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| Saturday, December 06, 2008 |
| Quiet Politics |
Ben Smith has been on the ball about Obama's promises about a Muslim-Western summit promised in Obama's first 100 days of office. This promise's importance was eventually elevated onto the campaign website. The NYT says Cairo is a possibility, though a donor has said that Obama pointed to Jakarta privately among donors:
"Obama told the 20 or so of us at breakfast that 'his first trip as President would be to Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim country,'" Leary recalled. "He then said when he got off [Air Force One], he would say 'xxxxxxxx' - which we, of course, didn't understand," Leary emailed. "He said that it was Indonesian (which he speaks) for, 'I am back, dudes.'"
I've been particularly interested in Obama's interaction with the Muslim world as President, for two reasons:
Firstly, I don't think there's any doubt that he can do a world of good on the hearts-and-minds front in the War on Terror. Simply being who he is - the American son of a relapsed African Muslim - he has more credibility than Another Old White Guy. There are 1.5 billion Muslims living in the world today (compared to 2.1B Christians and 1B non-religious), and the fact is that a tiny, tiny fraction of them can be called 'militant.' However, any respite fringe lunatic Muslims will receive outside their group will come from other Muslims; It doesn't seem realistic to me that al-Qaeda operatives would ask a Christian for a place to stay. So America - through Obama - must appeal to those billions of Muslims to quietly report, try, and convict the disturbed members of their own population.
We've made some progress. I think this described a lot of international Muslims' attitudes in 2005:
"A few weeks ago an American I met at a friends house asked a much repeated query, 'Why do you the Muslims hate the Americans?' To which I answered in the same way as all the preceding instances in which this question was posed to me: 'We don’t hate the Americans, we might disagree with a certain US policy and dislike recent American actions in the Muslim world but we surely don’t hate the American people.' The American who interrogated me was clearly not convinced with my answer and secretly I wasn't either. The truth is that at present the Muslims hate America and now, they hate not only its policymakers but most of the American people since they have proven recently without a shadow of doubt that they agree with their elite by voting back into office. [...]"
The second thing that both saddens and interests me is that he had to keep these promises relatively quiet during the campaign, lest the emails that railed about his religion become even more fervent in their conviction that he was going to somehow turn the U.S. into Iran, or that his parents had the foresight in 1961 to conclude their half-black almost-bastard son was going to be president and fake birth documentation (both are actually believed by some people, who are very stupid).
This is the hearts-and-minds front that isn't talked about a lot. In addition to the work Obama has to do abroad to convince that America doesn't hate Muslims, he has to get loud parts of America to stop hating Muslims. The last part of the article above says:
"What were you thinking when you threw the Qur'an in the toilet or when you used religion as a means of torture? I fail to see the efficacy of such actions in the so-called war on terror. These methods only point to a deep sickness in your society to which it will take decades for us and the rest of the world to understand its cause and to measure its destructive results. No, the question which someday will have to be answered is why, why do you the Americans hate us the Muslims so much?" International diplomacy will be slowed or stopped as long as being called a Muslim is a slur in American politics. This is yet another reason for the separation of Church & State: The instant a nation's percieves itself to be for or against any particular religion, you have a Holy War. Holy Wars never, ever, ever, ever work out well for anybody. It's the third classic blunder.
This will not be as hard as it looks. We don't need to have everybody in the streets singing Kumbayah. No amount of work will dispel stereotype - after all there are lots of associations good and bad about Mormons, Jews, and Catholics. (Where would we be without Rabbi/Priest/Minister/Nun jokes?) But most Muslims are just normal people who do weird religious things that aren't much weirder than what other, 'mainstream' religions do: Magic Underpants, insanely long sideburns and beards, quasi-cannibalism, etc.
This will be Obama's toughest job, and frankly I'm not sure how it can best be done.Labels: America, Catholics, diplomacy, idiots, movies, Obama, politics, religion |
posted by Steve @ 11:45 AM  |
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| Sunday, October 26, 2008 |
| Religion and Science |
I often hear the argument that science is trying to destroy religion and vice versa. This is a pity, because science has nothing to do with religion, any more so than my field (graphic design) has to do with cooking. Science is a method of understanding. As a field, it is simply uninterested in what any religion has to say: you follow the scientific method, period.
Therefore, any time a scientist talks about religion, his background in science should be completely ignored. Listen only to the logic of the arguments.
Similarly, if you hear someone with a religious background talking about science, their religious background has nothing to do with science.
This is the reason that Creationist doctrines are absurd: They use religious principles to make scientific conclusions. This makes no more sense than using graphic design principles to make political decisions. Science is a method of reasoning; it should not be viewed as in any way threatening to religion. There are some scientists who may attack religion, but they are speaking outside of their field. This is fine, just as it's acceptable for me to speak on religion as a graphic designer, but again -- their background has nothing to do with their religious arguments.
It is true, however, that most of the attacking comes from one side. The unfortunate habit of Creationists and other unreasonable religious people to take science's progress (and in particular critics of religion who are scientists) as attacks on religion stews religious fervor on the murky-minded, creating a tension that is completely unnecessary. Both sides feel threatened, and strike back or create political defenses; all sound and fury over absolutely nothing.
Blame for this can be equally shared by scientists and pastors too eager to dabble in things they don't understand but whose field gave them God complexes. Similarly, blame for the war over nothing lays on them both as well.Labels: Christians, idiots, politics, religion, school, science |
| posted by Steve @ 12:45 PM |
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| Tuesday, October 21, 2008 |
| High dialogue on teh Intarnet |
CuckingFunt said:  Originally Posted by angel_luv My thinking Senator Obama could be the anti christ is similar to someone looking at a tall person and wondering if they play basketball.
No.
No it's not.
Your thinking Obama could be the anti-Christ is more like looking at someone with a Super Mario Bros. t-shirt and wondering if they're going to anally and vaginally rape you, simultaneously, with your own amputated limbs.
OK so Spurs fans are good for something, after all.Labels: God, idiots, Obama, religion, sports |
| posted by Steve @ 3:06 PM |
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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 |
| Listening to God |
The school I work for has an ad up for Ode Magazine, which I'd never heard of before now. I knew I would probably like it because of its tagline: "for intelligent optimists." But a good tagline does not a good magazine make, and I started reading.
I was hooked by the first article: "Because God Whispers." It's about people who try to get a little bit (or a lot) of silence into their days in busy Western life and in particular the author's experiences with silence in Bali (if only we could all rely on our Balinese meditative experiences). But I like what I read here because this article can apply as well to a Buddhist as it could to me (a Catholic). It is a part of what I consider to be prayer. Key point in the article:
"Of course it's scary to be confronted with all those voices in your head. It's unpleasant to hear voices of pain, despair or depression. But the point is it's far scarier not to hear these voices. Silence may be scary, but a lack of silence is much scarier. Those who don't seek occasional silence to make contact with their deeper core, higher self, pure soul, Buddha nature or whatever you want to call it, become detached from God.
As a yogi friend said, "To hear the voice of God, you must be silent." I asked why. He looked at me as if the answer were obvious. "Because God whispers." Labels: life, peace, people, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 4:56 AM |
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| Sunday, May 18, 2008 |
| Bloggerheads |
There's a fascinating discussion about the role of religion and Christianity in U.S. politics on Bloggingheads.
There's a lot of interesting ideas put out there, but the one I liked best is that, apparently, you can prove almost anything by quoting most Founding Fathers, because they disagreed on almost everything. The idea, then, isn't to take their words as sacrosanct (which would be foolish anyway, 230+ years removed), but to look at how they came to their conclusions.
The source of their idea of the separation of Church & State came from the fact that before the U.S., the Church was sponsored by the State. Ministers and churches and the like were funded by taxes. The Founders' enthusiasm for the free market worked into this as well: the best preachers, the most effective religious institutions, and the best communities (which at least at the time coalesced around the Church) would flourish. A state-sponsored church isn't as robust because it's not as accountable.
Of course, the irony to this is that despite the fact that it's the "Religious Right" that pushes for closer ties between Church and State, this argument by the Founders against the regulation and support of religion by the government functions on the classic Republican small-government, low-interference line. As I said, there was disagreement about where to draw the line (and obviously, there still is), but it's an interesting notion that unfortunately is largely forgotten.
Except by you. Now you know it. Good job.Labels: politics, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 8:24 PM |
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| Thursday, April 10, 2008 |
| God's Judgment... of idiots |
The Stranger, a Seattle newspaper, has a blog (called Slog). It's very liberal, and overtly pro-gay, partly because it's moderated by the fantastic and fabulously gay Dan Savage. Those who fly that banner are often frustrated by arguments that "every child deserves a mother and father" when nearly half of the children today only get one or the other. They're also frustrated by a Catholic Church that points its finger at them as the root of all childhood evils (through declarations and oft-contradicted studies), and is regularly caught molesting its own congregation's children.
So, Slog regularly contains news of badly-behaving parents and youth pastors, under the headings "Every Child Deserves a Mother and Father" and "Youth Pastor Watch," respectively. To an extent, it's an unhealthy impulse on their part to feel better about their own parenting or moral standing by exposing the worst of their opponents (who, ultimately, have no effect on their parenting abilities or moral standings); but then, pointing out hypocrisy in any form is a worthwhile goal.
Elsewhere in the newspaper, in their Last Days news bits blotter, a few articles about people "killed by religion" were posted. They detailed the sad deaths of children of people who believe in faith healing over medicine. They got an apoplectic response from a guy named Dale Richard Huff that I just had to show bits of:
I want to make clear firstly that I do not peruse your scandal sheet. There are volunteers who read the Stranger and inform us when a campaign of anti-Christian slander has slithered from the sewer like a demon from Hell.
I think I tried telling my Dad I didn't read his Playboys in a similar manner when I was a teenager.
I thought you liberals hated interrogating "terrorists"? Oh that's right that is only for your "approved" religion of Islam and the Islam-o-fascists [sic] whom you believe to be somehow your "buddies". Hee! Islam-o-matic! Tel-o-thon! Mess-o-potamia! Nutty guy-o-mail!
...the Secular Fascist Left, been doing for 30 years to eventually annihilate Christianity, Christians, America, Faith, [etc.] ... Mussolini defined fascism as being a collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. So ... what exactly is a "fascist lefty"?
And rest assured this lawsuit WILL GO FORWARD, and your conspiracy will answer in OPEN CHRISTIAN COURT for your lies, defamations, slanders, [etc.], flat out meaness [sic] and rotteness [sic], and any other damn thing you have up your sleeve and haven't been vile enough to do yet! Ok, the day there is a Christian Court in the U.S. government, the United States will have died, and I will leave the country. I'm a Catholic, and I'm very happy that I don't live in a Christian Nation. There has been a long, steady trend throughout History: quality of government is inversely proportional to the influence of religion on that government.
Need I remind you, sir- glorious [volcanic] Mount Raineer [sic, should be Rainer] is a scant 60 miles away from your temple of degeneracy, and the LORD GOD will not be mocked! Wow. He certainly does seem to think he knows everything Lord is up to, doesn't he? Among the meek, this character is not.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS, HIS FATHER, SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT- Dale Richard Huff, SEMPER FI DO OR DIE! Jesus had a son?
Look, God judges everyone, and it should be noted that His judgment of idiots is usually pretty harsh. These judgments, ironically, are often titled, "Darwin Awards." Sometimes, He acts through people, though His use of gravity seems to be a favorite.
Unfortunately, the judgments aren't very evenly fair. Children, in particular, have to absorb the results of their parents' idiocy. To me, the most ironic and saddening instances are ones involving
people whose stances on religion are idiotic enough to visit pain on others. I don't see the reasoning behind faith healing. By all means, pray. I prayed when my brother-in-law Jordan smashed his head a few weeks ago, but I certainly didn't want to keep him out of the hospital that saved his life.
God, cruelly, gave us a brain that can only wrestle with these contradictions of faith and the real world, but cannot solve them. But clearly we are meant to use that brain! Scientists and doctors labor to find ways to ease and lengthen the amount of time we have to wrestle the impossible mental task we're given. We'll never do it, of course, but a little more time in front of the puzzle before bed is something we're all entitled to ask for.
God may be great and powerful, but we have a measure of power, too, and since it is God-given, we should use it. Part of that power is in medicine. Unfortunately for those kids, their parents were so in awe of God's power that they ignored their own helplessness.Labels: God, government, idiots, Jordan, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 12:28 PM |
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| Sunday, February 10, 2008 |
| Against Christianism |
All told, I think the ultimate tribute to God, in any form, is to maximize individual freedom –- and not to obstruct that freedom for others. The thing that puzzles me about moralistic government is that if you force everyone in the country to act a certain way morally, there ceases to be free will. Then nobody is truly benevolent at all, just pawns of the state. If I’m forced to act in a Christian manner by threat of law, am I really a Christian? Seems like this is quite detrimental to the Church. And to be honest, I’m just as afraid of fiscal liberals as I am of social conservatives in this regard. If the government hijacks my income to redistribute it into some form of pork designed to help the less fortunate, especially when it doesn’t go toward its intended purpose anyway, not only are they stealing from me, but they’re preventing me from being charitable. It’s destructive for all parties.
Granted, I differ from ACLU-libertarians who claim God should be totally undetectable in the public forum -- and atheism didn’t do the Soviet Union any favors. But let’s not be so sanctimonious in our governance and let’s be wary of the Mike Huckabees and the Hillary Clintons of the world. And more importantly, let’s not give up on ourselves as individuals.
Kittens & Sunshine
That's it. Exactly. I am going to be shouting this from the hilltops whenever I meet someone who thinks a making the U.S.A. a Good Christian Nation (as opposed to what we want, which is a Good Nation) is a good idea.Labels: God, politics, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 2:10 PM |
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| Wednesday, December 26, 2007 |
| Purple |
The Cake, Christmas,* and Purple are all a lie.
* The date. Should be in the spring or summer, but it 'fit' with the pagan winter equinox festivals.Labels: games, random, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 8:39 PM |
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| Monday, December 03, 2007 |
| Catholic guilt |
I'm coming to terms, more and more, with being Catholic. Catholic and Loving It has helped some, but mostly because I've had enough time to think about it. Catholicism has a lot of pretty good stuff going for it, not least when practiced by a truly religious Catholic, not some Bible-thumping myopic Christianist idiot. Most of the really good stuff comes from the self-deprecation, and the absolutely endless self-scrutiny.
Fr. Sharpe, my old Catholic pasto, once said this:
"The Jews, you see, invented guilt. But us Catholics? We perfected it."Labels: Catholics, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 1:03 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 31, 2007 |
| God's way of saying... |
... shut the fuck up, Phelps. If He hates anyone, it's you.
And anyone else taking His name for hate.Labels: gays, God, idiots, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 5:27 PM |
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| Tuesday, October 09, 2007 |
| Completely Retarted Statement of the Day |
Fox News - pinnacle of slanted journalism - has a story about how Senator Obama's pastor is black, unhinged, racist, black, not truly Christian, not truly white, and also, he's black.
Especially, they were really worried about Obama because his pastor had used a dirty word when talking to his inner-city congregation, and how they might find it easier to find God through their poverty and minority status.
Then, they pulled out this gem:
"If Barack Obama has really submitted himself to his church like he’s claimed, why does he have a different expression of faith from his own pastor?" asks Anthony Bradley, theologian and research fellow at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich. OHNOES! Senator Obama is committing the Deadliest Sin: disagreeing with his leader. The Conservatives must be reeling in horror.Labels: idiots, Obama, politics, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 4:44 PM |
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| Wednesday, September 05, 2007 |
| Case for Isolationism |
Selling billions of dollars of weapons to people that hate each other isn't the best way of going about bringing peace to any area.
But that's what the U.S. has been doing for years and years, including a new$20 Billion in weapons going to Saudi Arabia soon. The Daily Show said it much better than I can, and I'm so impressed that at the risk of losing the video somewhere -- I transcribed it. Here it is:
Transcript:
Obviously, the Iraq war is very complicated. It's another reason why Barack Obama's foreign policy inexperience is going to be an important issue in this campaign. You can't have a newbie
overthrowing the delicate balance that we've engineered and maintained in this complex region.
For instance a week in Iraq has meant a strengthened Iran; and since Iran is Shiia, our Sunni friends in Saudi Srabia are none too happy about that. But that's no problem in our experienced hands.
[America to the rescue graphic with G.W. Bush: "We will bring freedom to others -- and we will prevail."]
Yes, a few weeks ago, the White House announced plans to sell 20 billion dollars in weapons to the Saudi Royal Family.
Boom! Balance of power restored.
Trust me, you don't have to worry about billions of dollars in weapons being sent to a country like that, because may I remind you: a full 20% of the 9/11 highjackers were not from there.
Of course, this move may intimidate our curcumsised friends to the west [Israel]. They may be nervous because Saudi Arabia is considered somewhat friendly with Hamas. Although, I don't want to overstate the case. I mean uh, the Saudis like Hamas, but it's not like they've had telethons for them in the past, and it-- ah-- O.K.-- I'm being told they have actually held telethons for Hamas in the past, but that's not going to be any problem.
[America to the rescue graphic]
Because last week the white house announced that it will increase aid to Israel by 25%, meaning an additional 30 billion dollars over the next decade to them.
Oh billions of dollars, is there no dispute you can't settle?
You might ask, "how did we get so experienced at this?" Well we've been rescuing the Middle East for some time now. Think back to 1990, when a oil-rich, very nice little country named Kuwait was invaded by the very not-nice Iraq.
[America to the Rescue, "'90s version" with George Bush, Sr.: "We will help any government that wants our help."]
That's a 90's version of that graphic [laughs].
Of course, we stopped short of actually invading Iraq at that time; I think you remember the Secretary of Defense at the time [Dick Cheney] made a pretty strong case against it. Said it would be a quagmire. He was smart.
See, at that time we had to weaken Saddam Hussein, who had become very powerful after purchasing a s---load of weapons from-- oh boy.
[America to the rescue '90's graphic]
Oops! See that time we had to give him the weapons because then he was at war with Iran.
But see then, once Saddam got real powerful, we had to worry that he would topple our friends in Saudi Arabia. Which is why we put troops there, which kinda pissed off, uh, that guy [Osama bin Laden], who had also become very powerful fighting the Russians in Afghanistan after getting weapons from SONOFABITCH!!!
[America to the rescue "'80s style" with Reagan: "Reach out a hand when they fall"]
WHAT THE FUCK?!
My point is that foreign policy experience is very important! Because it helps you learn nation-building! Which is knowledge we can take -- to our country and apply to rebuilding our own infrastructure, like when our roads crumble. [Looks to the side for a prompt; apparently told this is a bad example]. Or when our bridges collapse [looks hopefully at his prompter and is told to try again]. Or when a hurricane wipes out one of our cities [same prompter says no way]. Midnight basketball?
[America to the Rescue graphic comes on but screws up and ends up with a beeping Indian test signal]
[pregnant pause]
Fuck.Labels: idiots, politics, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 7:45 PM |
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| Friday, August 24, 2007 |
| Doubt is Faith. |
I've been struggling with this particular concept for a long time. I've recognized that effortless faith
is inherently flawed and often leads to truly terrible things in the name of God. Mindlessly following something you can't possibly understand isn't going to work: an ant may believe fully in your divine power, but its actions will not be dictated by any but your most simple concepts.
This has been voiced wonderfully by a blogger I read daily, Andrew Sullivan, in this, the complete post with entries from Mother Teresa and his own book, which I've not read:
~
"Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear," — Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979. "Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. ... If there be God — please forgive me... Such deep longing for God ... repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true," - Mother Teresa in her correspondence. "The 16th century writer Michel de Montaigne lived in a world of religious war, just as we do. And he understood, as we must, that complete religious certainty is, in fact, the real blasphemy. As he put it, "We cannot worthily conceive the grandeur of those sublime and divine promises, if we can conceive them at all; to imagine them worthily, we must imagine them unimaginable, ineffable and incomprehensible, and completely different from those of our miserable experience. 'Eye cannot see,' says St. Paul, 'neither can it have entered into the heart of man, the happiness which God hath prepared for them that love him.'" In that type of faith, doubt is not a threat. If we have never doubted, how can we say we have really believed? True belief is not about blind submission. It is about open-eyed acceptance, and acceptance requires persistent distance from the truth, and that distance is doubt. Doubt, in other words, can feed faith, rather than destroy it. And it forces us, even while believing, to recognize our fundamental duty with respect to God's truth: humility. We do not know. Which is why we believe," - The Conservative Soul.
Labels: religion |
| posted by Steve @ 10:46 AM |
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| Thursday, August 02, 2007 |
| St. Peter |
| How did Saint Peter end up being the bouncer at the Pearly Gates? Who decided this? Did he draw straws with the other guys? Labels: random, religion |
| posted by Steve @ 8:25 PM |
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| Sunday, July 01, 2007 |
| "... I'm never going to need this!" |
The mantra of every high schooler in a class they dislike: "... I'm never going to need this!"
Yet, as a teacher, I could very rarely give a convincing rebuttal. Do I know what the subjunctive mood is? Yes. Subordinate conjunction? Yes. Do I use them as well as I need to, and were I ever to be asked by a stranger to give an example, I could (in fact, that last sentence illustrates both).
It makes me want to teach things that matter. Most of what we teach does matter, if nothing else as an exercise in how to get oneself to understand concepts without 'feeling like it.'
But why not the stuff that you need to survive as an American?
I wish someone had taught me how to:
- Do my taxes.
- How the current health care system works
- The relationship between taxes and government benefits
- The military-industrial complex
- The effect of fanaticism in religion
I did learn some things that tangentially helped me: Supply and demand, inflation, and other basic economic concepts. I do wonder if that's because of where I went to school, though.
I responded to a post to The Daily Dish with this sentiment here.Labels: health care, high, military, politics, rant, religion, school, taxes |
| posted by Steve @ 12:44 PM |
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| Thursday, February 23, 2006 |
| Random Thought no. 20: Proof that Everything is bull |
Sociology is applied Psychiatry
Psychiatry is applied Psychology
Psychology is applied Biology.
Biology is applied Chemistry
Chemistry is applied Physics
Physics is applied Mathematics
Mathematics is applied Existentialism
Existentialism is basically mental masturbation. Therefore everything is applied mental masturbation. Q.E.D. I should mention that the fact that Everything's bull doesn't strip Everything of its worth - just that it can't be taken seriously. Lord knows I need to take things less seriously, and yet, do more about them... Labels: joke, philosophy, random, religion, school |
| posted by Steve @ 2:12 AM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
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