paul Farmer that I learned that living in the United States meant privilege, not freedom, or prosperity, or any other idealization that our government and ruling corporations tell us believe about living in the USA.   We are privileged to live here because there is so much abundance of food, medicine, durable goods, and consumer goods– not to mention wealth.  We have these things in the United States in abundance because many other nations have next to nothing, especially when compared to our excess.

This is the simple consequence of the utterly un-Christian and immoral system that is called Capitalism.   Capitalism requires winner and losers: the United States has won big time since the end of World War II and a host of nations around the world have lost big time.   That our (i.e. the USA) time for winning is coming a close should not be anything more than a prosaic observation at this point, but I will save that discussion for another time.

The fact of the matter is that living in the United States as an everyday, moderately financially stable US American citizen remains a privileged position in the world.

An Excerpt from  Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

“Paul’s face grew serious. ‘I think whenever a people has enormous resources, it is easy for them to call themselves democratic.  I think of myself more as a physician than as an American.  Ludamilla [a Haitian co-worker from the book] and I, we belong to the nation of those who care for the sick.  Americans are lazy democrats [not the political party], and it is my belief, as someone who shares the same nation as Ludamilla, I think that the rich can always call themselves democratic, but the sick people are not among the rich.’  I thought he was done, but he was only pausing for interpreter to catch up. ‘Look, I’m very proud to be an American.  I have many opportunities because I am an American.  I can travel freely throughout the world, I can start projects, that that’s called privilege, not democracy.’”

Be thankful for this privilege on Thanksgiving, but don’t be thankful for democracy that we do not have, i.e. do not extend, to the poor of the world, or even, increasingly, to the poor of our own nation!  Our contentment in the satisfaction of a stable American middle class lifestyle on the backs of millions of the world’s poor is, in my opinion, an affront to Thanksgiving and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

It was, after all, Jesus who said:  34″Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”

But, as a nation we steadfastly refuse to do it…

…And here is what Jesus has to say about that:  41″Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

And this part, which is actually at the beginning of this passage, is how Jesus tells us nations will be separated :

31″When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

More and more I am coming to believe when and if there is a judgment such as is described in this passage attributed to Jesus, the United States of America will be among the goats on the left.  I am, therefore, happy to count myself as an ex-patriot and naturalized citizen into the nation described by Dr. Paul Farmer.

If you have ears, hear what I am telling you friends.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Inadequate Truth

Since I left the Christian religion I have done a lot of hanging out with the disenfranchised, the disillusioned, the unbeliever, the backslider, the irreligious, the spiritual, the agnostic, and especially, the “Atheist”– and of all the groups that I have been spending my time with these six years, the one that I most clearly have grown to despise is “the Atheist.”

I want to be able to clearly lay out what it is that I hate Atheism but I cannot.

Oh it would be easy enough to sum it up by saying “I have never been to an Atheist gathering that didn’t feel like ‘Christian bashing hour’.” But that is not really a sufficient answer and, on the contrary, I give Atheist organizations a pass on this point because I realize how hard it is to be a minority philosophical position when it comes to matters of faith, or the lack of.

Consequently, I never tell anyone how much I hate, despise, and even loathe Atheism.  Instead I explain that Atheism, for me, is inadequate.  This is a bit of a problem because I cannot help but to be an Atheist most days of the week, and yes, this includes my Sundays, which increasingly features a trip to the Quaker meeting house.   In fact, I am an Atheist, it’s that simple—but I didn’t choose this despicable disbelief, it chose me, grabbed hold of me and won’t let go.

In the Roman Catholic Tradition, this place that I find myself in might be called “The Dark Night of the Soul.”   This is, of course, the title of the famous poem written by Saint John of the Cross, pictured above.  He was a Spanish Christian mystic who lived and wrote in the 16^th century.   Not only is this poem considered to be among the best poems ever written in the Spanish language, it has also been deeply meaningful to millions upon millions of people struggling with the existence of God …

If I was at liberty to choose what I would be when it comes to belief in God, I would not choose Atheism.   But what I have found is that when a person is really being honest with him or her selves, when they are being intellectually fearless (as it were), then matters of faith happen to them, and not the other way around.  It would be no more possible for me to choose to be a Christian than it would be for me to choose to become another sex, or race, or species.   All of the benefits that come with belief in God are therefore irrelevant to this stark, dreadful fact: I am an Atheist.

But I am happy with this miserable state because, as the late great Carl Sagan once said “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. “  And I agree… it is far better to grasp reality as it is… in fact I demand this of myself:  that I honestly deal with what is, that I don’t believe simple answers without evidence, that I don’t believe stories that are clearly fabrications of reality… that are outlandish myths which not are not only naturally impossible but are part of a collection of writings that has held humanity back, and continues to do so.

(to be continued)

Read a story of the bitter rift between old and new Atheists

The Rational Response Squad (RRS) i.e. Brian “Sapient”

Recently I deleted some blog entries I had regarding the RRS, Rook Hawkins (real name Thomas Verena), Kelly (a.k.a. Kacey the pron whore), and Brian “Sapient” because I figured it was all over for the atheist cult “squad.”

Rook Hawkins has grown up and is trying to actually make something of himself self.  Good for him.

Kelly has disentigrated into her sexual squalor and is now a prostitute and porn “star.”  She was leaning toward the libertine side when she was into activism and now that she has left the RRS (and Brian) it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise to anyone that she has ended up in the sex industry as a product.  I wrote a short piece in response to her ridiculous notion that it was perfectly normal for human beings to let themselves be sexually exploited here.

Brian had been laying low for several, several months for unknown reasons.  My guess is that he was deeply depressed and couldn’t muster the energy to be active on his website or to make any inflammatory stickam videos.

Evidence to suggest he might have major depression is here:

Something like this has to come from a place of deep need…

But in other news about Brian “Sapient,” he has been stomping around Facebook, answering questions and being just as beligerent, obnoxious and arrogant as ever… apparently his abject failure with regard to every close relationship he had within the RRS has taught him nothing.   Watching Brian trying to resurface is like watching a person just run over by a train get up like nothing happened and start walking towards the station.

Poor guy, I am actually starting to feel sorry for him now, but not enough to lay off him if and when he starts spewing vitriol and hate again.

For further reading:

Atheist RRS Member “Rapper” Friend Punches Brian
Former RRS member Kelly’s adult Website (NSFW)
Thomas Verenna leaves atheist activism (Good for him!)

For a comical history of the whole sordid affair that is the RRS check out Encyclopedia Dramatica’s version (NSFW, and remember, comedy and satire contains lots of truth and in the case of this article, it’s more truth that comedy, unfortunately)

40th Birthday

I had my 40th birthday last week, January 7th. This was the first birthday where I stopped and reflected on my life a little bit. All of the previous birthdays I have basically passed over with a thank you to my loved ones and personal “meh” because they just didn’t mean much to me– just another day with but with cake and few presents. But my 40th birthday got me excited.

I took time to look back and to look forward.

I spent my 20’s and the majority of my 30’s living out a grand fantasy about myself which included God, country, apple pie, and everything else that goes with that. As some of you know, my parents were adult converts to the American “Bible Belt” Christian faith and I was raised in and taught that tradition. From an early age I bought into that worldview and (to make a long story short) ended up a graduating from Seminary in the fall of 1998. After seminary, I headed up north to start a start a church, joined the Air Force Reserve Chaplaincy, and then found myself in the Regular Army as a Chaplain in the spring of 2002, in the aftermath of 911. Little did I know then that 2002 would be the beginning of the end for my comfortable, secure knowledge about how the world, and the universe, works.

When I returned from Iraq in March of 2004 I had changed my opinion on one thing: Religion. The unraveling of so many years of firm belief had a tremendous impact on me, my family and my career. It cost me my Army career in no uncertain terms and almost cost me my marriage. That my apostasy didn’t cost me marriage is the miracle of patience for which no god gets credit, my loving wife alone is responsible for it.

5 years later I am still a skeptic (i.e. an agnostic, or an atheist, or w/e) and thankfully, I have lost the zeal and harshness that comes with new found truth (i.e. Atheism); I have also become more tolerant and loving towards people of faith– which in my neck of the woods means “Christians”– while freeing myself of “belief” as defined by them.

In retrospect I have lost a few things through unbelief. I have lost the comfort that faith brings to the follower.

But I have given up comfort for what I believed to be Truth on numerous occasions in my life, why should this be any different?

At my point of departure from Christianity I just admitted to myself for the first time that the whole story of Protestant Christianity was incredible and couldn’t be true, and was, therefore, left without the answers (comfort) that the Christian religion posited without evidence. But as the late Carl Sagan said, “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” I can live with the uncertainly and I can live with the finality of this life, no problem.

In fact, letting go of my religion was good for me. I actually became a more peaceful, loving and happier person. All that certainty was bad for me… and on the flipside, my initial journey into organized and zealous atheism was equally bad for me for the same reason that religion was. Simply speaking, I discovered that when I didn’t have all the answers, I became a lot more tolerant of other people and what they said and believed.

And so looking forward, in my 40’s I plan to continue to become a more loving, compassionate, and empathic counselor, teachers, parent and husband.

I plan to continue to not know anything about the supernatural and to deny it any power over me unless it clearly presents itself to me with unambiguous (irrefutable) evidence while being gentle in counseling those who do use faith as a resource in their own lives; to use my experience as a minister to help them on their faith journey without judgment or malice.

At this point in my life I know that it is in helping others that we find ourselves, whether we be people of faith or hell bent lost sinners, like myself.

“There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.”
Acts, 20:35

Fighting for Atheism? Ahab Strikes at the White Whale, once again

Since my dreadful apostasy, suffered in full measure about 6 months upon my return from Iraq in the spring of 2004, I have been creeping around the internet on the fringes of a modern “movement” fixed on the promotion of the metaphysical or ontological naturalism (Atheism). 

 At first this “movement” and its adherents was quite appealing to me.  It made sense to me as newly “de-converted” and appealed to my radicalism and “all-or-nothing” personality.  Nevertheless, I never quite threw in my lot with this movement because of practical concerns unrelated to the movement or my inclination to join. 

At this point in my life, almost five years later, I am glad to have never really become a part and I’ll tell you why…

It didn’t occur to me when I was first introduced to the ideals of organized Atheism, but I know now that my attraction to the movement was that type of attraction that one feels for the familiar; the similarities between the new Atheist movement and American fundamentalism are striking.  First among these similarities is their certain, but opposite, ontological position with regard to the existence of God.

As anyone who is a fan of Herman Melville’s Moby Dickis likely aware, the question of God’s existence is a major theme of the book and at least three ontological positions are presented to readers in the characters of Ahab, Starbuck, and Ishmael.  God, in the case of Moby Dick is represented in the form of a White Whale, and while this White Whale means different things to the various characters, one consistent theme with regard to the animal is that it is the personification of raw, often destructive, power.

Ahab’s view with regard to the whale is that the whale is a purely malignant, destructive power.  He seeks to destroy the whale with all of his being.  Starbuck, a Quaker, knows that the pursuit of the whale is madness and will lead to destruction, but caught in the Cartesian vortex of Ahab’s obsession, can do nothing to stop it.[1]  “Ishmael sympathized with Ahab’s view but does not share it.” [2]  He is the philosophical naturalist of the novel.

What Ishmael knows, and what is unknownto both Ahab and Starbuck, outrages him and causes him to take little stabs at the institution of Christianity throughout the book.   He knows “that the Christian faith, as he sees it, is capable of ousting fact, of inverting evil (the destructive principle at the core of existence) in good, and of finding salvation in falsehood.” [3] He also knows that “if one must personify the destructive principle of the universe, then Ahab’s defiance is the only right worship.”[4]

But Ishmael also knows that “there is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” [5] His “woe” is the knowledgethat we, i.e. all human persons, are making their way through life towards inescapable and certain annihilation; madness? believing otherwise or battling the inevitable—this is the sickness of Starbuck and Ahab. 

Starbuck says, “I will have no man in my boat,” …”who is not afraid of a whale.”[6] The Quaker no doubt remembered his bible lesson, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7). He doesn’t know that he is moving towards annihilation or that his respectful fear of the Whale will not avert his destruction at the end of the voyage, this is madness to Ishmael.

Ahab says:

Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. Look ye, Starbuck, all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The white whale tasks me; he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. ‘Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

And that’s the short of it.  Fighting for Atheism? It’s striking again the mask; it is the hating of “that malignant thing,” God, to the point of taking action against it.  Whether or not the fighters actually believe in God is beside the point.  But alas, we know the fate of Ahab, raging in the sea, and we can therefore know what will be the certain fate of these modern “Atheist activist” organizations: certain annihilation.

The only sane position— my pseudonym, which was chosen for others reasons— is the ontological position of Ishmael.

Charles David Leonard, The Cartesian Vortex in Moby Dick, American Literature, vol. 51, no. 1 (Mar 1979), pp. 105-109.

Allen Austin, The Three Stranded Allegory of Moby-Dick, College English, vol. 26, no. 5 (Feb, 1965), pp. 344-349.

Thornton Y. Booth, Moby Dick: Standing up to God, Nineteenth Century Fiction, vol. 17, no. 1 (Jun, 1962), pp. 33-43.

T. Walter Herbert, Calvinism and Cosmic Evil in “Moby Dick,” PMLA, vol. 84, no. 6 (Oct, 1969) pp. 1613-1619.

Denis Donoghue, “Moby Dick” after September 11th, Law and Literature, vol. 15, no. 2 (Sum, 2003), pp. 161-188.

Mark Lloyd Taylor, Ishmael’s Other: Gender, Jesus, and God in Melville’s “Moby Dick,” The Journal of Religion, vol. 72, no. 3 (Jul, 1992), pp. 325-350.

---

[1]Charles David Leonard, The Cartesian Vortex in Moby Dick, American Literature, vol. 51, no. 1 (Mar 1979), pp. 105-109.

[2]Allen Austin, The Three Stranded Allegory of Moby-Dick, College English, vol. 26, no. 5 (Feb, 1965), pp. 344-349.

[3] Austin, 349.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Moby Dick, Chapter xcvi – THE TRY-WORKS

[6] Moby Dick, Chapter xxvi – KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES

Antispore.com ??

Me and my daughter have been anticipating the release of Electronic Arts game Spore.  Spore is a game that is based on evolutionary science in the same way that Star Ship Troopers the Move is “based” on Robert Heinlein’s famous book of the same title…. in word, loosely.

The basic concept of “evolving” is present in spore, but the fact that you (the player) get to “create” each creature as it “evolves” by storing up DNA points is far more akin to creationism than to evolutionary theory (and by “theory” I mean scientific fact).  Therefore, I am bamboozled, once again, by the utter stupidy of people in the Christian conservative movement.

Here is my face when I saw antispore.com :

I was going to write a bit more, but I think that graphic explains it all.

A Response to Kelly78 from, formerly of RRS

Wanna See Me Naked?

Submitted by kellym78 on July 10, 2008 – 1:19pm.

Well, kind of. In animated form.

The SheVibe poster is finished. I guess now I’m an atheist super-hero or something. Like Wonder Woman. Except less clothing. Hmmmm….*having thoughts about what kind of weapon I would have. Like a Reason Ray or something that would suddenly make people logical*

Start by using that Ray on yourself, Kelly.  There is a sufficient, overwhelming body of social science research on the subject of how the sex industry (and that is what it is, a business) exploits women, especially poor women.

As for your point that your life choices are okay because “Sex” is natural, way to be completely unaware of the macro perspective, silly cult-leading narcissist.

Sloan (2004) uses the actual scientific method (not just what she thinks) to examine the actual life circumstance of topless dancers and determined that there were four categories: (1) survivors, (2) workers, (3) non-conformists, and (4) dancers.  She states: “These categories suggest that there is a continuum of experience with varying degrees of choice, and demonstrate the limitations of dichotomous thinking when it comes to understanding the lived experiences of women in the sex industry.”

You see, the reason that people like me who work with poor women say that the sex industry exploits women is that we encounter “survivors” and “workers” much more often than the other categories.  Sloan describes them as:

“Workers were predominately working class, never married,white, or Latina women, who became topless dancers because itwas the job that offered the highest income.”

“Survivors Nine women emerged as survivors, all of whom had extensive histories of childhood abuse. These women were most likely tobegin topless dancing as underage teenagers, with no prior workexperience.”

Anyway, I anticipate the usual reaction from the prudes and sexually repressed people.

You’re wrong.  People who believe in social justice for all people react to your bad manner in flaunting for and perpetuating an industry that hurts poor women.  The prudes are the one preaching about the industries’ immorality on Sunday and then looking at pron on Monday morning– They don’t know who you are, on average.

The reason you get flack from your real critics on this issue is because people who understand this problem fully tend to be political liberals (atheist or not) who are in tune with social justice issues, unlike yourself.

You have often held yourself out as a spokesperson for “the cause” let’s not pretend.  But it’s more than obvious you don’t care about anyone but yourself.

Father, the issue is not “sex” but the sex industry, as I am sure you are well aware.  It’s a macro problem that you might want to study in your honor’s (laugh) undergraduate programs.  Here is an abstract from a study of another “brand” in your industry:

The Sex Trade Industry’s Worldwide Exploitation of Children.

Abstract:

The twenty-first century brings with it some of the dark realities of the last century with respect to the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Worldwide, untold numbers of children are being systematically deprived of their human rights, dignity, and childhood through child prostitution, child pornography, and other sexploitation. Many of these children are routinely subjected to rape, beatings, displacement, drug addiction, psychological abuse, and other trauma, including exposure to the AIDS virus and a life with no future. This study examines the current state of international trafficking of children and other child sexual exploitation. Child sex tourism plays a major role in the child sex trade as prostituted youths are routinely lured or abducted into sexual slavery and sex-for-profit. Other prostitution-involved girls and boys are at the whim of pimps, pornographers, and other sexual exploiters. The global exploitation of children continues to plague society, in spite of international efforts to combat the proliferation of the child sex trade industry. Organizations such as ECPAT remain committed to addressing the central issues pertaining to the prostituting and sexual exploitation of children.

I guess I’m just a prude.

For the rest of you (ie the human beings who accept that sex is a biological function and physical attraction is coupled with that), enjoy. I’ve got to get back to plotting my nefarious plan to destroy the public image of atheists and women.

False dichotomy, once again.  Are you sure you aren’t a fundy?

References

Sloan, L., & Wahab, S. (Wntr 2004). Four categories of women who work as topless dancers. Sexuality & Culture, 8, 1. p.18(26).

OWERS, R. B. (May 2001). The Sex Trade Industry’s Worldwide Exploitation of Children. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, p.147.

Agnosticism and Atheism, Posted On rantsnraves.org

For some time now I have vacillated between calling myself an Agnostic and an Atheist in conversation with those persons in my life who are interested in my belief system, but not nearly as “sophisticated” in their thinking about such things as we are within the Freethinking internets community.

What I mean by sophistication is that we like to neatly define our thinking in logical terms often not employed widely, or very useful in our daily lives.

Bertrand Russell explained this idea of “sophistication” on the subject in his famous piece Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?

Quote:
Proof of God
Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say “Agnostic” or whether I should say “Atheist”. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
(Russell, 1947)

I think that it is more true to say that I am an Agnostic because I certainly do not think that at this point in time human persons are able to know whether or not there is some kind of higher power akin to an intelligent first cause.

But perhaps this is simply my own “inability of imagination” as was suggested by Daniel Dennett in his import work Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. In that book many of you know that Dennett called the process of Evolution an algorithm that does not require any intelligent input to do what it does, it simply does what it does, and it does it every time (Dennett, 1996).

While I agree with Dennett that a good analogy of what takes place in Evolution Theory can be viewed as philosophically analogous to an algorithm, my question to him and to any other person willing to think about such things is “by what means was the algorithm established?”

I ask “by what means was it established” because I recognize that not all algorithms were created by programmers; some, such as mathematical algorithms like long division were discovered and would work perfectly even if no human being on earth knew the formula. Thus so, life, I think, would originate under the constraints of its own formulae, whether or not human beings had the capacity to think about it—“it does what it does, and does it every time.”

Nevertheless, this still leaves me with the question of “by what means?” or more simply, “how?” This is the ultimate question for and I believe that it is precisely why, despite each new, discrete and interesting thing I read out of quantum physics or other interesting science well beyond my capacity, that I return, time and time again to the position of Agnosticism among those who care to understand my belief system more thoroughly, or “sophisticated” people on the internets.

What is an Agnostic?
http://arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-tex…l/agnostic.htm

On the other hand, I am an Atheist given that there is no belief system incorporated on the earth that I would not disbelieve prima facie without extraordinary evidence contrary to my disposition towards disbelief of such things. Therefore, I am with Russell here in describing myself to most people on the street as an Atheist.

I am still skeptical about Atheism as an appropriate response to the question “How?” We know that everything exists; we know that everything is evolving, going extinct, in motion, changing, expanding, etc. But do we really know “how” it all began? For me this is a major weakness for the “strong” Atheist who holds that there is evidence for a natural origin of the universe and against the existence of any gods, no matter how abstract the concept.

The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins <– I have not read Dawkin’s latest book, sorry

The Impossibility of God, Martin and Monnier <–anthogology of phil argument contra god, interesting to say the least

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett

Darwin’s Black Box, Behe <— can ‘o wormz right thar

Also, various essays on “Skepticism” from Bertran Russell, which are all basically superior to the previously mentioned books imo.