From Luke, one of history’s original bloggers:

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ^[a] the Lord.

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

May you and yours have a happy and blessed Christmas!

I helped my neighbor put up his nativity scene on his lawn the other day.

In it, Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the three kings and a couple of Roman soldiers are pelting a scrawny, smug-looking, nerdy guy in a dishdasha with rocks and garbage.  The nerdy guy has a little callout balloon with an arrow (made out of mylar and wire) saying “Ooh, don’t hurt me, I’m an atheist douchebag wuss”.

When my neighbor put up the display, I looked at him for a moment, mildly dumbfounded. 

“What?” he asked, handing me a can of Miller.

“Well, nothing – and thanks for the beer!  But…do you honestly think that this –  mocking atheists – is the real spirit of the season?”

“Well, sure!  What else is faith for?”

“Um…well, focus on the eternal, as well as on the best that our Christian tradition asks of us?”

“Well, sure”, he said with at tone that really meant “Duuuuh”.  “But mocking atheists is part of it, too!  It’s a vital part, in fact!”

“Where on earth did you learn that?”

He pointed his thumb over his shoulder, toward Bud Ismir’s house.  Ismir, a Moslem, had put up his own scene; a group of children, animated by the spirit of Mohammed, whacking at a figure labeled in Arabic (with helpful English subtitles) “atheist” who was trussed up like a turkey in a net bag dangling from a tree, like a sort of organic pinata.

“Er…wow”, I said, cracking the beer.   “That doesn’t even make cultural sense”.

“Well, you’ll love what the Rubensteins put up for Chanukkah”, he said, pointing over to our other neighbor had erected the previous day; a huge, aluminum and plywood Dreidel, powered by an electric motor, spinning randomly, coming occasionally to a stop as a light inside illuminated the Hebrew/English messages on the sides; one read “Atheists!  Go Straight To Hell!  Losers!”

“Um…” I started – and then gave up.  I took a long drag off the beer, and submitted to the spirit of the season, dabbing a little bit of splashed “frankinsense” onto the shoulder of the cringing atheist figure.

Tis the season!

——–

On the one hand, the Illinois state capitol would seem to have a much more sensible approach to holiday decorations than many city, county and state governments; they allow displays from all faiths to put up displays in the Capitol rotunda.  Christian, Moslem, Jewish, or what-have-you. 

Including the atheists.  And that’s where the story begins:

A conservative activist and Illinois comptroller candidate was escorted from the Illinois State Capitol building Wednesday when he tried to remove a sign put up by an atheist group.

William J. Kelly announced Tuesday that he planned to take down the sign put up by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and on Wednesday, he tried to make good on his plan.

But Kelly said when he turned the sign around so it was face down, state Capitol police were quick to escort him away.

Was Kelly right to flip the sign over?  Maybe not.  First Amendment, free speech, yadda yadda yadda.

But let’s not dismiss him entirely:

The sign reads: “At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

So in a display intended to celebrate the spirit of the season, what do the “atheists” do?  Put up a sign whose sole purpose is to piss in other peoples’ Wheaties. 

“I don’t think the State of Illinois has any business denigrating or mocking any religion,” Kelly said, “and I think that’s what the verbiage on the sign was doing.”

And so while Kelly’s methods may have been wrong, his motivations – in a purely ecumenical sense – were absolutely correct.  If – as Establishment-Clausers constantly remind us – the government has no business promoting religion, then isn’t disparaging the beliefs of others even less appropriate a use of public space?

As to Kelly’s claims that the sign mocks religion, foundation co-President Dan Barker said: “He’s kind of right, because the last couple of sentences do criticize religion, and of course, the beginning is a celebration of the winter solstice. But that kind of speech is protected as well – speech that is critical and speech that is supportive.”

The obvious response is to found a “religion” – in my case, a denomination of a religion, since I’m not giving up Christianity anytime soon – part of whose liturgy is to mock the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” as a bunch of self-indulgent, intellectually-indolent, solipsistic jagoffs.

And apply for permits to display signs explaining why.

Tis the season!

We’ve had a few MOB blogs leave Minnesota.  As long as they carry on blogging, I don’t think any of us have a problem with that.

Bear Creek Ledger was always an unrepentant Christian conservative blog when they were here; now that they’ve moved to Tennessee, they’re no less trenchant.  Here, they assail the leftism-of-convenience of way too much of American Catholicism:

Funny how NOW it’s acceptable to use Christian religious symbolism.

From the WaPo – Baby Jesus, poster child for the 2010 Census?

The poster was based on a story in Luke’s gospel that says Joseph and pregnant Mary journeyed from Galilee to Bethlehem to take part in a census decreed by Roman Emperor Augustus. There is no other record of that particular census ever taking place, but the story explains why Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, the city of David.

The poster was created by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (not by the Census Bureau), which sent it to more than 7,000 churches to inform Hispanics about the census and encourage them to participate, regardless of their legal status. Some find it comforting.

I’m sure the Catholic Church will go whole hog for this campaign since they’re nothing more than whores for illegal aliens, especially those who come from any Latin country. The Catholic Church and the Vatican has bought into ’social justice’ and wealth transfers.

Bear Creek Ledger – conservatism, unfiltered.

So click in and and support your local MOB blog – even if they’re not local.

I know this story’s been making the rounds, but I had to get in on it; a Brit Anglican priest is urging the poor to shoplift:

‘My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift,’ [Father Tim Jones] told his stunned congregation at St Lawrence and St Hilda in York.

‘I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.

That’s right.  There’s nuance!  More later.

Father Jones does have scruples, though:

‘I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.

In other words – “pass a tax on the rest of society without bothering to go through the government”.

It’s the ultimate manifestation of “hope and change”; it’s Chicago politics taken to the streets.  Er, aisles.

‘I would ask them not to take any more than they need. I offer the advice with a heavy heart. Let my words not be misrepresented as a simplistic call for people to shoplift.

Oh, heavens no.  It’s a simplistic call to for people to shoplift wrapped in a tortilla of demented pseudo-religion.

‘The observation that shoplifting is the best option that some people are left with is a grim indictment of who we are.

Depends on what the definition of the word “we” is.

‘Rather, this is a call for our society no longer to treat its most vulnerable people with indifference and contempt.

‘When people are released from prison, or find themselves suddenly without work or family support, then to leave them for weeks with inadequate or clumsy social support is monumental, catastrophic folly.

Er, yeah.  Perhaps the Anglican Church could, y’know, help people?

An ambulance crew brings in a shooting victim; one shot to the chest, one to the head.  There was a lot of blood loss from the chest wound, and the victim is in immense cardiopulmonary distress.

The head wound missed the medulla, at the brain stem, the part that controls the heart and breathing and the rest of the body’s automatic functions (and, for most of the Minnesota Progressive Project staff, their writing as well) – so the victim didn’t die instantly.  But the victim seems to be non-responsive; there are indications his brain functions are badly damaged; he may be in a coma, or worse.

So the doctors give up and administer a massive overdose of morphine to kill the patient, because it’s all over anyway and why drag it on?

Well, no.  They don’t. They stabilize the patient as best they can.  They check further to see if the brain is really shut down; if it’s not, they do what they can to restore function.

When in doubt, they err on the side of saving lives [1].

Now, I don’t write a lot about abortion.  I’m opposed to it, of course; I’m personally pro-life.  I find most of the arguments in favor of “choice” to be self-indulgent and childish.  I’m going to skip most of them – it’s nothing I haven’t written about in some depth, of course.

With that in mind, the argument about the “viability” – the idea that a fetus isn’t really all that terribly human until it’s “viable”, or capable of living on its own – is perhaps less stupid than most.  It’s wrong, of course; after three kids, I can say with authority that a “fetus” isn’t “viable” until it can get a job and pay its own rent.

More seriously?  I believe that since a fertilized egg, left to its own devices (no medical intervention for or against its existence – just like in our great-great-grandparents’ time) will gestate for nine months 75% of the time, and those who get that far will be born alive two out of three times (those stats are from primitive cultures like 1890-era rural Minnesota), it’s fairly clear that whatever the physics and physiology and metaphysics behind the process, the whole thing is intended to create living, breathing human beings.  Beyond that?  I think it’s fairly clear that since preemies have been successfully brought along to fairly normal lives as early as 22 weeks into gestation, that the idea that a “fetus” isn’t “human” until a 40-week fetus’ umbilical is cut is a self-indulgent, illogical absurdity.

None of the above, by the way, touches on spirituality at any level.  It’s nothing but logic, so far.

But I’m a Christian.  I believe  that every person (except Ryan Seacrest) has a soul.

“When?”

We don’t know.

Souls are not measurable.  There’s no place in human physiology that’s been identified as a “soul fill valve”, leading to a “soul tank” where the ephemeral concept is kept.  It’s not like a brain wave, much less synonymous with it, and if it were, the gunshot victim in the example above would be out of luck.  Not everyone agrees that there is such a thing; atheists all bet the “under” on Pascal’s Wager.    No matter – if you assume there is no soul, and are motivated by anything other than naked self-interest, it actually makes the question harder to resolve.  We’ll come back to that.

So the question – part of it, anyway – is “when does a fetus get a soul?”

Dog Gone at Penigma writes a very long treatise that says, essentially,  we don’t know because spirutual authorities have never agreed on the subject:

I have read widely on the subject of our human soul and spirituality, and listened to many different voices pontificating ther dogma on the subject in the course of satisfying my own curiosity…This breadth of recognition might suggest some sort of consensus, some unanimity of understanding, a clarity and agreement on definition, right?

Of course, not.  Ecclesiastical bodies have fought long, bloody wars over the subject; when two of the great Christian denominations have been split for almost a thousand years over the Nicene Creed and the job description for saints, when Presbyterian congregations fall into epic near-blood-feuds over applause in church, to say nothing of gay marriage, looking for general consensus on the nature of the Soul is hopelessly optimistic.

There is no consensus across history or across the geography of our planet on any single specific aspect of that essence we name souls. We don’t agree on what it is; we don’t agree on when it is inside of us; we don’t agree on the origins. We don’t even fully agree on whether or not the soul is immortal or eternal; some believe that the soul can die, others that it grows as the body grows, with experience. We don’t agree on how, where, and from whom our souls derive. We don’t agree on who or what possesses a soul.

DG goes on to note that even within Christian tradition, the idea of the genesis of the soul has knocked around a bit:

The Christian tradition is contradictory. The roots of early Judaism posited that animals, at least some animals, had souls, as do other religious and spiritual traditions. In Islam, the belief is that the soul enters the body of a fetus in utero after 40 days. Not 90 or 180 days, not 30 minutes, and not at conception; they are quite definite on the 40 day figure. But then, in the Islamic faith, not only humans have souls either. Djinn and angels also have souls in that faith’s traditions. In the Druidic tradition, and in many other traditions (the many irreverent verses of “Give me that old time religion” are playing in my head) so do some trees and other inanimate objects.

Right.  But then, traditional religion from the dawn of time until pretty recently believed all sorts of stuff we find crazy today; insert boilerplate here about burning witches and kosher laws and selling indulgences and human sacrifice and stoning gays (oops; one religion still does that).

Of course, in that era people couldn’t tell with any certainty that the crop they planted in April wouldn’t be eaten to the ground by bugs in July or blown away by a sudden storm in August; people never connected “taking a dump upstream from where you get your drinking water” and the hacking, fever-ridden wave of deaths that would periodically befall the village; in a village where the people had raised vegetables and sheep for uncounted generations, humans were born the same way the animals were; the way nature had left the process.  And it was an ugly process; 1/3 of babies (of the 3/4 that weren’t miscarried earlier) were stillborn or died of complications during delivery, as did 10% of the mothers (with each birth); and that was even before infant mortality set in.

So given the exceedingly crude nature of “science” back when years had three digits and the world’s major religious leaders were half a generation removed from raising keff and goats, especially the understanding of human physiology and development at the time, the question “when exactly does the soul inhabit the body” was purely academic; like “what will I wear on my third date with Scarlett Johannson”, it might be fun to think about, but the practical application is pretty minimal.

But today, the vast majority of “fetuses”, barring pseudomedical interference and, of course, miscarriage, survive until birth and beyond.  Not only that, but as noted above “fetuses” born just past half-term go on to live normal lives – utterly unthinkable even a generation ago (which, if logic rather than politics reigned, would make most non-health-related third-term abortions murder).  We don’t know when life is viable, but the boundaries keep getting pushed back.

The objective boundaries, anyway.

And since, unlike my third date with Scarlett Johannson, the essense of life is actually a valid, testable question these days, the question “when does viable, human life begin” isn’t an academic question.

100 years ago, the gunshot victim in the first paragraph might have been given up for dead without bothering with a trip to a hospital.  Today, science can find out if there really is a brain function in there that can be nursed back into control of the body.  People what would have been give up for dead fifty years ago walk among us today.

And definitions of “when does a human become human” written a thousand years ago by people for whom it was an utterly academic question are no more informative to us today than surgery textbooks from 1700 are to the Mayo today.

Leaving aside the fact that the concept of “the soul” is ephemeral and unmeasurable in any way; even the fairly objective measurement of “when life begins” is, paradoxically, more difficult than ever, since science has made the instrumentation and criteria so much finer than before.

And so the paradox is, if you care about the intangibles that make humans human, the more we know about how life works, the less meaningful the attempts to put an arbitrary, “objective” limit on them.  How do you put a number on something that gets less measurable, the better able to measure it you theoretically are?

Since we don’t know – and, unlike the rabbis of the Old Testament and the druids and popes and mullahs of 1000 years ago, we know what we don’t know – then if you believe that human life has any intangible but real value (call it a “soul” if you want, or “worth as a human life” if you don’t), then the only logical response, as with the gunshot victim above, is to err on the side of life.  If we don’t know life to be absent in an organism that is intended to live, then you assume it – he or she – is alive.

And you can tell Pope Pius II I said so.

[1] Although with Obamacare in place, they’ll have to check with a committee of government accountants and lawyers for medical advice, first.

Minnesota has long had one of the most fertile, bumptious, interesting, active blog scenes in the world.  Most of it is centered on the center-right blog scene; blogging is a medium that favors the underdogs.  

The Northern Alliance Radio Network founded the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers nearly six years ago, as a way of turning that new, fertile, enthusiastic bunch of writers into a social scene.  The MOB, as we called it from day one, has always been rigorously non-partisan; we have strenuously welcomed bloggers of all political stripes, and even bloggers who could care less about politics.  And we always will.  The MOB (Karl Bremer’s delusions aside) has no editorial input into any MOB blogs; our only agenda is to publicize MOB blogs, blogging in Minnesota and, twice a year or so, get together for a party.

That’s it.

It’s something I used to do pretty much yearly – but I’ve fallen gravely short in my duties as one of the MOB’s Capo Di Tutti Bloggi, and so it’s been nearly five years since I last took a trip Around The MOB to introduce you to the 100-odd blogs on the MOBRoll. 

So let’s fix that.  Over the next few weeks, I’m going to take a quick visit (not super long) with every currently-active blog on the MOB Blogroll. 

———-

Which brings us to the top of the order, and the MOBRoll, and the only one so far to depart the Latin alphabet: έχω ζωη (“Echo Zoë”). 

Where most MOB blogs focus on politics, έχω ζωη has always been about faith.  Christianity, as it happens.  The blog has largely converted into a vehicle for a monthly podcast – which are, by the way, well worth listening to (as with this piece, on the nature of persecution).

But the writing is also wonderful – philosophical, tackling the nature of God and eternity with the aplomb many of us reserve for fisking Nick Coleman.  I loved this piece – on the “hateful” label so promiscuously appled to Christians – from last October:

I recently posted a Youtube video by comedian/magician Penn Jillette. Despite being an avowed atheist, and thoroughly rejecting the claims of Christianity, including what I’ve laid out here, he had the intellectual honesty to admit that it would be downright hateful of a Christian to believe what I’ve stated above, and do nothing to share it with others. I was a bit surprised by his understanding of the Good-will of the Christian he encountered.

On the other hand, Jillette is in a small, and shrinking, minority among the vocal unbelieving world. The more common response is much more antagonistic, if not violent. That of homosexuals is perhaps easiest to point to as exemplary. As a Christian, I don’t see homosexuality as any lesser or greater a sin than those which I am guilty of myself. However, it’s quite visible. I know of no other sin that has parades, festivals, or benefits to highlight it. In addition, opposition to it is painted as hatred. But is it really? If I firmly believe a sin (or in this case a lifestyle of sin) to be destructive, not only within this life, but in the next as well, is it really hatred to speak up about it?

It’s hard to believe that έχω ζωη has been cranking out uniformly excellent material, at least every time I’ve checked it, for over six years now.

Stop by, say Hi, give a read and a listen, and support your local MOB blog.

Some leftybloggers famously dubbed themselves the “reality-based community” – a clumsy, junior-high shot at neo-conservative “faith based” ideal.

Apparently the lefties got the idea at a seance from Egyptian political philosopher and lobbyist Ram-Gar:

“Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics,” the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so.

And remembering how the nation’s lesser party roasted Nancy Reagan, I thought this next bit was a hoot:

And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.

It’s explain a lot about Represenative McCollum.

But I think there’s some omission bias at play here:

Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do.

No question about whether a day at the range is a spiritual experience?

…living in the midst of a burdensome if not oppressive government, gorging itself on the citizens it was created to serve.

We may find ourselves in the very same predicament the pilgrims of Plimoth risked their lives to flee.

The pilgrims were deeply focused on the Old Testament narrative of Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. William Bradford called King James “the pharaoh.” On The Mayflower the pilgrims said their journey was as important as that of Moses. And the first thing they did upon reaching Cape Cod was get down on their knees and thank God for allowing them to cross their own Red Sea.

How disappointed these reverent, hearty souls would be if they could see us today: millions convinced of their victimhood by and willfully living off the government. As many unborn snuffed in the interest of “privacy” and convenience. Full-time career politicians drawing salaries and pensions from the taxpayers. The press, once vigilant, now schilling for a leftist government. A federal agency confiscating the wealth of those who created it; dolling it out to legions of  grovelers, groupies and bootlickers. Their Native-American friends? Running casinos; enslaving ranks of the white man.

And what of God? The God they feared and offered gratitude to for the harvest and their hard-fought and nascent freedoms? That same God now beholds a government hell-bent on removing his word from the public square in the interest of a newfangled concept: political correctness.

And possibly the greatest offense? Tofu.

Had these crusaders, to whom we owe so much, had the ability to see the future, they may have stayed home.

This morning the Pastor at our church brought up the recent health care debate thusly:

“A friend came up to me this morning and asked ‘So what do you think about the health care vote yesterday.'”

It was clearly a loaded question, the Pastor explained.

His reply was that he would respond with a God-centered perspective. Every person, every life in this country is precious; sacred. “Our health care system should reflect that.” He said further that he didn’t know how it should be managed or paid for but that is how he believes we should be approaching this issue.

…and I found myself agreeing with him in principal, although I’m not sure he believes government is the answer or not.

Is there a way to look at this debate from a “What Would God Do?” perspective?

I would not presume to know what God would think and recognize that many of you don’t even believe that God exists.

I do believe that individuals and families should have access to quality health care in America and should have a choice as to where they buy insurance to protect them against catastrophe, and how much of that risk they are comfortable retaining. They should have a choice as to where they seek care and from whom.

While I believe it is inevitable that all citizens be required to carry some form of health insurance, I believe they should have more choice as to where they obtain it, not less, and without regard to where they work. For those times that they are not able to afford it temporarily due to unemployment or being unemployable, the government should provide a backup and help those that can’t help themselves.

So far I think most Americans would agree with me and would deem it common sense. Believe in God or not, most would agree government should have a benevolent and responsible role in health care. Where Americans find themselves divided is how to get us there.

I believe God helps those that help themselves and expects us as individuals to help those that can’t. Teach a man to fish and if he can’t, give him one.  If we all lived this way, much of our federal government would find itself out of a job.

As for health care, creating incentives and removing barriers is or should be the conservative approach. Private enterprise has a way of filling a vacuum if it is allowed to do so. After all, there certainly is a demand for quality health care, and people are willing to reasonably pay for it. That sounds like the preamble of any good business plan.

But liberals would say that the private enterprise system has failed here and it is time for a benevolent government to wrest control. They offer more of what broke the system (and many others) in the first place.

If Congress cares so much about Americans, their health care and actually improving it, why is there such a rush to ram it through the legislative system?

Why are they not recognizing who they serve and honoring the promise to allow legislators and the public time to read and understand the bill?

Why are they lying about how many people are uninsured by choice?

Why is the trillion-dollar burden not borne by everyone equally, and not skewed for political bias?

Why is Congress exempt from the plan?

If there are such savings to be gained why does it cost a trillion dollars more than the current system?

Liberals think that an ever-growing government is the only means by which to effect change on any front.

The fact that many Americans don’t have health insurance or access to quality care is not a function of a lack of government intervention rather a result of too much of it.

Government has so regulated the industry such that most Americans have their health care choices made for them by their employer, who has the ability to choose from only a few insurance companies and thus care providers in each state.

If insurance carriers have been allowed to dictate to doctors and patients, have failed to cover preexisting conditions, while at the same time jacking up costs and profits, it isn’t due to a lack of regulation, rather a lack of competition because of over-regulation.

As I have said before, don’t blame the free market system when the market isn’t free.

A truly free market would force insurance companies and health care providers to vie for consumer health care dollars on the basis of coverage, quality and cost, just like auto insurance, which is also required by law.

Beyond that, a compassionate, benevolent (and mostly God-fearing) citizenry would see the mutual benefit of a federal government that takes care of those that legitimately can’t take care of themselves.

But what about those that can help themselves and choose not to? What would God say to this? For example, you don’t exercise, you eat too much, and you smoke or take drugs?

Does God expect us to pay the wages of our sins, or does he call for a benevolent government to transfer those burdens to others? That is admittedly also a loaded question and the answer is clear.

The current bill says that the government will not allow private and public insurance companies to penalize you for the higher burden you will eventually be to the system.

I think God would expect you to pay the wages of your ill-chosen behavior. I think God would expect you to take care not to be a burden to your neighbor. I think God expects you to live your life with others in mind.

God would have voted against this bill.

I’m pretty much live-and-let-live when it comes to other peoples’ spiritual choices.  I figure people are adults, and can figure out what matters – or for that matter does not matter – in their own lives on their own.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t think some Westerners who adopt some radically non-Western forms of spirituality aren’t doing it to get back at Mom and Dad – but again, that’s just me being catty.  In some cases.

Which I say to separate myself from those who will get their yuks over this story; a Minneapolis woman has died in a Native American sweat lodge ceremony-gone-bad:

An Arizona homicide investigation now includes three deaths after a woman died more than a week after participating in a sweat lodge ceremony that hospitalized nearly two dozen people.

Liz Neuman of Minnesota died Saturday at a Flagstaff hospital, Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said.

The 49-year-old suffered multiple organ damage during the Oct. 8 ceremony at a resort near Sedona, a resort town 115 miles north of Phoenix that draws many in the New Age spiritual movement.

Which is awful, and I do direct any prayers, wishes or imprecations your particular worldview call for to Ms. Neuman’s survivors.

And by all means, pick your own spiritual path.  But I just want to point out…:

Ray [the organizer of the fateful retreat] had rented the Angel Valley Retreat Center for his five-day “Spiritual Warrior” event that culminated in the sweat lodge ceremony. Participants paid between $9,000 and $10,000 to attend the retreat.

…that you don’t see Presbyterians charging $10K for this sort of thing.

Or at least, they won’t pay it…

It’s not a new observation – modern environmentalism has become a religion.  It’s got many of the worst aspects of “organized religion”; skepticism and questioning are chastized by those who cloak their insecurities in the trappings of faith; apostasy is condemned; dogma is defended without mercy and, by the less-intelligent adherents, thought.

Bogus Doug has another angle on the issue:

I don’t find that explanation quite satisfactory. It’s not that environmentalism is a religion. It’s that environmentalism is motivated by the same basic need in mankind to understand their importance. This makes it attractive, not only to atheists and other kinds of unbelievers, but to anyone finding insufficient explanation for the importance of mankind in their other beliefs.

There’s good reason you see a strong Green presence among the more progressive churches. It’s not that they have abandoned belief in God. It’s that they’ve abandoned those teachings that made mankind seem particularly important in God’s grand scheme of the universe. Modern environmentalism provides that. This has practical importance for its adherents that can be summarized in one word: meaning.

You oughtta read the whole thing.

Over at Minnesota Tragedy of Spyrochaetal Paresis “Progressive” Project (a group blog that actively solicits defamatory fabrications), Grace Kelly, noted 9/11 truther, thinks  she’s onto something:

One of the strongest differences between progressives and conservations is the reaction to the suggestion of recent movies the Jesus might be just a guy, outstanding by his life and by his teachings. Another variation is that Jesus is the son of God, in the same sense that all humans are children of God.

{{facepalm}}

That’s right, Grace Kelly, 9/11 truther and habitual liar.  Theological debate about the nature, humanity and divinity of Christ started with George McGovern’s nomination.  And it’s purely an American debate.  Why, it’s not as if debates about the nature and divinity of Christ (to say nothing of Mary, the Saints and the Pope) haven’t led the church to divide, fragment, schism, lather rince and repeat for the past 1,600 years or anything.

And I’d very, very, very much like to see you take that “Christ was a guy” bit into a good black southern baptist church sometime.  They might vote “progressive” (I’m puking in my mouth a little as I write that), but you’ll look long and hard for a sympathetic theology, I suspect.

But why?

For progressives, the idea if Jesus might just a guy was interesting and not at all challenging to faith. In fact if Jesus – as an ordinary guy – could do such great things, then it meant that all of us could do more in what we do.

It’s the reverse of that idea – that a divine Christ would threaten their faith – that interests me.  I wonder if some left-leaning Christians don’t chafe at the idea of a 2,000 year old religious figure competing with their current religious icons, Wellstone and Obama?

I think that “power” is the essence of the conservative’s beliefs. So the important essence of believing in Jesus requires the deity power, not how Jesus lived or what Jesus taught.

Which is, indeed, perhaps the most incredibly stupid generalization I’ve ever read about conservatives, ever.

Indeed as I asked questions at “Jesus” stands in conservative gatherings, they did not engage in discussions of key passages of the bible

To be fair to the unnamed “Jesus stand” operators, I’ve met Grace Kelly, and I wouldn’t engage in a serious discussion with her, either.

“Jesus” was a marketing tool, where one simply invoked the name and was saved. The essence of this religion seems to be “what the religion can do for me!” It is not a do-it-yourself kind of religion.

No – correction:  THAT was the most stupid generalization!

But if one has faith, one will eventually find a nugget of truth in even the most (intellectually) desiccated environment:

So what I am seeing is that religion is a projection of what people already believe or want to believe.

Um, yeah.  And so Jesus was just a guy, like Wellstone and Franken and Larry Pogemiller.

Theologians and philosophers will debate the nature of divinity until one day we all find out for ourselves.

But the real question that is beating those theologians and thinkers about the face:  Would a truly loving God really put writing like this in front of His people?

So, other than that whole “pro-infanticide speaker at a “Catholic” institution” bit, how was President Obama’s speech?
Father Richard Landry on Cthe full theological ghastliness of Obama’s address:

The most audacious part of the address was when the President tried to change the meaning of the Christian faith and draw erroneous conclusions from the false notion. “The ultimate irony of faith,” the president declared, “is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen.” He seemed to be quoting from Hebrews 11:1, one of the most famous definitions of faith found in Sacred Scripture, but, whether intentional or not, he got its meaning completely wrong. The passage reads, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is not a “belief” in things not seen — which would be tautological and nonsensical — but the “substance” or “evidence” of things not seen. Faith leads not to doubt, nor merely to subjective conviction, but to objective truth discoverable through revelation and grace.

The whole thing is worth a read.

I’m a Christian.

But there are few things that make my skin crawl quite like the smug, preening religious left.  (Yes, smug and preening). PJ O’Rourke referred to them as “World Council of Churches types who have sanctimony like other people have halitosis”.

I’ve attacked them in the past; “religious” groups lining up with gun control groups, my own Presbyterians (at least at the hopeless national “General Assembly” level) joining with Hamas in attacking Israel and, here in Minnesota this session, the idea of the “Moral Budget” – groups of left-leaning Christian denominations who are pestering the government to do their work for them.

King Banaian, a member of an ELCA church, has had enough, too,  and tells ’em all about it:

A and Bishop B (and W, X, Y, and Z, in the case of this letter) want to compel nonbeliever C to do for poor D what they won’t ask believers F, G, H &c. to do by the offering plate. They do so under the guise that “a budget is a moral document”.And my budget is, in fact, a statement of the morals of my own family. My church’s budget is a statement of the morals of my church. The government is not a church, or a family. The government’s budget is not a statement of the entire society’s morals. It is a compulsion of the majority upon the minority.

Where, dear bishops, is that compulsion a “moral statement” directed in the Bible?

I recall only that when the rich man heard he could not enter the kingdom of heaven without sacrificing all his earthly possessions, “he went away sad, because he had great wealth” … and Christ let him go. The bishops are not so inclined.

When the Bush Administration took the opposite tack that these disgraceful packs of hamsters are taking – by inviting faith-based organizations to lend their expertise to government social program efforts – the left responded with a zillion dim “reality-based community” japes and a whole lot of nothing else very smart.

So what do we call the opposite – when churches demand government to step in and do their work for them?

The “frogs begging for storks” community?

Read King’s entire, infuriating piece.

I dug out a copy of a commencement speech by leading Holocaust denier Brandon Feltcz, given to the commencemetn for the class of 2006 at Yeshiva Polytechnic Institute in Eilat, Israel.

I thought the parallels were…interesting?

Now, understand — understand, Class of 2006, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding the Holocaust can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most people on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It’s a way of life that has always been the Yeshiva Poly tradition. Rabbi Dennis Diesestayn has long spoken of this institution as both a synogogue and a delicatessen.  A synogogue that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Jewish tradition, while the deli is where “differences of culture and religion and conviction can sit and gnosh over a knish and coffee with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love.” And I want to join him and Rebbe Diesestayn in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today’s ceremony. You are an example of what Yeshiva is about.

Of course, people who’d dissented to Feltcz’s visit – saying that Yeshiva, a university in a nation founded by survivors of the Holocaust, should have had no interest in civilly entertaining Feltcz’s views (set forth in his books The Treblinka Fraud and Auschwitz: Hot Air, Not Zyklon), much less granting them pride of place at their commencement.

US Department of Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano noted that she’d put those dissenters on her list of potential right-wing terrorists, although critics noted that the dissenters were Israeli citizens speaking in Israel, and not subject to DHS jurisdiction.

Oh, yeah; the story is entirely fake.  But with an an aggressively pro-infanticide President speaking at “Catholic” Notre Dame yesterday, anything’s possible.

Look; I don’t disagree with the President.  People across the aisle should tolerate other points of view on issues, including abortion – when it comes to politics.

But Notre Dame isn’t (supposedly) part of our political process. It is a Catholic school. And while we as Americans have to be tolerant of many different points of view to run a civil society, “tolerance” does not extend to browbeating people into accepting things the consider absolute moral wrongs in their civil, to say nothing of religious, lives.
There are cases for using the bully pulpit to demand tolerance – tolerance of things that one can’t control, at least.  Racism, attacks on gays,things that nobody controls, certainly.

Demanding tolerance of abortion – a 99-percent-and-change-preventable thing that is only on the national agenda because a group sympathetic to the President has elevated it to full symbolhood – from a Catholic university is..

…well, I’m straining to come up with an analogy.

What does Johnny Roosh think of Brett Favre donning the Purple?

Thanks for asking.

First off, I lost interest in the Vikings after the (…I’m getting emotional) 1998 season, which was poised to be the payoff for childhood memories of four forlorn Super Bowls. If the Vikes want to skip town because I won’t take money off our dinner table and put it into a stadium for the big boys, so be it. I could give a rip.

But, from a businessman’s point of view, if Favre’s tired bones can fill the seats with a choir of beer-swilling, profanity-prone fans and actually make some money selling tickets and selling out so I can tune in for the last quarter, I’m all for it.

Alas, if history teaches us anything about the Vikings, they will find a way to screw this deal (if it happens) and Brett Favre’s career will defy the odds by apending a prologue even more embarrassing than the the would-be, should-be final chapter that is last year’s season with the Jets. Favre’s story could have eneded on a high note.

He does look good in Purple though.

…and Perez Hilton sought permission to film a video in your living room, whatever your opinion of gay marriage, you might tell Hilton “Karma’s a Bizzatch”, that actions and words have consequences, and to sack up and go do his filming in, say, Miss Oregon’s place.  Right?

In the same light, and even though I’m not Catholic, I can’t help but wonder why Ron Howard is making hay with allegations that the Vatican might have obstructed filming of his latest Dan Brown fiesta of anti-Catholic defamation?

When you come to film in Rome, the official statement to you is that the Vatican has no influence,” he said. “Everything progressed very smoothly, but unofficially a couple of days before we were to start filming in several of our locations, it was explained to us that through back channels and so forth that the Vatican had exerted some influence.””Was I surprised? No. Am I a little frustrated at times? Sure,” he said.

Nevertheless he said he felt that he was able to preserve the overall “Angels & Demons” experience despite the restrictions by recreating scenes on sets. For the Sistine Chapel alone, some 20 members of the production crew — posing as tourists — took photos of all the frescoes, floor mosaics and paintings of the tiny chapel where popes are elected — until they were told to stop, the film’s Web site says.

Did I say “anti-Catholic defamation?” Why, yes I did.

…where our new ruling class (by acclamation!) stands:

Madeline Albright: “Islam is maybe the most democratic religion because there is nobody between you and God. So I do not think that is something that can be used as reason not to have Muslim democracies.

Albright – Jewish, as I recall, not that it matters – must have missed that whole “Protestant Reformation” bit.

At any rate – it seems Islam is  used for exactly that reason – there is exactly one stable Moslem democracy (Turkey), two deeply flawed democracies with huge numbers of Moslems (India and Indonesia), and a few more that show signs of promise (Senegal and, to an extent, Mali).

The return to prominence of Madeline Albright, who under Clinton (eww) was the worst Secretary of State since Warren Christopher, a woman who’s always treated American Exceptionalism as an inconvenient hurdle, is one of the great tragedies of Obama’s win.

Remember the old book “Black Like Me?”  It’s the story of a white journalist, John Howard Griffin, who pharmacologically dyed his skin black to pass as Afro-American; the book relates his experiences.

I knew it was only a matter of time until someone tried it with Christians.

Peter Roose, an undergrad at Brown University, went “undercover” to “infiltrate” Liberty University.

And he found out that fundie Christians are…

…well, basically human:

Roose had transferred to the Virginia campus from Brown University in Providence, a famously liberal member of the Ivy League. His Liberty classmates knew about the switch, but he kept something more important hidden: He planned to write a book about his experience at the school founded by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell.

Each conversation about salvation or hand-wringing debate about premarital sex was unwitting fodder for Roose’s recently published book: “The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University.”

“As a responsible American citizen, I couldn’t just ignore the fact that there are a lot of Christian college students out there,” said Roose, 21, now a Brown senior. “If I wanted my education to be well-rounded, I had to branch out and include these people that I just really had no exposure to.”

How little exposure?

Roose’s parents, liberal Quakers who once worked for Ralph Nader, were nervous about their son being exposed to Falwell’s views.

See Berg’s Seventh Law; when libs babble about conservative provincialism, they’re projecting.

He was determined to not mock the school, thinking it would be too easy — and unfair. He aimed to immerse himself in the culture, examine what conservative Christians believe and see if he could find some common ground. He had less weighty questions too: How did they spend Friday nights? Did they use Facebook? Did they go on dates? Did they watch “Gossip Girl?”

It wasn’t an easy transition. Premarital sex is an obvious no-no at Liberty. So are smoking and drinking. Cursing is also banned, so he prepared by reading the Christian self-help book, “30 Days to Taming Your Tongue.”

The “Story” involved a lengthy interview with LU founder Jerry Falwell, I wonder what Roose’s parents think about the his conclusion?

Roose said his Liberty experience transformed him in surprising ways.

When he first returned to Brown, he’d be shocked by the sight of a gay couple holding hands — then be shocked at his own reaction. He remains stridently opposed to Falwell’s worldview, but he also came to understand Falwell’s appeal.

Once ambivalent about faith, Roose now prays to God regularly — for his own well-being and on behalf of others. He said he owns several translations of the Bible and has recently been rereading meditations from the letters of John on using love and compassion to solve cultural conflicts.

Perhaps someday they’ll try having a third-rate comic impersonate a caricatured blowhard conservative talking head…

…er,no.  That’d be too stupid.

The Lord Has Risen.

Death has been defeated.

Have a happy and blessed Easter, all.

So, given that faith is involved with eternity, and organized religion concerns itself with eternal questions of right and wrong for, to the church’s point of view, everyone, I have to ask; when is the Catholic Church going to do something about this?

Nancy Pelosi reminds us that elections matter, in a DCCC fundraising e-mail:

This morning, I had the great honor of joining President Obama as he lifted the executive ban on federal funding for stem cell research.

If that’s not a shot across the bow from someone who describes herself as a “Devout Catholic”, what is?

Over the weekend, one of the producers at the station (actually from “AM980 The Believer”, the religious station upstairs from the Patriot) asked me if the NARN wanted to book a couple of segments on an upcoming debate between a Creationist (“the earth is 6,000 years old!”) and an “Evolutionist” (“There is no God!”).

While I was too tactful to say “I’d rather lobotomize myself with a spork” – the producer is a good guy and an excellent producer, and when you’re a host you gotta know how dumb it is to antagonize good producers – there are probably few arguments that interest me less than “Creation versus Evolution”.

Part of it is that there is no conflict between science and an allegorical reading of the Old Testament – and I personally believe that God is glorified no less by recognizing the immensely, exquisitely wonderous and complex system He created (humanity and our existence included) than by chalking it up to six days of cosmic tinkering 6,000 years ago.  The conflict between evolution isn’t really one over the origin of the universe so much as it is about interpretations of history; less a matter of validating faith and science than of competing groups of book critics impotently slapping at each other.

The other part, of course, is that the debate is so badly-informed.  As MPR’s Speaking of Faith’s excellent piece on Darwin’s anniversary pointed out in an excellent program on Darwin’s anniversary last week, Darwin himself never saw the conflict between evolution and faith.

And finally, too many followers on both sides are just so face-palmingly ignorant.

Bogus Doug knows of which he speaks:

In honor of this day Gallup helpfully polled the U. S. public only to discover that only 4 in 10 of us “believe in the theory of evolution.” This is probably not the best outcome anyone might hope for. I mean… if it’s true, you want everyone to see that and believe it. If it’s false (spoiler alert: it’s not), you want everyone to see that and believe it. But that’s not the part that most bothered me.The part that most bothered me is that I know that within those “4 out of 10” are a considerable number of people who believe in something they call evolution, but which is very much at odds with Mr. Darwin’s theory. I met these people when I attempted to help my professor teach “Introduction to Physical Anthropology” as an undergraduate teaching assistant. I was staggered by the number of people flunking our quizzes who insisted they hated the idea of creationism and believed in evolution. (Me the undergrad TA: Hey, that’s fine. Good luck with that anti-creationist stuff. But can we talk about why you got every question describing the fundamental mechanisms of evolution wrong? I mean… I thought we went over this after you failed the last time.)

See, my problem isn’t so much that people understand the theories of Mr. Darwin and choose to reject them. My problem is that so few people understand them in the first place. Including many of those who profess deep abiding belief in them.

The sad thing I reflect on upon the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth is that his scientific discoveries and ideas have gotten to far fewer people than can be measured by Gallup asking who believes in them. And honest to God, the basics of this stuff aren’t that hard to grasp.

They then grow up to comment endlessly on how we need to separate church and state to keep all those ignint fundies out of power.  And/or take PZ Meiers seriously.

Look – “Obamessiah” was just a figure of speech; a reaction to some of his more overwrought, hyperbolic (?) supporters.  To stuff like Michelle Obama saying he was the only thing that could save this nation’s soul – that kind of thing.

So try to track me here:  Just because we joke about something doesn’t mean you have to live down to it.

Please tell me it’s a fiendishly-effective photoshop.

Please.

That is all.

On the one hand, Speaking of Faith is one of my favorite programs on Public Radio.  Their current episode, discussing the relationship between Charles Darwin and faith, is particularly good – exploring a conflict between reason and faith that (to the chagrin of atheism-pimps like PZ Meyers and Richard Dawkins) needn’t exist at all.  Leaving aside the overarching moral objection to government-supported media (to the extent that public radio is government-subsidized – neither total nor trifling), it is the kind of program you can not find anywhere on the commercial media, and yet is something I’d hate to do without.

That’d be “Sublime”.

On the “Ridiculous” side, we have SoF‘s online-only production, “Repossessing Virtue”, a series of podcasts ostensibly about the spiritual aspects of the current economic crisis.  They don’t seem to involve Tippett, but rather other parts of the shows cossack-horde-like herd of producers, who…

…well, that’s the interesting part, isn’t it? What do they do?  Mostly interview people whose contribution seems to be to wax sanctimonious about how fat ‘n happy American are.  And while any good conservative would agree, the whole series seems to serve more as a catalog of Public Radio cliches than an entree to any sort of interesting discussion.

It’s also one more set of lines on my podcast list to skip past.

For the past couple of years, we’ve gone to the Minnesoros Monitor and “Independent” for shrill, frequently inaccurate, often risible lefty propaganda.

Fastidious fact-checking?  Naaah.

Now, as I’ve noted before, I’m not Catholic.  I’m a committed Protestant.

But when I see Paul “Not The Dumbest Writer The Mindy Has” Schmelzer writing a story with a hed like “Vatican body: Minnesota professor’s sin worse than genocide“, I figured it was “worth” a read (where “worth” equals “barely”, and “read” means “mining for fisking material”); emphasis added by me:

While Catholic bishops and priests can hear confessions about sins as severe as murder or genocide, the Vatican’s 830-year-old Apostolic Penitentiary is “reserved for crimes which are viewed by the Church as even more serious,” writes the UK’s Telegraph. In Rome this week, this secretive “tribunal of conscience” held a two-day panel to discuss what it does and how it works. Crimes so grave they can only be absolved by the pope include attempting to assassinate the pontiff, directly participating in (or funding) abortion or desecrating the Eucharist. The inclusion of that last sin seems to put University of Minnesota professor PZ Myers in a worse class of sinner, in the eyes of Catholics, than genocidal dictators. The Telegraph even mentions the atheist biology professor, who blogged about his desecration of a communion wafer last summer, although it’s not clear from the article whether his case was specifically discussed by the Apostolic Penitentiary:

So in other words, the headline creates a misleading impression that there’s a connection between Myers’ act of sophomoric vandalism and the Vatican’s discussion…

…but no matter.  It’s not unknown for “local” news sources to dig too hard for the local angle.

But here’s the real question – and I’m gonna need your help, especially were “you” are Catholics.  As when the Mindy tries to “report” about guns, economics, history, crime, money, or facts, their reporting about religion has always been not only one-sided, but usually wrong.  Schmelzer’s graf tickles my “stink test” sensor, but I don’t know why – because, again, I’m a Protestant.
So I’ll open this up for a group fisk by the assembled commentariat.   How does Schmelzer (or, one might reasonably presume, his overlords in DC) get this wrong?