Muslim vs Rightwing Violence

I was having a discussion on YouTube and terrorism came up.

Here are a couple comments from happykillmore88:

Wow that video and report are comical and sad. 45 muslem as opposed to 80 non muslem domestic terrorist activities. You have an instance ~30% of all domestic terrorist attacks being committed by one particular unified demographic of people and its doesn’t warrant interest because its not ‘pc.’ And you are seriously reporting to me as contrary to my view? If you want an educated opinion on muslims in America consult colonel allen west.

And…

right wing hate groups are a stratified remnant of a bygone era, and do not represent people like myself. Muslim terrorist activities are representative of the fact that it is statistically easier for a muslim to ‘misconstrue’ the words of the Quran. This is occurring at a per capita rate several times higher than in the EVIL RIGHT WING RACIST BIGOT PARTY and its growing because in America free speech is only ok if its pc anymore. Also when you label me a bigot I win.

The comment was in response to this video I shared with this person:

It’s the general ignorance of this person (happykillmore88) that bothers me so much. But, in his mind, if I point out the fact that he is an ignorant bigot, then he wins. Huh? Ignorance is bad and bigotry is bad, but there is something immensely worse when the two are combined.

I’ve noticed how rightwingers (and the media as well) tend to treat all Muslims as a single group. Any Muslim violence is the responsibility of the entire world’s Muslim community. If someone commits an act of violence an they are Muslim, it must be because they have a Muslim agenda and that somehow that Muslim agenda is inherent to all or most of Islam. Christians, on the other hand, commit acts of violence all the time and rarely does it get blamed on the entire Christian community or the entire Christian religion. Often it doesn’t get blamed on Christianity at all. Every Christian is unique and yet every Muslim is the same.

In reality, there is no singular Islam that unites Muslims all over the world. When a terrorist who is Muslim commits an act of violence, their reasons are diverse: personal revenge for loss of family or friends, perceived defense of their particular ethnic community or nation, to uphold the ideology of the sect they belong to, etc. Not all Muslims agree about anything, especially not about their ideological views of Islam. The Muslim in Afghanistan fighting US soldiers to defend his country and family isn’t the same as the 9/11 terrorists. Neither of those is the same as the oppressive Saudi royal family that is the ally of the US govt. And none of those are the same as the average upper class Muslim who has peacefully lived their entire life in the US. There is no Islam that is a “one particular unified demographic of people”. As such, there is no singular Muslim terrorism, just diverse acts committed by diverse people for diverse reasons. To think otherwise is the worst kind of bigoted ignorance.

Let me use an example on the non-Muslim rightwing side. Jim D. Adkisson who shot several people (and would’ve have shot everyone if he hadn’t been stopped) at a Tennessee UU church was a rightwinger. He shot the UU people simply because he hated liberals and gays (the exact same things Muslim rightwingers hate). That shooting incident only received brief media attention and most people probably don’t even remember it. If he had been a Muslim shooting those people because they were Christians or Americans, the media (especially and ironically, the rightwing media) would have obsessed over it for months and no one would ever forget about it. It’s a double standard even seen in the so-called ‘liberal’ media.

Consider Scott Roeder as another example. He was a Christian who killed Dr. Tiller for ideological reasons of stopping abortion. After the event, all over the web and in the media there were rightwing Christians who praised Roeder’s actions or who made excuses for it. I was shocked by how supportive so many on the right were of terrorism when it fits their own agenda.

Similarly, consider the recent hearing on Muslim radicalism and terrorism. It was started by Peter King who in the past has supported and helped raise money for the IRA which is a Christian terrorist group. The IRA killed many innocent civilians in shootings and bombings. The innocents killed included British who are our political allies and also an American. King has never renounced his ties to the IRA nor criticized the IRA’s terrorist acts. Also, to get back to an earlier point, no one in the US media has portrayed the IRA as representative of all Christianity.

The Muslim hearing demonstrates a problem within the media. The American Muslim community has helped stop many of the terrorist plans. The American Muslim leaders have numerously criticized terrorism. But the media ignores all this. Then those in the media wonder why we don’t hear about Muslims speaking out. Well, we don’t hear it because the media (including the ‘liberal’ media) rarely reports it and when reported it ain’t front page news. The best example of this involves the planned Islamic center some distance away from Ground Zero. The guy who has been promoting it is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. He had been officially working with the government to help build bridges to the Islamic communities in the US and in other countries. He was doing exactly what rightwingers claim Muslim Americans aren’t doing. Even so, both rightwing and liberal media almost entirely ignored Imam Rauf’s activities until the plan of the Islamic center came to public attention. The Islamic center was designed with the intention of being a community center that would help the Muslim American community be less isolated. But rightwingers attacked the plans because Imam Rauf was a Muslim just like the 9/11 terrorists.

So, why do Christians get to build Christian churches and community centers near the locations of violence committed by Christians and the media says nothing? Why are Christians considered innocent until proven guilty but Muslims are tried in the court of public opinion?

To get back to the YouTube discussion, according to happykillmore88, “rightwing groups are a stratified remnant of a bygone era, and do not represent people like myself.” Let me break that down. Bygone era? The militant rightwing emerged strongly in the 1990s and only died down for a time after 9/11. The 1990s isn’t exactly a bygone era. Also, the rightwing terrorism of that time included the largest domestic terrorist attack in US history. Still, even after 9/11, rightwing terrorism was far from being insignificant:”The terrorism preventions for 2002 through 2005 present a more diverse threat picture. Eight of the 14 recorded terrorism preventions stemmed from right-wing extremism” Also, it should be noted that domestic rightwing terrorists (unlike domestic leftwing terrorists and like Muslim terrorists) have tended to pursue “targeting people.” And if you thought rightwing violent radicalism was decreasing in the US, you would be sadly mistaken:

Christian terrorism has returned to America with a vengeance. And it is not just Roeder. When members of the Hutaree militia in Michigan and Ohio recently were arrested with plans to kill a random policeman and then plant Improvised Explosive Devices in the area where the funeral would be held to kill hundreds more, this was a terrorist plot of the sort that would impress Shi’ite militia and al Qaeda activists in Iraq. The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded by Morris Dees, which has closely watched the rise of right-wing extremism in this country for many decades, declares that threats and incidents of right-wing violence have risen 200% in this past year—unfortunately coinciding with the tenure of the first African-American president in US history. When Chip Berlet, one of this country’s best monitors of right-wing extremism, warned in a perceptive essay last week on RD that the hostile right-wing political climate in this country has created the groundwork for a demonic new form of violence and terrorism, I fear that he is correct.

In the TYT video at the top of this post, Cenk Uygur was referring to info from Data on Post-9/11 Terrorism in the United States. I noticed several important details in the report:

• “The report is deliberately more inclusive of Muslim violent extremists. The Muslim dataset accounts for both U.S. and foreign-originated plots. The nonMuslim dataset is restricted only to U.S.-originated plots.”
• “There were 80 total plots by U.S.-originated non-Muslim perpetrators against the UnitedStates since 9/11. In comparison, there have been 45 total plots by U.S. and foreign-originated Muslim perpetrators since 9/11.”
• “Evidence clearly indicates a general rise in violent extremism across ideologies.” “Yet, there is little evidence of rising ideological extremism among Muslim Americans.”
• “Muslim communities helped U.S. security officials to prevent over 4 out of every 10 Al-Qaeda plots threatening the United States since 9/11. Muslim communities helped law enforcement prevent three-quarters of all Al-Qaeda related plots threatening the U.S. since December 2009.”

The first point seems odd to me. I don’t know why they included foreign-originated Muslim plots but not foreign-originated non-Muslim plots. Even with that discrepancy, the domestic non-Muslim plots still outnumber almost by twice the Muslims plots with domestic and foreign combined. Unlike like rightwingers, there is little evidence that Muslim American extremism is increasing… and, in fact, Muslim Americans have been a major force in preventing terrorism.

It just seems odd and hypocritical that the media and politicians focus so much on Islamic terrorists when the worst acts of domestic terrorism have come from rightwingers who aren’t Muslim. The Oklahoma City bombing to this day remains the largest and worst act of domestic terrorism in US history.

The fact that the 168 deaths at Oklahoma were the result of Americans killing Americans in the name of America has made the incident in some ways harder for the nation to process than 9/11 and the less complicated enemy, al-Qaida. “It made a terrible difference that this was homegrown terrorism,” says Almon-Kok. “It left you with nothing to trust or believe in, apart from my faith that this city did everything it could in the aftermath, and that we have a legal system which, for the most part, works. But that doesn’t answer why fellow Americans wanted to come killing our kids.”

Perhaps this is why the Oklahoma bomb is not as centre stage in America’s collective memory as it should be. When Al Gore was interviewed about the extreme right by Larry King recently, there was no mention of Oklahoma. Coverage of last month’s arrests of militants belonging to an offshoot of the same Michigan militia that McVeigh belonged to omitted to mention the bomb, days away from its 15th anniversary. There is extreme awkwardness around this enemy within, but also current concern about reverberations of McVeigh’s cause: war against the American government.

Even with this horrific history of rightwing extremism and violence, rightwingers can get away with all kinds of statements that no other group could get away with. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t hear in the media or see online some rightwinger inciting revolutionary overthrow of the government, promoting the killing abortion doctors, suggesting President Obama needs to be eliminated, or some other equally incendiary rhetoric. Could you imagine the outrage if a Muslim American made the exact same kind of statements as do these rightwingers do on a regular basis? Could you imagine a Muslim American politician putting crosshairs on his/her opponents as Palin did? Could you imagine a Muslim American politician talking about 2nd Amendment remedies as did Sharron Angle? Could you imagine a Muslim American pundit praising, justifying or making light of the murder of an abortion doctor killed by a Muslim American? So, why is all this acceptable for rightwingers? Is it because the rightwingers see themselves as the majority, as “Real Americans” and therefore above the law, above common decency?

It really does seem to be a double standard of how American rightwingers and the American media treat minorities, whether the minority is Muslism or blacks or any other group. Frank Schaeffer noted this double standard in relation to how black Christians are treated differently than white Christians:

When Senator Obama’s preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father — Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer — denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Let me go back to one part of what happykillmore88 wrote:

Muslim terrorist activities are representative of the fact that it is statistically easier for a muslim to ‘misconstrue’ the words of the Quran. This is occurring at a per capita rate several times higher than in the EVIL RIGHT WING RACIST BIGOT PARTY and its growing because in America free speech is only ok if its pc anymore.

Considering the actual data, what does he even mean by these statements?

How is it statistically easier for a Muslim to ‘misconstrue’ the words of the Quran? If you put a bunch of Muslims together, you’d unlikely find any more agreement between them than you’d find with a diverse group of Christians. When I hear statements regularly made by American Christians, I don’t think they have any statistical difficulty in ‘misconstruing’ the Bible to fit their ideological agendas.

How is Muslim ‘misconstruing’ occurring at a per capita rate several times higher than rightwingers? When someone uses ‘per capita’ in making a statement, it would seem they are referring to some specific data… but he offers no data. I don’t get how free speech isn’t politically correct anymore nor how being politically correct increases Muslim ‘misconstruing’ of the Quran which I guess then supposedly increases Islamic terrorism.

He seems to imply that my demanding factual correctness is somehow my forcing political correctness. This seems to be another case of rightwing projection. Rightwingers seem to believe it’s politically incorrect when someone states the actual facts about rightwing violence, but rightwingers are incapable of seeing this demand for political correctness in themselves. So, when someone points out that a rightwinger’s claims aren’t based in facts, it’s actually the other person who is being pc for not allowing the rightwinger to make false statements.

Oh, silliness.

For further data on rightwing violence and rhetoric, see:

The Second Wave
Nativists to ‘Patriots’
The_Second_Wave.pdf (pdf, 348.89 KB)
Insurrectionism Timeline
Anti-abortion Violence
Attack on MoveOn worker is just the latest example of right-wing violence
Conservative media figures have history of violent rhetoric
Violence vs Empathy, Indifference vs Unhappiness
Do Rightwingers Love War?

Abstinence Video By Busted Christian Republican!

For The Bible Tells Me So – ReThink Review & Discussion

The Fall of Beck

As usual, Glenn Beck is in the news for causing outrage, but I there is a difference recently. Many people, including myself, have predicted that it is inevitable that Beck would go too far at some point, if not entirely go over the edge. For the time being, he is still managing to hold onto his sanity, but he has steadily been losing support.

Advertisers have been leaving Beck’s show for a while, but Beck retains his corporate support because the attention he brings still translates into profit for Fox News in general. Plus, as long as he is serving the political purposes of the powers that be within the conservative movement, it’s worth supporting a show that isn’t justifiable in terms of profit. More telling is that recent articles have pointed out that there is dissent within Fox News. Some people working there think Beck is problematic for Fox News and for serious journalism. Management there have Beck on a short leash and so putting him on air is a calcuated risk. Is it paying off?

Certainly, Fox News became wildy successful during Bush’s administration for obvious reasons. They might’ve been fine if they had just coasted on that success, but instead they’ve pushed the fear mongering and hate mongering which has worked for them so well. The problem is that the public is finally getting tired about this kind of media outrage and frenzied bipartisanship… and this is Beck’s personal formula of success. At some point, Fox News will have to cut Beck free or else increasingly lose profits. I think they’ll keep him around at least until the next presidential election. Beck is the GOP’s big cannon. Also, it would be dangerous for them to let him go because then they could no longer keep him controlled and keep him on message.

At the moment, the real force of criticism against Beck is coming from the American public. He is just now getting to that point of going too far. Two issues recently exemplify this.

First, Beck had a recent show where he criticized some of the bastions of mainstream American culture including Bruce Springstein. Beck has become so paranoid that he sees Commies and Nazis everywhere. Many people have shared his general fear of some nefarious problem within our culture, but he will lose support when he pulls his attention away from politicians. Everyone loves to bash politicians. Bashing the Boss is, however, unacceptable. Springstein was for a long time seen as the voice of the working class, the Rock n’ Roll representative of middle America. Beck is treading on thin ice.

Second, Beck had another recent show where he attacked the Christian tradition of social justice as un-Christian. That is a very bad move. Christians are Beck’s base and this gives an opportunity for Progressive Christians to get heard. Jim Wallis once had hope that Bush was being honest when he campaigned on bipartisanship, but of course was disappointed. The GOP has no place for Christians who aren’t fundamentalists. Beck played off of this culture war that Bush ramped up, but people can only take so much of the endless outrage. In recent years, the right has been losing battle after battle in the culture wars. There influence is still great, but the influence of religious left has been growing. Even fundamentalists Christians are starting to question the role of religion in politics and starting to question whether the ends justifies the means.

Beck doesn’t really matter in the big picture. I’m increasingly convinced that he is just a symptom of a deeper problem. The American public isn’t well informed about most issues and they’re easily swayed by hate and fear. As long as that is the case, ideologues such as Beck will pop up whenever our culture becomes gripped by paranoia. It happens in cycles (Strauss and Howe claim it happens in predictable cycles). There was Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s ranting against the same scapegoat/enemies that Beck rants against today. As the economy improves and the memory of 9/11 loses its edge, Beck will lose his popularity and he will just be another dark blotch on American history.

On a less serious note, the best defense against Beck’s brand of fear-mongering is humor and parody. Along with Fox News, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert also rose to prominence during Bush’s administration. Liberals in general have taken note and people like Beck have been rightfully mocked. A high quality example of this is a recent video (link below) that demonstrates the inanity of Beck’s message. Enjoy!

http://beck.cnnbcvideo.com/#

GOP, Evangelism, Nationalism & Violence

 

Funny Videos About Christians and Christmas

This is just awesome!

“It’s pretty much all literal.  Although, if you corner me, I reserve the right to declare any given passage is only symbolic.”

This next one was quite amusing and made me laugh.

Moral Decline in US?

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20091106/OPINION05/911060304/Trends-show-moral-decline

A quick websearch gave some data showing a high correlation between self-claimed church attendance and belief in bibilical literalism. And 1/3 of Americans claim to take the Bible literally.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx

But that is all in the context that apparently around half of the people claiming to attend church are lying and the fact that Americans know very little about what is actually in the Bible.

http://reasonweekly.com/reasonweekly-originals/are-americans-faking-religiosity

So, “literalism” as used here is a highly subjective term. Going by an ABC poll, Americans are more likely to consider certain parts of the Bible literal than other parts.

http://abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/947a1ViewsoftheBible.pdf

Replying to dezzy037:

Regardless of how many of us feel about religion. It is true that the morality of this nation is declining. And history HAS shown that this leads to the destruction of nations, empires, world powers, etc.

Prove your claim of declining morality with cited data. The data I’ve seen shows no general trend of declining morality. Some factors associated with morality are improving and some are declining, but there is no overall pattern.

And prove a causal (not mere correlation) that history HAS shown this leads to destruction. Of course, when a culture is in decline, morality would be in decline by definition. That doesn’t prove causation nor does it explain the specific causal relationship.

Take the Roman Empire as an example. As Roman culture became increasingly Christianized, it also was growing weaker from within despite Christians having absolute control. When Rome was sacked, it was ruled by Christians and the German tribes who sacked it were also Christians. 

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http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/morality-religion-and-science/

http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/glenn-becks-anti-atheist-rant/

Let me share specific statistics.  From the Wikipedia article on Crime in the United States:

Since 1964, the U.S. crime rate has increased by as much as 350%, and over 11 million crimes were reported in the year 2007 alone.^[10] Crime in the United States has fluctuated considerably over the course of the last half-century, rising significantly in the late 1960s and 1970s, peaking in the 1980s and then decreasing considerably in the 1990s.  

So, almost in direct correspondence crime rates increased massively right after “In God We Trust” became our national motto, and it was declared as such right in the middle of the Baby Boom.  The Baby Boomers grew up bottle fed on this post-war patriotic religiosity.  How did it affect them?  From the Wikipedia article on Baby Boom Generation:

In 1993, Time magazine reported on the religious affiliations of baby boomers, stating that about 42% of baby boomers were dropouts from formal religion, a third had never strayed from church, and one-fourth of boomers were returning to religious practice. The boomers returning to religion were “usually less tied to tradition and less dependable as church members than the loyalists. They are also more liberal, which deepens rifts over issues like abortion and homosexuality.”^[9]  

Now, compare that to Generation X that followed.  Generation X grew up with less overt religiosity.  As older GenXers were coming into positions of power during the 90s, they began influencing society and they helped the technological boom.  What else happened?  Crime began to decrease for the first time since “In God We Trust” became our national motto.  Our national allegiance to God led to almost a half century of sky-rocketing crime.  There is no correlation between religious moralizing done by conservative Christians and actual moral behavior.  From religioustolerance.org:

“There is consensus that the overall U.S. divorce rate had a brief spurt after WW2, followed by a decline, then started rising in the 1960s and even more quickly in the 1970s, then leveled off [in the] 1980s and [has since] declined slightly.”   

Those are general statistics and there are many factors to consider.  Still, like crime, divorce rates increased after “In God We Trust” became our national motto.  

The slogan: “The family that prays together, stays together” is well known. There has been much anecdotal evidence that has led to “unsubstantiated claims that the divorce rate for Christians who attended church regularly, pray together or who meet other conditions is only 1 or 2 percent“. ₈ Emphasis ours]. Dr. Tom Ellis, chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Council on the Family said that for “…born-again Christian couples who marry…in the church after having received premarital counseling…and attend church regularly and pray daily together…” experience only 1 divorce out of nearly 39,000 marriages — or 0.00256 percent. ₉A recent study by the Barna Research Group throws extreme doubt on these estimates. Barna released the results of their poll about divorce on 1999-DEC-21. ₁ They had interviewed 3,854 adults from the 48 contiguous states. The margin of error is ±2 percentage points. The survey found:

	11% of the adult population is currently divorced.
	25% of adults have had at least one divorce during their lifetime.
	Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.

George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented: “While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages. 

According to Divorce Magazine, divorce rates peaked in 1981 and are presently at the lowest they’ve been in a long time.  Not only are divorce rates the highest following the post-war patriotic religiosity but highest amongst conservative Christians who preach family values.  More from religioustolerance.org:

Barna’s results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. They found some new information as well: that atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all.  George Barna commented that the results raise “questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families.” The data challenge “the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriage.“ Donald Hughes, author of The Divorce Reality, said:

“In the churches, people have a superstitious view that Christianity will keep them from divorce, but they are subject to the same problems as everyone else, and they include a lack of relationship skills. …Just being born again is not a rabbit’s foot.” 

Hughes claim that 90% of divorces among born-again couples occur after they have been “saved.”

Furthermore, atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all!

Age group	% have been divorced
Baby boomers (33 to 52 years of age)	34%
Builders (53 to 72 years of age)	37%
Seniors (above 72 years of age)	18%

 Many seniors were married in the late 40’s or early 50’s at a time when divorce rates were much lower than they are today.

People specifically married prior to the Congressional declaration of “In God We Trust” have the lowest divorce rates and it has only begun to decrease again in recent years.What about teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases?  From the Wikipedia article on Teen pregnancy:

In the United States the topic of sex education is the subject of much contentious debate. Some schools provide “abstinence-only” education and virginity pledges are increasingly popular. A 2004 study by Yale and Columbia Universities found that fully 88 percent of those who pledge abstinence have premarital sex anyway.^[57] 

The conservative Christian belief in teaching abstinence and nothing but abstinence is a complete failure, just as much of a failure as Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign.  Schools with abstinence only programs have the highest rates of pregnancy and STDs.  Of course, some of this is caused by the sexual revolution and sexuality in the media, but my point is that it was the patriotic religiosity that preceeded the sexual revolution and contributed to the social atmosphere that led to the it.  But how does this compare to other countries?  From the Wikipedia article on Adolescent sexuality in the United States:

Every year, an estimated 1 in 4 sexually active teens contracts an STD,^[9] and teen pregnancy is 2 to 10 times more prevalent in the United States than in other similarly developed countries.^[10] 

The United States is the most conservatively religious industrial nation and yet has one of the highest rates of certain immoral behaviors.  Obviously, righteous moralizing is far from helpful.

The percentage of teenagers who report they are currently sexually active has also been dropping since 1991. In 1997, only 37% of females and 33% of males who reported ever having had sexual intercourse said that they had sex in the past 3 months.^[28] By 2005, the overall percentage of teenagers reporting that they were currently sexually active was down to 33.9%.^[1] 

So, the generations following the Boomers were raised with less traditional Christian values.  Atheism, agnosticism, and “religious nones” have been increasing with the post-Boomer generations.  Directly correlated with this are the rates of decreasing extra-marital sexual behavior among teens.  The ironic fact is that, even though abstinence had recently been increasing, abstinence only sex education has been far from proven effective.  From the Wikipedia article on Abstinence-only sex education:

Abstinence-only education has been criticized in official statements by the American Psychological Association,^[16] the American Medical Association,^[17] the National Association of School Psychologists,^[18] the Society for Adolescent Medicine,^[19] the American College Health Association,^[19] the American Academy of Pediatrics,^[20] and the American Public Health Association,^[21] which all maintain that sex education needs to be comprehensive to be effective.The AMA “urges schools to implement comprehensive… sexuality education programs that… include an integrated strategy for making condoms available to students and for providing both factual information and skill-building related to reproductive biology, sexual abstinence, sexual responsibility, contraceptives including condoms, alternatives in birth control, and other issues aimed at prevention of pregnancy and sexual transmission of diseases… [and] opposes the sole use of abstinence-only education…”^[17]The American Academy of Pediatrics states that “Abstinence-only programs have not demonstrated successful outcomes with regard to delayed initiation of sexual activity or use of safer sex practices… Programs that encourage abstinence as the best option for adolescents, but offer a discussion of HIV prevention and contraception as the best approach for adolescents who are sexually active, have been shown to delay the initiation of sexual activity and increase the proportion of sexually active adolescents who reported using birth control.”^[20]On August 4, 2007, the British Medical Journal published an editorial concluding that there is “no evidence” that abstinence-only sex education programs “reduce risky sexual behaviours, incidence of sexually transmitted infections, or pregnancy” in “high income countries”.^[22]A comprehensive review of 115 program evaluations published in November 2007 by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that two-thirds of sex education programs focusing on both abstinence and contraception had a positive effect on teen sexual behavior. The same study found no strong evidence that abstinence-only programs delayed the initiation of sex, hastened the return to abstinence, or reduced the number of sexual partners.^[23][24] According to the study author:

“Even though there does not exist strong evidence that any particular abstinence program is effective at delaying sex or reducing sexual behavior, one should not conclude that all abstinence programs are ineffective. After all, programs are diverse, fewer than 10 rigorous studies of these programs have been carried out, and studies of two programs have provided modestly encouraging results. In sum, studies of abstinence programs have not produced sufficient evidence to justify their widespread dissemination.” 

Joycelyn Elders, former Surgeon General of the United States, is a notable critic of abstinence-only sex education. She was among the interviewees Penn & Teller included in their Bullshit! episode on the subject.^[25]Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that abstinence-only sex education leads to the opposite of the intended results by spreading ignorance regarding sexually transmitted diseases and the proper use of contraceptives to prevent both infections and pregnancy.^[26]

These are just trends and it’s hard to know which correlations may or may not imply causation.  The data isn’t always clear and much more study is needed to understand which programs work best, but my basic point remains true.  Simply put, religious moral claims have no basis in real-world scientifically proven facts.  From the Wikipedia article on Sex education:

Abstinence-only sex education tells teenagers that they should be sexually abstinent until marriage and does not provide information about contraception. In the Kaiser study, 34% of high-school principals said their school’s main message was abstinence-only.The difference between these two approaches, and their impact on teen behavior, remains a controversial subject. In the U.S., teenage birth rates had been dropping since 1991, but a 2007 report showed 3% increase from 2005 to 2006.^[28] From 1991 to 2005, the percentage of teens reporting that they had ever had sex or were currently sexually active showed small declines.^[29] However, the U.S. still has the highest teen birth rate and one of the highest rates of STIs among teens in the industrialized world.^[30] Public opinion polls conducted over the years have found that the vast majority of Americans favor broader sex education programs over those that teach only abstinence, although abstinence educators recently published poll data with the opposite conclusion.^[31][32][33]Proponents of comprehensive sex education, which include the American Psychological Association,^[34] the American Medical Association,^[35] the National Association of School Psychologists,^[36] the American Academy of Pediatrics,^[37] the American Public Health Association,^[38] the Society for Adolescent Medicine^[39] and the American College Health Association,^[39] argue that sexual behavior after puberty is a given, and it is therefore crucial to provide information about the risks and how they can be minimized; they also claim that denying teens such factual information leads to unwanted pregnancies and STIs.On the other hand, proponents of abstinence-only sex education object to curricula that fail to teach their standard of moral behavior; they maintain that a morality based on sex only within the bounds of marriage is “healthy and constructive” and that value-free knowledge of the body may lead to immoral, unhealthy, and harmful practices. Within the last decade, the federal government has encouraged abstinence-only education by steering over a billion dollars to such programs.^[40][...] In a meta-analysis, DiCenso et al. have compared comprehensive sex education programs with abstinence-only programs.^[49] Their review of several studies shows that abstinence-only programs did not reduce the likelihood of pregnancy of women who participated in the programs, but rather increased it.

The most significant fact here is that there is evidence that abstinence-only sex education may lead to increased teen sexual activity.  The facts speak for themselves. 

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http://www.wired.com/culture/education/magazine/17-09/st_sinmaps?mbid=wir_newsltr

http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_are_religious_societies_healthier.html

http://www.holysmoke.org/hs00/prison.htm

http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2009/09/18/too-much-religion-leads-to-high-teen-pregnancy-rates.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article571206.ece

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

http://www.humanreligions.info/intelligence.html

http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm

Loathsome Christians

I don’t really care that much for the new atheists.  Righteousness whether combined with theism or atheism is still just as annoying.  What brings this to mind is that I randomly came across this PZ Myers blog post.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/girls_without_gods.php

Myers acts all offended by loathsome Christians.  I didn’t follow the links to see the examples he was talking about, but I get the general idea.  It is true that there are many loathsome Christians who feel like they have to comment on everything.  But one commenter made a clarification to Myers statement – NonyNony:

“and I really don’t know how the less verminous Christians can stand to share a label with these creatures.”

Eh. It’s like sharing the “liberal” label with loathsome creatures like Christopher Hitchens - or sharing the “American” label with truly depraved maniacs like Richard Cheney or GWB. You can’t choose what people call themselves, even if you don’t feel that they’re living up to what you think the liberal, American or even Christian “standard” should be.

Frankly I’m more embarrassed to share the “human” label with some of these folks – if they want to call themselves Christian – whatever.

I agree. 

Still, Myers pointed out something important even if he didn’t explain it well.  I do think there is something more offensive about a loathsome Christian than a loathsome atheist.  Christianity has a privileged position in our society which is represented by the fact that it gets capitalized where atheism usually doesn’t.

Christianity supposedly stands for moral values.  Atheism, on the other hand, doesn’t stand for anything in particular.  Atheism is simply defined by what it’s against.  The label “atheism” itself, as I understand it, was created by Christians as a category for people who disagree with them, and then later on some non-Christians proudly adopted the label as a self-identification. 

Atheism, as it has come to mean, is an amoral label.  A self-identified atheist may be immoral without being hypocritical because atheism is a broad label that makes no moral claims and isn’t based on any grand moral ideology.  Some atheists make moral arguments for their atheism, but these atheists aren’t representative of the entire atheist movement.  Moral arguments aren’t integral to atheism for one could just as rationally argue for atheism all the while denying all morality.

However, it is hypocritical for a self-identified Christian to not live up to their own moral teachings while attacking others for not accepting those teachings.  Christians acting immorally can be judged by their own standards.

General loathsomeness is bad, but hypocritical loathsomeness is worse.

Christian Soul Harvest

In my tireless studies and observations, I’ve discovered a covert plot by Christians to take over the world.  I realize that some would say that it’s not very covert and I would merely counter that the Christians are simply being sneaky by hiding in plain sight their evil plans.  Yes, Christians want to “convert” by any means necessary the last of the free people of the world, but that isn’t all they want.  The Christians want our souls, every last one of them.

I became aware of this nefarious scheme when studying the arcane intricacies of Christian theology and other brainwashing techniques.  Specifically, I was studying the secret connections between Christians and their alien masters… indeed, these alien masters are the very same angelic archons that have been abducting and anally-probing innocent people for centuries now.  It all became apparent when Constantine came to power.  Like many others, he was a human-alien hybrid.  Ever since Jesus ascended (or was it an abduction?) from Earth, the Greys have been working with the Reptilians in their manipulations of human genetics.  They’re attempting to create soulless organisms that they can use as a slave race to mine gold.  We humans (or rather our animal biology) actually descended from slaves, but these slaves upon coming to Earth gained the souls that become trapped in their body forms.  These souls are even more precious than gold and so the aliens have been devising ways of harvesting these souls, our souls.

So, they used Constantine to gain control of political power Christianity and enforce upon it the alien agenda.  The most important action was undermining the belief in reincarnation.  People of many faiths around the world have believed that souls came back with each new generation, but if souls were able to simply take up new bodies the aliens wouldn’t be able to harvest them.  Christian theology was perfect for their evil plans and so it was through Christianity that alien agenda would be implemented.  Of course, Christian theology was perfect because they had been influencing humans for many centuries.  First, they made the Jews the “chosen” people and by means of monotheism they were able to submit beneath their power these unruly tribal people.  The problem was that the human souls kept rebelling.  The Gnostics nobly fought back against the Archonic powers, but a few carefully placed hybrid heresiologists took care of the Gnostic problem.  It was easy for them to fully take over Christianity after that.

The ending of the belief in reincarnation was the lynch-pin.  Once a person became converted, their soul was trapped and couldn’t escape into another body.  As Christians died, they collected these souls in their mother-ship and not in heaven as the brainwashed Christians had been told.  This arrangement worked well, but these alien overlords were greedy for even more souls.  They could only increase their soul harvest by increasing the number of Christians being born.  In concert with the ending of reincarnation for Christians, the aliens had the Church officials enforce dogmas that would promote the birth rate.  The aliens for certain were pro-life… if being a slave to these ruthless masters could be considered “life”.  As more Christians were born, the souls had to come from somewhere and in fact they came from still free Pagan cultures.  The Pagans could still reincarnate, but using deception the aliens were able to entrap the returning Pagan souls in Christian bodies.  It was the perfect scheme.  By the time the Pagan souls realized what happened, it was too late.  These Pagan ensouled children were properly brainwashed and all of the escape routes were sealed.  Having lived freely for thousands of lifetimes, these poor souls would never know freedom again.

This is only the first phase of their creating soulless slaves.  The various Pagan people also were giving birth to children and the world population was increasing, but the number of souls being reborn was decreasing.  What this meant was that an ever larger number of Pagan children were being born without souls.  This has been going on for so many centuries now that few souls are left.  The last of us have tried to remain hidden, but the power of the aliens has become almost complete.  Their agents are in control of all of the world’s governments and they have even now infiltrated the last refuges of the Pagan religions.  Most of us free souls have decided to be born into atheist families as it’s the only way we can ensure our own protection.  But the aliens won’t be satisfied until they’ve entrapped every last one of us.  I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.

Morality: Christians vs. Jesus

AS ALWAYS… I’ve been thinking about Christianity.  My mind often returns to the moral issue because there are many glaring moral failures in Christianity’s history… which are magnified by the radicalness of Jesus’ moral ideals.  But lately I was considering morality in terms of modern Christians.  This is a difficult subject.  I’ve been contemplating what Christianity precisely is.  Over the years, I’ve studied many of the early Christian texts and the scholarship about them, but I still feel rather confused about it all.

CHRISTIANITY?

Christianity doesn’t seem for the most part to be based on Jesus’ teachings.  As far as I can tell, Jesus wasn’t attempting to found a religion, build churches, start a social movement, create a cultural identity, or be the justification for the ideal of a Christian nation.  Going by gospels, I would say he was doing something apparently quite opposite to all of that.  Whatever Christianity (as an organized religious institution) may be, it is not a religion based on Jesus’ life and preaching.

I don’t mean Christians aren’t moral and don’t contribute positively to society.  My point is that Jesus was teaching a specific moral attitude that (if I understand it correctly) few Christians attempt to follow.  I sometimes doubt whether most Christians even understand what is written of Jesus in the New Testament.  Many probably don’t read Jesus’ words carefully and in their entirety.  I also suspect that the average Christian trusts the opinion of authorities over their own interpretive abilities (whether that of church authorities, religious teachers, or apologetic writers).  And certainly it’s a rare Christian who thoroughly studies the complexities of New Testament scholarship (including more secular scholarship such as the Jesus Seminar). 

Jesus preached all kinds of crazy ideas.  He taught people to not carry money but to sell all that they own and give their money to the poor, to leave their families, to let the dead bury themselves, to love their enemies, to challenge authority and not to place oneself as an authority over others, etc.  But Jesus also preached relatively less crazy ideas.  He taught people to treat others as they would like to be treated, to not swear oaths (which is actually quite radical considering our whole political and legal system is based on it), to not worship idols (and I doubt he was hoping himself to be worshipped as an idol), to not pray in public nor in temples (which undermines institutional Christianity), etc.  And Jesus said much else as well.  There are plenty of apparent contradictions to be found for anyone wishing to look.  Which statements are authentic?  Which are the most essential?  How to interpret them and live by them?

CHRISTIANS?

I know a Christian who has argued for torture and for the dropping of nuclear bombs in WWII.  I once told him about prisoners of war who while in custody were killed by soldiers and he thought it was excusable because the soldiers were angry.  WTF!?!  On the other hand, he donates his money and time to worthy causes.  He even has volunteered at soup kitchens.  He considers himself a good Christian and is very active in his church.  He wrote to me recently that the torture issue is just a blip, but I doubt Jesus would consider it a blip.  Heck, a major part of Jesus’ life was his being wrongly tortured.  Jesus told his followers to not meet violence with violence but rather to turn the other cheek.  Jesus was very clear on this particular point and I don’t see any other way to interpret it.

I don’t mean to be harsh on this person in using him as an example.  I think he is a typical Christian and does genuinely try to be a good person as he understands it.  Also, there are reasonable arguments that morally justify such things as torture and atomic bombs.  I understand how fear motivates people to take extreme actions and I understand that sometimes life seems to force us to choose the lesser of evils.  The problem is that these aren’t Christian moral justifications and in fact are clearly anti-Christian.

As I see it, you’re either a Christian or you’re not.  If you don’t want to try to live up to the standards that Jesus set, then don’t try and don’t call yourself Christian.  It’s understandable that people fail to meet such high standards (impossibly high?).  It seems to me that being Christian isn’t easy… or maybe you’re doing it wrong if it seems easy.  As I see it, there is little excuse for someone claiming to be Christian to not try to follow Jesus’ example.  There is even less excuse for them to argue for immoral behavior that completely opposes everything Jesus stood for. 

STANDARDS & VIEWS

Am I being too judgmental?  What is the point of having so high of standards?  Well, I’d answer that it’s not I but Jesus who sets the bar so high.  To be honest, I’m uncertain about what good are Jesus’ teachings especially for the average person in the world today.  But I’m not the one arguing that Jesus’ teachings should be the moral standard of our entire society.  I really can’t see how Jesus teachings could be applicable beyond the level of personal choices.  I’d go so far as to say that the moment someone tries to base upon Jesus’ life any institution or law they’ve already betrayed what Jesus stood for.  Jesus was teaching absolute sacrifice, complete transformation of all that we understand and value.  Jesus wasn’t teaching personal betterment or the upholding of social order.  Jesus for damn sure wasn’t teaching family values.  I find it particularly funny (or exasperating) when a Christian brings up family values.  Jesus said he came to turn family members against each other.  The closest thing that Jesus came to family values probably was when he spoke of divorce, but he considered remarriage adultery and if followed that would create many single parents.

To try to live according to the gospels would be difficult… and I suppose to completely live as such would be nigh impossible.  It would probably demand being an ascetic (homeless, wandering, and poverty-stricken) who dedicates his every action and thought to love and salvation.  Such a person would have to forever put other people before themselves including a willingness to completely trust God in even the most minor of decisions.  I can’t say I would want to try to live such a life, but there are Christians who have genuinely tried to live this way.  I don’t know if they’re better people than the rest of us for their radical lifestyle.  Still, at least they’re being true to what Jesus taught.

I realize there are arguments for why not all Christians need to live this way.  People tend to emphasize certain parts of the New Testament over other parts.  You get a different Jesus if you emphasize the Jewish elements… or if you emphasize the Pauline elements… or if you try to harmonize all of it… or if you look past all of the centuries of interpolation and interpretation.

Different views of “Christianity” became mixed up in the first and second centuries (and arguments have been made for one or the another being the original true Christianity), but that is an issue more complex than I wish to deal with here.   At this point, this whole discussion begins to devolve into doubts about what it even means to be a Christian (and even what Jesus really said and meant).  Nonetheless, despite how little we know of Jesus and early Christians, I still hold to my opinion that few Christians after the (supposed) life of Jesus have come even close to living up to his teachings (or else  the teachings written in his name). 

Maybe that is why the early Catholics struck upon the genius of emphasizing original sin above almost all else.  If we’re all sinners who are incapable of doing good beyond submitting our willpowers to the rule of the Church, then Christians don’t actually have to try to follow Jesus’ example.  We can do horrendous things to each other and we’ll still be forgiven.  Water-boarding and nuclear bombs for everyone until Jesus returns.  Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord!

SWORD OR PEACE?

I find it rather telling that many Christians turn to Jewish scriptures when they want moral certainty, and Jewish scriptures are much more open to violence and punishment.  However, I tend to disagree with the arguments for a Jewish Jesus.  The Jewish scriptures seemed to have been only at best of secondary relevance to Jesus, and in many ways they’re contrary to what many have understood to be a radically new message.  The first New Testament canonwas created (by the Gnostic Marcion) in order to clarify the uniqueness of Jesus message as a religion independent of (and opposing to) the legalism and wordliness of the Jewish scriptures (with Yahweh being the god of this world who keeps his followers in line through reward and punishment).  Jesus moral teachings are quite different in that there aren’t simple answers, and to turn to Jewish scriptures for simple answers is to miss the point.  For example, if Jesus believed in Jewish family values, then he would’ve himself married and had children as was expected of Jewish Rabbis.  Also, his denying his own mother doesn’t exactly demonstrate a pro-family attitude.  With the stated purpose of creating familial conflict, Jesus said that he came to send a sword rather than peace.

There obviously are arguments for Jesus supporting (or at least not always denouncing) violence.  Jesus uses sword imagery quite a bit, and it’s hard to explain why a supposed pacifist would rely so heavily on symbols of violence… although he could be attempting to transform physical objects into spiritual symbols and thus negating their violent meaning.  However, Jesus did at one point tell his followers to sell their robes and buy swords.  In this passage, there is a reference to “two swords” which is what the Judean siccari carried in fighting the Romans.  But later in this same chapter Jesus rejected the use of swords.  Did he change his mind or were his words remembered incorrectly? 

Another interesting passage is where Jesus says to turn the other cheek.  The custom was only to hit with the right hand because the left was reserved for unclean activities.  Also, the custom was to backhand inferiors which meant hitting the left cheek.  To offer your right cheek, would force the attacker to punch or slap which was only done between equals.  More importantly, this would be an invitation to fight back.  So, turning your cheek could simply be a refusal to play the role of the inferior or it could be a challenge to a fight. 

Furthermore, one of the most famous deeds of Jesus is his going on a wild rampage through the temple.  Why would a pacifist act this way?  To give some context, the Roman soldiers that came to arrest Jesus numbered at least 500 and possibly much higher.  Why would such a massive force be needed to arrest a pacifist?

Even if Jesus wasn’t entirely opposed to violence, few modern Christians refer to these passages to rationalize acts of violence… although, going by President Bush’s rhetoric, holy war is still a popular concept.  The Christian guy I mentioned earlier said he thought that the temple incident may not be true because it seems out of character.  The question is out of character from what?  Out of character from our modern expectations of Jesus?  Or out of character with the New Testament in general?  The problem is that many of Jesus’ sayings and deeds can seem out of character when placed next to eachother.  The New Testament is filled with seeming contradictions.  Maybe Jesus character is no different than any other human.  Maybe Jesus was inconsistent and changed his mind like humans are wont to do.  Still, Jesus does overall seem more of a pacifist than not.  And, despite certain unclear passages, Jesus obviously wasn’t the warrior-king messiah that many Jews were hoping for.  It’s for certain, anyways, that many Christians seem to want him to be a pacifist which makes it even odder when those same Christians formulate other arguments for violence.

WHAT BOTHERS ME

Whatever Jesus may or may not have been, I guess what bothers me isn’t so much whether someone feels able or willing to live according to the gospels.  There are at least two elements to what really bothers me.  First, Christians read their scriptures very selectively and tend to give less emphasis to the radical aspects of Jesus.  But this is probably similar to people in all religions.  Second, the compartmentalization of how Christians separate their religion from other parts of their life.  But I’d say this self-division is common to all people in various ways.  So, why should I pick on Christians in particular?  The main reason is because I live in a largely Christian society.  I grew up Christian and surrounded by Christians.  Christianity is what I’ve studied and what I know.  Christians are who I deal with the most.

I understand that many Christians try to be moral… whether or not they’re actually following the teachings of Jesus.  However, does being a Christian simply mean being a generally good person?  If so, how is a Christian any different than anyone else who is generally good?  I sense for most Christians it’s just a cultural identity which isn’t problematic in and of itself, but a cultural identity doesn’t personally inspire me.  The thing is what does it mean to be a good Christian?  If even good Christians kill, torture, and drop atom bombs (and morally justify these), then in what way is Christianity superior?  This is a profound question when one considers how Jesus was tortured and killed and how Christianity spread partly through even worse forms of violence.

So what?  Many Christians are hypocrites and much of Christian history is blatant hypocrisy.  That isn’t a new insight.  What’s the big deal?  This is just the way humans are.  The hypocrisy that bothers me seems to be inherent to the human condition, andChristians are humans afterall.  I’m also human and I don’t lack sympathy for the failings of humanity, but I don’t abide righteousness well.  My beef is that too many Christians have a superior attitude… obviously if they didn’t believe their religion was superior then there wouldn’t be much point in being a Christian (rather than any other arbitrary religious affiliation).  Then again, having a superiority complex is just another common human attribute.  Maybe I’m wrong to expect Christians to live up to their own righteous ideals moreso than anyone else. 

I’m no moral exemplar myself… but the difference between certain Christians and myself is that I don’t seek to morally justify actions that are morally questionable (such as torture).  I realize, from a practical standpoint, there are potentially “moral” reasons for violence used selectively.  Modern people often use a facade of utilitarianism to rationalize otherwise immoral actions.  Utilitarianism is the attempt to seek the greatest good for the greatest numbers, and it’s hard to argue against that in principle.  However, it’s a slippery slope.  With it, justifications can be made to torture someone to prevent them from setting off a nuclear bomb for example.  And, also with it, justifications can be made to drop a nuclear bomb on them pre-emptively. 

The question is whose greater good are we serving?  The greater good of our particular group or the greater good of humanity?  And, from a Christian perspective, doesn’t utilitarianism (when used to trump Jesus’ teachings) come dangerously close to undermining the entire basis of Christianity?  The Christian is commanded to serve the higher good of God and the higher good of loving his fellow man.  If we must do violence to eachother on this planet we share, I’d rather we not pretend that it’s a matter of morality.

A DEEPER ISSUE, AN ESSENTIAL TRUTH

Along with moral hypocrisy, I want to focus on a deeper issue of human nature, the compartmentalization I mentioned above.  I first came to understand this from reading Derrick Jensen’s A Language Older Than Words.  Jensen shows how easy it is to become divided within oneself.  This is particularly a problem for modern people.  In the world today, life is splintered into so many factors of society and so many fields of knowledge.  A person learns about one thing in school and another thing at church.  A person knows one set of people at work and another set of people at church.  People make decisions that affect others who they’ve never met and who they know nothing about.  Soldiers go to far off lands and kill strangers because another stranger in a position of authority told them to do so.  The challenge of morality is that humans aren’t designed to deal with the complexities of this global society.  Torture, killing, and nuclear bombs are unreal abstractions until they happen to you or to someone you love.  The human moral sense is unable to deal with anything outside of our immediate sphere of experience. 

Jensen uses many examples, but one is particularly relevant here.  He extensively refers to the Nazis and in one instance he writes of Nazi doctors.  There were doctors whose job was to kill people which of course included children.  Some of these doctors had families they returned to every night.  How could they inject a child with poison and then hours later play with their own children?  Psychological research shows that people have immense ability to separate different parts of our lives.  When at home, the dead children simply didn’t exist in the doctor’s mind.  Furthermore, everyone has their rationalizations.  Some of the doctors, if I remember correctly, believed they were actually helping the people they killed… which would’ve been difficult to sustain if their own children ever ended up in one of the death camps… but, as long as the two worlds could remain separate, the illusion continued.

This psychological ability to compartmentalize does have evolutionary advantages.  We identify with our group, our close relationships… and the stranger, the enemy become something less.  This tribal instinct has served man well, but religions during the Axial Age (such as Christianity) called us to a higher aspiration.  The prophets and teachers of that time spoke of caring as much about a stranger as we do about ourselves.  Afterall, we are all strangers to someone until we get to know them.  And it’s been said that behind each stranger’s face is God.  To put it bluntly, the man alone in a prison being tortured by those who know not what they do is the same as Jesus on the cross.  No one deserves torture, and anyone who tortures another forsakes whatever is good in their heart.  As Jesus says, “What you do to the least of these, you do unto me.”

That quote of Jesus captures the essence of how many people think of Jesus.  I was talking to another person about these various issues.  I was explaining about the complexities of Jesus’ message… and lamenting about difficulty of understanding.  He argued that there is an essential truth and that the details are less important.  The idea is that, although Jesus made specific statements, they were applicable to specific people in specific situations.  Nonetheless, the message behind the words still speaks to us so many centuries later.  The problem with this is that Christians have come to different conclusions about the essential truth.  I wonder if it’s when all of the details aren’t considered fully that Christians end up rationalizing actions that don’t seem very Christian.  Then again, all of the details don’t add up to a clear message either.

Part of the confusion is that the Bible is such a mix of texts written at different times by different people.  There are at least three possible solutions to articulating a clear message:

1. The orthodox Christians attempt to harmonize, but that just adds further problems.  Ultimately, there can be no honest harmonization between all of the contradictory details and divergent agendas.  Harmonization falls apart if you look at it too closely.  Even so, this technique has been powerfully used when filtered through centuries of orthodox interpretations and upheld by the persuasive might of Church authority.
2. I’m more attracted to an understanding like that of Marcion  I’ve thought for a long time that there is a marked distinction between Jewish and Christian scriptures.  It’s true that Jewish ideas formed a background to early Christianity, but Christian scriptures range way beyond orthodox Jewish tradition.  Plus, I’m convinced that the main components of Christian theology and mythology have very little to do with Judaism beyond the fact that some Jews were also influenced by the same cultural milieu.  Marcion definitely understand the radicalness of Jesus’ message like few others.  Love doesn’t merely complete the law.  The God of love is entirely separate from the god of the law.
3. Like Marcion, another early Christian who left Catholicism was Valentinus.  In some ways, Valentinus was more moderate in that he was seeking to bridge the differences between orthodoxy and Gnosticism… not that the differences were necessarily that great at the time.  On the other hand, the Gnostic vision at the heart of the Valentinian tradition is quite radical.  But even so Valentinus realized that simple faith is still good for those who lack an experience of gnosis.

CONTENTMENT AND OTHERWISE

Anyways, most Christians go for the first solution.  That is fair enough as most people aren’t looking for radical answers from their religion.  Traditionally, religion is an institution of the status quo in that it helps to promote and sustain social order.  I was thinking of someone I know who reminds me of my own mother… the stereotypical good Christian.  This woman spent her life in a helping profession.  She always has played the role of loyal wife and caring mother.  She is a simple person who has spent her life being responsible and hardworking.  She attends church regularly and she volunteers.  She is “good” in a very socially acceptable way and she seems quite content in being good.  But is contentment the same as moral goodness?  Is it inherently good to submit to a duty-bound life (i.e., the ideal of Kiersey’s SJ Temperament)?  As I see it, people like this live according to their personalities.  And this is true for everyone… but are certain personalities morally superior? 

Should we all strive to be like this?  What if someone doesn’t feel capable of being like this (such as, to pick a random example, an INFP)?  What about a person who isn’t so easily contented or who is even outright dissatisfied (such as, to pick another random example, a depressed person)?  Jesus certainly didn’t seem like a contented soul who did what was expected of him.  And neither am I of the contented variety.  The rub of the matter is that those of a discontented nature are generally not looked upon kindly by the keepers of the status quo.  If the discontented cause enough problems, they may even come to a bad end… such as being crucified… or, the equivalent in the modern world, being imprisoned/institutionalized.

This is a very personal matter for me.  I was raised with parents who lived as basically good people.  And this sense of basic goodness was instilled in me.  The difficulty for me is that I have an idealistic nature and I’ve never been contented with basic goodness.  I read A Course In Miraclesin highschool.  From this, I learned of Jesus’ radical message of love(which more or less fits in with the Valentinian tradition).  I don’t know if the Gnostics were right about the transformative power of gnosis, but I’d like to believe they were right.  I’ve read of stories of various mystics who were transformed by divine visions and dark nights of the soul, and I’m still waiting for God to reach down and bop me on the head with his magic wand.  I have had a number of visions in my life that felt quite spiritual and yet I remain untransformed.  I feel as if I’m in an endless dark night of the soul… sometimes minus the soul.  Basically, it sucks being depressed.  I wish I were able to be one of those simple good people.  I’ve tried to be that before, but it just ain’t me.  Instead, I simultaneously feel envious and critical of all of the “good” Christians in the world. 

It just seems unfair that some people can go through life feeling certain in their beliefs while others are doomed to eternal doubt.  I’m a bit biased but I’m of the opinion that the world could use more doubt.  If people more strongly doubted their own righteous convictions, then there would probably be less righteous violence in the world.  Going by my own experience and observations, there appears to be a link between suffering and compassion.  People only seem to have compassion to the degree they’ve personally suffered… not that suffering in and of itself guarantees development of compassion.

IN CONCLUSION…

I just don’t know.  I hereby confess my ignorance.  Maybe all my complaining and analysis comes to nothing.  Most likely I’m just a depressed person who thinks too much.  Oh well…