A Matter of Perspective

Perhaps it's a matter of perspective. Here it is, the day before Thanksgiving. I got an email earlier today from a person on one of the projects I'm working on. The email was sent to everyone working on the project. I don't know this person in the least, and to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever actually seen this person. The email was unimportant, but concluded with something that struck me a odd.

"Have a safe and blessed Thanksgiving!"

Why is it, I ask myself, that a.) a person feels compelled to wish people they don't even know a "blessed" anything; and b.) why is it that people seem to have a need to proclaim their personal religious beliefs to any and all?

Before going further, let me state for the record that it wasn't as though I was offended by the comment in the email. This general topic is something I've had in the back of my head for a while, and today's email just made me think of it again. So while the statement in today's email was, to me at least, a little off, I'm not lambasting the statement itself, its intent, or the sender. That said, let's dig in.

When I was reading Sam Harris's book The End of Faith, I was particularly struck when he highlights the ubiquity and the weirdness of religious leaning statements by suggesting that the next time you encounter a reference to a religious figure in something you read or hear, to quietly replace that reference with another of your choice. Personally I'm a big fan of Thor. (The god of thunder, not the comic book, though the comic book is not without its charm.) Consider the following relatively common phrases:

• In God we trust
  
• The project manager called a "come to Jesus" meeting
  
• God bless America
  
• What Would Jesus Do?
  

Now let's reword them as follows:

• In Zeus we trust
  
• The project manager called a "come to Isis" meeting
  
• Odin bless America
  
• What Would Athena Do?

Sounds very odd, doesn't it? Or consider this statement made recently by an acquaintance of mine: "We have a funeral to go to this weekend. My husband's uncle passed away. He went to see Jesus." What if she had said "He went to see Gonesh"? Or "He went to see Thor"? Had she said that, it would have been comedy. Instead, it was said with solemnity and reverance. Why? If, as traditional Christian (...trying to think of a better word than "dogma".....) philosophy suggests, the deceased goes to a place of eternal bliss, wouldn't it be more appropriate to say something along the lines of "My husband's uncle died! Lucky bastard. Talk about hitting the jackpot..." We, for whatever reason, live in a society where the palpable religious undercurrent is not only tolerated, but flat-out encouraged. Consider the number of vehicles you see on a daily basis with silver Jesus fish on them. For what reason is it deemed necessary to proclaim that you are a devotee of a flawed, bronze age, internally contradictory school of thought? Could you imagine the uproar if someone were to drive around with some sort of symbol or phrase proclaiming they were members of a Satanic church? Or a church devoted to one of Yahweh's old rivals, Ba'al? Or how about a bumper sticker that reads "Voodoo. Sort of like Christianity, only cooler." Or maybe "Follow me to the Church of the Golden Calf." Or "In the event of Ragnarok, this vehicle will be unmanned."

The point is that it is silly. I can already hear someone yelling "Free speech! Are you trying to take away my right to free speech?" It is said that there are no stupid questions, but this one comes fairly close to the mark. No. I'm not suggesting restricting free speech in any way. It is your right to say it, and it is my right to say that I think the fact that you've said it is an embarrassment to the species, and the only thing that even comes close to excusing it is the fact that you are so blindly stuck in some bucolic school of thought that you are naively unaware that you are trying to pull the entire species a step back down the evolutionary ladder.

Lincoln, Lenin, Satan, and Facial Hair

Generally speaking, I love Sundays. They tend to be fairly quiet and kinda lazy. The Sunday morning ritual at our house has become sitting on the sofa with my two year old daughter, sharing a bowl of oatmeal, and watching Scooby Doo. So this morning, I turned on the television and some yowling, fire-and-brimstone zealot was on the screen, and what I heard nearly made me collapse to the floor. (I'm paraphrasing here since I, thankfully, don't have the exact verbiage committed to memory.) This is what this gentleman said:

We are a nation built on "in God we trust." That's why we produce Abraham Lincolns and not Lenins. It is the atheists who are the cause of our problems.

There were a number of things with this statement that left me feeling rather nonplussed. First, I assume he was referring to Vladimir Lenin, and not John Lennon. I assume this based solely on context, since Lenin was indeed an atheist and Lennon, while rejecting organized religion, had more of a vague spiritualist perspective. Setting that aside, let's look at what I presume was the intended point of this statement.

The statement is clearly intended to establish that Lincoln was a Christian and therefore good, and Lenin was an atheist and therefore evil. Was Lincoln a Christian? A de facto Christian, as were most Americans at the time. He was, however, more of the deist variety. Consider the following quote from Lincoln:

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.

Or how about this one?

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.

In addition, Lincoln was referred to as an "infidel." So was he a Christian of the variety that the speaker no doubt was alluding to? Certainly not. So was Lenin an atheist? Yes. Plain and simple. So at face value, the hate mongering comment from this zealot falls apart under its own weight. But, like any good boxing fan, I prefer the knockout rather than having to go to the judges for the decision, so let's dig a little deeper.

Am I defending Lenin as an exemplary figure? Certainly not. Personally (especially since I grew up in Springfield, Illinois, one of Lincoln's home towns), I prefer Lincoln. He was a brave man making difficult decisions under circumstances that most of us are incapable of ever fully understanding. Even if I were willing to stipulate that Lenin was evil and Lincoln was good (which I'm not), the argument made by today's zealot really only carries any weight if one were able to say that Lenin was evil because he was atheist and Lincoln was good because he was Christian. This, clearly, is not the case, and even casual research successfully torpedoes that argument. To even attempt to make the argument is as absurd as saying that Lenin was evil because he was bald and Lincoln was good because he had a full head of hair. Or maybe because Lincoln had facial hair? No, wait a minute. Lenin had a goatee, so that won't work. How about this? Maybe beard = good and goatee = bad? Hey, maybe we're onto something here. Satan is frequently depicted with a goatee. Or is it a Muskateer? Or maybe a Van Dyke? So Satan is depicted with a goatee, Lenin wore a goatee, Satan is evil, so Lenin is evil. Q.E.D. So what does this mean for those of us who are clean shaven? I used to wear a goatee (or was it a Van Dyke?). Does that mean I was more evil then than I am now?

It is my sincere hope that such absurdities as those spewed by this morning's zealot, which have all the validity and legitimacy of such gems of rational thought as Phrenology, will go the way of balancing one's humours. Next Sunday, when I turn on the tv for the Sunday dose of Scooby Doo, first order of business is to make sure it is tuned to a channel that won't piss me off while I'm waiting for the DVD player to spin up.

Lieberman and the Magic Donkey

All right, Joe. Here's the deal. This morning I was reading a post on Huffington Post that read as an open letter to Joe Lieberman. The letter essentially said that rather than not being punished, he had been made to look small by the magninimity of Presedent-elect Obama and the Senate Democrats. True, Lieberman's actions will be under a microscope, and Senate Democrats can indeed vote him out of his leadership roles as needed. However, my big complaint with Lieberman here is that he shouldn't be in the Senate anymore in the first place. You lost your own party's primary, Joe. Come on. Seriously. You are supposed to be representing the people of your state. Those people, via the 2006 primary, said "Thanks, Joe, but your services are no longer required." To which Joe responded by saying "I'm going to run anyway." This is tantamount to flipping the bird to the Democratic voters of the state. Then, somehow, he managed to win in the general election. The "how" portion of this sad fact is water under the bridge and warrants no comment from me. It is worth stating, though, that Mr. Lieberman is clearly engaging in some sort of weird, masturbatorial crusade that, hopefully, will be brought to an end and he can disappear into obscurity as a petulant, self-serving footnote.

First he says "I don't care what the voters say, I'm going to run for Senate anyway." Then he says "The candidate from my own party is unqualified to be President and may even be unpatriotic." Then he says "If you strip me of my chairmanships, I'll take my toys and go play for the other team." And THEN he says that he wasn't punished at all. You are a sad, sad man, Mr. Lieberman. As an elected Senator, you are (in theory at least) supposed to be representing the people. Instead, you have chosen to represent yourself. You are performing an act of self-gratification. Were it not so tragic, it would be funny. So go on performing your self-gratification for the next four years until you come up for re-election again. Hopefully by that time the people of your state will have had their fill of watching you flog the magic donkey.

Center-Right and God

On Tuesday, November 4, 2008, I sat with my wife watching the election returns. We had CNN on the television, and had a variety of political sites up on our respective laptops. During the course of that tense-then-jubilant evening, a number of things bubbled to the surface here and there that, I think, warrant some discussion. First, the notion that the United States is a "center-right" nation.

Bill Bennet repeated the statement during CNN's election coverage. Why was this statement made? Well, because lots of other right-wing pundits have been saying it, so Bill Bennet, being a standard bearer for the Republican party, merely repeats it. In typical Karl Rove style, the idea is that if you repeat something enough times (fill in your favorite example here: "blame game," "cut and run," and the more recent "he's a socialist" just to name a few), that will make it true. Here I get to use one of my favorite phrases: you can call a shovel an ice cream truck all you want, but it is still a shovel. On what grounds can Republicans make the claim that the United States is a center-right nation? Apparently, according to polls, more people identify themselves as conservative than liberal. Please note that this is exclusively a brand question, and not a question on specific issues, from which one may deduce the subject's political proclivitity. Coke or Pepsi? Pancakes or waffles? Paper or plastic? Labels are, quite frankly, of minimal use in this context. A much more useful indicator is to look at voting patterns in this past election. Look at the results from the November 4 election. Does that look like a center-right nation? I think not. Having had their fill of the cataclysmically maladroit governance of the Bush administration, the majority said that it was time for moving in a different direction. I grow so very, very tired of the Karl Rove-esque "repetition = truth" philosophy.

The other issue, and what I think may in fact be the more important one, is the God issue. Elizabeth Dole, in the last dying throes of her campaign, went with the God angle and released ads calling her opponent "godless." Kay Hagan, who (thankfully) ended up winning Dole's seat in the Senate, fired back with what amounted to "says you." Why is it that in a country that explicitly has separation of church and state, that a.) we have to bring god into the debate at all; and b.) it is somehow seen as a slur against one's moral fiber to be called "godless," and must be loudly and vehemently refuted? This treads into an area that I plan on digging into repeatedly (and at length) in future posts, so I'll only hit a few major points here.

First, a person's personal beliefs are simply that: Personal. Beliefs. Consider what Elizabeth Dole was actually saying in her ads. "My opponent consorts with people who aren't God-fearing Christians, which--by implication--I am." Excuse me? And this has a bearing on a person's fitness to be a Senator in what way? This, in some way, is supposed to make Elizabeth Dole a better Senator than Kay Hagan? "I love Jesus more than she does, so you should vote for me." When I was in grade school (and I realize that I'm seriously dating myself here), I vividly remember a kid on the playground telling me once, "I like 'Happy Days' more than you do. I like 'Happy Days' more than *anybody*." Ummmmm......so? I remember looking at this kid like he was out of his mind. "Who cares?" I thought then, and with the Elizabeth Dole thing I think it again now: who cares? Kay Hagan did what she had to do under the circumstances by firing back with what amounted to "Oh no I'm not godless." I would have loved to see her come back with something more along the lines of "And what, exactly, does that have to do with anything?"

Second, why should a person's faith (or lack thereof) in any way affect their social standing or be taken as a measurement for their ability to govern? I can already hear people saying "Well, strong Christian belief is necessary for determining right from wrong, and for determining what is *really* important." To this I can only say "no it isn't." Richard Dawkins said it far more elloquently than I, so I won't attempt to recreate his argument here. I will merely say that if you think you get your moral compass (pardon the use of the phrase) from scripture--which states that people should be killed for working on Sunday and that a father has the right to sell his daughter into slavery--you are sadly, grossly, egregiously mistaken.

I have high hopes for what the election results say about the future of our country and the American people as a whole. Perhaps we can move away from this absurd "End Days" Theocracy that has so heinously tarnished the image of the United States in the world view. The short-sighted views of the last 8 years, much of which was geared around attempting to fulfill Biblical prophecy and thus bring about the return of Jesus, would be comedy were it not so terrifying. Mr. Obama, you have my support and the support of many, many others like me. You have rekindled my faith in the very ideas upon which this country was founded. We have a long and difficult road ahead of us as we try to pull ourselves back from the brink. Through hard work, compassion, understanding, and a willingness to show that same compassion and understanding to those who may think differetly, we'll get there.

Angry with an axe to grind

Welcome to Copious Vitriol. This is where I'll be writing about the things that strike me as weird, stupid, foolish, or downright evil. And, hopefully, it'll be funny, too. More to come...