I've got issues...

Let's revisit Proposition 8, shall we?

As is usual in my writing, I don't think the real point I'm trying to make is going to be right here in the beginning. Whether or not Proposition 8 should be passed or not is not really the main issue, but really, it's sort of a sub-issue, if you will. Shortly after I last wrote about Proposition 8, I had someone tell me that all good Christians should, as a matter of principle, vote against legalization of same-sex marriage. Assuming that you are a Christian who believes that same-sex marriage is a bad thing, there's some level of logic to this. As I myself have argued, "You can't legislate morality!" is a poor argument. I really do believe that morality is the only thing we really legislate, in one way or another. If you really believe that government has no place to pass laws that dictate moral choices, then may I suggest first that you really ought to be a Libertarian, and second that such a belief is really a moral choice itself. Make of that what you will.

For most of us, when we try to make choices about how we're going to vote, or what energies and/or donations we're going to give to various causes, we're thinking of moral choices much more overtly. I know a lot of people, usually Christians, who feel that the abortion issue is of tantamount importance, and will invariably vote for whichever candidate most strongly opposes abortions. Of course, there are also plenty of voters who take essentially the opposite tack. For many other people, the choices involve the weighing of various issues and finding the candidate or set of issues that best makes sense. For me, I tend to strongly favor propositions that support public transportation, and while there is a proposition on the ballot supporting the building of a new rail system here in California, in this case, I've been getting the feeling that the benefits may not warrant the amount of money being proposed for the cause, nor the manner in which the money is to be raised and spent. Even pet issues have to be tempered with an understanding of the bigger picture. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I'd like to point out that Hitler was against abortion; this is not to say that banning abortion is immoral, but that no matter how bad you think abortion is, I hope you realize there is potentially an overriding issue. (That does, of course, go for the other side, as well as potentially any other issue.)

Well, what is it about same-sex marriage that supposedly makes it one of the few cut-and-dry issues? The belief that the Bible treats it as such, saying that homosexuality is unambiguously immoral. If the Bible doesn't mince terms, then why should we, as believers in the Bible, do any less? Well, it's tough, because there are a lot of things that the Bible unambiguously calls immoral, and if we're going to deal with one, we have to deal with all of them. When I talk about this, I'm not taking the tack of some skeptics who point out that the Bible bans the eating of shellfish and wearing of mixed-fiber clothing; that's a red herring. Whether skeptics choose to recognize it or not, there are some parts of the Law (referring to rules given in the first five books of the Bible by way of Moses) that apply only to ancient Israel. I would argue that most of these laws still apply to Jews, although the manner of enforcement may be questionable; many of these laws do not apply to gentile Bible-believers. (One of the rules that I would argue still applies to all people is that blood should not be ingested, but I'll readily admit that I'm guilty of enjoying a bloody steak or a bit of gravy from time to time. Feel free to skewer my hypocrisy.)

One of the areas where the moral code of the Old Testament carries over to non-Jews is in sexual morality. While homosexuality does seem to be a part of this, I think a lot of people get very worked up over the supposed evils of homosexuality while winking at heterosexual sin. I do believe that if a married man in my church were to run off with another woman, his friends within the church would encourage him to break off the affair, and (if his wife was willing) to return to his wife and be reconciled. If the same man ran off with another man, I do think a few people would react in the same way, but suspect that there would be more than a few that would write him off as a loss. Depending on your point of view, it may be either a shame that people give up on such a person, or a shame that they don't simply accept his newfound sexuality. Anyway, people of many a personal philosophical bent find themselves unable to treat homosexuality the same as heterosexuality, even if they don't accept the spiritual concept of "sinfulness", although intellectually it's been assented (by some) that there is no difference.

Anyway, sometimes it may seem that there is some inequality in law as well. After all, heterosexuals are pretty much allowed to marry any member of the opposite gender, but homosexuals are not allowed to marry members of the same gender, or at least they weren't until recently, and they won't once again when Proposition 8 passes (assuming it does). If you take this from a conservative Christian point of view, there is some small validity to this claim of inequality, but very small. Marriage between two people of opposite gender can be used in the Christian view, to legitimize their sexuality, whereas homosexual sex is never legitimate. Where the sliver of validity comes in is in the fact that there are no laws banning, say, heterosexual cohabitation or extramarital sex. That's only a sliver, though, at least in California, as I believe that the only thing homosexual couples have been banned from doing is getting married. In states where homosexual intercourse is banned, it perhaps seems that it might make sense to give the same penalties to "illicit" heterosexual intercourse. I don't know though, there may be places where this is the case. (Actually, I could be wrong about California law!)

I think one of the real problems with letting our morality inform our political choices is that it's hard to avoid being hypocritical. On some level, I can actually accept the logic that we should vote against homosexual marriage because the Bible says it's bad, but this presents a conundrum. I can be in danger of overgeneralizing, I suppose, but it seems to me that when it comes to the issues of banning homosexual marriage and abortion, your supporters are largely going to be Republicans, conservatives, right? Okay, no surprise there, but what happens when we talk about issues like welfare?

The Bible teaches far more unequivocally than it teaches about homosexuality that we should be doing all we can to reach out to the needy and less fortunate and help them. Shouldn't we be voting for expansion of welfare programs, helping out the homeless, single parents and needy children? The argument I seem to most commonly hear is that the church should be taking care of this, and it's not the business of the government to be "redistributing wealth". Am I the only one who sees the problem with this logic? Once again, in itself, there's something to it. While a lot of us agree that something should be done about people on the low end of the economic spectrum, it does seem there ought to be something voluntary about the solution. If someone has no interest in helping out the homeless, then taking his money and giving it to a homeless person is hardly going to make him more sympathetic, and in addition to helping people out, increasing the general level of sympathy for those less fortunate seems like a good thing. If the rich (or the middle class) are being stolen from, or at least feel like they're being stolen from, there's something wrong with that on some level.

It comes together with the more overt moral issues to create a clash of rational viewpoints. If we are so adamant that it should be left to individuals and various benevolence organizations such as churches to determine how and in what manner the needy are to be helped, why can't we leave it to the same to determine sexual morality? If my church wishes to not recognize same-sex marriage, and the church down the road is just fine with them, can't we agree to disagree and leave the government out of it? The truth is, we're happy to let individuals and localities decide for themselves how to live their lives so long as we're convinced that they'll probably decide in a way we approve, aren't we?

This is a hypocrisy we all share, both Republicans and Democrats. The breakdown in logic goes both ways. Democrats believe in freedom: freedom of individuals to make their own choices in how they live their lives, but they'll raise taxes to make people with more money pay for the freedoms of those with less. Republicans believe in freedom: freedom of the market and allowing businesses to make investment choices, but they don't like people making individual choices that threaten the conservative values that they treasure, and their freedom to live life as they see fit. Both groups want to have their cake and eat it too, but it tends to feel like, "We want to have our cake and eat yours!"

Perhaps that's the real reason that despite the fact I've been a fundamentalist Christian for over 10 years, I'm still a Democrat. Like many of my friends, both Christian and non-Christian, have realized, neither party is really going to serve exactly the causes that you as an individual want them to serve. Every single individual among Obama, McCain, Palin and Biden has positions on issues that I respect and agree with, but none of them is exactly what I want in my government. Furthermore, while we tend to view the President as the single most powerful individual in the nation, to be responsible for the overall wellbeing of our nation, the federal government has two other branches that keep the President's power limited, and even the perfect Presidential candidate who agreed with me on every single issue isn't going to transform government into utopia in a single four-year term.

Furthermore, individual issues and propositions are in many ways in the same boat. If Proposition 8 passes, next year we'll see some group of people bring about Proposition 18 (or whatever) to repeal Proposition 8. If it fails, the same group that brought this one will bring Proposition 8 (with a new number) right back and try again. There will always be homosexuals that want to get married, and there will always be people who think they shouldn't be allowed to do so. Same-sex marriage may be a cut-and-dry issue with individuals, but I highly doubt it will ever be a cut-and-dry issue in the political arena within our lifetimes. My condolences to homosexuals and fundamentalists alike.

The book of genesis?

I realized something this morning that for some reason struck me as funny. Skeptics of Christianity have often pointed out (quite rightly, mind you) that despite the fact that the world is full of people who claim to be Christians, it's surprisingly uncommon to find a Christian who has actually taken the time to read the Bible. How many of them know the Ten Commandments, which they claim to highly esteem? (Hey here's some fun a non-believer can have with an ignorant believer: convince them that there's something strange in the Ten Commandments. Remember, though, you've got to make it believable, so something like "Thou shalt not touch the flesh of the swine" or "Thou shalt not lie with man as with women." Your best chance is to lift a verse from elsewhere in the Bible and pretend it's in Exodus 20. Fun for you, hopefully educational for them.)

Let me be clear that I am not saying, as some have, that it's the "atheist Bible", but I was thinking about Darwin's Origin of Species, and wondered: how many people who believe in evolution have read that book?

Of course, the position that Origin of Species holds in the world of evolutionary science is not analogous in many ways to the position of the Bible. Really, the Bible is supposed to be the definitive book on Christianity, and while one can know a lot about Christianity and even be a Christian without ever having opened the book once, every book that there is on Christianity is in some way going to refer back to it. Origin of Species, on the other hand, while a book that was there in the beginning of evolutionary thinking, is far from required reading. Any reference work discussing evolution need not even give a simple nod to Darwin, but can formulate its own opinions on the meaning of fossil evidence and the like.

Still, a principle is there, hidden beneath the question of how many evolutionists have actually read Darwin's work. Just as one might wonder what sort of a Christian a non-Bible reading self-proclaimed Christian might be, isn't it fair to wonder about a believer in evolution who has never read a word on the subject, be it written by Darwin or not? I would say such a person has true "blind faith" in evolutionary theory, and even those who believe in evolution from a position of fuller knowledge ought to be worried by this sort of belief. Sure, most Christians can't name all Ten Commandments; how many people who would profess to believe in evolution can even define the word "evolution"? You might be surprised. (Try yourself: whatever you think the word means from a biological standpoint, jot it down, then check your answer against Dictionary.com or something. You might be surprised! Wait, didn't I just write that?)

Now, I myself have not read the book, but I'd like to. I'd also like to encourage others to do so. While not a "holy book", Origin of Species is a book that probably ranks up there with the scriptures of various religions in importance. Just as my fellow Christians are often found saying "How can you reject the Bible when you've never read it?" I ask how they can reject Darwin without reading his work. Even if you're convinced it's 100% crap, all the more reason to open it up and see what's inside: to know what sort of crap it is and let people know. As a believer in many of the concepts of evolution (creationists, make sure you completed the dictionary exercise above before criticizing me for my position) I do have expectations as to what I will find in Darwin when I get around to him: a man with great powers of observation, keen insight, and a touch of laxity in his scientific methods. Very thought-provoking, I'm sure.

I hope it's not the first time I've urged this when it comes to this subject, as well as many others: both skepticism and faith have their place in obtaining full understanding, and one should not blindly accept nor reject any significant piece of information that comes one's way. Just as I tell people they should read about Christianity from the source and judge for themselves, so I believe that they should read about evolution in the same way.

Once I do manage to get around to it, I'm sure I'll be more than happy to share my views on it far beyond what anyone cares to listen, just like everything else.

If James Madison were alive today...

...he'd be clawing desperately at the lid of his coffin. Man, that one never gets old.

I'm going to try (no doubt in vain) to make this one brief, because, as they say, brevity is the soul of wit. To quote from a fellow blogger (who is an atheist) whose blog I enjoy, some people, such as Mike Huckabee have claimed that the Constitution needs to be amended to make the U.S. a Christian nation as our forefathers intended. When you think about it, "[D]oesn't that, in itself, prove that our constitution wasn't supposed to be a Christian document?"

I don't know if DocMike was the first to think of this question, and he probably wasn't (I myself have mused along those lines before), but in his little comic format, he puts it so well and so succinctly that it suddenly becomes a "Duh!" statement. Sure, there are those who wish the United States was not just a Christian nation in culture, but in law. The laws can be and often are changed, but the thing that so often bothers me is the appeal to how somehow by voiding the laws that the Founding Fathers wrote, we're actually serving their wishes.

Say what you want about how the Founding Fathers were great Christian men (and of course, most of them were), but don't appeal to them as a defense for your own moral choices as you simultaneously aim to tear down what they created. The Constitution is a living document that can be amended, and has been many, many times. If a politician wants to change it, they can freely endeavor to do so, but let's have no nonsense about what the Founding Fathers wanted but somehow forgot to put in.

For those Christians who are still not convinced (and no doubt wouldn't be reading my blog anyway), consider the position reversed. Imagine a politician taking office and making a law that Bibles printed in America be amended to say that any sexual act between two consenting adults is acceptable to God, because "We know that God is love, and therefore we know that God wants the world to have more love in it, especially physical love." That would be crap, wouldn't it? People can and do teach whatever they want about the nature of God, but would it make sense to change the words of the Bible because you feel you know that God wanted it that way, although He didn't clearly state so?

Does a hairless ape have the Buddha nature?

I spend a lot of time thinking about things that atheists say about the world and how so often it doesn't seem to make sense to me. Case in point, something that I love to bring up is the question of how evolutionary theory (that is, of the sort that claims humans evolved from "lower life forms", that's the interesting stuff, right?) is often claimed to have solid basis in scientific fact, and yet, I've never heard of any specific evidence. Those who truly understand science realize that science never "proves" anything anyway, and that's an apparent weakness and yet in many ways truly the strength of science that at its core, science is eternally skeptical.

Not so theists, obviously. A common claim made by theists is the concept that the existence of God is simply self-evident. The mere fact that atheists exist would seem to be a compelling counter-argument, but my fellow theists insist. Usually, the claim is the if one simply looks at the world around us, sees how amazing it is, one cannot reasonably reject the concept of an all-powerful creator. Okay, if you really think so.

Something always seems wrong with it to me, but it's hard to put a finger on specifics. Then I remembered a fascinating little observation I've heard a few theistic anti-evolutionists make: Ever seen a dog say grace before digging into a bowlful of chow? Of course not, dogs don't have religion, nor do any other animals, and clearly, that's what sets us apart and makes us superior.

I find that to be a much more interesting and perhaps far more astute observation, although it may not be so clear what conclusions we can draw from the fact. I realize that I have repeatedly talked on this blog about how we really are not well served in comparing humans to animals, yet I think it is a wellspring of philosophical, sociological and biological insight to note anything that does actually clearly delineate us from the rest of the living creatures in the world. We're not the only animals to use tools, build structures, or even use language, so while those things fail to fully set us apart, the fact that we are somehow fundamentally religious is striking. Even atheists are likely to occasionally ponder the possibility that God exists, even if they easily reject it out of hand. Does this really make us somehow superior, however?

While an atheist might say no out of sense of surety that theology is a waste of brain power, it occurs to me that theists themselves are implicitly putting forth a very good argument that something is wrong somewhere. Maybe you personally disagree, but I have never doubted that many animals are thinking, feeling beings. Our favorite pets, dogs and cats, seem to be very able to observe the world around them and evaluate what is going on. Their thought processes may be somewhat more simplistic, but I don't believe they are completely unable to abstract from sense data. When I was growing up, I had a dog. Surely that dog could have looked up into the night sky and seen the stars twinkling away across the galaxy. Surely that dog could have looked at the natural world about him and seen the beauty of nature. Yet all of these things that are supposed to inspire us as humans to realize that there is something greater than us in the world simply fail to elicit such a response in animals. Why is that?

Think about it: If the existence of God is supposed to be self-evident by simply looking at the world around us, so much so that in order to deny God's existence one would supposedly have to fool oneself into denying it, then why do we not see any evidence of Godly reverence among other species? Is it lack of intelligence? I don't think so. It's an oddity that one has to be intelligent before one can be fooled. Ever try to play a practical joke on a dog? It doesn't work. Either you fail completely, or you're successful in a mere mechanical way while the dog has no idea what's going on. Who fooled the animals of the world into ignoring God?

Really, in my mind there are only two possibilities. Either claims that the existence of God is self-evident are fundamentally flawed, or the fact that animals are non-religious shows us that we as humans are inferior. If you can look at the stars in the sky and "see God", not in a supernatural way, but in a mundane sense of it being simply self-evident, then you're deluded. Our ability as highly intellectually evolved creatures to imagine infinite possibilities from the limited information we gather with our senses has caused a glitch: the imagining of God.

That's not to say that God does not exist. Don't mistake me, I'm still a theist. The problem here is a short-circuiting of reason, but that doesn't automatically imply that the conclusion is wrong, just logically flawed. If I believe that every time I wash my car, it will rain within 24 hours, it may in fact be true, but that doesn't imply causality, only that I have poor timing in washing my car. I think God exists, but not because the world is so beautiful.

It may be that there is something supernatural to it, like God opening the eyes of a person in the Bible and letting them see the realm of the spirit for a moment. Even then, however, one cannot say it's self-evident, as divine intervention is needed. Is a special kind of sight that which has set us apart from the animals? If so, it may not be given to all, and we cannot say that an atheist is fooling themselves for not seeing what we see; for better or worse, they simply aren't experiencing that same glitch.

Protesting protestantism

There's something I love about irony.

If you ask an evangelical protestant Christian why they are not Catholic, they'll probably have a short list of things that they perceive as being somehow wrong with the Catholic Church. Now, I don't have a source for much of what I'm going to say here, only personal experience from having now lived a fair portion of my life among Protestants, you'll just have to take my word for it if you're not in the same sorts of social circles in which I tend to find myself.

What's wrong with the Catholic Church? Well, it tends to boil down to authority. Maybe it's an American thing, since the U.S. is a country that was largely founded on the rejection of supposed divine authority, but there is this feeling that it is clearly wrong to have a person (a.k.a. The Pope, or maybe your local priest) who tells you what to think when it comes to spiritual matters. The Church (I'll henceforth use a capital "C" when referring to the Catholic Church) apparently has all these rules that you have to follow. The Bible has a specific meaning that the Church teaches; worship is done in a style that the Church dictates; communion, baptism and various other rituals are carried out with a specified liturgy the Church prescribes; etc. Sure, there are other issues, but aside from a few deeper theological issues that most people don't really fully understand anyway, most of it boils down to the fact that rather than a free church in which we all are equals and exist on the same level, the Church has this complicated hierarchy of authority figures that dictate every aspect of your faith life.

The irony in this all is that in the end, most of our evangelical protestant churches have discarded this sort of structured hierarchy in return for a hidden, more vaguely-defined one. Even early on in my experience as a Christian, the first church I ever attended had special meetings to welcome newcomers into their congregation. I actually remember very little about those classes except for one thing that I thought odd at the time. The pastor who was running the class repeatedly informed us, in an odd manner that seemed proudly sly, that "At this church..." (subtle dramatic pause) "...we don't wear ties!" Apparently having grown up in a much more formal church, this guy was very interested in this fact, and seemed to be sure that everyone else would be as well. Big whoop, right?

Yet, there was something about this that in a way he never admitted, perhaps least of all to himself, was indeed a big deal. At the time, I always suspected that the fact that he even brought it up implied that it was a big deal to him. I thought, "You know, I wonder if he'd prefer to wear a tie anyway?" Maybe that's it, and maybe it's one of the smallest examples of the sort of thing I'm talking about. Sure, he doesn't have to wear a tie, but I suspect that although it's not written down anywhere, it is the case that he is not allowed to wear a tie. Not that this is solely a church thing; I've worked in offices with relaxed dress policies, and people tend to give you dirty looks if you show up wearing a tie.

But the institutionalization doesn't stop with an unstated dress code, people talk about how more traditional churches have rituals and liturgy, and sing old traditional songs. At our church, we have once again our own unstated liturgical service, and it's one that's similar to every evangelical church I've attended in my dozen or so years as a Christian.

At the appointed time for church to start, the worship leader will get up on the stage with the band, take his guitar and welcome everyone to church. He will welcome everyone to stand, which is not expressly required, but everyone with the exception of a few elderly people and those in wheelchairs will do so. Most people will show up five to ten minutes later, perhaps as much as twenty minutes if they have children. Around this time, the band will pause and an associate pastor or perhaps a deacon will walk onto the stage. He will welcome everyone again, compliment the band, and invite everyone to sit down. A short speech will be given about upcoming events, the need for more volunteers in children's ministry, and an admonition to visitors not to give money for the offering, but merely fill out a visitor card and drop it on the bag. He says a short prayer, and the band plays a song while the ushers pass the offering bags around. Everyone is asked to stand again, one more song is played, the worship leader asks everyone to shake hands with their neighbor, and everyone sits down as the senior pastor takes the stage and the band exits. The sermon opens with a bad joke or perhaps a humorous movie clip on the screen. Everyone pulls out their sermon notes, which consist of three bullet points with a missing word or phrase to fill in. After about forty-five minutes of talking, the pastor apologizes for his sermon being "so long", wraps it up and excuses everyone. People with children pick them up; every child has a craft project in a white paper sack with a Bible verse sticker on it. People mill about on the patio eating donuts if it's an a.m. service, cookies if it's p.m., and either way there is also coffee, juice and water.

Deviate from the above in any way, and the congregation will freak out. I had a pastor whose wife was a ballet instructor, and at one service, during the music phase, some dancers came out on stage and did a little routine. In principle, there's nothing wrong with this, but departing from routine was bizarre, and a few people got up and left.

Now, there's nothing wrong with routine actually. Like I said above, these things happen in the secular world, too. What about the deeper issues of theology? Surely those are the real vital ones, right? In the Church, if the Pope says things are a certain way, then that's the way they are, and supposedly, that's bad to have a single person driving and defining faith for a large group of other people.

First of all, it has to be understood, as I myself did not understand until a few years ago, that the Pope's every word is not somehow law on par with scripture. At times, the Pope does choose to speak with such authority, but most of the time, he's a lot like a senior pastor of a worldwide church, simply being there to guide and teach like any Protestant pastor would do.

Second of all, who says our little local churches are so different? When my pastor stands up at the lectern on a Sunday morning and says "Jesus is trying to say such-and-such through this passage of scripture," is it at all appropriate or acceptable for me to stand up at my seat in the congregation and say, "Excuse me, but I disagree with your interpretation?" Of course not (in general: as I have mentioned elsewhere, my church does a yearly "open mike" service where anyone can ask the pastor any question they want), that would be incredibly out of the norm; the church would sooner stop serving coffee on the patio!

Lastly, there are a few things to be said about this. Most churches, including my own, have a "statement of faith" which is a document which outlines our theological position. Anyone who wants to join the church has to read the document and sign a statement saying that they agree with it and will not oppose it within the church. While it may seem to some to be a shade totalitarian, it makes sense that you would have such an instrument to foster unity in the church. If you don't agree with it before you join, why would you want to join? If you come to an understanding that disagrees with it after joining, why would you want to stay? At the same time, if you have a question about an issue, there is no rule against discussing it with a pastor or fellow member of the congregation, only against actively opposing it from within the church.

Many things that I have said here in my blog would shock numerous people at my church, (many drop their jaw at the mention that I'm a registered Democrat, which I think is the least of my issues) although I don't keep the existence of this blog a secret; I don't think anyone from my church reads it. If I were to say some of the things I have said in this blog at any sort of official church meeting, I think it's possible I might lose my membership, I'm not sure, but I think it would be fair, actually. Still, I have the right to say whatever I want outside of church, and the thing of it is, that doesn't make me any different from Catholics. In truth, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Catholic that has complete and undying devotion to the Pope; most I have met admire and respect him, but also have occasional issues on which they respectfully disagree with him.

Is the pastor of a church just a little Pope? Sure, we Protestants recognize that the pastorate and the laity are two categories of people between whom God makes no strong distinction. At the church picnic, he's just another guy you josh around with, chat about work, play frisbee with, etc. But on Sunday morning, he's the one standing on the stage, telling everyone what the Bible means, and while you may share the same theological position as he does, you're not going to take his place on the stage Sunday morning as easily as you took his place in line for the hot dogs Saturday afternoon. While the board of elders (or whatever) can have him replaced if necessary, in a very real way, while he is in office, the pastor is the church.

Tolerance, but only for the tolerant, of course

So in the ongoing saga of the sexy penguins, I decided to check out Google today (I would have done it earlier, but I was having technical difficulties) and found out that sure enough, a Google image search for "sexy penguin" pulls up a link to this blog as the #2 match. For those who might care about the numbers other than myself, I'm trying to keep a running total, and I've presently got 126 out of 157 hits, or roughly 80% of my visitors being people looking for a picture of a sexy penguin.

However, I'm not here to rant about sexy penguins and the people who love them...this time. I am going back to retouch on the original topic in order to use it as a launching point into another topic that's always bugged me.

Quick recap for those who can't be bothered to read the original post: A pro-same-sex marriage organization launched a campaign in Colorado based on the idea that a person who was sexually attracted to members of the same gender is just as normal as a dog that goes "moo". An anti-same-sex marriage organization, rather than pointing out the ridiculousness of this argument as I would have done, launched a counter-campaign to inform the public that dogs in fact do not go "moo". This high level of debate truly shows how serious this issue is.

Well, in tracking down the Google image search result for "sexy penguin", I noticed that under the picture, there was a snippet of text from my blog reading "...mooing dogs and sexy penguins." Curious, I tried a new image search for "mooing dogs", which my blog came up as the #1 hit! (Note that this is only on an image search; a regular web search did not give a link to my blog in the first 150 hits. The first blog hit was for this site, which rants about thwarting the "Heterosexual agenda" because "Dogs are really hard to milk." Good writing.)

As usual, I'm taking far to long to come to my point. Not too far down in the list of hits, I came across this article. Apparently a family in Colorado Springs has had their lawn repeatedly vandalized for having the audacity to put signs on it that feature a picture of a dog saying "Woof." The unknown people who vandalized the lawn and the signs by either stealing them or defacing them actually left notes for the family telling them that "YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN A TERRORIST BECAUSE YOU DISPLAYED THAT SIGN!" They even went so far as to specifically compare them to the September 11th WTC attackers.

I've got to say that this perplexes me on many levels. While I see no evidence in the article that the vandals ever used the specific word "tolerance", the concept was there, as they had written "STOP THE HATE" on the street near the house. I realize that this story was published by a news outlet that is affiliated in some manner (I'm not sure how closely) with the publishers of the "No-Moo-Lies.com" web site, and as such, it is doing its darnedest to paint this conservative family in a positive light, but still, the only "hate" I'm seeing here is on the part of the vandals.

While the family with the signs is indeed sending out a message (albeit fairly subtly) that many may find offensive, all they are doing in the end is expressing an opinion. The vandals are trespassing, damaging private and public property, and probably could easily be construed as threatening the physical safety of others. Why would they prefer to do that rather than pursue a number of perfectly legal and reasonable countermeasures? They could put up signs in their own yards. They could write letters to the family telling them intelligently why they disagree with their position and why they feel it is offensive. They could write letters to local newspapers. They could peaceably conduct a protest in the street in front of the lawn with the signs. And of course, they could vote, and I hope they did. One of the neat things about each of those is that they don't require sneaking around in the middle of the night.

Legality and even morality aside, though, there is a social phenomenon that I've found rather odd lately. I think most people tend to think of the freedoms outlined in the First Amendment in terms of a protection for the liberal free thinkers of our society. If I want to say that George W. Bush is an idiot, I can do so freely. If I want to have my children go to school and not have to practice some sort of state religion, then I'm all set for that, too. Lately it seems like a reversal of that sort of thinking has happened, though. In our society at large, you aren't allowed to like the President because we should all agree that he's evil. You aren't allowed to make any public expression of your religious beliefs lest it offend, because we should all value multiculturalism over all other values. You aren't allowed to think that morality as defined by your personal beliefs has any basis or right to be addressed because we should all with uniform assent that morality is relative.

That's what it really boils down to, and don't you see that there is an inherent hypocrisy and/or lapse of logic in that position? The only absolute value is relativism. All viewpoints should be allowed except for those that question whether all viewpoints should be allowed. Society should have no tolerance for those that practice intolerance. Argh... It makes my brain hurt sometimes.

Look, it's an opinion. Some people in Colorado think same-sex marriage should be allowed; others think it should be disallowed. These are just opinions, same as the opinion that people shouldn't judge others for their sexual orientation. Who is to decide which opinions should be allowed and which should be silenced? It's not simply a matter of being offended, because I assure you that on 99.9% of all issues, there will be somebody offended by either position.

There are a lot of people (and while I tend to feel "homophobia" is an overused term, it seems appropriate here) that are absolutely appalled at the thought of a gay pride parade, but is that single fact good enough reason to disallow such a display? I really feel that the First Amendment allows for people to hold a parade for any reason (so long as they avoid undue disruption of, well, traffic, I guess) be it the local high school's homecoming, abortion rights, a war protest, or even if your local chapter of the KKK wants to put on a show. Excepting probably the first of those examples, there's going to be a lot of people upset by such parades, but my advice is if you don't like it, then stay away, or go and organize a peaceful counter-demonstration. If you show up at an event and hassle or even attack the people there, you just let them believe they are some sort of martyrs for a great cause.

Did you read the article about the family with the vandalized signs? In the end, who wins that moral struggle? Isn't it the poor victimized folks with the peaceful signs on their yard? Completely disregarding what their signs say, and the ideas they are intended to convey to passers-by, aren't they the ones with the moral high ground because the opposition took the position of oppressor? Whoever it was that took those signs, they ought to know that they may have set their cause back more than No-Moo-Lies.com ever could.

Do as Foley says, not as he does

Something happened recently in the news that I'm sure hundreds of people are blogging about. Republican Congressman Mark Foley was recently accused of being a pedophile, and the evidence looks pretty damning, I guess. (I haven't been following the story in great detail.) In addition to the damning fact that he was propositioning teenage boys online, there was the ironic fact that he was a founding member and chairman of the "House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children". Now as a lot of people are blogging on this, there's no need for me to go into the hypocrisy of the Republican party's self-proclaimed reputation of being the party with the high moral ground, the possibility of Democrats intentianally pushing this information into the light at the most politically opportune time, FoxNews' repeated incorrect labeling of Foley as a Democrat, or the most obvious and straightforward critique of Foley as simply being a creep who might need to be locked up, regardless of his political party or social standing. (From what I hear, it's not clear whether or not Foley has actually broken the law. You know, when I was 16, I was sexually propositioned...by a fifteen-year-old female schoolmate, which as far as I know is perfectly legal, raising some possible interesting questions for a future post on the technicalities of sex laws.) Instead, I'm going to take what I think will be a unique approach and use this event as a jumping-off point for a positive moral lesson that will give, I hope, insight into the Bible in specific, and human nature in general.

I wish to neither condemn nor defend the actions of Foley that are at the center of this scandal, but point out something interesting about the irony of his position and various public statements. As someone who had worked a great deal on protecting children and had been very publicly outspoken on the matter of tracking down sexual predators and taking away their civil liberties, it may be very easy to call him a hypocrite, and you'd probably be right to do so. If you stop there, however, you'd be doing a great disservice to the message itself.

Foley's guilt or innocence aside, the purpose of the caucus he was chairing is one that most of us, regardless of our political views, can get behind. At least on an idealistic level, I'd guess that 99.9% of the population would like to see children guarded from exploitation and abuse. While most of us may have different opinions as to the manner in which we choose to protect our children, we all agree that protection of some sort is needed, and hopefully we admire the fact that there are people doing something about it. Whatever Foley may have done in his personal life seems to me to be something that we can separate from the aims of his political committee. Yet I don't know if anyone is taking the time to talk about the committee itself, and what it has or has not accomplished. I certainly haven't heard anything. Is it because the issue is unimportant?

When I was growing up, my stepfather used to punish me if he caught me swearing. I always thought it was the height of hypocrisy because, well, I'd say he swore like a sailor but I never met a sailor with a mouth that foul. For whatever reason, my stepfather had the annoying habit of seemingly being unable to get out three sentences in a row without using some form of the f-word. And that was when he was in a good mood; when he was angry about something, yikes! So I often wondered how he thought he had the right to tell me to watch my language. I even asked him once, to which he actually replied, I kid you not, "Do as I say, not as I do." The fact is, swearing is not a good thing to do, and while his hypocrisy made me more inclined to disrespect his words, he was nonetheless right that I should not be using vocabulary like that, and as my (more or less) parent, he had a right to have a say-so in my behavior.

As a child (heck, and as an adult) one often comes up against this sort of situation often in a non-hypocritical context. Upon being told of some rule in life that we have to abide by, there's often a tendency to point out that there are plenty of people that break the rule. "Why can't I go see that movie? All my friends are going to see it!" or "You mean I can't go to the party because there's drinking? Lots of other parents let their kids go!" or even "It's not like making marijuana illegal is going to stop people from smoking it!" It's not that the person who told you what you have to do is violating their own standard, but that you know the standard is being violated, and feel that it somehow lessens the standard anyway.

So what does all this have to do with the Bible? Well, if it's not obvious, there are a lot of people in the Bible that seem like very bad examples of morality, and it seems like people who wish to play down the validity of Judeo-Christian morality often point to these people as evidence that the Bible and God do not represent morality. Who in the Bible made a poor choice and did something immoral that led to something unfortunate happening? It would be easier to ask who didn't! Essentially, of all the major characters in the Bible, you've got about half a dozen, if that many, that don't have some tale of their personal moral failure included in their life story. Adam chose to disobey God in the one and only way he could. Noah was a drunk. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all liars. Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. Judah had sex with his daughter-in-law because he thought she was a prostitute. Moses was a murderer. Aaron encouraged the Israelites into idolatry. Miriam was racist. And the list goes on.

How can we look to these people as examples and models for how we are to live our own lives? Isn't the Bible contradictory and hypocritical to tell us about all these people? Well, no, and I don't think it takes a genius to figure it out. I remember as a child trying to read through the Bible on my own for the first time to really understand what it was about, and thinking to myself what a horrible bunch of people these were. It hit me then that these people's flawed lives were being laid bare before us as object lessons.

One of the most difficult to fully understand but important characters in the Bible is King David. (I have intended myself to write a post to this blog with the very same title as the post linked, although you might guess that mine would be different in many ways.) The guy is full of all sorts of character flaws, does a number of terrible things, and when you read everything the Bible says about him, it certainly can be difficult to understand what exactly it was that God saw in him. In the end, though, David is a prime example of what this is all about. Yes, David was flawed. He had sexual problems, he had violence problems, he had parenting problems, and he screwed up a lot of that stuff like nobody ever did. But God wants us to look at David as one example among many of people who mess up their lives and do the wrong thing as indeed, we all do. After it all, despite his failures David kept trying to be a better person. David kept turning to God to ask for forgiveness and guidance in how to make things right again. The Bible isn't there to show us perfection (except supposedly in the person of God), but to show us the flaws in all of us, and make us understand that we're a whole planet full of screw-ups--but lovable screw-ups!

My hope and expectation is that in the wake of the Foley scandal, our national leaders will continue the fight to protect our children from exploitation. It would be wrong to dismiss the seriousness of the cause because it was sullied by contact with someone of questionable moral standards. It is also my hope, but not at all my expectation that people would not reject the Bible on the basis of the questionable moral character of some of the people featured within it. They are neither better nor worse than any of us, they are just people, and the message that they are a part of conveying doesn't rest on their perfection, but the power of what it means in our lives.

Practical religion

People use the word "zen" a lot, usually to refer to someone being zoned out or disconnected from reality. The popular idea about zen or meditation is that it makes you passive or remote. My experience after a dozen years sitting and following my breath a little each day is that I feel more active and more connected to day-to-day life--not less. -Algernon D'Ammassa

I saw this quote recently, and it got me to thinking about an important religious issue. It's not really an issue just for Zen Buddhism or Christianity, but an issue for all religions, maybe even atheism as well. The issue is, whatever sort of spiritual/moral belief system you live under, can you say honestly that it's serving a purpose here on earth?

I remember in college taking a philosophy class on eastern religions & philosophies. At the beginning of the class, both the instructor and the textbook emphasized that eastern religions were unlike the western ones in that there was always an aspect of them that implied practical application to make life better in some way. The unsaid implication? That in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, religion is something you do one day a week and then go back to business the rest of the week as though you were no different from an atheist. In fact, you're probably worse than an atheist, because at least the atheist isn't a hypocrite for living out their beliefs at selective times.

It's that secondary implication of hypocrisy that makes me question the premise, though. If there is a chance for hypocrisy in merely living a plain day-to-day life (which seems to be widely accepted by many theists and atheists alike) then that means that those who live that way are living their religion wrong. Therefore, there is a way to live it right.

It's often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi as saying, "Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary." In the Epistle of James (v. 2:18), the early church leader says, "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do." A true Christian faith should show results in a life well-lived, and I suspect it should be the same for any faith.

And what is a life well-lived? Is it just a faith that serves itself? As the quote above seems to imply, even Zen, with its reputation for turning inward and shutting out the distractions of the world is a practice that in the end should make you more connected with the world. Christianity and so many other religions have a disappointingly spotty history of so-called believers that felt the best way to live out their faith was to coerce others by force to adhere to it. Why? So those people can in turn force others? Shouldn't there be an end goal in mind? Sure, Christianity is supposed to bring salvation, but do people really think a forced confession of faith is genuinely going to bring about a changed heart?

The short of it is, while there are those who believe that being a Christian (or other religious person) is a waste of time, I truly believe that is only the case if that person's religion is empty or misled. Christians of true faith will be found working incessantly to make the world a better place for the glory of God. Would that we all were doing the same.