It's About Karma and Stones

The theologies of the world’s religions try and teach us to be better humans, but more often than not they fail miserably because we can’t get past the fact we crave attention and power.  Let’s think about that for a bit, shall we?

The religions of India detail a cause and effect relationship with one’s actions.  Good acts in the current life will have a positive outcome in the next, while bad acts will likely have a negative impact.  One’s future, therefore, depends on acting in a positive and affirming nature but as we see in the world around us, despite all the cliché examples of good or bad Karma, we humans will act out of a need for short-term gain without consideration of the potential adverse outcomes our actions might generate.

In Christianity, we find the story of Jesus and the temple courts (John, Chapter 8, versus 1-8).  A woman stood accused of adultery - under Hebrew law her punishment was death by stoning.  The scribes and Pharisees, attempting to corner Jesus is some act of heresy, questioned him on what they should do to the woman, and asked him to approve of the stoning.  Jesus response silenced the elders when he directed that whoever was without sin should throw the first stone.  Everyone knew there was no one without sin, so they were at a stalemate.  He then questioned the woman and released her with the direction to “go and sin no more.”

These examples serve only to preface the hilarity of today’s political world, where people who have little or no real morality are empowered to tell the rest of the world how things must be.

This past fall we saw the Democratic Senators, and their propaganda arm known as the mainstream media (i.e. ABCNNBCBS and MSNBC), attempt to destroy the reputation and approval of the administration’s nomination to the Supreme Court.  Every talking head, including the empty ones on “The View” and “Morning Joe,” set out to vilify the nominee based on unsupported accusations from his high school years.  At the end of the day “Spartacus Booker” Diane Feinstein, and “For the People, Harris” were unable to overcome the nomination, mostly because of the Karma that came from the decisions of the previous Congress where the Democratic party leadership chose to change the rules for what it took to block a nomination. 

Now we have the circus of the Virginia state government, which seems to be imploding after their less than courageous (I would suggest non-humanitarian) decision to support post-birth (okay really, really, late-term) abortion.  Remarkably, the Governor and Attorney General have been proven, by current DNC standards. to be racist while the Lieutenant Governor stands accused of being a sexual assaulter by another Ph.D.  In the past, the Democratic position was these sins must be accepted and the politicans stoned until they resign.

This presents an interesting dilemma for the party’s propaganda arm as they struggle to find the Republican who must really be the bad guy in this.  Fortunately, they’ve found a link to the next in line (State Senator Thomas K. Norment, Jr.) which can be used to suggest he too is a racist.  So, there may actually be no one who is not a racist or rapist in Virginia capable of running the state.  I can only imagine what the historically racist figures of the DNC would think of their party as it is embroiled in the social warfare the left has chosen as its battleground.

I also wonder if they will ever come to understand that attempting to destroy their opposition through ad hominin attack will most certainly come back to haunt them at some point.  As the bible said, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Or to put it in modern political terms.  “I’m rubber, you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you!”

The Catholic Church in Crisis

The Roman Catholic Church is now embroiled in another abuse scandal.  It’s not a brand new one, but a carryover from the revelations made about the U.S. church in the 1990s, which led to the Conference of Bishops to write a “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”  According to the Conference[1], the charter was written in 2002, and updated in 2005, 2011, and again in 2018.  In essence, it calls for the church to help the victims heal from their abuse, while establishing guideline policies for the various Bishops to safeguard the faithful, and remove the offending clergy/lay ministers.  While it is a nice thing for the Bishops to say they have done, it appears to do very little to address the underlying human flaws within the organization, and accomplish what is really an impossible task, preventing one human from abusing another who is in a subservient position.

The latest scandal with the RC church in the United States stems from the mid-August release of a Grand Jury investigation by the Pennsylvania Attorney General detailing decades-long abuse by over 300 priests, and subsequent coverup by the various Bishops within the various dioceses across the state[2].  Released on the heels of this report is a letter from Archbishop Carlos Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio (effectively the Pope’s ambassador) to the United States from October 2011 until April 2016, detailing how the cover-up of top Bishops with the U.S. reaches all the way to the Pope[3].

If Archbishop Viganò’s claims are true it will create both a crisis of faith for the faithful and set off a civil war within the leadership of the church itself^[4].  We see now the opening salvos in this war with the release of a statement by the Pope saying he will not respond to the claim and Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich (one of the leaders identified by Viganò), which said in part. “The pope knows we have a bigger agenda. We have to speak about the environment, about the poor, we have to reach out to people who are marginalized in society. We cannot be distracted at this moment”[5].  For a layperson, this seems to epitomize the tone-deaf nature of an elite class within the church.  One that is far removed from the people they claim to serve as Christ’s representatives.

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true church stemming from Christ’s charge to Peter. “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”  (Matthew 16:18, New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition) But over the next two millennium, the church did not remain as it was in those first days.  It has grown, reorganized, redefined the basis of faith, changed the relationship between the faithful and their God, and then the relationship between the apostles and those they were to share the news of Christ’s saving grace with. In the process, they implemented a set of classes that either make the practice of faith more palatable or as we see now create a system where the upper class finds it more important to protect than police their own who have risen to positions of power and importance.

In light of these failures, we see the faith of many common men and women being destroyed as they flee from the evils they see within the church.  But don’t be confused, what we now see played out in the Roman church is systemic within all the major religions and is only now getting press because of the scandal it can invoke.  If the press were really fair and balanced, as they claim, we would see them reflecting the outrage over the abuse of power within the Sunnis and Shites of Islam or the caste system of the Hindus.

Each of these faiths, Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Judaism, and the rest, all have apologists with theological backgrounds to explain why they are right and how universal their beliefs are.  These men and women have knowledge that is far and away more extensive than mine, but I see the humanity for what it is.  We are by our nature imperfect, and the guidance of our books of faith was laid out to provide some order to the chaos in our societies.  As we reject the basis for those guidelines we see what we have today, increasing chaos.   The rising questions over the predatory nature of a percentage of the priesthood are one of the offshoots from that rejection of faith.

Now that we have laid out the issues facing the Roman Church, it seems only fair to understand where I come from and what my likely bias is.  That way you can either find value in my analysis or dismiss it out of hand as pure hogwash.

I grew up in a home that although it professed a faith, did very little to either express or encourage it in the children.  It was only when I reached my pre-teen years did I seek out religion in an effort to understand my place in the universe and attempt to understand the pain of parental abuse I was experiencing.  I found comfort in the fellowship of the fundamental protestant church and the guidance of ministers who seemed to care and support the development of a personal relationship with God.  As I went through my teen years I prayed every day, asking God to remove the curse of alcoholism from my father and end the physical abuse that occurred when he was drunk and his rage spilled out.  Mostly what I got back was silence.

By the time I headed off to college I was pretty convinced God wasn’t listening and the church was just a human construct to organize people into supporting a ministerial way of life for some.  While in college I spend considerable time on reflection and introspection and returned to God on a personal level, but to this day I maintain the organization of a church is fundamentally a human construct.  The theology of the major religions says I am wrong and the church is the God’s way of communicating with his faithful.  Ideally, the various churches are organized to help the faithful find a relationship with God, but on the human level, we should understand they are like competing businesses.  To maintain their base and grow, each must explain why they are the one true church and how everyone else is wrong.  Within the Christian faith, this is further broken down into a number of Catholic and Protestant divisions, each with a slightly different view of how God’s grace is to be apportioned.

So far, through my life, I’ve seen little to persuade me that my view is wrong.  For many, the organized church is absolutely critical to reinforce and encourage their faith and as a visible representation of God’s commitment to humanity.  For others, who reject the idea of God, the church is irrelevant and simply a crutch for those who can’t get by without the myth of a creator.  For most though, the church helps them with the daily struggle and in the best cases, it is a means to understand better what God desires of them to become more perfect human beings.  That said I can’t escape this one unanswerable question.  Is God so petty that only those who follow the right set of rules are allowed into heaven?  I just can’t conceive that to be true, but it is the construct that almost every faith or church relies on to sustain its followers.

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[1] http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/charter.cfm

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/08/14/grand-jury-report-pennsylvania-details-abuse-catholic-priests/980687002/

[3] https://www.scribd.com/document/387040553/TESTIMONY-of-His-Excellency-Carlo-Maria-Vigano-Titular-Archbishop-of-Ulpiana-Apostolic-Nuncio#from_embed

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/opinion/pope-francis-catholic-church-letter.html

[5] https://wgntv.com/2018/08/27/cardinal-blase-cupich-responds/

The Evolution of Evolution

In the beginning there was nothing, and this led to really sketchy record keeping.  So when there was something and those who cared about such things thought about it they figured there must be some higher power at work.  This does not seem to be an un reasonable assumption for those who believe there is more to the universe than what little they understand.

Then came those who, like Copernicus and Galileo, questioned the the writings of the ancients and proposed a new theory of how species have reached the state we have.  At the time those radical new ideas did not reject the concept of a higher power, but attempted to explain how things were set into motion.

Finally, there are those who reject the concept of God, and find in the writings of the past the justification for their non-belief, choosing to worship the gods of science.  This group for all their claims of independence appear little different from all the other religions mankind has developed.

We need only to look back at to our earliest writings to find that an organized set of beliefs are what binds society.  Whether a set of gods, including the deceased ancestors like China, or god on earth like the Egyptians, or a monotheistic one like the Hebrews, the belief system was fundamental to the stability of a society.   

As new belief systems gained popular acceptance they must, for it is the nature of man, denigrate and condemn the systems they would replace.  Isn’t that what we see in the world today, where the powerful beliefs of the current religions are attacked by the public voices of the new?

And Then There Were None

Instant connection and instantaneous communication has revolutionized this world, but I wonder if we will ever catch up to the technology we have created?  When we had to write and rewrite our correspondence we had a chance to think about what we were saying.  We could, if we cared to, find just the right word, just the right texture, and just the right phrasing to carry our message.  Even then, we often got it wrong.  

I am reminded here of an old joke about a young man with two girl friends.  He sits down and pours out his heart and soul to each, explaining how he would spend all his life with them.  He finishes his letters, sees the postman approaching and quickly addresses them and sends them in the mail.  A few weeks pass, and he receives his replies.  “Lovely letter, but I am not Julia.  I don’t ever expect to see you again, signed Francine.”  “Who is Francine?  I hope you two will be happy, now get lost!  Julia.”

It seems I am bombarded on a daily basis with the condemnations and defenses for those who have communicated without thinking.  I wonder what higher purpose all this serves?  It is almost as if we are at the Colosseum in Rome, just waiting for the Christians to be fed to the lions, or for the gladiators to take the field to hack away at each other until only one remains standing. 

Whether you believe in the divinity of Christ or not, there are important lessons you should take away from his teachings, one of the most relevant regards forgiveness, and is found in the Gospel of John, chapter 8.  While teaching at Temple, the Pharisees brought a young woman accused of adultery to him.  They challenged him with the law, as given by Moses, that she should be stoned.  When asked what Jesus thought should be done he said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her… and when they heard it, being convicted of their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the eldest, even onto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.” (KJV).  We should not spend our time playing the role of a Pharisee, I think we would all be better off if we just quietly forgive and moved on.

It’s Easy to Be Mad – But If You Are What’s That Mean?

There was a recent New Mexico Supreme Court Ruling that found a photographic business discriminated in its refusal to take wedding pictures of a couple.  I’ve not read the judgment of the Court, but I have read the judgment from the Court of Appeals, upheld by the New Mexico Supreme Court.

At the heart of the case is the New Mexico Human Rights Act that  prohibits “any person in any public accommodation to make a distinction, directly or indirectly, in offering or refusing to offer its services ... to any person because of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, spousal affiliation [,] or physical or mental handicap."[1]  The critical aspect of this ruling is the determination on whether a photography business is a public accommodation.  In this case the court agreed with the plaintiff that a public business fit the intent of the legislature in passing the law.

In the bits and bites I’ve seen floating around those who take issue with this judgment, and the Supreme Court ruling that upheld it, believe the government is forcing the owners of Elane Photography to violate their religious beliefs by mandating they must photograph couples they do not believe should have the right to marry.

This does not strike me as a case those who oppose same-sex marriage should hang their hat on.  This is a simple case of discrimination.  The business rationalized that discrimination on their religions beliefs, but the photography business was not being asked to sanction an act; they were performing a public and commercial service.  Would this same support for their position exist if they refused to photograph American Indians, African-Americans, Lutheran’s, members of the military, or even people with Down’s syndrome? I doubt it.

In this emotional debate how quickly we dismiss the guidance of Jesus who said. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7, 1-5 NKJV)

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[1] Elane Photograhy, LLC v. Vanessa Willock, Court of Appeals of New Mexico, May 31, 2012.

On Science, On Faith

I watched a video the other day.  It was on the theories of evolution versus creationism, or probably more correctly the atheist’s view that evolution can be the only explanation of the development of life on this planet, versus the religious belief that God had a hand in shaping life and the creation of man.

What struck me so clearly, and I recognize it was the video’s intent to do so, was the atheists (including PhD’s) who supported the theory of evolution took as a matter of faith -- that it could be the only explanation.  Of course they cited their teachers and the various classes they had taken to confirm this must be true, but when asked if there was a clear observable chain that showed one species evolving into another they all cited fossil evidence dating back millions of years that suggested a transformation.

In Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” he speculated that natural selection could cause a land mammal to turn into a whale.  “As a hypothetical example, Darwin used the North American black bear, which is known to catch insects by swimming in the water with its mouth open.[1]”  Theorists who have followed Darwin have expanded his theories to include microevolution – where a species can be changed in small ways, like in color or size, over a number of generations.  They also speculate that natural selection will, given sufficient time, result in the large-scale change of one species into an entirely new species.

The challenge for me is the rejection of objectivity.  In this case, evolution has become a faith unto itself; with the scientific community’s knowing that evolution must have happened within a predictable process without having the factual basis to confirm it.  So they teach a theory as fact, based on a faith it must be correct.

The referenced article cites the example of the Ambulocetus natans or “swimming-walking whale” to show evolutionary theory must be correct.  Ambulocetus natans is a fossil whose forelimbs had fingers and small hooves and who had large hind feet and a tail.  It was adapted for swimming like an otter.  From this they speculate it is the ancestor of the modern whale, but what if it was a unique species that did not evolve, but rather went extinct?  The problems with dealing with fossils that are millions of years old is you must base your judgments regarding them on your knowledge and training, and your faith in that theory. 

When the need to prove the Creationists wrong becomes the compelling choice don’t those who believe in evolution abandon the fundamental basis for scientific questioning?  When the scientific method is altered and a basis for questioning is no longer accepted the issue then becomes -- do its proponents have any foundation, other than arrogance, to hold their belief as superior to those who suggest Intelligent Design, or Creation are possibilities?

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[1] http://www.livescience.com/474-controversy-evolution-works.html