Legend for the Ages: The Story of Christmas

The beauty of mythology is that it celebrates one of man's most treasured possessions—the imagination. With the unique powers of the imagination, one can construct that which reason tells us cannot be constructed; travel to places reason tells us we cannot go; become something reason tells us we will never become. Reason, it seems, has no place in such a conjured world, and for this we should all be grateful.

The cult of reason and rationality often fails to satisfy our collective appetite for the unreal, the unachievable, the unknowable. But we have ingeniously devised a way to go to these very places where none have gone before. The imagination takes us on these fantastical voyages to worlds which cannot become real, and yet manage to become nearly real through the magic of belief! By believing something to be true we ground in our own reality that which would otherwise remain forever outside the world of possibility.

And so it is with Christmas. For the faithful, this holiday commemorates events believed to have actually occurred. For the rest of us, it has evolved into a legend of grand proportions—a myth worthy of the gods. And frankly, this is where Christmas belongs—as a fable among fables, the finest of folklore.

As unassailable dogma, the story of Christmas fails completely; as fruit from the tree of the imagination, however, it succeeds in grand style. Here it can be embraced for the quaint and charming fiction that it is. That being said, wishing someone a "Merry Christmas" nonetheless has the feel of a ratifying gesture many of us are not comfortable offering. Until such time as the story of Christmas is relieved of the religious burden to ground itself in reality, the seasonal greeting of choice for us skeptics will likely remain "Happy Holidays."

Perhaps in another thousand years, the Christmas tale will be told to our young without the taint of religious indoctrination, and will instead be appreciated for what it truly is—precious fodder for the untamed imagination.

Self or God: The False Choice

Auxiliary Bishop Peter Rosazza of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut was interviewed recently on the Colin McEnroe Show on Connecticut Public Radio. (Check out the interview.) It was an oddly entertaining encounter—as revealing as it was nonsensical.

First off, Bishop Rosazza is an affable figure. He engagingly interacted with the host who is self-professed in his religious skepticism. At no point did the bishop appear to be condescending, though he could not help but come across as somewhat instructive—no doubt for the benefit of the godless Mr. McEnroe. The problem the bishop had was the same one religious apologists face the world over: having to explain the inexplicable.

To every substantive question posed by the interviewer about matters of faith, God, spirituality, etc., Bishop Rosazza's responses were constructed of little more that compounded metaphors, as though he were speaking in a code only the faithful could comprehend. He didn't seem to possess the tools of articulation necessary to put forth even a modest defense of his own life of faith. Circular reasoning, ambiguous logic, and flowery ruminations were all that he offered, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Many apologists amazingly find success with these tools, especially when addressing those who are more predisposed to conformity and group-think in the first place.

While acknowledging that man does indeed have a duty to his fellow man, the bishop nonetheless asserts that successfully fulfilling this duty requires "faith in action." The objectionable insinuation is that without religious faith, man is ill equipped to adequately tend to his fellow man. Scores of godless humanitarians might have something different to say on the subject.

Of particular interest was the bishop's suggestion that without God in his life, man is unalterably self-centered. In other words: believe in the transcendence of God, or believe in the exaltation of the human self. What other choice is there? One could easily infer from this rhetorical device that there is nothing else to put one's 'faith' in. How often it is said: we can not do it alone. About this, those who say such things are absolutely correct. We humanist skeptics understand all too well that we are powerless to manage life's complexities on our own. We turn to a different place for an answer, however. We turn to others. We worship nothing; we worship no one. Instead, we value and respect man's ability to strive for his own betterment, with the help of others, to the end that the human condition is rightly improved. This mindset affords not only meaning and purpose, it even provides a sense of worldly salvation.

The human individual—on his own—is just as impotent as any supernatural entity when it comes to conquering the challenges of life. People living, loving, and working in concert, however, can achieve great things.

Twenty Years and Counting

It was a day like no other — at once ordinary and unique. Having as yet to be emancipated from the sticky tentacles of religiosity, Jami and I passively relented and were married in a church ceremony.

The weight of expectations, in retrospect, was enormous. Where else would one get married? Certainly not in a civil ceremony at the Town Hall. That's just not where good Catholics tie the knot. But why? That we didn't even entertain the notion of having the local Justice of the Peace formally unite us says much about how conforming our state of mind had become.

Jami and I married one another because we loved each other and wanted our union to be recognized. We were married in a Catholic church, however, for no other reason than we were expected to be. Such is the power of religious culture, family influence, and ritualized conformity.

We take comfort in the knowledge that our marriage was recognized by the state, having met certain state-imposed criteria. In a practical sense, then, it was a civil union. Today we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of our marriage not our religious wedding ceremony. We take joy in recalling the social ritual of eating, drinking, dancing, and otherwise partying with so many who wished us well on that special night.

Our relationship is stronger today because we have freed ourselves to be who and what we really are: two human beings tethered by sweetness and good humor, intent upon learning how to better love ourselves, each other, and our precious daughter Alycia.

It may not be the perfect relationship, but it is one built upon respect, and for that reason alone, it's a fair bet we're gonna make it.

My One-Time 'Encounter' with Uncle Frank

It was the Summer of ’72. School was out, but the livin’ wasn’t exactly easy. I had just finished my second of three attempts at completing the tenth grade. Needless to say, I needed a diversion in the worst way.

Enter dear old Dad—Henry F. Cooney. Pop was not saying much, but I could tell something was brewing. For several days he kept checking the weather station telex for cities from Williamsburg, Pennsylvania to Grand Island, Nebraska. I had learned from years of “stand-up, speak-up and shut-up” indoctrination, however, not to ask questions.

Usually Pop and I would just fly to New Haven or Keene, New Hampshire, have a cup of coffee and turn around. But the clues were all around that a longer trip might just be in the offing. He upgraded to a bigger ‘ship’— as he liked to call his plane. A Cessna 182 with variable pitch prop! (I still don’t know what that means.) The incessant weather checks for all points west and the conspicuous reminiscing about his family and the old neighborhood further aroused my suspicions.

Sure enough, as soon as the moment was right, we took off from Brainard Airport on the wings of that old adage, “Go west young man.” Except Pop wasn’t so young anymore—and neither was his brother Frank who, as it turns out, was clinging to what was left of his life in a VA hospital bed in Colorado Springs. Without even telling him we were coming, the race was on to surprise Frank with a visit before his time would run out.

The trip west was almost uneventful. Severe thunderstorms chased us to the service ceiling of our aircraft before Pop finally gave up and asked Cleveland Control to vector us down through the muck. Plus a landing gear problem held us up for a day in Omaha. We sure didn’t need the delay.

The vastness of the Plains gradually gave way to higher elevations until, almost suddenly, the majesty of the Rocky Mountains was upon us. After a parallel runway miscommunication nearly landed us on the windshield of an oncoming DC9, we settled in for the night in Denver.

The final leg to Colorado Springs was a short one. The terrain between the two cities tops off at nearly 9,000 feet! Any higher and we would have had to find another mode of transportation. We rented a car, got directions and made it to the hospital without a hitch. The suspense was beginning to build. When Pop asked what room Frank was in—and managed to get an answer—we figured we had beaten the Grim Reaper to the punch. We figured right.

Upon opening the door to Frank’s room, we saw a frail old man sitting on the edge of his bed, facing the wall and clinging to his oxygen mask. Henry quietly moved closer until he could tap Frank gently on the shoulder. In a flash, Frank tossed away his oxygen mask, sprung to his feet (well, kind of sprung), looked in disbelief at who it was and greeted him with, “Henry, you old son of a bitch! How the hell are you?” I learned that day that swearing at your brother under some circumstances was a good thing. The two then embraced in a kind of bear hug only brothers know how to give.

When Frank noticed me on the other side of the bed, he asked Henry, “Who’s that?” My Dad simply replied, “Don’t mind him. He’s just the co-pilot.” At that point I figured my home for the next half hour or so was sitting in the chair—on the other side of the room.

I listened in amazement as the two aging brothers went on about the old days and how nearly everyone they ever knew had already died. It was clear Frank knew he was soon to be gone as well, but that reality only served to make this reunion all the more special.

To this day, whenever anyone asks me if I ever had occasion to meet Uncle Frank, I usually tell them “meet” is such a strong word, but that I was once in the same room with him.

The chair in the corner was my place that afternoon, but more importantly, Henry and Frank found their place on that special day—in each other’s arms.

Brotherly love is such a cool thing.

Skepticism: The Critical Commodity

In the world some of us grew up in, obedience and conformity were the rule. Questioning authority was a sin. Was that the way it really should have been?

As it turns out, obedience and conformity are necessary when the only sustenance being offered one's intellect is wrapped in dogma. Anything less is insubordinate. Rather than eagerly engaging a child when he or she invokes his instinct to question everything, those who value conformity over skepticism will instead say, "Because I am your mother, and I said so." Putting aside the fact that one's parents have decades of experience with life and, as a rule, know better than a child what is best for him or her, great pains should nonetheless be taken to indulge a child's inquisitiveness to the greater end that its natural sense of skepticism be cultivated rather than quashed. Critical thinking is not just for grown-ups.

This kind of free thinking, however, is anathema to god-driven ideology. Recalling the Jesuit master who proclaimed that as long as he had the attention of a child for the first seven years of life or thereabouts, his mind forever after belonged to him, the nefarious nature of compulsory religious education of the young is brazenly exposed.

How best then to pass down accumulated wisdom if not via the rigidity of dogmatism? When a child is told to repeat, "five times five equals twenty-five" one hundred times, odds are he will assimilate this truism. Why not the same methodology for learning about life? Compel one to memorize The Ten Commandments and he may well trust that these, too, are based on a truthfulness worthy of ritualization.

A much better approach is to instill values, and values are best shared by example. But isn't conformity a value? Yes, but the essential aspect of conformity as a value is that it functions only when not held up as a value of dimensions so nearly absolute it serves as little more than an end unto itself. Conformity at the expense of one's uniqueness is abhorrently dysfunctional.

A natural skeptic questions vigorously even those whom, and that which, he is predisposed to agree with. Being of the liberal political persuasion, I might be inclined to go along with a public health care option, but I am highly skeptical when the president claims his plan will more than pay for itself over the life of the bill. Likewise, when a conservative denounces a government health care option—for reasons other than the inane—I am immediately suspicious of my own instinct to dismiss him. If skepticism is a worthy value for one, it should be just as worthy a value for the other.

An unquestioning faith in anything, whether religious or secular, is not a value worthy of passing on to those whose intellects we are charged with nurturing. Rather it is an invitation to denigrate that which should be cherished: an independent and inquisitive mind.

In the pursuit of knowledge, skepticism most surely is—the critical commodity.

America's Resilient Racist Underbelly

In the Srednyaya, Akhtuba province of Russia, African-born farmer Joaquim Crima is running for leading office. In a coffee shop the other day - right here in America - one Caucasian customer made his feelings about the matter very clear: "Don't worry. He'll probably end up in a ditch somewhere, just like Obama will."

This racist utterance was remarkable for its openness - its lack of self-censorship. There is obviously more work to be done at the task of marginalizing the hate-mongers among us.

It was probably too good to be true - that America might actually begin to function as a "post-racial" society. With the election of its first African American president, the signs of hope were everywhere. Throughout the grueling vetting process, Barack Obama proved himself to be cautious, deliberate and tolerant, while at the same time revealing a sense of balance between healthy idealism and necessary realism in the debates of the day. But a recent spate of events leaves one wondering what is really behind all the hostility toward President Obama:

• As congressional leaders go home for their August recess, many are taking their case for health care reform directly to their constituents in town hall meetings. In a number of Democratic-sponsored events, forces opposed to reform have taken to boisterously interrupting the proceedings and stifling the debate. The claims that these are grass-roots protesters seeking to be heard doesn't bear out. The facts point to organized groups with ties to the health care industry and conservative lobbying firms sending out virtual rent-a-mobs to intentionally disrupt the goings-on, giving legitimate Republican opposition a bad image;

• Disseminating lies about Democratic health care proposals including one that government "death panels" would tell doctors when to deny care and 'pull the plug' on aging people;

• Senate confirmation hearings over the nomination of Hispanic Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court were rife with remarks by dissenting Judiciary Committee members questioning her integrity and commitment to the rule of law. Some tried to label her a kind of reverse racist for her "enlightened Hispanic woman" remarks;

• A strange coalition of lawmakers, pundits, celebrities and others have latched onto the absurd notion that President Obama was not born in the United States, and therefore is not the legitimate president;

• Ultra-conservative media types - Rush, Glen, Bill-O, etc., - are attempting to demonize the president by giving voice to those offering extremist rhetoric, e.g., comparing liberals and reformists to Nazis and depicting the president as an Adolf Hitler clone;

• Sara Palin continues to make references to "the America I know and love" - presumably the same "real America" she referred to during the presidential election - serving only to mock the America others know and love;

• In an effort to swell their ranks with new recruits, militia groups are stoking fears about the direction the country has taken since Barack Obama took office;

• Labeling the president a "socialist" for his handling of the bank bailouts, auto company bailouts and health care reform, taps into the fears many people were programmed to feel about the very concept of socialism.

In addition, there seems to be a contingent of Americans coalescing into a lot whose substance is nebulous and yet cohesive, leading a chorus of voices with the suspicious refrain, "We want our country back." The clear implication being that a certain someone has taken their country away from them. The unnamed culprit is no doubt the newly elected African American president. What is becoming painfully clear is that many of the people voicing their dissatisfaction with President Obama are merely angry, white people who cannot stomach the notion that an intelligent and popular black person has ascended to the presidency and is now the face of the country. To these people, Barack Obama represents all that they fear. But because overt expressions of racism are not tolerated, cloaking their hatred in a veneer of populist rhetoric deceptively gives voice to their frustrations.

The larger view of these events points to a sea change in the American political landscape. The right wing of the Republican Party is plainly convulsing in the throes of death. Much as a severely wounded animal lashes out uncontrollably just before expiring, ultra-conservatives are lashing out knowing their days of political viability are numbered as well. The inane antics flowing from conservatives at the moment reveals a desperation, knowing they have lost the hearts and minds of the reasonable masses from the left and the right. The resurgence of the Republican Party lies in its moderating influences, not the resurrection of its angry, white faction.

Of course, President Obama is not in a position to call out these malcontents for their prejudice. He can only refer to them as "those who would spread lies and misinformation," leaving the crude task of exposing the racists to those who have less to lose.

There are many white people who fear they are losing their grip on this country. They are correct to point out they are losing their grip on America. Their mistake lies in fearing such an eventuality. That Whites will soon be a minority is a simple reality that holds no promise one way or the other as to whether it will be a good thing or not. What is clear is that those of color who will soon make up a majority will likely be up to the challenge of asserting a more enlightened benchmark for truly democratic reforms.

Though it won't be totally eliminated, racism will no doubt become even more offensive to an even greater number of people once this recent virus runs its course. Then, maybe, the journey toward a truly post racial society can commence.

Glenn Beck: Have Camera, Will Vomit

Proof that there are too many professional video cameras in the world.

Hmmm. Let me see. Eenie meenie miney moe. . . A. Glenn Beck is a racist; B. President Obama is a racist. Such a difficult choice. Well fuck it. I guess I'll take A.

Very happy to help you get out your message, Mr. Beck. The vomitus has to be exposed before it is cleaned up. Keep your nonsense coming. With every hate-filled inanity you utter, the world you inhabit gets a little smaller.

The Legacy of Subjugation

It must be Pick On Pat Buchanan Week. But then again, his ignorance and prejudice are such that exposing them is the only responsible thing to do. The problem with Mr. Buchanan receiving as much air time as he does is that viewers are duped into thinking that he speaks for a large number of people. The consequence of this is the further polarization of the races. The marginal thinking of Mr. Buchanan deserves marginal exposure. But the networks eat it up because nothing sells like controversy.

Newsflash: Pat Buchanan does not represent the thinking of educated and informed white people. If he speaks for anyone anymore, he speaks for an ever-dwindling fringe of backward-thinking, ultra-conservative people who have no sense of history or responsibility vis-à-vis Black Americans and their experience.

Mr. Buchanan likes to point to statistics that reveal a state of affairs in the Black community today that is, shall we say, wanting. And then he has the temerity to suggest that Blacks in America are wholly responsible for whatever blight has befallen their condition. Statistics in a vacuum of context mean absolutely nothing. What does it mean that the illegitimacy rate among Blacks is 70%? What does it mean that Blacks commit crime at a rate seven times that of Whites? What is really behind the phenomenon of so-called self segregation among so many Blacks? What does it mean when no Blacks perform highly enough on a New Haven firefighter's examination to qualify for promotion?

We could ask questions like this all day long, and those who tend to disregard the truth about the Black experience in America probably see no connection between hundreds of years of subjugation to White authority, subordination to White privilege and the state of affairs in the Black community today. Plus, pointing up only the negative statistics serves to contradict and deny the reality that despite what they have had to endure, Blacks have enriched American culture immeasurably.

When Black intellectuals like Michael Eric Dyson or Cornell West make the point that White America has yet to accept its responsibility for the struggling plight of African Americans or that this country has yet to live up to its promise of equality and opportunity for everyone, they are castigated by those able to disguise their ignorance and prejudice as moderate, populist rhetoric.

The irony of Mr. Buchanan's statistical pontificating is that any enlightened interpretation of these statistics is infinitely more damning to Whites than Blacks. Rather than revealing a lack of responsibility by African Americans for their own plight, they reveal the extent to which White America has abdicated its responsibility for cultivating a society where fairness and opportunity are not just words but cherished ideals.

While it cannot be denied that much progress has been made toward realizing America's promise, it is ludicrous to pretend that we have done all that is necessary to level the playing field. As it exists today, the so-called playing field is pockmarked with craters of injustice. White America needs to grow up and accept its share of responsibility for the disproportionate levels of social ills afflicting Black America. It has had a big hand in fomenting the conditions where hopelessness and despair can take hold and complicate the struggle to thrive.

Black Americans aren't looking for excuses - just validation.

Theory vs. Fact: The Erroneous Premise

A common representation by many religious people who are skeptical of the theory of evolution is that it is "just a theory" and not "fact." Making this statement reveals an underlying misconception of just what a theory is. In the realm of science, "the meaning of theory is very rigorous: a theory must be based on observable facts and must make testable predictions." (Wikipedia: Evolution As Theory and Fact)

In some respects, theories are on a higher order than simple facts because theories serve to explain facts. Very often the word "fact" is used to convey something that is presumed to be immutable or unalterably true. This is not the case in a scientific sense. Something is factual when its predictions have survived so many tests that continuing to perform tests makes little or no sense; its degree of probability is extremely high. In this context, the consensus among scientists is that evolution is indeed a fact as well.

It's quite possible that what many skeptics intend to say is that evolution is a hypothesis, i.e., a proposition set forth as a possible explanation for certain phenomena. The problem here is that it has been a hundred and fifty years since evolution has been considered a hypothesis. It has long since graduated to accepted theory. Bearing in mind that theories are never proven absolutely true, current or accepted theories - to be more precise - have survived numerous tests to invalidate them, thereby rendering their probability very high.

At this point, we arrive at the reason something like intelligent design is unacceptable as a scientific theory: its predictions are not testable! Rational scientists do not preclude the possibility that there may be an intelligent designer behind the creation of the universe; they merely contend that such a hypothesis is untestable, ergo not fit for presentation in the scientific classroom. To be more precise, predictions made by intelligent design are not based on observable facts. They often purport to be, but so far these claims of fact have been scientifically refuted. The essence of ID is that where there is no explanation for something as of yet, e.g., gaps in the fossil record, the default explanation is there must be an intelligent designer.

In short, ID proponents thought that if they presented intelligent design as a scientific theory, it would be suitable for the science classroom. As jurisdictions throughout the country are beginning to confirm, whatever ID is, it is not science. "...[I]t is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom." (The TalkOrigins Archive: Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District)

The Best 'Health Care System?' - Not a Chance

A persistent claim by many politicians opposed to major health care reform - most of whom are Republicans - is that we here in the United States already have the best health care system in the world. Their hope is that if they can sell the American people on this feeble myth, they will be able to preserve a system they amazingly see little wrong with.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said something very stupid. Like telling Americans they can have good health care coverage too if they just "went to work for the federal government." Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) also said that people without insurance are not really denied health care because all they have to do is "go to the emergency room." Not only do these idiotic remarks need no elucidation, they are indefensible.

What are these detractors referring to when they make this claim about Americans having the best health care system in the world? What is clear is that the United States can deliver the best emergency care of any country. "Highly trained American doctors can summon Star Wars-type technology in saving patients who have become seriously injured or critically ill." (Myth: The U.S. Has the Best Health Care System In the World)

What this means is that from a strictly medical perspective, i.e., economic considerations aside, we have the best doctors and the best system for providing high-end, complicated care and procedures to people in critical situations. As remarkable as this ability is, it has little effect on the issue of providing coverage and delivering services to the every day masses who are in need of more routine - but nonetheless important - medical care including preventive medicine. Being able to safely perform quadruple-bypass surgery or highly complicated neurosurgery is great, but what about the uninsured individual who simply can't find a primary care physician?

A sustainable, profit-driven model has yet to emerge as a viable option for providing comprehensive health care to an entire society because covering everyone for all conditions would eviscerate the bottom line of any profit-driven scheme. In other words, to realize a profit in the business of health care delivery, coverage must exclude certain conditions as well as a certain segment of society.

If the goal of making any public option a self-sustaining one is to be realized, there may be no alternative other than to tax high income earners enough to achieve this. As the United States has the world's worst income disparity between rich and poor, such a tax would serve to mitigate this cruel inequity. Further, young and healthy people should be legally obliged to participate in a health insurance program because their contributions are necessary to provide for the poor, sick, elderly and indigent among whom they will one day be counted.

The American health care industry may well be profitable, but its health care system is loathsomely deficient.

Obama Shoots From the Hip - Finally

If there is one thing that has characterized President Obama's approach to sensitive or difficult situations, it has been his rock-steady sense of reserve, caution and deliberation. Something recently happened, however, which finally revealed a chink in his armor of prudence.

After admitting that he didn't have "all the facts" about the arrest of Harvard's Henry Louis Gates, he then said something that not having all the facts should have precluded him from saying. It was an unlikely reaction for someone of President Obama's stature. By saying that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" he has accomplished a near-infamous feat. Despite all he has said and done to bring wisdom to the issue of race relations in America, the president's remark holds the potential for raising tensions between the races.

That the Cambridge police might have "acted stupidly" is a matter to be determined by the facts as they are revealed. It's quite possible they did act stupidly, but it was not for the president to make this judgment prematurely. Some would argue - with good reason - that even if the Cambridge police acted with egregious malfeasance, any reaction from the president should necessarily be both measured and cautious.

As President Obama himself has stated several times, we are all prone to the occasional gaffe. The problem is this particular remark smells more like a Freudian slip than an unthinking gaffe. This does not mean the only interpretation of this incident should be sinister. The hard truth is that white Americans do not know what it is like to be treated as little more than a suspect class of citizens. Racial profiling remains a stubborn stain on the otherwise honorable uniforms of many law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

The president should make a humble and unambiguous apology for his remark. This is the all-important first step toward repairing whatever damage may have already been done. Police agencies across the country should, with equal humility, move to accept his apology. Certainly Americans have achieved a sufficient level of understanding about each other to know that an incident such as this is not beyond our ability to comprehend and put into proper perspective. A mutual offer of emotional leeway should be more than sufficient to turn this incident into something everyone can learn from. And anyone looking to capitalize on this miscue for nefarious purposes should be exposed, called to account and deservingly marginalized.

Pat Buchanan: Ignorant White Supremacist

Rachel vs. Pat

You gotta love Rachel Maddow. Yes she's liberal, gay, progressive and spunky. It's also plain she has a nose for BS. In the video linked above, Maddow corrects the record as put forth by the all-too-obnoxious Pat Buchanan.

This writer once complimented Mr. Buchanan as an insightful critic who often had something of value to say despite his ultra-conservative, out-of-touch political orientation. (Pat Buchanan: Tolerable Critic?) This writer would now like to offer himself up for ridicule and derision for having ever been so naive.

Pat Buchanan represents all that is ideologically bankrupt about conservative punditry, especially concerning matters of race. He asserts that affirmative action is an institution that discriminates against white people. Allow me to put it this way: He is absolutely correct! Affirmative action does in fact put into place a system of granting favor to minorities in matters of employment, school admissions, etc. What he conveniently forgets to tell us is that affirmative action was conceived as a remedy for past illegal discrimination against minorities. He has been known to acknowledge the legitimacy of affirmative action on occasion, but contends it has long outlived its usefulness - presumably because he believes we have achieved the goal of leveling the playing field. He can't seem to wrap his head around the fact that we still have a very, very long way to go before the playing field is anywhere near level.

The MSNBC video speaks for itself, so go ahead and watch it. And to anyone who finds himself in agreement with Mr. Buchanan, may I make a suggestion: Ignorance is at the heart of your prejudice. Educate yourself, and do honor to our first duty as American citizens - our duty to the truth.

Finding Common Ground

Forty years ago today man first set foot on the surface of the moon. After eons of gazing skyward with blissful ignorance and total wonderment, our journey to the stars was finally under way. In all, twelve human beings have walked on the surface of our nearest celestial neighbor, and in time others will surely return.

Why did we go to then moon? Was it, as many have so succinctly pointed out, just because it was there? Can the challenge of defining a purpose for something so grand be that simple? One reason Christopher Columbus no doubt traversed the mighty Atlantic Ocean was to find out what was on the other side. The instinctual need to know, our unquenchable thirst for knowledge, lies at the heart of what motivates us as intelligent beings.

For some the need to know cannot wait, and the need to believe takes precedence. As life goes, this is not a crime. The complexity of the universe is more than sufficient to make us wonder whether or not the goal of understanding it all will ever be within our grasp. Believing in something greater than ourselves can be a noble and admirable sentiment. We who call ourselves rationalists also sense the urge to be a part of something greater than ourselves. For us, however, that something takes the form of a purpose - not a being whose very existence is a matter of debate.

Sadly, the overriding trait of the relationship between theists and rationalists is antagonism. For a culture that celebrates diversity, this is something of a mystery. What is it about the nature of these world views that makes each so unpalatable to the other? Are we in fact precluded from sharing the things that make life most worth living? Or does the pursuit of ideological détente provide the best hopes for finding common ground?

The most obvious thing rationalists and theists share is their humanity. In the context of divining purpose, however, one's humanity defies description in terms of whether it is religious or secular. It must be conceded that ultimate truths about human nature and the universe are beyond our understanding for the time being. This does not mean that having religious faith is something to be looked down upon. On the contrary, it is eminently worthwhile insofar as it invites healthy speculation about that which we someday hope to understand.

Questioning the commitment to our own presumptions about life - and about each other - is critical to the task of understanding, which, in turn, is critical to the task of living with tolerance. Agreeing to disagree has its place, but in the quest to find common ground, there is no substitute for seeking out, even among our adversaries, that which is truly deserving of respect.

Founded on Christianity? I Think Not

Time and again many religious conservatives invoke a most fallacious claim in defense of their ideologically bankrupt perspectives regarding the founding of our nation. If it has in fact been long-settled that the United States was founded precisely upon secular precepts, why do claims that our nation was founded on Christianity persist?

It is likely many of these arguments stem from the notion that the vast majority of early American settlers were indeed Christians. Much of what they were looking to escape from was in fact religious persecution. However, it was persecution from other religious groups they were seeking freedom from.

Nine of the thirteen original colonies did in fact establish official state churches. But as time went on, the same kind of persecution they had fled in Europe began to surface in the colonies. People fled from one colony to another in search of the freedom to practice the kind of faith they believed in. When the colonies morphed into the original United States of America, a conspicuously secular governing constitution was conceived. Nowhere is there a mention of a god. Further, the First Amendment to the Constitution specifically prohibits the making of any law which either establishes a religion or prohibits the free exercise of religion.

The important distinction to be made is that while the original New World settlers were indeed very religious people, it was a secular ideology which enabled the notion of free religious expression to thrive when the colonies later united to form the nation-state of America.

It's not complicated.

The Allure of the Comfort Zone

After many years of enduring criticism from others that I am too often indiscreet, impolitic, or insensitive, I am forced to wonder whether or not these observations have merit. The verdict on this score is swift - and sure: those who see me as a brazenly inappropriate envelope-pusher of social norms are spot on correct.

Conformity - or worse yet, behaving like a predictable automaton - is very overrated. Trading witticisms is a poor substitute for meaningful communication. The truth is most people do not want to be nudged from their cozy comfort zones. They go through each day clinging to convention, holding on to the familiar, never daring to be real or intimate for fear that someone might actually give them something real or intimate in return. Then what would they do?

My own propensity to rock the proverbial boat is mild by the standards of the real boat-rockers among us - true artists who live for the opportunity to dismantle the status quo. My personal knack for rattling the sensibilities of others pales in comparison to those who possess the more serious tools of social insurrection - those who are truly creative at the art of fomenting discomfort: the artists, musicians, movie-makers, writers, comedians and others who are obsessed with defying convention and conquering indifference.

What is often perceived as a lack of judgment is ironically a deliberate exercise in a judgment of a different kind, one which challenges the norms we usually hold with dutiful deference. If success comes just once every ten times we dare ask another to peer through a prism other than the one which colors their own comfort zone, it is well worth it.

There are those who are naturally intimate. Possessed of a simplicity of spirit most of us can only admire, they seem a little happier; they seem a little sadder. In short, they seem more in touch with their own emotions, readily giving hugs, kisses and saying 'I love you' as they remind the rest of us to resist - the allure of the comfort zone.

One Must Want Hept: A Feeble Myth

One of the most erroneous assumptions of mental health care is the idea that until someone is of the mind that he or she actually wants help, nothing can - or should - be done. This notion is inaccurate, misguided and impractical.

The point being missed is that the state of being which compels one not to seek help in the face of serious illness is itself a condition which should be seen as a mental health anomaly worthy of attention. Admittedly, this state can be even more challenging than what is often seen in a crisis. Not only are there the underlying effects of the illness itself, but other factors including denial, pride, and the fear of stigma further complicate matters.

From my own experience with crisis intervention, group therapy, etc., I've come across many people who plainly did not want to be immersed in the infrastructure of the mental health care system. They did not want help, and often believed they did not need help. Judging by what I saw of their symptoms and behavior, however, it was clear these people were right where they belonged.

At the very least, advocacy is always a worthwhile option. Doing nothing is not without consequence. Much as we hate to admit it, we fail miserably in our duty to our fellow man when we stand idly by and watch him self destruct. Sadly, it has become the way of things. A most specious reasoning has perverted our priorities; a self-before-others mentality has corrupted our instinct to give. How ironic and sad that apathy has assumed 'enlightened' status.

In a world where people aspire to indifference, something is very wrong.

Good Bye, Davey

Some people don't make a big splash in life. They meander their way through the ups and downs in a sort of honorable anonymity. Rolling with the punches. Going with the flow. A reserved nature their most telling trait - or so it seems. But beneath their seemingly disinterested facades, the quiet types poignantly remind us that everyone's life is a story worth telling.

My brother David's journey had an auspicious beginning. He was fun-loving, energetic and productive. Dave especially enjoyed the outdoors. So much so he often "commuted" to work at the Connecticut Yankee Power Plant upriver from where he once lived via his trusty old canoe.

Dave's struggles began when the decommissioning of Connecticut Yankee left him without a job. The loss seemed to take the wind out of his sails. He struggled to find his way. It wasn't long before hopelessness set in, and loneliness and despair became his emotional nemeses.

By the most meaningful measure of success, however - the ability to love - Dave somehow managed to excel. He found a purpose amid the turmoil. He seemed to sense that being there - at least for one other person - was one sure way to be there for himself. Dave committed to regular day trips and visits with another person in need, his dear brother Vinny. For every sunset he and Vinny shared at Mystic Harbor, a moment in time became their reason to be alive. In a joyful symbiosis, they sustained one another with brotherly love.

Over matched by life's demands for some time, and living with a loneliness too bitter to even confront, Dave proved all too human in his struggles to cope and survive. Alcoholism is, after all, a most insidious disease. Yet somehow he always managed a smile and a selfless query about the well-being of those who were important to others. And when inquired of his own state of well-being, in the face of ominous evidence to the contrary, Dave always revealed a willingness to put on his best face. "Hey, Willy. I'm doin' great. How're you doin'?" You'll understand, Davey, if I didn't always believe you.

If there was a way to find dignity and purpose amid the chaos and suffering, David surely found it. Such was the resilience of his remarkable spirit.

We will sorely miss you and your gentle ways. Thank you for being such a good brother. Good Bye, Davey

David Michael Cooney
Born February 20, 1954 • Died June 9, 2009
"Rest in Peace"

The Rights of the Child

On February 16, 1995 Madeleine Albright, then US Ambassador to the United Nations, signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. To date only Somalia and the United States have failed to ratify this Convention.

One of the more controversial stipulations of this international treaty is expressed in Article 14 Part 1 which says "States . . . shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." This provision has no doubt been one of the main sticking points for conservative members of the US Senate who are charged with ratifying the CRC. Citing inconsistencies with the Constitution, balking Senators appear on the surface to have reason to reject the accord. Impinging on its sovereignty is after all something our country takes very seriously. Nonetheless, it is an embarrassment that the United States is virtually alone in its rejection of this Convention.

Parental rights groups claim the CRC would usurp their responsibilities and disavow many of their rights, among them the right to bring up children in the religion of their choice. Granting children redress for being forced into a life of superstition and dogma holds the threat of denying religious institutions an advantage they have long possessed. What better way to swell the ranks of your church with obedient soldiers than to indoctrinate them as children before they can grant their informed consent? In addition, the crude practice of squelching a child's natural tendency toward independence of thought is central to this fallacious process.

The very first issue of FREE INQUIRY (Winter 1980-81) published the following from the Secular Humanist Declaration:

We do not think it is moral to baptize infants, confirm adolescents, or to impose a religious creed on young people before they are able to consent. Although children should learn about the history of religious moral practices, the young minds should not be indoctrinated in a faith before they are mature enough to evaluate the merits for themselves...

So deeply rooted into the fabric of our culture is the practice of inculcating children in the religious ways of their guardians, it is considered entirely normal and acceptable to do so. As long as children are denied the rights enumerated in the CRC, religious ideology will maintain its stranglehold on the minds of the very young, a stranglehold many are only too happy to perpetuate.

Deft Maneuvering - Or Bait and Switch?

Only a few months into his presidential tenure, Barack Obama is already managing to confound most political observers. But what are the qualities frustrating them most? Is the new president being independent, vexatious, or simply traitorous to those who got him elected?

President Obama's inconsistencies are exasperating both liberals and conservatives alike. On the one hand, he seems unwilling to take full advantage of what's been afforded him, i.e., majorities in both congressional houses, an exorbitant reservoir of political capital, and a minority clearly on the run. On the other hand, his caution may be very sapient. The last Democratic president to overreach was rewarded with a furious political backlash. Does 1994 ring a bell? Newt Gingrich? The Contract With America? The Republican resurgence?

The latest 180-degree turnaround by Mr. Obama involves his decision to fight the release of photographs allegedly depicting abuse of detainees. This decision seems to fly in the face of campaign promises that an Obama presidency would operate with transparency. Is president Obama deferring to pressure from the military, or is he surreptitiously contriving the circumstances under which he can appear to be placating conservatives knowing full well these photos are likely to be ordered released anyway? If so, the more deserving tag for the president may be "smooth operator."

Should the president be tiptoeing around Republicans, or is he wasting a mandate to roll right over them? Perhaps the trick he is trying to pull off is rolling over them but without actually appearing to do so. He could - and should - claim that he is bound by both U.S. and international law to investigate accusations of torture. While this would not sit well with Republicans, it should provide enough political cover to disarm many of his detractors.

As for the impending Supreme Court vacancy, a more predictable choice seems more predictable. Surely Mr. Obama will attempt to seat a liberal justice whose jurisprudence recognizes the evolving nature of the Constitution. A modicum of judicial activism is not only wise, it is essential. History is replete with stories of things once legal yet misguided being given the proverbial boot by a modest but enlightened measure of judicial activism.

With contradictory pronouncements emanating from the White House regularly, it's difficult to say precisely where the president's lead will take us on any given issue. And the game of mollifying the opposition can be taken to extreme, in which case the president's true leadership abilities will rightly be called into question.

Science vs. Religion: Is This Even Necessary?

Though it was a valiant effort, converting the greater part of civilization to atheism was probably too much to hope for. Judging by the predictable responses of so many among the god-fearing masses, it is clear the words of Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) and Sam Harris (The End of Faith) held little sway with those predisposed to religiosity.

Some who claim to be immune to the influences of either intellectual camp - religious or rational - make the argument that because religion, theology and philosophy are not the domain of the scientific endeavor, the forces of reason are therefore ill-equipped to make judgments about man's origin and purpose. The truth is the rational sphere is no less impotent than the religious sphere when it comes to answering life's most compelling questions.

The assertion that rationalism is just as much a faith as religion because all inquiry presupposes certain truths about that which it is attempting to reveal misses the point. (NY Times Blog Think Again, Stanley Fish) To the extent rationalism presupposes anything, it presupposes only antecedent truths which the very processes of the scientific method have already affirmed. Yes, rationalists do possess a certain kind of faith, a faith which tells them a stone dropped from a tall building will fall to earth. Rationalists are right to question any faith which claims there is an explanation founded in reason for a human being arising from the dead and bodily ascending into a euphoric netherworld a few days later. What rationalists object to is not someone having religious faith, but rather claiming a rational explanation for those tenets of their faith which defy such explanations.

The perpetual clash between science and religion reveals the lengths to which many will go to claim reason as their ally. It is as though reason were the holy grail of intellectual commodities, and whoever absconds with its persuasive prowess will somehow command the intellectual high ground. Reason is so valued a commodity, some will go so far as to propose the inane to fetch its prize. (Fides et Ratio: Making Sense of the Senseless)

Could it be as simple as accepting the notion that science and religion are unique and independent domains as Stephen Jay Gould's non-overlapping magisteria suggests? Gould's proposal does seem to provide an honorable retreat for the warring ideologues in this debate. The implacability on both sides, however, tells us many think this is a war that can be won, Gould's efforts to disarm the combatants notwithstanding.

Instead of hyper-educated principals trying to convince each other of the enlightened premise of their arguments, perhaps what we need are more humble notables demonstrating the plausibility of a working, and yes loving, co-existence between those who have religious faith and those who do not. Can't we all just get along?

Torture(d) Logic: Defending the Indefensible

It's beginning to look as though one of the highest ideals of democracy, the rule of law, will win the day. The tide is turning in the battle over what to do about allegations that the Bush administration gave not tacit, but explicit approval for interrogation techniques widely described as torture.

Now that President Obama's first 100 days have elapsed, perhaps he will dispossess himself of the need to continue carrying on in "honeymoon mode." For some time now, he has been in the embarrassing position of honeymooning alone anyway. Staking out the moral high ground over the issue of torture and how a responsible democracy deals with it could give the president the annulment his shaky marriage to the congressional minority needs right now.

Another ideal of democracy - transparent self policing - is attempting a comeback. It's not clear yet president Obama sees the situation for what it is: an international, prime-time reality check. Whether he understands it or not, the whole of the civilized world is waiting with bated breath to see if there will indeed be a new kind of America under the leadership of a new kind of president. And rather than attempting to steer events for political gain, Mr. Obama should simply present himself as duty-bound to proceed with investigations because the aforementioned ideals - not to mention a few treaty obligations - demand nothing less.

A certain unrepentant former vice-president may also turn out to be an unwitting ally of president Obama's. The more Dick Cheney asserts the utility of "enhanced interrogation techniques," the deeper the mess he finds himself in. Publicly criticizing a sitting president by stating that his policies have "weakened" the nation serve only to arm the president with fuel for any potential fire fight down the road. Say what you want about George W, at least he has had the sense to keep his mouth shut since leaving office. As for Mr. Cheney, the best he can hope for is to go the way of a sacrificial lamb. To be revered as a political martyr is probably too much to ask.

What the Republicans need right now is a Lowell P. Weicker for the times, he of Watergate notoriety for his willingness to go after President Nixon. Today's GOP, however, might be too busy "luxuriating in loathing" the new president (to steal a phrase from George Will). But, like the sinking Titanic Watergate turned out to be, it probably won't be long before a few Republican rats see the light and scurry for cover. (Condoleeza Rice: I didn't authorize anything; I merely conveyed the authorization...) Eventually, Republicans more concerned with the long view of their political careers will demand justice for the principals in Torturegate and disavow the utility of standing behind those who defend torture.

The problem with defending the indefensible is that it takes on a kind of mission creep which eventually exposes the cavernous flaws in its 'tortured' logic. The Republican minority will make certain any investigations or hearings become politicized and take on the aura of a circus. President Obama, nonetheless, must not shrink from any unpleasantness doing the right thing will bring. The world is watching.

Christian Political and Moral Influence: On the Wane

In his recent Newsweek submission The End of Christian America, Jon Meacham discusses the waning influence of Christianity in American life. Citing research from the American Religious Identification Survey and the Pew Forum On Religion and Public Life, Meacham makes note of the declining numbers of self-identified Christians - down 10% since 1990; the doubling of the religiously unaffiliated - to 16%; and the quadrupling of those willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic - to over 3.5 million.

While these statistics indicate a clear trend toward an increasingly secular society, the matter of convincing those disposed to a religious way of life that this is a good thing not only for secularists but for Christians as well, becomes an important issue.

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First, regarding concerns of those who fear that becoming more secular means becoming more evil, this patently absurd myth must be exposed - and expelled. Equating secularism with amorality is a serious misjudgment based upon profound ignorance and fear - an entirely unenlightened perspective that is increasingly, and thankfully, being understood as the relic of religious prejudice that it truly is.

Preserving the richness of religious aspects of our culture is dependent precisely upon the disentanglement of church and state. While the constructive engagement of religion and politics is an integral aspect of our cultural makeup, keeping church and state the separate entities they were intended to be gives us all that is good and honorable about religious influence. Affairs of the state, however, are rightly managed in a wholly secular sphere. As Barack Obama once stated, "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific values."

As secular interests grow their influence, the question arises as to whether they can truly offer a more enlightened brand of morality. Analyzing the impact religious morality has had on civilization reveals both its positive as well as negative effects. That a newer, secular morality might better serve modern humanity is a notion that, while disconcerting to many religious conservatives, has much about it to celebrate. Not only have many plainly misguided values been propagated largely by religious concerns, but these very same concerns have also been credited with promoting many positive values the origins and essence of which are by no means uniquely religious.

As to whether or not political matters are rightly the purview of religious institutions, recent experience in America plainly reveals just how maladaptive such a condition can be. The most conspicuously political religious group - Christian evangelicals - have proved to be a divisive force in American society, compelling many of their leaders to rethink the wisdom of infusing the body politic with overtly religious morality and rhetoric. In fact, the emergence of so-called moderate evangelicals is stemming the tide of political influence by their more traditionally hard-core brethren.

With Christian influence presently in decline, the time may be right for secular interests to prove themselves up to the challenge of promoting a kind of morality that in practice is capable of serving not only the dynamic and diverse culture that is America, but also mankind itself.

Labor of Love: A Caregiver's Reward

One of the most kind, gentle and loving men I have ever known was my dear father-in-law, Edward Jagoda. From the first time I met him, until he passed away some nine years ago, Eddie was a man I held in very high esteem, not because he did extraordinary things, but rather because he did the ordinary things in extraordinary fashion.

What made Eddie so special as a man were characteristics which often eluded many other so-called men. He was sweet, gentle, amiable, soft-hearted, and above all had a supremely understanding nature. During the worst of my personal crisis of mental health, Eddie never once stopped believing in me. Not only did he have faith in me, but he also had faith in his daughter's decision to choose me as her companion for life. Through several hospitalizations and a long recovery road, he displayed a kind of loyalty to me I had never known, and amazingly he did so with few words. It was his calm and reassuring demeanor that was so important in my struggle to relearn trust.

A photographer by trade, Eddie captured many memorable moments while in the Navy during WWII in the Pacific theater. Later he applied and perfected his skills in a long career at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. He kept busy after retiring with a small business of his own in video production and, his first love, still photography.

Fate was beginning to catch up with my father-in-law just as I was seeing some real progress in my recovery. As it turned out, for the both of us, the timing couldn't have been better. I was at a point where relieving some of the self-absorption that often accompanies mental illness needed to be addressed, and, as fate would have it, Eddie's deteriorating health needed something - or someone - to help mitigate his hardship.

The illness that was taking hold of Eddie was not so gentle as he. As liver cancer usually does, it invaded with a virulent aggression. It was Eddie's wish that he die amid the company of his family at home, and because he had already been living with us for several years, he was right where he belonged. The Visiting Nurse Association arranged for home hospice care and, by virtue of my mere availability, the consensus was that I would be Eddie's main caregiver whenever the nurses were away which, much to my challenge, was quite often.

Very soon it was my charge to feed, clothe, bathe, cleanse and otherwise tend to Eddie as he began his voyage home. I never considered these chores as being undignified in any way. On the contrary, before long it was clear to me this task of intimate care was both my gift to Eddie as well as my duty to my fellow man. The struggle was mighty, and the tasks were demanding, right up until it was plain his hours were numbered. At a propitious moment, I was compelled to gaze upon him and utter my profound thanks for all he had done for me. With a firm clasp of his hand and a gentle kiss upon his forehead, I conveyed my subtle remorse for doing 'only' what I had done for him in his last days and not more. The symbiosis of the moment was not lost on me. Eddie and I parted knowing we had given the very best of ourselves to each other.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think my labor of love would be so thoroughly rewarded. I miss you and think of you often, Pop. Thank you for showing me what it really means to be a man.

You Just Don't Get It, Billy

Silence can be so deafening. What's understood between the lines is often more to the point than what's actually written or spoken. Even now I am contemplating an intentionally furtive or ambiguous approach to this very entry so intent am I on putting my message between the so-called lines.

First of all, just what is it I don't get? Apparently, I don't get the viability or wisdom of doing nothing for someone I care deeply about in the face of intractably persistent mental illness and great suffering. But there is nothing wise, courageous or enlightened about inaction in such circumstances.

Many notable people have contemplated the dangers of inaction at moments of challenge:

• Theodore Roosevelt: "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing."
  
  
• John Stewart Mill: "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
  
  
• Norman Vincent Peale: "Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all."
  
  
• Winston Churchill: "I never worry about action, but only inaction."
  
  
• Meister Eckhart: "The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake."
  

At the very least, failure to advocate for a better solution simply because its adoption is unlikely or may cause discomfort, is a spineless capitulation to the forces of ignorance and fear. The allure of inaction is quite understandable, however, when one recognizes the fear that resorting to action will bring one hurt or pain, or elicit a hostile response. Indeed, we are usually clever enough to remind ourselves of those times in the past when our attempts at intervention, reason or intimacy were met with profane rejection and caused serious emotional pain. What comes to mind here is a slight variation of an old adage: Hurt me once, shame on you; hurt me twice, shame on me.

The goal in these circumstances should therefore be for us to evolve and mature enough to achieve insulation from the effects of anticipated abuse - not shrink from any unpleasantness doing the right thing might bring. Of course this is not at all an easy task given a lifetime's experience in dealing with precisely such hostility and unpleasantness.

There's an unlikely culprit, seemingly always at the ready, offering what is more often than not an excuse for the option of inaction. Reinhold Niebuhr's well worn Serenity Prayer is all too often invoked as a call to achieve the first of its three divine solicitations, the "grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed." As for the "courage to change the things that should be changed" as well as the "wisdom to distinguish the one from the other," these are plainly secondary considerations in the practical application of this prayer. In other words, when someone is touting the utility of the Serenity Prayer, often what he or she is really saying is, "Let it be. There is no point in even trying to do anything." It seems this prayer is seldom employed as a call to action born of courage, as if that option is really only there for show.

Also, it matters not that the Serenity Prayer is an appeal to a personal god. An appropriate secular interpretation can plainly be construed for the purpose of casting a favorable light on its essential meaning.

Maybe there are a couple of things my antagonists just don't get: First, that there is strength in numbers. A coordinated and cooperative effort to inject sober, loving and direct appeals would have a much greater likelihood of achieving a connection. Second, inaction is the worst option. Throwing in the towel on a loved one is inexcusable. Moreover, people sense when others have given up on them, and it only brings them loneliness and self-loathing, a sure recipe for hostility.

After all this, I am left to simply cogitate: Who is it that really doesn't get it?

Was I Ever a True Catholic?

Free Inquiry editor Tom Flynn posed an enticing challenge recently to his readers. After detailing his own efforts to have himself excommunicated from the Catholic Church, he solicited suggestions on how to achieve this divorce from one's religious past. After giving it some thought, I came up with something I believe may have merit. I submitted my idea to Free Inquiry via email:

Re: Tom Flynn’s delightful dilemma (Let My Person Go!), I too, contemplated the very same course of action, i.e., seeking excommunication from the Catholic Church, so badly did I want to be disassociated from this organization. Though I never went so far as to actually solicit excommunication from local church officials, I believe I have legitimately achieved the substantial equivalent of excommunication via another approach.

The approach I am referring to involves delegitimizing my association with, or membership in, the Catholic church from its inception. How, you ask? By asserting my belief in the self-evident truth that membership in a religious organization can only be achieved with the informed consent of the individual in question. And, since I was never informed sufficiently enough to grant my consent to becoming a member—I was an infant when I was baptized—I was never truly a member of the Catholic Church in the first place, all those church records notwithstanding.

Of course this approach asserts that the Catholic church is wholly unenlightened as to the self-evident nature of the truth I am avowing. In much the same way our founding fathers invoked self-evident truths in asserting their independence from the throne of England, so, too, can we former Catholics affirm our emancipation from the church by invoking similar self-evident truths.

The beauty of this solution is that no official act of excommunication is required because our membership in the church from the outset was never legitimate owing to the absence of our informed consent!

Now if I could only get back the years wasted on my unrelenting religious inculcation . . .

To my way of thinking, therefore, I never was an authentic member of the Catholic Church. What was visited upon me in my early life was child abuse in the form of perverse and illegitimate religious indoctrination. I categorically reject the notion that the brainwashing of children for the purpose of making them members of a church can, in any way, be considered an honorable - or legitimate - enterprise.

So to the Jesuit master who proclaimed that as long as he had the teaching of a child up to seven years of age or thereabouts his mind belonged to him for life, I have a message: No, it does not. There is always hope that reason will prevail even against the unrestrained forces of religious ideology.

Rush and the Rudderless Right

When the political opposition's leadership contenders assume the formation of a circular firing squad, it's probably best to stand clear. The ineptitude with which the Republican Party has attempted to package and sell an ideological spokesperson capable of responding to the Democratic mandate of November's elections has been amazing if not entertaining.

Among the more bizarre goings-on has been the over-inflating of the already gargantuan ego possessing the persona of a one Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Limbaugh has achieved novel heights of inanity with his newly found pastime of dictating delirium. The allure of spawning fresh young ditto heads to perpetuate his fringe-anchored agenda is apparently too much for him to resist. Astonishingly, efforts to anoint himself de facto leader of the GOP nearly succeeded! That the rank and file would even flirt with the idea of such a divisive character ascending to this coveted throne speaks volumes as to the remarkably unrestrained level of disarray afflicting the Republican Party at the moment.

Ironically, liberals stand to win whether the soul of the GOP is possessed by emerging moderates or by out-of-touch conservative elements. The days of conservatives piloting the Republican Party appear numbered, and further clinging to the far right wing would likely bring about even more Democratic gains in 2010. The path to Republican resurgence lies in its moderating influences. And while emerging moderates would likely pose a greater electoral threat to Democrats, the point would still be that the core of the Republican Party will have turned decidedly centrist in its bid to remain competitive.

As for the gamesmanship of Mr. Limbaugh, it seems his propensity to offend is by conscious design, a la Ann Coulter. The indignity he displays at the 'lunacy of the left' is as hollow as it is feigned. Nuance just isn't Rush's game. The louder he gets, the less he persuades; the bigger the fish he becomes, the smaller the pond he swims in. Even conservative writer David Frum points out in his Newsweek article this week Why Rush Is Wrong that "Limbaugh's language is not that of politics. It's the language of a cult."

Conservatives aren't going anywhere. They're likely to be with us a long time. It's just that disturbed personalities like Rush Limbaugh serve only to marginalize their cause - which is good news for the rest of us.

Same-Sex Marriage: Simply Semantics?

Is it possible all the fuss over same-sex marriage is essentially about semantics, or is it the inevitable result of the entanglement of church and state as University of Wisconsin student Kevin J. Mack points out in his recent op-ed piece in The Daily Cardinal titled Separate Church, State in Same-Sex Marriages?

One definition Dictionary.com ascribes to the term "semantics" is the study of linguistic development by classifying and examining changes in meaning and form. The meaning and form of the term "marriage" appears destined to undergo some changes despite ongoing attempts to codify its traditional definition with controversial legislation.

Mack suggests that church and state are hopelessly intertwined over the issue of marriage, and if they weren't, much of the disputation would dissolve. His solution is for the state to remove itself from the marriage business, and instead simply "recognize" couples - and confer appropriate legal rights upon them - according to its own criteria. Churches would, of course, be allowed to continue marrying whomever they want under whatever criteria they choose to impose.

Maybe the real dilemma is over 'ownership' of the construct of marriage itself. Churches seem to want control over who decides what a marriage is. Some applications of the term, however, are strictly secular - or civil - in nature. When we submit our tax returns to the IRS, the filing status "married filing jointly" refers to a legal status not a religious status - a status conferred upon us by the state. It would seem that if churches have complete control over who is married, the IRS may have to come up with a whole new set of filing status labels. Civil union filing jointly perhaps? Only for these purposes, the term "civil union" would necessarily apply to those considered married by churches as well.

Religious marriages are recognized by the state because they have met certain state-imposed criteria. If churches want to restrict recognition of religious marriage to that of a man and a woman, they are, of course, free to do so. It would be unreasonable, however, to attempt to deny states the right to perform strictly secular or civil marriages of same-sex couples.

While the definition of marriage that prevails would likely prove symbolic, it would be a capitulation to religious interests if marriage were to be legally defined as a union between a man and a woman, thus allowing them to define not just marriage, but whether or not we are an ideological melting pot. This would no doubt be a victory for the forces of intolerance and discrimination.

Perhaps Kevin Mack is correct: church and state need to be cleansed of the influence each has in the affairs of the other regarding marriage. Without this disentanglement, it may all indeed be just a matter of semantics.

Don't Do It, Billy!

Tonight I was tempted - tempted to do something I have told myself a thousand times I would never do: walk up to perfect strangers and leave them with a home-made booklet espousing all the wonderful benefits of a life without God. What made me even entertain the idea of doing something so selfish and disrespectful? As some may guess, the idea was not an original one.

I was sitting at a table in a coffee shop reading through a booklet I made consisting of all my blog entries posted here on Living Without God - A Life of Reason (a couple of people expressed an interest in having such a booklet so they could peruse it at their leisure) when several people walked into the shop and sat down at a table nearby. At first I noticed one of them had what looked like a smudge of some kind on his forehead. I wondered if this person had any idea his face and forehead were in need of a good cleansing. A moment later, I noticed the same smudge marks on the foreheads of the other three people as well. Then - the light bulb went on over my head. It had to be that Catholic rite of Ash Wednesday. (Apparently I was making some progress toward vacating my mind of all those old religious rituals.)

For a moment I was experiencing what had to be the same feeling those annoying bible thumpers have right before they pounce on their unsuspecting prey and inflict their religious inanities on them all because they want to save their lost souls. Then suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. I glanced over and saw a little demon - pitch fork, horns and all - looking up at me and urgently muttering, "Go ahead. Give them a taste of their own medicine. Throw that booklet on the table and tell them to have a nice read!"

I rubbed my eyes to cleanse them of the apparent apparition, but to no avail. That little devil just kept looking at me and tempting me in that special way only a real demon knows how to. Then, a moment later, another tap. This time on my other shoulder. I looked down and noticed a little angel - wings, halo and all - looking up at me and urgently muttering, "Don't do it, Billy. You know better than that. Two wrongs don't make a right."

I rubbed my eyes again, but the visions persisted. For several minutes these minions of my imagination took turns attempting to seize my will. In a trance, I got up, booklet clasped firmly in hand, and began making my way toward The Table of the Ash Heads. Just as I was about to invite myself into their sanctuary and point them toward the light, I suddenly emerged from my deep daze and instead offered a polite greeting to my caffeine cohorts before ambling toward the exit knowing in my heart I had just done the right thing.

I guess I'm just not an evangelical atheist after all. As strongly as I feel about my views, I was determined never to stoop to the level of the thumpers. As for the next time one of them approaches me, when I begin to contemplate my evil responses, I hope that little voice will be there to say, "Whatever you're thinking, don't do it, Billy."

A God Concept I Can Work With

A recent visitor to my blog who goes by the user name Budha left a comment that was actually more of an invitation to view his site and engage in what he hoped would be a substantive discussion about "God concepts." Being curious, I checked out his site and his three latest posts having to do with this enticing subject.

There were a number of comments from thoughtful contributors suggesting various definitions of "God." Some were rather ethereal and defended the popular concept of God as the omnipotent and omniscient presence so many of us were brought up to believe was true. Others were clearly skeptical and mindfully critical of traditional God concepts.

(As a rule, I resist the urge to take part in "commentary wars" on blog sites, but the tone of most of the discourse on this site was very civil. Though many no doubt held strongly to their views, the discussion avoided deteriorating into mindless flaming, which is a prerequisite for my participation.)

But did I have anything of value to contribute? What, in fact, was my understanding of the concept of God? After some initial trepidation, I decided to accept the challenge of quantifying this idea in my mind and leaving a brief comment.

What were the essential components of my understanding of "god?" My nearly life-long process of attempting to construct a concept that both reflected my true feelings on the matter and offered a meaningful convention for others led me to submit (and properly credit) something that was actually not my own original idea. The most meaningful explanation I have come across for so many people's insistence upon God's reality comes from none other than Sigmund Freud.

Freud essentially posited the following: "...owing to feelings of helplessness and guilt, the need for security and forgiveness arises, so man creates for himself an entity that can provide precisely these things." In other words, "religion is seen as childish delusion and atheism as grown up realism." (Sigmund Freud: Religion as Wish Fulfillment) God, therefore, is rightly understood to be a construct of the imagination, and its creation is artfully explained as a 'necessity' arising out of psychological considerations.

I closed my comment to Budha's God Concepts, Part 3 with the following: "So where do I turn in times of need? To my fellow man. If I've developed a 'faith' in anything, it is in our ability as human beings to provide the love, solace and comfort we so often need from one another."

Thank you, Sigmund Freud, for a God concept I can work with.

Religious Delusion: Faith In the Extreme?

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I really am a tenth-grade dropout. The views expressed in the following essay should be taken in this light. For a professional introduction to "delusions" see Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders: Delusions.

It is widely understood by mental health professionals that religious delusion is a common symptom experienced by many people suffering from a variety of mental illnesses. This observation, however, requires a certain convention be adopted for the purpose of defining just what religious delusion is.

Broadly speaking, a delusion is a persistent false belief in something despite contravening evidence or reason. Under this working definition, is it fair to describe those who have religious faith as delusional? For the most part, it would seem not. Practically speaking, it seems whether or not a belief rises to the level of delusion can be gauged by its relationship to behavioral anomalies. If someone says God commanded him to commit murder, it would be understood that religious delusion is at work, not because God's existence can be disproved, but rather because the belief in God's existence resulted in antisocial behavior. Delusion is not necessarily dependent upon the false premise of any particular belief, but rather on its propensity to negatively impact behavior.

But what about other more subtle manifestations of questionable belief? It may not be considered delusional for someone who believes in God to tell those who do not they will go to hell, but if this belief is so deep-seated it interferes with relating to people in general, the label of "delusional" could surely apply. Given that achieving and maintaining stable, loving relationships is one measure of positive mental health, the absence of such relationships in the life of someone possessed of extreme religious faith suggests a delusional aspect to such beliefs.

Another symptom commonly associated with religious delusion is obsession. The religiously obsessed see all things through the narrow prism of their own religious faith. Such thinking is unhealthful because it is dismissive of those who employ any of life's other prisms of discernment, thus complicating the building of relationships based upon more universal concepts or even trust. In addition, the religiously obsessed often endure profound stress at the thought - or experience - of having their religious beliefs questioned.

Among other reasons, one could be said to be suffering from religious delusion if:

• the beliefs in question impede one's ability to cultivate and maintain meaningful relationships, or;
• they are the direct motivation for overt acts of antisocial behavior.

Finally, it is important to remember that those experiencing delusions of any kind are, by definition, grappling with mental illness, and as such are deserving of compassion and understanding, not ridicule or contempt.

Abortion: Failure of the Human Condition?

Few things invite the polarity of mindset the subject of abortion does. For many, a certain moral absolutism bespeaks the adamant perspective that abortion is an evil stain on the fabric of humanity deserving of nothing but condemnation. For others, the value of personal choice appears to supersede the value of life itself.

One telling aspect of this debate seems to be that many of those who defend a woman's right to choose also allow that it is their aim to reduce the need for abortions altogether. Does this position expose a chink in the armor of pro-choice constituents? If abortions truly occurred in a vacuum of morality, why then any aversion to it at all? As a candidate for president, Hillary Clinton said she hoped for the day when abortions were "safe, legal and rare." (Emphasis added.) Why the need for abortions to be rare if not for some underlying moral imperative disavowing their utility?

The absolutist approach, while appearing to flow from the moral high ground, is nonetheless dysfunctional. Once a context is assigned, the absolute defense of life at any and all costs simply does not hold up to scrutiny. Many of the same people have no compunction when judging some to be deserving of capital punishment. Some lives are apparently not worthy of defending.

For the time being, however, the genie is out of the bottle, the tooth paste is out of the tube, and the tail is wagging the dog. These tiresome clichès notwithstanding, the prudent course of action would seem to be to allow safe and legal abortions while at the same time cooperating in ways to reduce the primary impetus for abortions: unwanted pregnancies.

But this is where cooperation becomes elusive. Choices which allow for the healthy engagement of sexual activity while preventing pregnancy at the same time are non-starters for so many conservatives. Like it or not, "abstinence only" is utterly dysfunctional insofar as it disregards the basic human need for intimacy. The purpose of sex is not only to procreate, but also to achieve this very intimacy by sharing the urge to satisfy both the physical and emotional needs of one's self and one's partner. While an even greater sense of intimacy can arguably be achieved when impregnation is possible or even likely, it nonetheless holds that the intimacy achieved when pregnancy is not possible is more than sufficient to justify its role in fostering a meaningful and healthy lifestyle.

One of the best ways to help get beyond the political impasse in the abortion dilemma is for all concerned to unambiguously avow that improving the quality of life for everyone is one way to promote the sanctity of life in general. Perhaps the practical solution lies not in making abortions illegal, but rather in making them unnecessary.

Dick Cheney: The Righteousness Resumes

The vacuous essence of Barry Goldwater's haunting words from his 1964 Republican nomination acceptance speech notwithstanding, not only is extremism in the defense of liberty a vice, but immoderation in the pursuit of justice is equally bereft of mindfulness. One need look no further than the execrable practices of the man in charge of the recently departed administration, Dick Cheney, and his puppet president, George W. Bush, to attest to these potent political truths.

One irony of the Bush-Cheney legacy may turn out to be the fact that their approach to the nation's post 9/11 security concerns was replete with impetuous expressions of bravado which yielded precisely the opposite reactions they were designed to elicit. The more confrontational and threatening the approach to Iran, the more intransigent and defiant Iran's posture became. The more the administration abused detainees, the more reason the detainees' ideological compatriots had to inflict abuses of their own. The more misguided the aggression in Afghanistan, the more resurgent, resentful and oppressive the Taliban became. In short, the Bush-Cheney solution has merely emboldened those it was intended to disarm.

In an interview with Politico, the former vice-president staunchly defended the measures taken after the attacks of 9/11, while at the same time questioning the wisdom of the new administration's less aggressive stance:

If it hadn’t been for what we did — with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth — then we would have been attacked again,” he said. “Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S. . .

. . . I think there are some who probably actually believe that if we just go talk nice to these folks, everything’s going to be okay. . .

. . . They may be able, in some cases, to make progress diplomatically that we weren’t. But, on the other hand, I think they’re likely to find — just as we did — that lots of times the diplomacy doesn’t work. Or diplomacy doesn’t work without there being an implied threat of something more serious if it fails.

More than anything else, waging wars of dubious necessity, spying on its own citizens and torturing prisoners, etc., all reveal an ignorance of the more subtle demands of leadership as well as a failure of the imagination on a grand scale. Whatever sympathy the civilized world had for Americans immediately following 9/11, it is now painfully clear this reservoir of good will has been all but depleted. The perverse efficiency with which America's moral standing in the world was eviscerated in the ensuing seven years is nothing short of astonishing.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are no doubt relying upon history to provide a more sympathetic assessment of their official deeds than their present-day detractors, but the likelihood of such an agreeable verdict - for the moment - appears remote.

Happy Birthday, Wolfgang!

Several years before my father passed away, a new technology was coming of age: the digital audio compact disc, or CD for short. I recall trying to convince my father of the idea that this was a technology likely to endure. After some initial resistance, he finally went along with my assessment and decided to buy one of these newfangled CD players and discs. The Sony player he purchased cost over $300! I still have it today, and it still works like a charm. (Love those Sony products.) His choice for music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as performed by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

The disc my Dad chose was not just a digital conversion of an older analog recording, but a recording originally engineered and mastered with the new digital technology. So impressed was he with the sound quality of this recording, he immediately started a whole new music library of compact discs.

Being the big Mozart fan that I am, every year I quietly celebrate the commemoration of his birth - January 27, 1756. One way I do this is by putting that first disc my father bought into that still-perfect Sony CD player and listening to it in its entirety. As I perform this annual ritual, I am able to relive the better part of what our father-son relationship had to offer: achieving a measure of intimacy by sharing our love for the music of Mozart.

It's January 27th again, and time to spend a few moments with Mozart and my Dad. Thanks, Pop, and happy birthday, Wolfgang!

Calculated Deference: Selecting Pastor Warren for the Inauguration Invocation

In selecting mega pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church to give a religious invocation at his inauguration, President Obama continued a trend widely employed during his campaign: deferring to ideological opponents in a manner designed to surreptitiously induce their engagement.

In much the same way candidate Obama maneuvered to engage conservatives by reversing his FISA vote or pandering to Christian conservatives, he carefully considered the possibility of a net gain in the long term by risking offending important constituents in the short term in selecting Pastor Warren for the invocation task.

Upsetting some of his most vociferous supporters at this stage no doubt involves a small measure of risk. Those who support gay rights came out in a big way for Obama during the election, and allowing the controversial Pastor Warren his moment in the sun surely calls for some explanation, given that Mr. Warren is equally vociferous in his opposition to gay marriage.

As for the merits of Rick Warren's views, reasonable minds can differ assuming reasonable minds can be found among right-wing Christians. It says much about how little secular proponents have achieved that there should even be a religious invocation at the swearing in of a new president. It also says something about how much they have achieved that their mere existence should deserve mention in the president's inaugural address.

If there's one thing President Obama appreciates, it is symbolism. An important reason given for closing the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center is that it has become a symbol which controverts professed American values. Americans themselves understand symbolism as well, and the symbol of a conservative, Christian Evangelical pastor momentarily presiding over the inauguration of a new president for the purpose of summoning a Christian deity for its blessing also contradicts a few uniquely American values.

Being able to assess the political ramifications of his decisions appears to be an Obama strength, and he has cautiously calculated that the Pastor Warren debacle will subside and a political benefit will ultimately be achieved.

One weapon President Obama will undoubtedly deploy from his arsenal of rhetoric and governance will be the same one he used in the Pastor Warren decision - the ability to calculate.

The Inclusion of Non-Believers: Overdue

During his inaugural address, President Barack Obama uttered a simple yet somehow controversial phrase acknowledging the mere existence of non-believers among the many social constituencies in America. Predictably, many Christians took offense at this. Fearing the dilution of their own cultural dominance, many of these Christians simply won't accede to the notion that diversity, not religiosity, is the value much more worthy of precedence and celebration.

What many among the Christian majority seem to want is to live in denial - denial that those who prefer not to practice any religion at all make up a substantial portion of society. This non-religious segment is also beginning to shows the first signs of morphing into a political entity, which may in fact be what the religious right fears most. While it will likely be a very long time before atheists command anything close to a majority faction among voters, it is certainly foreseeable that they could form a swing voting block significant enough to threaten the domination of Christian conservatives. By first cooperating with liberal evangelicals and other religious progressives, non-believers can begin the slow but inexorable march toward political viability.

It has been said that former president George H. W. Bush did not even think atheists should be considered as citizens or patriots at all. This being the case, the mere acknowledgment by President Obama of the rightful place in society of non-religious citizens is an important first step.

But what can atheists do to further their own legitimacy? First, the ones who engage in the same type of fear mongering that many right-wing conservatives do, should cease their own extremist rhetoric and moderate their tone. Intolerance is not the answer to intolerance. Getting the message out that non-believers are in no way trying to remove God from public life, but rather trying to remove overt religious influence from institutions of government should be first and foremost. Further, aligning themselves with religious constituents who understand the wisdom of separating church and state would be a symbol that cooperation between these two groups is possible. In other words, the surest way to get respect is to give respect.

When President Obama dared to include non-believers as part of the American ideological melting pot during his inaugural address, he was acting in a manner the duty of the office demanded: to be the president of all, not the cultural spokesperson of the religious majority.

The Glorification of Suffering: Another Empty Doctrine

If something can be said to be as certain as death and taxes, it is suffering. In all its manifestations, suffering is one of the most defining aspects of humanity. The pervasiveness of suffering stirs many to attempt deciphering its meaning, rationalizing its potential and assigning it a redeeming value.

Suffering also has a timeless quality as a core component of the Christian theme of redemption. According to doctrine, death and resurrection complete the mysterious triad of achievement accomplished by none other than the man who immortalized for his followers the very concept of suffering, Jesus himself. To this day, many Catholics continue the longstanding practice of a devotional meditation known as the Stations of the Cross, during which intense contemplation of the final suffering and ultimate death of Jesus is commemorated at 14 distinct points, or stations, along the road to his crucifixion. The message of 'The Stations' is clear: suffering is the path to salvation.

But is the assignment of suffering as something people should aspire to truly healthful, functional or enlightened? In a somewhat ironic twist, rather than actually accepting the church's teaching that the suffering of Christ was endured precisely so that humanity would not have to suffer, many believers take from this the idea that man's calling is rather to emulate Christ's suffering as a means of assuring their own redemption. Suffering thereby becomes the price of admission to one's future heavenly abode, and driven by the urgent desire to gain this admission, the faithful amid this flock will stop at nothing when it comes to disregarding the human duty to mitigate suffering, especially one's own.

At its core, suffering is a symptom - a symptom of illness, failure, dysfunction, injustice, etc., and treating this symptom demands a moral imperative be made of the action required to alleviate it. Blindly accepting suffering as an inevitable consequence of human interaction without challenging its moral underpinnings is an act of cowardice. Further, the glorification of suffering suggests a futility amid efforts to minimize its effects thereby contriving the need for many to create for themselves an entity fully capable of eradicating suffering altogether - an entity many refer to as God.

There is no escaping the responsibility we freely impose upon ourselves to acknowledge, confront and eliminate the ubiquitous scourge of personal pain. Guided by innate goodness, man is destined to serve as the enforcer of his own moral charter, and in the trenches of daily human life, there is no higher calling than to relieve one's fellow man of the inimitable burden of suffering.

The New(t) Fascists: Gays and Secularists

The O'Reilly Factor (of the Fox Network) is, of course, well known for handing megaphones to those of far-right political orientation, and a recent appearance by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich reaffirms why "The Factor" is just where this cultural Neanderthal belongs. Newt has knocked a few of us liberals right back to reality by revealing just how brazen the tongue of this ultra conservative icon can truly be.

Just as it appears Gingrich may be moderating his image by acknowledging some of the mistakes and excesses of his own Republican Party, Newt has retrenched and reverted to his tried-and-true methods of inane bloviating. His latest ideological gem assigns the volatile label of "fascist" to gays seeking equal rights and secularists seeking the separation of church and state. In doing so, Gingrich has officially removed himself from consideration for the office of Arbiter-General for Morality and Reason.

Newt suffers from the same affliction most of the rest of the tyrannical religious majority does: he doesn't understand that he and his kind are not the only ones living in this country. They believe we all live in the United States of God-Fearing Christians as opposed to the United States of America. Their intellectual integrity is challenged by concepts like pluralism, equality and fairness. They don't comprehend the absurdity of advocating for a virtual theocracy while living in an evolving democracy.

Newt claims gays and secularists are trying to "impose their will on the rest of us." He can't quite seem to wrap his head around the fact that the religious have been imposing their will on the rest of us for two hundred years! Gays and secularists want nothing more than to be freed from the cultural, legal and political underground to which they have been relegated for far too long. Newt has it backwards. Gays and secularists have been discriminated against, ostracized, marginalized and totally subordinated for no other reason than the fact that those of the religious right think this country belongs to them.

One hundred and fifty years ago this country believed slavery was a legitimate enterprise and Blacks were naturally inferior to Whites . . . A hundred years ago men believed women had no place in the palace of politics . . . Fifty years ago straight people believed gays were morally bankrupt and had no place in society . . . For two hundred years religious people believed this country was theirs and atheists and secularists were virtual demons. Times change. The moral zeitgeist marches on.

Rest assured another one hundred years from now history will judge the Newt Gingriches of the world to have been as tragically misguided as those who owned slaves, refused citizens the right to vote, celebrated the hatred of homosexuals, and demonized atheists and free thinkers. Without missing a step, the moral zeitgeist will continue its methodical march onward and upward.

"Jesus Camp": A Haunting Exposè

The 2006 documentary film Jesus Camp, directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, confirms the suspicion many of us hold about Christian Evangelicals and their agenda. Jesus Camp features the efforts of Pentecostal minister Becky Fischer and her Kids On Fire summer camp to win over the hearts and minds of young children to the cause of Christ.

So questionable are the tactics employed by Fischer that much of Jesus Camp plays more like a case study in megalomania. Fischer's emotional investment in her camp - and in the minds of her child minions - is so consuming, at one point while preparing to address her followers she allows the telling sentiment, "I get exhausted doing this."

Despite openly advocating for a Christian theocracy in America, Fischer denies her motives are in any way political. There's no mistaking, however, what Fischer means when she says "we must reclaim America for Christ."

Fischer mistakenly claims that "our nation was founded upon Judeo/Christian values" ignoring the much more accurate notion that while Judeo/Christian values have held a dominant stake in the cultural stock of America for a long time, it in no way changes the fact that the United States was explicitly founded upon secular precepts including the separation of church and state as delineated in the First Amendment.

At several points throughout Jesus Camp on his Ring of Fire radio talk show, Mike Papantonio, a Christian himself, lambastes his more extreme fellow Christians for the practice of turning children into ideological soldiers in a culture war that is much more appropriately manned by informed adults. When he gets Becky Fischer on the line, she does not hesitate to stand by the practice of "indoctrinating" children for her purposes. She also reveals her own belief that democracy is ultimately nihilistic because it allows for competing religions and viewpoints which she claims undermine the only thing that will save America - Christianity.

What was hard not to notice in Jesus Camp were the powerful marketing tools used to manipulate the children. Besides a Christian brand of rock music and even rap-style songs that were sure to appeal to the young, the shirt of one rather charming boy named Levi had the word "Jesus" emblazoned across the torso in such a way so as to precisely imitate the Reese's peanut butter and chocolate candy bar brand. Ingenious and nefarious at the same time.

What did the producers of Jesus Camp have in mind when making this movie? From one perspective it appears as though exposing Becky Fischer, her camp and her tactics has the effect of portraying evangelicals in such a poor light it has the power to galvanize public opinion against them. On the other hand, there will no doubt be those who see this film as a virtual manifesto for Christian evangelising intended to inspire people of a similar mind to go out and inculcate as many children as possible.

Where directors Grady and Ewing succeed is in pulling back the curtain on evangelicals and exposing their sinister agenda: to spread their message via the vile practice of child mind control. And like a virulent cancer, what is being spread is not nearly so important as the fact that it is being spread.

"Assualt" on Christmas? - Not Really

First things first: A very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to my fellow bloggers! I hope it was special for everyone.

Which brings me to something I wanted to muse about momentarily. There seems to have been much news and commentary lately regarding a so-called "assault on Christmas." I read a news item referring to a woman being fired for saying "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays" to customers at her place of business. At first blush this seems an outrage. Five minutes with an employment or First Amendment attorney, however, and one might begin to see things differently.

Let me say from the outset that nothing about Christmas is worthy of assault. What to many religious people appears to be an assault on their faith is really a subtle shift in the cultural zeitgeist. By this I mean to suggest that the cultural dominance of Christianity in America is slowly and inexorably diminishing. The challenge may lie in convincing Christians that this is a good thing and in their best interest. The very preservation of Christianity in our culture depends not upon its dominance but rather on the recognition and preservation of other world views - religious and non-religious alike.

The truth is religious people, especially Christians, have had their way with American cultural influence for a very long time. But as our country evolves toward a more representative and inclusive brand of multi-cultural society, it is important that minority religions, as well as the religiously skeptical, be allowed the freedom to express their ideas without being made to feel inferior or less relevant and with the protections of pertinent law.

As Barack Obama said in 2006, "Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation and a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers." See Barack Obama On Religion and Politics. This concept is simply difficult for many Christians to accept; and espousing this kind of thinking does not constitute an assault on Christianity.

It makes perfect sense that nativity scenes be displayed on the lawns of churches and museums and not on the lawns of town halls. Adherence to the principle of church-state separation is critical to the protection of free religious expression. Government can not be seen as promoting or preferring one religion over another precisely because as guarantors of free expression such an imprimatur would subvert the very freedoms it seeks to guarantee.

Christmas will survive - even thrive - in a culture of religious plurality and government neutrality. Such is the way with things as special as Christmas.

The Tree of Knowledge: A Fitting Symbol of Free Thought?

It's been said that getting atheists and free-thinkers to combine forces and form a cohesive political/social unit is like herding cats - not easy to do. I came across a terrific short film that was posted at The Friendly Atheist blog site. It is a film by Gregory Walsh in which he interviews several people while a Tree of Knowledge is planted at the Free Speech Zone in Philadelphia.

The Tree of Knowledge may be finding a new purpose as the symbol atheists and free thinkers have been searching for. On the plus side, free thinkers could use a powerful icon to symbolize their cause. It has the potential to do for free thinkers what the Menorah does for Jewish people and the nativity scene does for Christians - give them a symbol to rally around during the traditional American holiday season.

Such a move is not without controversy. Many religious people believe it would be distasteful to celebrate atheism at a time that has been traditionally recognized for celebrating the birth of Christ or the Hanukkah miracles. Atheists make the point that such a collusion has outlived its time claiming the holiday season should not be devoted to uniquely Christian or Jewish concerns. There is also the added pressure from church-state separation advocates to make certain public property doesn't promote or favor one religion over another. (In this broad sense, atheism is commonly construed to possess the benefits of a "religion.")

Personally, I like the idea of finding a sort of humanist trademark to identify our philosophical brand. I do have mixed feelings, however, about such a symbol being plucked from a widely recognized biblical source. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is, after all, the very thing God allegedly commanded Adam and Eve not to partake of (if you believe that sort of thing). It is not totally unreasonable to understand why some might find offense in this. Yet for the same reasons some might take offense, it may be a particularly appropriate symbol to use - atheists do in fact stand in direct opposition to core beliefs of the religious.

I am of the mind, however, that this need not be a problem. True diversity demands that in some ways we make allowances for one another. It does seems important that atheists be accommodated not for what they stand in opposition to - belief in god - but rather for that which they steadfastly support, e.g., the Affirmations of Humanism. Better to celebrate an affirmative ideal as opposed to a negativity.

There will no doubt always be those who vehemently oppose any normalization of atheism, free thought or humanism, but it seems clear that such normalizing would only serve to elevate the best of what our country stands for, and by the way, guarantees - freedom of expression. Not at all a bad ideal to celebrate.

Religious Indoctrination of Children: Parental Right - or Parental Wrong?

The question of whether parents have the right to instill in their children all manner of moral and religious dogma is no doubt a sensitive one for some. It interests me because I have felt for a long time that while many parents surely believe they are doing the right thing for their children by programming them with their own beliefs, they are in fact doing them a great disservice.

It was a good feeling to find out I was not alone in this thinking. Chapter nine of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion is titled, Childhood Abuse and the Escape From Religion. Admittedly, Dawkins' brand of atheism can be acerbic at times, and labeling religious and moral indoctrination of the very young as "abuse" on a par with other serious kinds of physical and psychological abuse is a tough stand indeed. But, like Dawkins, I am persuaded this is not an unwarranted characterization.

Shortly after I began this blog several months ago, I wrote the following excerpts from a post titled, Nothing Short of Brainwashing:

"Besides being innately curious, the mind if a child is particularly malleable, thus susceptible to the impulses of those charged with their upbringing. And when those impulses are offered to satisfy the caregivers rather than the child, the results can be horrific. The late and very wise Dr. Benjamin Spock had one thing right for sure: young children should be raised as individuals and not be driven to conformity as subjects of ritual discipline. (Benjamin Spock, Wikipedia) This methodology clearly suggests that a child's uniqueness be allowed to flourish even at the expense of parents' preferences - or prejudices." And:

"The introduction of simple, easy-to-comprehend, life-affirming values should be all that parents are allowed to instill in their children. From these, a firm foundation for more complex and morally pertinent values can easily be constructed. In other words, the nonsense that is religious dogma has no authentic role in cultivating either the mind or morals of a young child. The differences between right and wrong are readily discerned by accessing more universally accepted paradigms and without anointing religious parents or educators as arbiters of truth and morality."

I have to admit I felt the preceding thoughts of mine validated after reading Dawkins' scathing characterization of parental indoctrination.

In the gripping ninth chapter of The God Delusion, Dawkins cites theoretical psychologist Nicholas Humphrey and his lecture, What Shall We Tell the Children?. In the lecture, Humphrey lays out his arguments as to why "[c]hildren . . . have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas - no matter who these other people are," and why, "[p]arents, correspondingly, have no god-given licence to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children's knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith."

These are strong positions with the capacity to offend those of a different mind on the matter. But I'll throw my lot in with Dawkins and Humphrey on this score. (Granted my own perceptions may be coloured by not only the fact that my two parents were bent upon imposing their will on their children as regards religious matters, but also by the fact that one struggled with alcoholism and the other with even more serious mental illness. These factors no doubt added a dimension of offensiveness and abusiveness to the whole business of our religious programming.)

Humphrey makes clear the notion that educating young children in the ways of science is by far the best alternative to demanding conformity from them via religious instruction. He proposes that science education is uniquely suited to take the place of religious inculcation precisely because it is not dogmatic and does not dictate. Science is rather a participatory process where access to the tools and evidence necessary to avow verifiable worldly truths is available to anyone, even children. Humphrey's correct assertion is that teaching science is nothing at all like imposing personal ideology. On the contrary, it's about encouraging children to exercise their own powers of judgment and understanding to arrive at their own beliefs.

So valuable is the commodity of a child's attention, it drove one Jesuit master - as Humphrey reminds us - to proclaim, "If I have the teaching of children up to seven years of age or thereabouts, I care not who has them afterwards, they are mine for life."

Such is the methodology of compulsory religious education of the young. To so completely indoctrinate them in the ways of religion that their own capacity to question their audacious authority figures is eviscerated thus extending the reach of god-driven ideology one more generation. That is unless one is fortunate enough to command the wherewithal necessary to emancipate himself from its clutches - not an impossible task, but according to my experience, an ardently long and painful process.

Can Government Intervention and Conservative Economic Philosophy Be Reconciled?

In the wake of the federal government's acquiring a stake in some very large financial firms as a tactic to stem the present tide of economic meltdown, an unavoidable question arises: Can those who embrace the philosophy that government is not the solution it is the problem, continue to do so? In sticking to their ideological guns - as well as avowing the apparent wisdom of not allowing very large institutions to fail - many capitalists are acknowledging the need to have it both ways.

One thing that can be said to be as certain as the idea that free markets create wealth is that unfettered free markets create want and poverty. The products of free market capitalism have clearly shown that they are either not designed to provide for all, or that the distribution of whatever wealth is created needs realigning. As efficient as free markets are at creating wealth, they nonetheless have no proven answer for their unavoidable side effects, poverty and unemployment. It is not enough to suggest that these drawbacks are simply outweighed by the benefits. When the drawbacks are measured in terms of human suffering, it becomes incumbent upon purveyors of growth-at-all-cost philosophy to take into account its impact on society's economically marginalized and articulate solutions.

As the income gap between rich and poor grows ever wider worldwide - with the U.S. having the most unequal distribution of income (WorldWatch Institute, Rich-Poor Gap Widening) - the question arises as to whether large wealth-building economies have forsaken the moral high ground in promoting modern capitalism and its variations as the answer to pervasive poverty.

Does redistribution of wealth sound the death knell for innovation and growth? Some would argue that we can do without the kind of innovation and growth that builds into its very design the prospect of leaving out so many from its intended benefits.

Moreover, large companies are quick to accept government intervention when it inures to their benefit. Tax breaks and other favorable legislative accommodations actually do siphon dollars from the treasury at the outset. Revenues resulting from creating favorable market conditions do not totally make up for the largess of taxpayers. The enormity of wealth created calls for the kind of restitution that would help those who do not directly benefit from sustained growth and mitigate their suffering. Taxpayers should be considered more as de facto partners in business and reap a more proportionate benefit from the economic growth they helped create.

Redistribution may in fact result in moderating growth rates, but as is plainly evident, excessive growth creates as many problems as it solves.

Victoria's Secret? What's That All About?

My gradual awakening from the dead over the past several years has seen me embrace a certain political and social philosophy, and not at all to my surprise it is decidedly liberal. Despite all the pugnacious efforts by many conservative talking heads, most notably Rush Limbaugh, to demonize the word "liberal" itself, I have decided to embrace the label proudly. For all its ambivalent associations, the moniker is holding up nicely to the fulminations of today's conservatively-oriented, rhetorical flame throwers.

Not surprisingly, I have taken to surrounding myself with a few sources of news and opinion - some in the form of magazine subscriptions - which tend to extol the virtues of criticizing conservative values and commentary, most notably The Nation (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor & Publisher) and The Progressive (Mathew Rothschild, Editor). To be more precise, however, these two publications are decidedly progressive in political orientation and though left-leaning, they are often just as critical of conventional liberals.

Being in the age of mailing-list swapping by large companies seeking to expand their reach, many interesting things no doubt find their way into our mailboxes. To their credit, publications I subscribe to seem to be carefully selecting whom they send my name and address to. In recent months, I have been targeted by a host of "liberal" organizations for their support, among them Amnesty International, the ACLU, the Secular Coalition of America, and the Sierra Club just to name a few. But the other day something came to me from out of the blue: a Victoria's Secret catalog! Yes, my name - my address.

Now before anyone errantly concludes something my wife was tempted to conclude, I have not bought anything from Victoria's Secret, either online or at the mall, for anyone, not even the cute red-head at the convenience store. But I nonetheless had to endure the indignity of explaining how it was that I had absolutely no idea why this virtual naughty-nightie catalog would be sent to me. Then my imagination started running away with me. Could it be that Victoria's Secret is a liberal, political outpost masquerading as an underwear store? Did some obscure marketing research firm compile a study concluding that people who buy things at Victoria's Secret are predisposed to liberal or progressive ideology? Though this might explain The Nation selling my name and address to Victoria's Secret, it does sound a tad paranoid.

After giving this some thought, Ive concluded it's probably just a case of associative marketing gone wild. In the meantime, I think I'll give this catalog the once over. (It has so many more pictures than The Nation.) Then, of course, I will dutifully put it where it belongs - in the recycle bin.

Religion Has a Role in Politics?

The Daily Times (Salsbury, Maryland) recently published an opinion piece entitled, "Religion Has Its Role In Politics." At first glance, the article appears to reasonably address the subtleties of the First Amendment as they relate to the free practice of religion. On closer inspection, however, it goes beyond the correct notion that politics and politicians are not required to leave the influence of their religion at the door in their service to the public and tries to make the case that religion has a distinct and definable role in the political arena. This contention is erroneous and misguided.

In stating that "religion's proper role in government is to act as a personal moral compass for both leaders and constituents," the implication is made that the kind of morality the rest of us need is rightly the exclusive domain of religion. Something quite different is much more accurate: The kind of morality religious politicians utilize for guiding their own public pronouncements and policy decisions are, of course, free to be based on their own religious beliefs, but the idea that religious morality is something to be held up for the rest of us to aspire to is patently absurd and oversteps the bounds of propriety. This is a naked attempt to promote a religious god as the ultimate source and final arbiter of all morality.

This article would have been palatable if it only stated that applying a sensible - and more universal - moral code to the deliberations of politicians and to one's daily life was something to aspire to and left it at that. But it went overboard by suggesting it is the "role" of religion to administer this morality to the masses via the machinery of politics.

Theft of the Spirit: The Scourge of Mental Illness

It is much easier to write about the virtues of a godless existence, the latest in the political scene, or a recently viewed movie, but the truth is my blog also serves as something of a personal journal from time to time. When I write about the personal, I see my challenge as doing it in such a way so as not to simply avoid making my readers feel uncomfortable but to pique their interest with introspection and good humor.

From time to time, I grapple with the sensitive subject of my personal experiences with mental illness. As someone who has had to manage his own affliction with mental illness for a number of years, I have cultivated a sensitivity to similar afflictions in others, most notably my aging mother.

I was recently moved to a sadness I had never known after a conversation with my mother in which her voice became possessed of a virulent hostility and sadistic sarcasm. When I told her I was not sensing any love in her words, she proceeded to make the unmistakable insinuation that the quality and nature of my love was inferior because it did not emanate from her god. This was an obscenity a healthy mind simply could not conjure. Like a master thief, the scourge of mental illness had stolen away her gentle spirit and loving nature.

So for now, I will continue to fend off repeated invocations of Reinhold Niebuhr's tiresome cliché, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . ." blah blah blah. What is sorely lacking here is courage - not the least of which, my own.

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My Blogger friend Tara B. dug up this terrific quotation and posted it on her site: • The Worst Thing You Can Do • Reinhold Niebuhr has nothing on Theodore Roosevelt.

Sarah Palin: Late to the 'Party'?

__________________________

Not being in the business of predicting the future, I would never presume to suggest that Sarah Palin is deluded if she thinks God is going to open the door to the presidency for her to just "plow through." Alright, maybe I would presume precisely that. The much bigger question, however, is whether she represents a constituency among Republicans that possesses the wherewithal to continue to vie for the soul of the Party.

At the moment, the GOP seems fractured on the matter of Palin's potential, just as they seem fractured on which platform will accede to its ideological throne, the country club diehards or the Sam's club up-and-comers.

There are some who are convinced Palin's brand of conservatism is so out of touch (myself included) that if she were to run for president in four years she would announce Ann Coulter to be her Secretary of State, Rush Limbaugh her chief of staff, and Pastor John Hagee her National Security Advisor - assuming they all haven't imploded by then. And yet there are those who seem to believe she can put the circus that was her run at the vice presidency behind her and morph into a viable 2012 contender. The reality likely is that the only way a Palin candidacy could achieve viability is if she morphs into something she clearly is not at the moment: a moderate conservative who understands that for the Republican party to regain its luster it must diversify its political portfolio. At the moment, without an expansive ideological wardrobe makeover, Palin appears destined to go the way of the dinosaur. But talk of the next presidential election is a bit premature - one would think.

In selecting Palin as his running mate, John McCain appeared to appoint a younger more idealized version of himself. This may have been his fatal mistake. Instead of attempting to reclaim the conservative wing to push him across the finish line, McCain should have ventured toward the center. A Bobby Jindal (Governor of Louisiana) or Tim Pawlenty (Minnesota Governor) would, in hindsight, have probably been much better choices. Moreover, McCain ignored the latter part of the time-tested adage, "run to your wing to get the nomination; run to the center to win the general election."

Other than offering her a speaking role at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami last week, the RGA afforded no role for Palin in announcing their leadership slate for the coming year. Her address was widely panned even by Republican insiders as being laced with election rhetoric rehash going so far as to grant a sixteenth minute of fame to Joe the plumber mentioning him four times. Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capeheart stated simply, "She needs to stop."

Sarah Palin seems to want to enlist as a mercenary soldier in the culture wars. The problem is that the fighting is just about over and the only thing left to do is bring home the troops. In other words, grab what's left of your dignity and call it a day. The Republican Party is too sophisticated a machine not to understand that retooling must be next on its agenda. The question is: does Sarah Palin possess the wherewithal to realize this?

Mistreated?: The Electoral Season Plight of American Muslims

Photo Caption: Elsheba Khan at the grave of her son, Army Corporal Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, who was killed serving in Iraq. The New Yorker.

Election '08 is in the history books, and the arm-chair analyses have begun in earnest. One observation gaining traction in the mainstream media at the moment reveals a seamier side of the American electorate.

It seems many Americans, especially some conservatives, have yet to eradicate the ugly prejudices ignited by the terrorist attacks of 9-11. Because some of the hijackers involved in the infamous deeds were determined to be Muslim extremists of Middle Eastern descent, a perverse extrapolation has been forged tainting the vast majority of honest, hard-working and law-abiding Muslims in America as undeserving of the kind of respect most of us citizens take for granted. NPR, OnPoint Radio, American Muslims and Election '08

First off, there were the continual attempts to suggest that president-elect Barack Obama was a Muslim. It happens to be incorrect. He is a Christian. But it was a long time before any public figure asked what should have been the obvious: So what if her were a Muslim? What is wrong with that? Colin Powell made the following remarks on "Meet the Press" in October:

"I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?. . .

". . .I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions."

Obama didn't exactly help matters along when answering claims that he was a Muslim. Rather than pointing out the subtle bigotry embedded in the false claims in the first place, he merely corrected for the record which faith he actually observed, and in so doing missed a golden opportunity to even further demonstrate one of the signatures of his political persona - tolerance.

At a John McCain town-hall meeting in Minnesota, a woman said she didn't trust Obama because "he's an Arab." In a slightly miscalculated response, McCain took the microphone from the woman and said, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues." There's plenty of room for misinterpreting these remarks when dissecting them and, in all likelihood, McCain surely did not intend to suggest that being an Arab and being a decent family man were mutually exclusive. But many people - including some Arabs - took offense and drew precisely that inference.

Another more ominous incident was the dissemination in roughly 70 American newspapers of the anti-Muslim propaganda film, Obsession. Funded by a group with remote ties to Israel, the film seeks to capitalize on post 9-11 hysteria and suggest that Islam is out to destroy the West.

These and other events served to stir up resentment among many Muslims because they felt they could not be themselves during the presidential campaign season. Vociferously aligning themselves with Obama might have provoked the very bigotry and discrimination they were so diligently trying to stamp out. Consequently, many Muslims cowered into passivity and silence.

As one panel member on the NPR broadcast pointed out, now that Barack Obama has been elected, maybe he can redress the mistreatment of Muslims during the election without fear of political recriminations.

"Sicko": An Indictment Worthy of Airing

This review may not exactly be timely, but - better late than never.

Documentary film maker Michael Moore may have trouble hiding his biases and political prejudices, but he nonetheless has a way of making people sit up and take notice. In his 2007 release, Sicko, he adeptly tugs at the emotional strings of his viewers in order to make his point that something is very wrong with the American health care system.

Pointing out it's bad enough nearly 50 million Americans are without health care insurance of any kind, Moore goes on to expose what many people who do have health insurance have known for a long time: they have to fight routine denials of coverage they believed they were entitled to. Trotting out industry insiders-turned-whistleblowers, Moore makes plain the Achilles heel of the profit-driven scheme: that denying coverage is an integral aspect of the plan to achieve a favorable bottom line. During one interview, Moore listens as an HMO specialist reveals an incentive scheme in which bonuses are paid out to managers who deny the most in claims.

For contrasting effect, Moore takes a look at the health care systems of England, France, Cuba, and - for humorous emphasis - the medical wing of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station's detention center where al-Qaeda terror suspects, of course, receive free medical care.

Moore glosses over the real cost of universal health care in these countries, which is of course very high taxes. What becomes plain in Sicko, however, is that the people in these countries seem more than willing to live with the system they have erected and appear to have few complaints. In other words, the free delivery of comprehensive health care is made a priority.

In responding to critics' fears of "socialized" medicine, Moore points out that here in America we are already perfectly willing to socialize a few things we deem to be of sufficient priority like fire protection, police protection, primary education, etc. The inference to be drawn is clearly that Americans have yet to reach the point where health care is seen as the same kind of necessity - a nearly absolute one. Or maybe they have, but the profit-minded behemoths protecting the system presently in place are too well connected politically to allow the changes Americans seem to be wanting.

Sicko lays bare many of the fissures in the present American health care system. What it does not do - nor does it purport to - is offer details for an alternative plan. Moore simply puts on display the benefits of a free, universal system and ponders what Americans could achieve if they could muster the political will to abandon the dysfunctional status quo.

The Search For A Secular Sign-Off

For a very long time now, it seems obligatory for whoever is president to conclude any major addresses with the expression, "God bless you, and God bless America." I may be deluded, but lately I get the feeling we may have turned a corner in the struggle to return to our secular roots in this country.

Believing president-elect Barack Obama to be a closet atheist (those bitter people clinging to their guns and religion was very revealing), I am actually holding out hope that he will one day venture into the bold arena of invoking secular aphorisms as a sign-off to some of his public speeches. Of course, he cannot abandon religious "good-byes" altogether after so ingeniously pandering to religious constituents during the election, but he could test drive a few secular salutations to gauge America's readiness to put "God Bless America" to rest. I thought I would trot out a few suggestions for some narrow focus grouping:

•"Later, dudes." --- No mention of God here, but not quite befitting the aura of the office.

•"Hasta luego!" --- The growing Hispanic demographic would no doubt love this one.

•"Stay Cool." --- 60s radical William Ayers and the rest of the aging hippie crowd would really dig this.

•"Kapla." --- From the Klingon Language Institute, this expression translates into "success" and is often uttered prior to battle. Trekkies would once again be considered part of the mainstream.

•"Keep on truckin'." --- This expression certainly has broad appeal, but it may be too closely associated with the disco era. For that reason alone, it might not fly.

•"Hey, Hey, Hey. Let's be careful out there." --- Who knows. Maybe Obama was a Hills Street Blues fan.

•"Ta-Ta, for now." --- Or for those times when he is texting his younger, digital generation supporters on his blackberry, TTFN, as it has come to be expressed.

•And finally, "Live long and prosper." --- If this expression weren't already taken by the Vulcans, it would be perfect. The only drawback is that the split-fingered hand gesture is so difficult to master. It also may be the only expression offered here not totally devoid of the dignity the office demands.

There you have it. A few suggestions for secularizing the sign-off of presidential speeches. With priceless options such as these ready to go, the days of "God bless America" are surely numbered.

Elizabeth Dole, Kay Hagan - and God

Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina was defeated by Democratic challenger Kay Hagan in her bid for a second term Tuesday night. The campaign took a bad turn when, at the eleventh hour, Dole ran an ad she believed would be a sure hit. In the ad she claimed Hagan secretly attended a fundraiser hosted by a Political Action Committee known as Godless Americans.

In North Carolina - and throughout much of the country - being associated with an atheist organization is considered harmful to your political health. Perhaps times are changing. Don't misunderstand. Ms. Hagan repudiated any notion that she might be a "godless" person by quickly and publicly avowing her faith in God and good standing as a Christian. What is noteworthy here is the fact that Senator Dole was roundly criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for running the ad in the first place.

Why exactly did so many people find the ad offensive? Were they upset because the implications presented were untrue, i.e., Ms. Hagan does believe in God, or was it the notion that even if a candidate is godless, it should have no bearing on the election?

One can readily understand why Ms. Hagan would want to set the record straight, but would it have been too much to expect that she take the high road and publicly state that one's religious - or non-religious - beliefs are not pertinent in an election to public office?

Guilt by association has always been in bad taste, but rest assured we are a long way from a place where being godless makes no difference at all. Why else would Ms. Hagan move so decisively to correct the record? Precisely because she wanted there to be no misunderstanding with her constituents as to her religious faith, lest she be vilified as a non-believer.

It seems for the time being at least, especially in the Republican Party, God remains right up there with baseball, motherhood, and apple pie, while atheists remains right down there with the dregs of society.

A Persistent Myth About Secular Humanism

Someone recently wrote to me that he didn't buy "all that secular humanist crap" I was finding myself interested in. Fair enough. But did this person venture into anything specific? As a matter of fact, he did. He wrote that secular humanists hold all philosophies and world views to be equally valid and that he disagreed strongly with this precept. The implication was clear: secular humanists possess no powers of discernment. I was surprised such an educated and intelligent person would resort to invoking so shallow a myth as to compel me to wonder what he really understood about humanism at all.

Still, this was not the first time I had heard this criticism of secular humanist philosophy. I consider myself a humanist, and in no way do I subscribe to the notion that all world views have substantially equivalent validity. People who hold this view of humanists are incorrectly extrapolating from the principle that no one world view explains everything that all world views are therefore equally valid. To be more precise about what humanism does in fact avow: all world views are fallible. That is to say they are subject to - in the secular sphere - critical and rational analysis. Opposing world views are no doubt possessed of varying degrees of enlightenment, which deems them, by definition, to be of varying degrees of value.

Something else this particular myth seems based upon is the notion that humanism is as rigidly dogmatic as any religion. While there are a number of stated principles humanists aspire to, it is much more accurate to characterize humanism as a method for reasoning and achieving understanding. It is not a compendium of dos and don'ts or intractable beliefs; it is a foundation for skeptical analysis and inquiry based upon rational examination. Secular humanists question the veracity of claims to possess knowledge about that which does not suffer rational examination well.

Much criticism of humanism comes from the religiously inclined because of its expressed resistance to explain the world in supernatural terms. To many, the very idea of not deferring to a specific deity in constructing its ideological platform is offensive. What we humanists can't understand is why this would offend anyone. We are not offended by the choice of others to believe in a god, but to quote from Paul Kurts' Affirmations of Humanism, A Statement of Principles: "We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence . . . and to look outside nature for salvation."

More often than not, criticism of secular humanists as undiscriminating purveyors of "anything-goes" intellectualism is a naked attempt to malign us, our intellects, and our principles. We, as much as anyone, welcome criticism so long as it is not offered as disparaging rhetoric.

Barack Obama - A 'Transformational' Figure?

When former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for president recently, he referred to him as a "transformational figure." By lending support to Obama, the former General becomes the latest in a long line of well-respected national figures to throw their lot in with the young Senator from Illinois.

Of course anything can happen, but at the moment, with just a few days remaining until the election, Barack Obama appears to have made the personal transformation from long shot wunderkind and political rock star to full-fledged, viable candidate for Guardian of the Dream.

Barack Obama has plainly revealed to his detractors that he is possessed of the kind of political sensibilities and personal gravitas one would expect of a true leader. Even though many no doubt disagree with a number of his stated positions on important issues, the most pressing need this time around is for a person with the ability to inspire, to reclaim the respect of foreign governments, and to re-state America's moral authority among the community of nations. Mr. Obama possesses these credentials.

Challenges for the next president - whoever he is - will demand transformations of another kind. Division, fear, and alienation need transforming into unity, hope, and belonging; arrogance, unilateralism, and mistrust need transforming into humility, collaboration, and confidence. However austere the convictions of the next Commander-in-Chief, they must be expressed with a calm and reassuring demeanor, not the shoot-from-the-hip, take-no-prisoners-or-if-you-do-torture-them approach that has done this country so much disservice the last eight years.

Disabling extremist political elements in countries like Iran, North Korea or Pakistan will only be achieved by removing their primary basis for legitimacy: the aggressive and threatening posture of a misguided U.S. foreign policy. Each of these countries, Iran in particular, is populated by masses wanting to see improved relations with the United States. A departure from the outgoing administration's confrontational policies is plainly called for. Barack Obama understands this need.

Thus, my 20-year political love affair with Ralph Nader is coming to an end. It was a good run. As for the growing allure of the Green Party, I want to make certain we at least take a first step in the right direction with a sensitive liberal and promising pragmatist like Mr. Obama.

The closer this political season gets to its day of reckoning, the clearer the message becomes: Barack Obama is ready to lead - and poised to transform.

A Quote From Thomas Fuller On Forgiveness

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
English Clergyman and Historian

"He that cannot forgive others
breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself;
for every man has need to be forgiven."

~ Thomas Fuller

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A Few Thoughts:

Nothing demands as much, nor rewards so completely, as forgiveness. In its purest form, the act of forgiving requires the ego to suspend its need to prevail. A profound selflessness is at the core of the perfect offering of forgiveness.

Is it any wonder finding forgiveness is so often such a difficult thing to do? Our very pride must be sublimated before an honest attempt at forgiving can even be made. But like most demanding commodities, the more we employ them, the easier they become to enlist.

Offering an apology is often the least threatening way of soliciting forgiveness. Lending apology and forgiveness so often invites reciprocation in kind. How often does it come to pass after saying to someone, "I'm sorry. It was all my fault," are we met with, "No. no. I'm the one who should be sorry. It was all my fault." The healing is instantaneous and comprehensive. The fleeting yet genuine intimacy that is achieved provides a nearly transcendent moment of mutual harmony.

As one who is in need of much forgiveness, I am taking the wise words of Thomas Fuller to heart and using them to challenge my more intransigent nature and become a more forgiving person.

If only sublimating one's pride weren't such a formidable task.

A Brief 'Trek' Through the Abortion Debate

In one episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, the creative trustees of the Gene Roddenberry vision gently yet imaginatively tackle the issue of abortion. The tact it assumes is a sensitive if predictable one.

In The Child (Season 2, Episode 1) Counselor Deanna Troi has become pregnant but not the old fashioned way. An alien life force in the form of a glowing speck of light engages Deanna in a brief, futuristic kind of intimacy while she is asleep and suddenly she is nurturing a new life within. Owing to the inexplicable nature of her pregnant condition, Captain Picard calls for a conference of senior officers to consider the situation.

As he always does, the Captain carefully listens to the comments of each of his underlings. Worf, the Klingon security administrator, not surprisingly advocates strongly for termination of the pregnancy citing, as one might expect, the security concerns of the Enterprise and its crew. After everyone has had his say, Deanna makes the pronouncement, "Do what you must to protect the ship, but know this: I am having this baby." Acknowledging that the decision is ultimately hers to make, the Captain adjourns the gathering saying, "It would appear, then, that this meeting is over."

Thus, in one succinct exchange, a very enlightened solution appears to have been made. The principle of choice is upheld, and Deanna's decision adheres to what the Roddenberry vision demands: the near-absolute respect for all living creatures. The question is, which part of this scenario is meant to prevail, the principle of choice or the affirmation of life?

Not to be lost in this dilemma is another of this episode's wider considerations. Ian, the young alien offspring who wondrously attains mid-childhood age in only a few short days, is the mysterious source of radiation that is allowing a plasma plague to endanger the lives of those on board. When the young boy realizes this, he sacrifices his human self in order to save everyone on the Enterprise, then reverts to his original light-beam state and disappears.

Not surprisingly, the powerful ideal of affirming life whenever possible seems to be the overriding Roddenberry message, and yet he does not shrink from symbolically depicting the complex nature of the entire pro-choice/pro-life debate.

In a clever sort of duality, there is something for each side of the debate in this well-crafted morality play. Maybe it's precisely what Gene Roddenberry had in mind.

A Quote from Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Austrian Psychiatrist and "Father" of Psychoanalysis

"When man is freed of religion,
he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life."

~ Sigmund Freud

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A Few Thoughts:

•My own experience allows me a slight variation on this quote as a personal expression: Since being free of religion, I have lived a more normal and wholesome life.

•Freud's psychological explanation for God and religion is uncomplicated: Owing to feelings of helplessness and guilt, the need for security and forgiveness arises, so people invent for themselves an entity that will provide precisely those things. - Philosophy of Religion.info: Sigmund Freud - Religion As Wish Fulfillment - In short, religion is seen as "childish delusion," and atheism as "grown-up realism."

Understanding the Coulter Culture - Take 2

In his recent post, Hate Talk In America, the very enjoyable questionsaboutfaith reminds us just how resistant the malevolently repugnant Ann Coulter still is to the forces of civility and reason. By insidious design, she has most of us right where she wants us - talking about her. For Ms. Coulter there simply is no such thing as bad publicity. Indeed, she gets much more mileage out of her disagreeable critics than she does her own like-minded minions.

The utter irascibility Ann Coulter is famous for has made her wealthy beyond avarice. This despite having to endure more frequent questions about her extreme brand of conservatism, offensive methods, and intellectual integrity.

Apparently, we are still missing a big piece of the Ann Coulter puzzle. She often takes a stand contrary to that of her inquisitors out of a sense of compulsion. So averse is she to the prospect of appearing moderate or even nuanced in her positions, she will not hesitate to propose the incendiary just to maintain a sense of hostility. I'm no shrink, but this smacks of personality disorder.

In an earlier post, Understanding the Coulter Culture, I proposed that Ms. Coulter was little more than a showman obsessed by the need for controversy and self-promotion. These traits, while largely remaining her motivation, now seem more like symptoms of a subtle psychological disturbance rather than anything orderly or healthful.

That Ms. Coulter's mental equilibrium might be slightly askew offers some explanation for her preposterous utterances. But what are we to make of the masses who revel in her bombastic rhetoric? She appears to have become the David Koresh of the Coulter Cult providing sanctuary for the caustically conservative, politically impressionable, and ideologically irredeemable.

As for those who continually provide Ann Coulter the venues for her so-called political analysis, they should be the ones leading all of us to the next meeting of Enablers Anonymous. I'll even make the coffee. And one by one we can each give testimony as to why we are helpless against the addiction of facilitation when it comes to providing Ann Coulter with her own insatiable craving - an audience.

Could I Have Been Wrong All Along?

Will wonders ever cease? Recent events have necessitated something quite unpleasant: my contemplating the notion that I could - yes, actually could - be wrong about something! Not an easy thing for an arrogant, smug-mug like myself to swallow.

In truth, the question, "Could I have been wrong all along?" begs another maybe-not-so-simple question, that being: "About what, specifically?" In all candor, I am fully prepared to accede in some respects, but defend in others.

It seems I have not fully appreciated a few crude realities about certain aspects of life. One of them being that most people in their seventies and eighties come from a generation that persistently resorts to the practice of internalizing that which today's more enlightened perspective strongly suggests they not internalize - things like mental illness, abuse, the far-reaching effects of alcoholism, and sordid, emotional family dynamics to name just a few.

The internalizing of these phenomena predictably causes serious problems in maintaining relationships. Its effects are usually so profound the only wise course of action is the intervention of mental health professionals. But today's more aged generation is often mistrusting of this "new" way of coping, opting instead to keep it all bottled up and turn to things like God and religion - or worse.

It has been proposed to me that this is not only a viable solution, but the only solution many older people will consider. And for that reason, making an appeal to one that he or she "get help" becomes an act of futility, especially when the appeal is coming from someone whose worldview is diametrically opposed to that of the person so in need of help. The glaring lack of any foundation built upon trust - owing to these conflicting worldviews - virtually disqualifies that person from being the best candidate to even attempt such a thing. In fact, to my short-sighted amazement, it apparently can cause a lot of pain.

As I mentioned to the person who made me aware of this, I can buy this way of thinking so long as it is not packaged and sold as a sort of better informed or higher kind of reasoning. On the contrary, it represents a total capitulation to a solution that is far from ideal.

And what about the consequences? We can't forget those. The consequences of this internalizing option has serious drawbacks. Among them the continued absence of any intimacy and love being shared between this victim and her family. Whereas, the getting help option offers what may be the best hope for a life consisting of at least a smattering of love and happiness. My antagonists, here, seem perfectly willing to accept that my mother live on without these benefits. It is a very sad and imperfect choice, to say the least.

So, to the argument that I am not the one to be making these appeals to my mother, fine - point well taken. Why, then, don't any of the other principals try to make the case? For two reasons. First, none of them have cultivated any trust with her either. And second, they have convinced themselves that their option is by far the least objectionable of the two.

Is it possible that some lingering anger over perceptions of having been misparented are providing at least some of my motivation? Absolutely. To deny this would be dishonest. It is categorically untrue, however, that I am attempting to impose my personal belief system on my mother. Her revulsion toward my skeptical philosophy speaks much more to her intolerance than it does anything else.

It suddenly occurs to me that I am not really admitting to being wrong about very much here, am I? Well, fuck it! I tried. I can't help it - I'm just an imperious little bastard whose arrogance knows no bounds and whose impertinence is quickly approaching legendary status!

So much for this exercise in humility.

A Quote from Edwin Markham

Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

Modern American Poet

"For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike.
When you are the anvil, bear - when you are the hammer, strike."

~ Edwin Markham

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A Few Thoughts:

It seems I had heard the expression, "When you are the anvil, bear - when you are the hammer, strike." What I wasn't aware of was that it was part of a more complete and rhyming quotation. Nor was I aware it was attributable to Edwin Markham, who is also new to me.

There were a number of lawyers in my family, and my dad would tell me how they lived by this expression as a sort of dictum in their legal practice. It was the only context I was aware of for a long time. I can see how it would apply to life in general, but that second part has a surgical feel to it, sort of terse and impersonal.

Maybe it takes a certain personality to live by this piece of advice, and I'm not at all certain I have it.

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I thought I'd start a new feature on my blog, presenting interesting quotes from time to time that may seem to have a broad appeal. Hope you enjoy.

Unappealing, Uninspiring, Unenlightened

Like most journeys of self-discovery, mine began as a solitary endeavor. Long before I had ever heard of Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens and God Is Not Great, or Sam Harris and The End of Faith, I was well on my way toward repudiating my earlier life and inaugurating a wonderful new kind of day for celebration, the Feast of the Renunciation.

It was important to me that I formally recognize my emancipation from religious preoccupation. It was a day worth commemorating. The stultifying weight of superstition, dogma and nonsensical thoughts being lifted from my overburdened shoulders provided so much relief, quantifying its soothing effect on my emotional well-being is difficult to do.

It took as long as it did for me to begin this journey of liberation because I was virtually set upon by my religious handlers for so long, and because religious indoctrination as a child - when done with the perverse efficiency it usually is - has a way of enduring both time and challenge.

The simple act of freely expressing my thoughts here on a lonely blog has provided immeasurable comfort as well as an increasing sense of belonging as I continue to find other well-rounded, free-thinking bloggers. To my pleasant surprise, the few religious people who have seen fit to comment have been quite palatable. It is my very intention to engage people of faith to propose to them that we celebrate what it is we have in common: our humanity and, hopefully, our love of life. Sometimes it seems to work; other times I am gently pelted with reasons why it can't work.

Three basic qualities about my former life of relative religiosity come to mind when I consider how empty it had become: unappealing; uninspiring; and unenlightened.

• First, it was unappealing to me because of its innumerable and incessant self-righteous affirmations, as well as its exclusionary tendencies. Dissent of any kind as to things substantive was not tolerated and left one with feelings of impertinence. Further, people who did not openly affirm their status as god-fearing creatures were not only socially alienated, but also told directly that their destinies were irredeemable. Very unappealing.
  
  
• Second, it was uninspiring to me because for all its attestations of wonder and magnificence emanating from a so-called god, it paled in comparison to the awe-inspiring sensations I would experience when contemplating the transcendent splendor of nature itself. The process of man's discovering and understanding things previously held to be mysterious was amazing enough in and of itself. Attributing all knowledge and understanding to a higher power was taking something very precious away from us: our natural thirst to achieve for ourselves that which lends to us the very knowledge and understanding we seek.
  
  
• And finally, it was unenlightened to me because propagating its core tenets was fueling so much hatred and disharmony in the world. We've got a couple of missing office towers in New York that speak to this very issue rather poignantly. Even moderate religious views were becoming more and more distasteful to me because, in practice, they unfailingly abdicated the ultimate responsibility of securing our own stations in life, as well as our destinies, to an entity other than ourselves. This is all to say nothing of just how unenlightened it plainly is to believe that morality is necessarily derived from a supernatural source. Further, any worldview that nominates religion as its guiding structure is simply ill-equipped to handle the challenges presented by a society based on diversity and pluralism.

Yes, it took a while, but I eventually found myself crafting an outlook on life that required three very different qualities. It had to be appealing, inspiring, and enlightened.

My old life was ever so close - yet ever so far away.

Remembering a Religious Friend

Lives Lived Well and the Lessons That They Teach
The following was published in the New York Times, January 2, 2000:

A HEART FOR THE HOMELESS

PAUL T. LAFFIN was a product of a Hartford family renowned for its advocacy for the sick and distressed. His siblings included two nurses, a health care worker and a director of a group home.

Mr. Laffin worked for a time as a psychiatric technician at Hartford Hospital after graduating from Merrimack College. But a decade ago, he switched to something closer to his heart. He joined the staff of St. Elizabeth Center, a shelter for the homeless on Main Street, eventually becoming its associate director. He was known both for the zest he brought to the job and his nonjudgmental attitude toward the people who lived there.

''He cared about people,'' said Sister Patricia McKeon, executive director of Mercy Housing and Shelter Group, the parent organization for the shelter. ''He really cared, and he went the extra mile for them. They weren't just numbers.''

Mr. Laffin, 42, died on Sept. 20 (1999) on a street near the homeless shelter as a result of a random attack by a mentally ill man who had been hospitalized three times in psychiatric wards for threatening people.

Remembering Paul Laffin

It's been almost nine years since my childhood friend Paul Laffin met his much-lamented demise. Paul came from a very religious family, one which on the surface didn't appear to be burdened with much dysfunction - unlike my own religious family. His mother and father were virtual icons in the local Catholic church, involving themselves in a number of other-than-Sunday activities.

Paul and I began our obligatory Catholic education in the second grade at St. Peter's School, which was located right next door to the very place Paul would find himself employed many years later, the St. Elizabeth Shelter for the Homeless. In real distance, his journey only took him a few feet, but in a much more meaningful way, it took him right to the end of his life.

To be honest, Paul and I were little more than a couple of child-hooligans in the second grade. As an example, for no other reason than the fact that we were allowed to return to class twenty minutes later than everyone else, we often attended Mass at noon in the church next door. We did little else than trade baseball cards and shoot spitballs from the back pews, yet we were always greeted warmly upon our return to class because we were considered so devoted for attending Mass on such a regular basis. There's no other way to put it. We were engaged in naked, religious fraud, pure and simple.

Our propensity for hijinks usually extended right up until the closing prayer of the day. With Paul seated in the first desk by the window and I seated in the first desk by the door, we would often glare at each other from across the room in a duel-to-the-death staring contest during the recitation. One afternoon, I got the better of Paul when right after the opening few words of the Act of Contrition, our contest suddenly ended with Paul flailing his arms up in the air, keeling over at the waist, and bursting out loud in uncontrollable laughter. I can still recall the nun who led us in prayer that day pinching Paul by the tip of the ear, whisking him toward the door and saying to him, "You find something funny about the Act of Contrition, Mr. Laffin? Maybe you can go down to the Principal's office and tell him just what that would be." How I contained myself as Paul was ushered past me, his head tilted sideways, I'll never know.

Paul and I shared something else unusual. We each lost a sibling to suicide; I, an older brother named Stephen, and he, a younger sister named Mary. Mary had the face of an angel and a personality to match. That she would find herself so conflicted she would resort to self destruction defied all logic. It was plain that the demon of despair was an equal opportunity destroyer of lives. And as difficult as this is to admit, I often wondered whether the extremely religious environment she was brought up in had anything to do with her demise. It hurts to even suggest it, but I know what pressures can be brought to bear by religiously overzealous parents. (As I mentioned in my earlier post, Recalling a Brother's Suicide, I believe this very influence was a major factor in my brother Stephen's last desperate act.)

Paul was a very religious person, but in a private and casual sort of way. It was his humanity that was most evident at any given moment. Years ago, I would occasionally run into him at the corner pub where Paul liked to go after working his usual second shift as a psychiatric technician at Hartford Hospital. After listening to some of the stories he would tell me, I understood completely why he often needed to imbibe after work. "Those people are crazy!" Paul once said to me. "They're in a tough way aren't they, Paul?" I replied, attempting to dole out a little empathy for him and those whom he cared for. Paul's response, "No. Not the patients. The staff! They're crazy!" Conversations without laughter were not possible with Paul Laffin. His sense of humor was both infectious and relentless. Often just the look on his face was more than enough to get me started.

I'm certain Paul would have remained a friend to me if he were with us today despite my divergent path as regards religious faith. He certainly seemed to be the kind of person who understood that it is the quest for truth that is important, not any arrogantly self-assured notion that one person could be in total possession of it. Celebrating that which we had in common - our humanity - would have been more than enough to sustain our friendship.

We miss you, Paul. Thanks for that laugh in the second grade at St. Peter's, and thanks for all the wonderful work you did at St. Elizabeth's.

"Egregiously" Aggrieved

The devil visited a lawyer's office and made him an offer. "I can arrange some things for you, " the devil said. "I'll increase your income five-fold. Your partners will love you; your clients will respect you; you'll have four months of vacation each year and live to be a hundred. All I require in return is that your wife's soul, your children's souls, and their children's souls rot in hell for eternity."The lawyer thought for a moment. "What's the catch?" he asked.

Lawyers. Why is it everybody hates them until they need one? Well, for a lot of reasons, but we won't go into them right now. My father was a lawyer; my uncle was a lawyer; I have a brother who is a lawyer; I even had an aunt who was a nun and had a law degree! They all had a few things in common. They were bright, articulate, of even temperament, and - they loved the word "egregious."

Once while playing golf with my lawyer brother, he missed a short birdie putt and proceeded to put the blame on me saying, "You know, I would have made that putt if you hadn't so egregiously stepped in my line." Somehow, the normally forgivable offense of stepping in your opponent's line was, by virtue of its being so egregious, elevated to the status of "crime against nature."

What is it about the word "egregious" that appeals to the literary arsenal of lawyers? For one thing, lawyers are in the business of advocacy, which is just a fancy way of saying that they have to argue for the positions of their clients whether they believe in them or not. And the word "egregious" comes in handy for just that purpose.

The dictionary ascribes definitions for the word "egregious" that include "conspicuously offensive," "flagrant" and "extraordinary in a bad way." Thus, this word is nearly perfect for the purpose of attacking the credibility of one's opponent, because it proposes that one's client is so severely aggrieved, believing the other side's point of view would defy reason. And what better way to colour an argument than to suggest an opponent's unreasonableness.

This devious trick also comes in very handy in ideological arguments. Looking back, I've noticed it is not beyond my own methods to employ this tactic - and this word. Its main function is simply to disgracefully beg my own point of view regardless of where the substance of my arguments lie. It reminds me of the following variation on a famous legal axiom: "If the law is on your side, argue the law; if the facts are on your side, argue the facts; if neither the law nor the facts are on your side, stand up on the table and shout!" Sprinkling one's argument with the word "egregious" and its variations is usually nothing more than one's way of standing on the table and shouting. It is very useful for deflecting attention away from the weakness of one's point of view.

But don't ask me to give up using this word. It works like no other. And even though there are a million reasons not to aspire to being one, it makes me sound a little like a lawyer.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash the dishes. They would have been done had my daughter not so egregiously dismissed my request to do them an hour ago!

Did It Make a Difference?

Today began like most other days. It saw me starting out, as usual, with a fresh coffee at Dunkin Donuts - one extra cream, no sugar. I traded the usual good-morning barbs with my boss and co-worker: "It's amazing you and I aren't sick of each other, Bob." "Speak for yourself, Bill," Bob shot back.

"Oh just great! You're still here, Cindy?" Her warm reply: "You just worry about yourself, Bill. And if you don't stop delivering flowers to the wrong address, Bob is going to let go of your ass!"

All was right with the world. I was resoundingly insulted and abused getting my day off to its familiar start. My first few deliveries came and went without a hitch, and before I knew it my 11:00 a.m. caffeine craving was surfacing right on schedule. But this day was about to take a turn for the unusual. As I neared the entrance to, where else - Dunkin Donuts, a man approached me - disheveled, unshaven, and obviously down on his luck.

"Buddy, can you please buy me a sandwich? Please? I'm havin' a tough time here." He was actually escorting me into the coffee shop when I stopped and said to him, "Look, they may not take too kindly to your accosting their customers in here, so just wait outside. I'll be right back." He gave me a funny look for a moment - as if he didn't know what the word "accosted" meant. But the look on his face revealed an emerging hope that the rest of my words must have given him, and he dutifully retreated to the street corner to wait and see if his desperate plea would bare any fruit.

In the few moments I had waiting to be attended to, I weighed my options. My decision was an easy one. Disregarding the risk of promoting panhandling, I thought the right thing to do was to buy this man a sandwich. Hunger is such an immediate need.

I saw my friend's plight as a direct consequence of the financial meltdown on Wall Street. It was having an effect on everyone, from the CEOs of Lehman Brothers and AIG having to so sadly forgo a few million dollars in bonuses, to hedge fund managers becoming apoplectic at the thought of not being able to bring a 30% return on some clients' portfolios; all the way down to Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public having to weigh not paying this month's mortgage because their heating bills for the winter are coming due; and finally down to my street-corner hobo friend needing something to eat - right away. Maybe this was what they meant by trickle-down economics.

It's possible my hungry associate gave up hope as I had to go looking for him when I came out of the coffee shop. He was meandering in the opposite direction so I picked up my pace and caught up to him to give him his small but important gift. His face lit up at the sight of my approaching carrying a take-out bag from the shop.

"You didn't! Oh thank you, buddy. Thank you so much."

Being the nut case that I am, I couldn't stop myself from offering a few words of advice: "Look, the Social Services office is just down the street. Go there and tell them you need some assistance. That's what they are there for. You're just going to get yourself in trouble if you stay out here panhandling like this."

You're not going to get me in trouble are you, sir?"

"No. no. Of course not. But, you know, some people might not be so kind," I said to him giving myself a virtual pat on the back.

I was left to ponder the value of my deed of generosity. Did it make a difference? I thought it did. It wasn't exactly your average $700 billion bailout, but for a precious moment, we eased a little suffering. And we satisfied not only a craving for food, but almost as importantly, a craving for intimacy. My friend gave me a firm hug before crossing the street to settle at a bench and make a feast of his sandwich.

Isn't it always the way? You set out to do something kind for someone and you end up being the recipient of an even greater act of kindness in return - from the very person you helped! For a fleeting moment, I saw myself as a panhandler, too, groping for a smattering of intimacy from my fellow man - and being willing to pay for it in the currency of a ham, egg, and cheese croissant.

My friend and I were there for one another in this encounter of reciprocity, and each of us came away with that which we hungered for: he, something to fill his stomach, and I, something to fill my spirit.

Such wonderful symbiosis!

Is Morality Natural?

In a scene from the movie Good Morning Vietnam [I stand corrected; it was the final episode of the TV show M.A.S.H.], a bus full of villagers stops by the roadside to avoid detection by enemy soldiers. Among the villagers are a woman and her crying infant. Fearing the loud crying will alert the soldiers to their presence and lead to their killing, the mother suffocates her child. The ensuing silence assuages the soldiers' concerns and they move on. The villagers on the bus are spared.

What does the decision by this fictional young mother to kill her own child have to say about moral dilemmas? Is the killing morally defensible?

One of the more petulant arguments from many people of religious faith is one which claims that without God there are no morals. Many skeptics, however, make the point that our morality is not only not derived from anything supernatural, but that its origins appear to be encoded in nature itself.

A recent Newsweek magazine article, Is Morality Natural? (Sept. 22, 2008 Issue), reports on studies which "suggest that nature provides a universal moral grammar, designed to generate fast, intuitive and universally held judgments of right and wrong."

When presented with various moral dilemmas, people of diverse backgrounds, including atheists and people of religious faith, remarkably respond in the same way. When asked why they made the decisions they did, most cannot articulate an answer with any conciseness, yet they are confident in their choices. These findings reveal what appears to be a moral intuition embedded into the natural fabric of our consciousness.

One of the main purposes of organized religion most certainly is that of administering what it believes to be this moral charter, an admirable undertaking. It is the origins of this morality that we skeptics doubt derive from a supernatural source. It makes the task of promoting morality by people of faith no less honorable, but this task is not unique to people of faith. We atheists are also keenly attuned to the need for achieving a better sense of right and wrong in our everyday lives. It is a shallow and indefensible myth that atheists, by virtue of their godlessness, are lacking in a moral code to live by.

That this sense of what is right and what is wrong may derive from a natural source - or Darwinian source, as some suggest - actually gives me comfort. It gives one reason to have faith in man's instinctual self.

Maybe we can't all agree on the origins of morality, but hopefully we can agree that whatever they are it is very important to seek out its meaning, seek out its purpose, and attend to its ideal.

Legacy of Pain, Part II

Some may be wondering why the title, "Legacy of Pain." Certainly, this does not refer to the loving legacy of my dearly departed brother Vinny. Of whose legacy am I speaking? Sadly, it is that of my parents. I nonetheless try very hard to achieve some understanding - not just assign blame - as I contemplate their roles as "guardians of the spirit" in raising their children.

Over time it has become abundantly clear that each of my parents was burdened with substantial mental and emotional maladies. Only this can explain the legacy of pain inflicted upon their children. The alternative is to condemn them as willful abusers, which I know in my heart would be unfair. The crude reality, however, is that abuse is quite rightly the appropriate depiction of so much of what we endured. And because they were each in their own way so very religious, I drew the understandably inescapable conclusion that God, religious faith and superstition in general were all very unhealthy ideals to aspire to. If this was where commitment to God leads one, I wanted no part of it.

My parents lives speak to a legacy of pain endured as well as imposed. My ongoing enlightenment regarding the issues of mental illness, mental health hygiene and emotional well-being has allowed me to achieve and extend forgiveness toward my parents for their misdeeds. The illnesses they themselves no doubt were afflicted with mitigate the moral culpability they own for their shortcomings.

The most profound repercussion of this legacy of pain has been the near incapacitation of its victims (we sons and daughters) with regard to accepting ourselves, accepting others, negotiating conflict and achieving intimacy in our lives. In a sad sort of irony, some of us have come to accept these limitations as the price of admission to the theater of life. But I want a refund. A full life is not without these qualities. Moreover, I would like to free myself from this burden of righteousness we siblings seem to share. Another useless gift from the emotional estate of our parents.

To be frank about it, I feel as though my siblings are laying a thousand dollars down on a near-sure thing: my mother never getting the help she needs and dying having never experienced the joy of giving or receiving love from her family the entire duration of her golden years. Whereas, I am placing two dollars down on a thousand-to-one long shot: she accepts her mental health as frail and gets the professional care she so desperately needs. I submit the payoff on my wager - here at the emotional racetrack of life - is infinitely more rewarding.

Like the unfortunate young victim who has been sexually assaulted but is too afraid to report the incident to police or seek the help of a therapist, some people cannot accept that a greater good is achieved when we are willing to pay the price for healing in the form of confronting, with a purpose, some of what transpired. It is the surest way to get beyond it. Avoiding this reality is downright unhealthy.

One thing I thought I might do to deal with my anger over this week's events was to see my therapist ahead of schedule. Fortunately, she found a time to work me in, and I was able to get centered and achieve some perspective. On the down side, I think I made the mistake of speaking from my anger in one or two phone conversations and emails with siblings prior to seeing my counselor. Specifically, I was quite unforgiving toward my sister for the way she handled things at Vinny's service. I am having much difficulty rationalizing her actions, and yet I still feel called to forgiveness. At the moment, I am an abject failure in this regard.

The big-picture view of these events speaks to the level of discrimination and intolerance still aimed at those of us who dare to reject generations of religiosity. We atheists remain quite marginalized in our societies as well as within our families. Though most people hesitate to express overt hostility with their words, their actions nonetheless reveal much about their true feelings. Ironically, had I spoken my words of tribute to Vinny at his service, those who were aware of my skepticism would have been disappointed had they been anticipating anything offensive, while those who were not would have noticed nothing but the love that inspired my words.

It hurts being possessed of so much ambivalence regarding my parents, but feelings have no right or wrong. They are valid because they exist. Our quest to understand them, however, is most certainly a noble endeavor.

Flawed though my own legacy will no doubt be, I can still think of nothing more important than passing on to my daughter the desire to succeed at this very quest for understanding. It has given me - purpose.

Legacy of Pain, Part I

It has been a turbulent few days - emotionally - since my brother, Vinny passed away. Not for any reasons having to do with Vinny - he and I have always been square - but as is so often the case, having to do with tensions among surviving family members. Ain't it always the way?

As I try to make sense of all that transpired, a few things reveal themselves to me. Some I am already painfully - or not so painfully - aware of; others have a newness or freshness about them; a few even provide further insight into my own state of being and continued need for introspection and support.

It is quite clear to me that the source of all the bruised feelings and burdened communiqués was simply - intolerance. The details can bog one down, so I will make every effort to be economical with my words in providing them.

A few of you were very kind to me when I revealed my brother's death here on Living Without God - A Life of Reason in my last post, Good Bye, Vinny. This post - or tribute - to Vinny was at the very center of the firestorm. When I shared it with a couple of siblings, they were equally kind and positive in their reactions. My sister so much so that she suggested I read it at the end of Vinny's funeral service when people are invited to say a few words in remembrance of the one lost. My response was quite agreeable and I thought it would be both a loving gesture as well as emotionally valuable experience.

Then came the hitch. My sister made what now appears to be a mistake in retrospect. She told my mother that I had written a very lovely tribute to Vinny and that I was going to read it at the end of the service. (It was to be a religious service - a Catholic one - to be precise.) As I have revealed in a few of my posts, I believe my mother to be seriously burdened with mental illness, much of it in the form of religious delusion; but I have been equally adamant in my belief that her condition would likely respond favorably to the attention of competent and caring mental health professionals.

Reading this tribute to Vinny did not sit well with my mother. It wasn't the message - she hadn't even read it - it was the messenger! Because I am self-professed in my atheism, my mother did not think it right that I speak at Vinny's service. Then she suggested the only way she would allow this to happen would be if she could speak after me. My mother either did not want the words of an avowed atheist to go unchallenged or to be spoken at all within the confines of a Catholic funeral service. Her response reeked of intolerance. I will say this: If celebrating kindness, compassion, love and triumph of the human spirit is a secular evil - then I plead guilty.

My sister felt, or claimed, that given my mother's fragile state, my words could possibly invite a tit-for-tat and inappropriately escalating response - sort of like the beginning of a nuclear war, I suppose. One of my brothers even wrote to me in an email that I should "not go out of my way to inflict this gratuitous hurt on someone who has already seen so much pain in her life." This brother, who did read Good Bye, Vinny, either honestly believed that not reading my gift was the sensible thing to do, or as I suspect, was merely cow towing to my mother's perverse conditions because he is, as all of my siblings are, afraid to stand up to her. (Just last week my sister very proudly told me she recently stood up to my mother for the first time in her adult life. Sadly, my mother intimidates these people.)

My brothers and sisters believe my mother to be the virtual equivalent of a sociopath - beyond even the reach of medical professionals. I don't think they understand that geriatric psychiatry is a medical field unto itself or that religious delusion is a symptom of mental illness; or, if they do understand these things, they simply feel she can survive without intervention. Maybe she can. But what kind of life is just surviving? Appropriate care would open up the possibility of not just surviving - but thriving.

Cutting to the chase . . . Toward the end of the service, one of the two celebrants presiding invited anyone who wanted to say a few words about Vinny to do so. Believing my mother would be just fine, I left my seat and motioned toward the lectern to share my brief tribute. My sister, from just a few feet away, very loudly blurted out, "No, Billy, no. We're not doing that." Not believing my ears, I glanced toward the inviting priest and said, "I'm sorry. Were we invited to say a few words?" The priest calmly nodded in the affirmative. But again my sister loudly objected, "No. No. Nobody is speaking." You can't make this stuff up! (I convinced myself that maybe I didn't hear the priest say what I thought he said - he wasn't speaking very loudly - so I returned to my seat. Had I been certain we were, in fact, invited to speak I would have continued on and read my tribute.)

The priest seemed bewildered by what had just transpired in front of him. At least one other person, a cousin of mine, who also motioned to speak, retreated in mild disbelief. If we were allowed to share our feelings, I'm sure others no doubt would have been made to feel comfortable enough to share one or two remembrances of their own. A golden opportunity for a few intimate moments was lost - all because a sibling or two felt tiptoeing around my mother was the sensible thing to do.

My daughter was so upset at what she witnessed, she immediately left the service, went outside and began crying on the church steps. After the service a few people tried to console her telling her that "we all have to forgive [Grandma]. We know how sick she is."

Lost in all this is, of course, my brother Vinny. These unfortunate events took focus away from the real purpose of the gathering which was to celebrate his life. Being denied the opportunity to do this very thing left Jami, Alycia and I feeling mistreated. We had to move on, however - I had to move on. Only I wondered how I would do this and yet still do justice to all that my anger was telling me.

I'll soon share how I began this process in Legacy of Pain, Part II.

Good Bye, Vinny

He was never a normal child. Restricted by obesity and burdened with special emotional needs, the mental and physical deficits of his early life left him at the mercy of the unkind. Bullying, name-calling, and taunting all rained upon him mercilessly as he navigated his way from early childhood through adolescence and onto adulthood.

For a long time, he feared the mere shadow of his fellow man. He was not given to trust, lest he be assaulted by disappointment yet again. He was driven into emotional exile by some of the worst that humanity had to offer. He appeared defeated.

But something happened. A strength began to emerge. It came from within. Suddenly he found the ability to forgive, and the healing began. Slowly, humanity earned its way back into his trust and faith. A sibling here, a sibling there. A friend here, a friend there. And supported by the kind of affection only a mother knows how to give, he found his way back among the living - and the loving.

How does someone beset by so many challenges and possessed of so few conventional tools find the courage to love again? How does someone so weathered by malevolence end up the very picture of goodness?

My hunch is that the best of what humanity had to offer found its way into his heart. Kindness, compassion and love. Three qualities not given to defeat. And for that we are grateful.

Who was this man? He was my brother. His name was Vinny. He died today at the age of 56 after a long and courageous voyage through life. I know he loved me and the rest of his brothers and sisters because he told us he did every time he spoke to us. And because he taught me how, I was able to love him the way a brother should.

To my precious brother Vinny: Thank you, and . . . Good Bye.

Ping Pong Across the Connecticut River

Living near the Connecticut River means sometimes having to cross it to get where one has to go. It's a long, wide and beautiful, tidal river. Very picturesque. Every once in a while, I'll cross the river via the rustic Rocky Hill/Glastonbury ferry - said to be the oldest continuously operating ferry in the country - just to enjoy it more intimately.

Then again, there are those times when just thinking about having to cross that river one more time nearly drives me to the brink. Consider the following:

We live on the west side of the river. My job is on the east side of the river. Sometimes for work, I go back over the bridge to make deliveries on the west side. And because our daughter still doesn't have her license, I have to drive her to school which is back on the east side - and of course pick her up. Toss in one round trip caused by a momentary brain freeze and things start to get dicey.

Today I made 10 trips across this river. When I arrived home, Jami said to me, "Ten times! And you didn't just pull over and jump off the bridge? I'm so proud of you!"

Thank you, Jami. And that very idea did cross my mind by the way. But when I thought of how much I still had to live for - how many more priceless bridge-crossing years I still had ahead of me, I just couldn't do it.

Besides, the Putnam Bridge is a sentimental place for me. Each time I cross it, I am reminded of crossings past, most of them uneventful, some adventurous. Like the time I skidded out of control one wintry morning and bounced off the Jersey barriers like a tennis ball earning me that dreaded joy ride in the back of an ambulance; or the time a couple of my coins missed their mark at the toll gate and the state police pursued me like a felon; and how could I ever forget the time my tire went flat right in the middle of the span causing not only a mile-long backup, but also serious risk to life and limb as I hastily performed my matinée, tire-changing sideshow for the early rush-hour crowd.

Yes, I crossed the Connecticut River 10 times today, and I'm nearly sea sick because of it. Some days, just getting out of bed is the wrong thing to do.

The Real Reason George Will Annoys Me

The social and political stripes so boldly emblazoned onto my persona are not something I have much success at hiding, so it should come as no surprise that it's something of a chore to commit to regularly reading conservative columnist George F. Will. As with most sources I might not politically identify with, I at least try to learn from him what I can.

So abrasive to my sensibilities do I find Mr. Will's most commonly held views, I often do not get past the initial sense of revulsion I experience when I first set eyes upon his photo atop each of his columns in Newsweek magazine. Given that I usually read periodicals from back to front, his back-page column in Newsweek always gets my reading of that publication off to a rocky start.

On those occasions when I'm able to put aside Mr. Will's political orientation, I'm usually glad I did. Besides having a soft spot for him because he did his undergraduate work at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, the city I grew up in, I find him to be a virtual font of information as an observer of the political process. And when the situation calls for it, he will roundly criticize those of his own conservative ilk. He's also big on baseball. (His name has even been tossed around casually as a possible future Commissioner of Baseball.)

Those of you who read George Will regularly also know something else about his columns. They are usually spiced with uncommon words. It's one thing to be erudite or scholarly with one's vocabulary; it's quite another to be just plain annoying. If I don't have a dictionary readily at hand when I read Mr. Will, chances are a few things are going to go right over my head. Whether referring to Bill Clinton's preternatural neediness or Mike Huckabee's charlatanry, I find I need Dictionary.com at the ready to make sure he doesn't lose me altogether.

I figure there are two ways to look at this phenomenon. Either my vocabulary is sorely in need of a booster shot, or Mr. Will is on the verge of being unnecessarily sesquipedalian. (See how it feels?)

So what's the real reason George Will gets under my skin? Is it simply the fact that no matter what the subject I already know that what I'll be getting is an unrelenting, conservative spin on the topic of the day, or is it the way he makes my vocabulary seem so jejune? Truthfully, it's a toss-up. But if I had to choose which one annoys me more, I'd have to say the vocabulary thing. I can tolerate someone's political analysis being predictably conservative, but looking down their nose at me and my vapid vocabulary is more than I can bear. It's so pestiferous.

Take that, George.

There's No Crying - Or God - In Baseball

One of my favorite scenes in all of movies occurs in the 1992 film, A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall. When one of the players on the all-women's baseball team starts to cry after being excoriated for a misplay on the field, Jimmy Dugan, the drunken, gruff and disheveled manager charmingly portrayed by Tom Hanks, looks at her and incredulously exhorts, "You're crying? Are you crying? There's no crying in baseball! (View the scene)

The Hanks character's derision at the sight of tears on a baseball field is probably something most of us would also feel if we tried to imagine a dejected Derek Jeter sobbing uncontrollably after hitting into a double play costing his team a run at a critical moment. We understand baseball, and we understand crying; but we also understand that little voice inside our head that tells us the two don't mix very well.

Which brings to mind the idea that maybe something else should be left out of baseball as well. In September of 2001 - right after the infamous date of 9-11 to be more precise - the New York Yankees, in a proud display of patriotism, began having the song God Bless America sung during the seventh-inning stretch of all its home games at The Stadium. Its unifying and healing effect on a hurting city was plainly evident. The Irish tenor Ronan Tynan delivered on repeated occasions his masterful rendition of this anthem which Kate Smith made so popular in her glory days. (Watch Ronan Tynan sing God Bless America at Yankee Stadium)

But seven years later, I'm left to wonder: Has this new tradition already outlived its usefulness? The appeal of God Bless America is one of nostalgia. It hearkens us to a time when the country was more a country of Christians than not, when God was right up there with baseball, motherhood and apple pie as signatures of that which we held dear, and many people don't want to see those days go away. The reality, however, is that our doctrine of religious freedom has evolved and matured. It now respects not only the multiplicity of religions practiced in America, but also respects - or at least should - the ranks of us not inclined toward religion at all.

Truthfully, my aim is in no way to see God removed from public life altogether, but more precisely to see religion removed from institutions of government. But the Yankees are not an institution of government, so why my trepidation?

This is a valid question. If the Steinbrenners (owners of the Yankees) want to have God Bless America sung during the seventh-inning stretch, my hunch is that they have every right to do so. One leg I might have to stand on in favor of returning to Take Me Out To The Ball Game may lie in the fact that baseball does, in fact, enjoy a special social status in America, to say nothing of a special legal status (owing to its exemption from antitrust laws). Given that baseball is that unique institution in America whose appeal is so broad it permeates virtually every segment of society, in the course of its business it should refrain from identifying with any constituent that does not share its broad and inclusive philosophy.

Being a Yankee fan, I watch a lot of their games on television, and whenever the seventh-inning stretch of a home game comes around these days, I find myself suddenly in need of a comfort break. This is the same person, mind you, who couldn't tear himself away from this spectacle in the weeks immediately following 9-11. It was strange. I was comforted, not by the singing of God Bless America, but by witnessing the comfort it gave others. I was struck at just how uplifting and healing this song was to so many people, especially when the inspiring sight of a bald eagle flying through the stadium air was employed to even further incite the patriotism already swelling amidst the crowd.

It concerns me that those of us who do not believe in God might be considered less patriotic than those who do, which is, of course, a myth. We're only asking whether or not this one swatch from the fabric of our culture is best left outside such a universally appealing phenomenon as baseball.

It would be foolhardy to dismiss the enormous impact God, faith and religion have had on our culture. But for the sake of their very own survival, it would be wise to refrain from ostentatious displays of God, faith and religion in certain cultural arenas.

In the meantime, we don't need to repeat the spectacle of Yankees manager Billy Martin going to pieces after being fired for the fourth time. It was not a pretty sight.

Some things are best left out of baseball.

Losing Sleep Over "Supersede"

A long time ago, my father, who was a Linotype operator for the old Hartford Times newspaper before he went to law school, told me that during my lifetime I would not believe where I would see the word "supersede" misspelled. "Everyone spells it -cede. The correct way is -sede," he told me. Wow. That's interesting pop.

Sure enough, I noticed it spelled -cede one day in the fine print of a software licensing agreement one sees when installing a new computer program. What do you know? My dad was right.

Then, earlier today, I was reading an article in The Progressive magazine - Fists of Freedom by Dave Zirin - and there it was again: supercede! I was so excited about coming across this errant submission I called my friend Eva (the one from my last post, Longing For A Little Country Life) just to tell her the exciting news. Apparently it was still a little early in the morning in Missouri.

"You woke me up to tell me you found a misspelling in a magazine?" Following a protracted sigh of utter exasperation, she muttered, "OK. What's the word?"

I then told her which word it was. There was a conspicuous silence for about 45 seconds. (For a moment, I thought maybe she fell back to sleep.) Then came the bombshell: "I hate to be the one to tell you this, Billy, but there IS a word spelled supercede." Apparently there's no shortage of dictionaries in the Ozarks.

"What are you talking about?" I shot back. "You must be mistaken."

"Look it up for yourself," she implored me. So I did. And what do you know. She was right. Thirty-five years of arrogant assuredness on this subject was shot to pieces in a blinding flash.

Not at all happy with this situation, I decided it was time to Google my way out of this conundrum. I told Eva I would get back to her in a few minutes. "Fine. Go ahead. I can see this is eating away at you," she said.

What I found was very interesting. The definitions of the two words were virtually identical. One source alluded to the plainly preferred option of -sede, while another didn't even mention the existence of the -cede form of the word. Furthermore, the spellchecker monitoring this very post keeps highlighting the -cede version every time I type it (indicating a misspelling). Maybe I wasn't out of my mind, after all. I then informed Eva of my findings on the matter.

"You have to let it go, Billy. This obsession is not good for your health."

"I cannot just let this go. As a matter of fact, I'm going to write about this serious situation in my next blog post."

"If it will make you feel better, Billy, by all means - alert the blogosphere!"

So here you have it. The whole sordid state of affairs regarding supersede and supercede. I don't know about you, but I'm sticking to my guns. The -cede version is a hoax. The only reason it can even be found in the dictionary is that the word has been misspelled by so many for so long the lexicographers of the world simply decided to capitulate and present both options in their updated word bibles.

I feel better having gotten this off my chest. In the meantime, to the precious few who might read this, stand up for what is right. Spell this word the way it should be spelled. You'll feel better, too, knowing you have put your stamp on this dialectic dilemma.

Long live SUPERSEDE!

Longing For A Little Country Life

Being born and raised in a Northeastern city was great. Or so I thought. About 12 years ago, I befriended a person from Missouri via the modern medium of the Internet. My friend lives in the country - the Ozarks, as she likes to call them. In the time we've known each other, she has disabused me of nearly every feeble myth I had come to believe about people who live in the country.

Even so, a few of my preconceived notions about living in the sticks have been thoroughly validated. Recently, Eva was telling me the story of when her town had to be moved a few hundred yards to accommodate the new railway that was coming through. Yes, the entire town! (I wasn't sure, but I thought she was talking about this having taken place during her lifetime.) That's when I got to thinking this town had to be very small. "Oh, no. This was a bustling town. We had three doctors and four saloons," Eva said. Kinda gives new meaning to the word bustling.

When she told me her address was P.O. Box 2, 'Small Town', Missouri, I was curious as to how she got such a low number for a post office box. She told me she'd had it ever since the town was really small, when there were only 11 boxes in all. Today, of course, the town is much bigger and the post office, too, is bustling with over sixteen boxes. My wife is a postal employee, and she supervises 96 routes in just one of six zip codes in the city where she works. Something tells me the postmaster where Eva lives has a slightly easier time of things.

And forget about being wired for cable tv. The only way to receive the 200 mindless channels we city dwellers get is to install a satellite dish, which Eva hasn't bothered to do as of yet. Poor Eva. She can't get the twenty-one different versions of the Republican National Convention that are clogging my cable lineup right now. On this score, I have to say, she's probably better off.

When I asked Eva if her roads at least had painted lines running down the middle of them to guide traffic, she replied, "Not really. Dirt doesn't take too kindly to paint in these parts." That answers that.

My friend once even had to set me straight about this idea I had in my head that there was no crime where she lived. "Oh you'd be surprised. We see some pretty bad things around here. Some people actually have the nerve to siphon milk from your cow or steal fresh rhubarb from behind the barn (apparently whenever the dogs have been oversedated by the demands of their own canine country living.) And there's not much you can do about it. They're still working on installing that 9-1-1 thingy. Can't wait til that's up and running."

Eva's probably going to kill me for this satirical objectification of her rustic existence. But the truth is I'm jealous. I've had my sensibilities offended long enough by city life. I would love to get away from the concrete jungle, silence the sirens of police cars and ambulances, slow things down a little and live in the middle of nowhere for a change. If there's one thing Eva has that I don't, it's a pleasing disposition. Something tells me she got it from living the life of a country bumpkin.

I want some of that.

The Litmus Test Lives On

If there's one thing this year's election process has reinforced, it is the notion that presidential candidates must submit themselves to a virtual religious litmus test before they can realistically entertain hopes of winning the election.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama should have said "no thanks" to their invitations from Mega Pastor Rick Warren to appear at his church and submit to an interrogation by a religious leader, but political realities demanded that each of them capitulate and attend. Obama no doubt acquiesced lest he be perceived as minimizing the political clout of religious constituents, while McCain likely went along because the Saddleback audience provided understandably friendlier confines for his more conservative disposition.

Fortunately, the Constitution prohibits overt religious tests as qualifications for office, but the spirit of this doctrine should extend voluntarily to society as a whole especially during the election season. The reason for this is simple: When a powerful and popular religious constituency - namely Christian evangelicals - involves itself in the political process of elections, the overall effect is the further marginalization of minority religious constituencies, suggesting their support to be of little or no consequence. Since government is essentially prohibited from promoting or favoring one religion over another, accordingly, no religious organization should impose any test upon those aspiring to the highest levels of government.

At the very least, any religious organization wishing to hear from a presidential candidate should restrict their engagement to that of simply inviting them to speak and not anoint their powerful and sharply biased representative as inquisitor.

Until such time as the privileged status of religion is moderated in this country and a more secular mindset permeates our collective thinking, major candidates for national office will likely see themselves having to continue to weigh the cost of not bowing to pressure from religious constituents to answer to their cause.

Health Care: Are We Our Brother's Keeper?

One redeeming aspect of Christianity may lie in its teaching that we are, indeed, our brother's keeper. I would only submit that there is nothing uniquely Christian about aspiring to this ideal. A certain secular version of this maxim is unquestionably embedded into the fabric of our humanity. Some have even suggested that our DNA, along with our Darwinian legacy, offer explanations for the very origins of altruism altogether. Suffice it to say, as social beings we are all called to one another for the purpose of attaining - and sustaining - our good health and well-being.

Despite this principle, the politically popular idea of "taking personal responsibility" seems to be clouding our understanding, as well as affecting our interpretation, of the well-intentioned "brother's keeper" doctrine. There is, of course, the belief among many that a particular economic model provides greater opportunities for people to accept their responsibilities meaning more of our brothers can tend to themselves. But these models don't provide opportunities for everyone and leave unattended the needs of many. Invariably, a number of people are left on the outside looking in despite the impressive wealth-producing effects some of these economic models have on society.

An important question raised by these problems relates to the proper role of government in providing their solutions. Certain conservative schools believe the role of government to be that of cultivating a business environment which would incentivize an even more comprehensive brand of capitalism thereby providing self-lifting opportunities for an even greater number of people. Former Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is on record as suggesting a newer "creative capitalism" which would identify emerging micromarkets in many of the world's impoverished regions in the hopes of raising the standard of living for millions while at the same time earning profits for shareholders.

Does this theory suggest that some form of capitalism is the best hope for those left behind? Teaching people how to fish rather than just handing them fish makes perfect sense - at least insofar as it applies to those who have the capacity to learn. For the sick and disabled, a slice of this proverbial pie is not within reach. Who tends to them?

Here again, purists say government is not the solution, suggesting even health care is more properly managed by profit-seeking entities. Only the facts appear to say otherwise. A sustainable, profit-driven model has yet to emerge as a viable option for providing comprehensive health care to an entire society, and this is likely due to the fact that including everyone would eviscerate the bottom line of any profit-driven scheme.

Which brings us back to the question of how to best serve as our brother's keeper. Given that the needs of so many are immediate, the imperative would seem to lie in committing the resources - yes, public resources - necessary to provide a safety net for those who are neglected by our present health care infrastructure.

When circumstances demand it, the assets of government can be essential tools for dealing with the problems private innovation has yet to solve.

Turning Left - No Matter Who Wins

No matter who wins the upcoming presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, the direction the country will be headed in - for at least one healthy swing of the political pendulum - is decidedly left.

How can this be, you ask. First off, conservatives have already had their right wings clipped this election season with the nomination of McCain. He's even out of step on a regular basis with many mainstream Republicans as in his opposing the party plank that wants a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage (McCain says that issue should be left up to the states), or as in his collaborating with Democrats on campaign finance reform and immigration. So even if McCain is elected, he will govern from a position decidedly left of George W. Bush. In fact, the marginalizing of conservatives is already more than what most of us liberals could have hoped for from this year's election process.

In a Time magazine article this week, Falling Upward, Peter Beinart actually suggests Republicans might be better off in the long term if they took this one on the chin. His reasoning being that an Obama victory might see Democrats overreaching once in power, thus igniting a strong reactionary impulse from Republicans in the following cycle a la Newt Gingrich in 1994. Whereas if McCain wins, Republicans might have to choose between watered down legislation - with Democratic majorities in Congress - and a string of vetoes in a war of ideologies.

The addition of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket appears to be intended not only to seize upon disaffected Hillary supporters, but also to fill the conservative void created by McCain's nomination. The early returns in the blogosphere, however, seem to indicate a lack of consensus opinion regarding the selection of Palin with tags like 'genius' and 'irresponsible' both being tossed about. Palin's conservative credentials would no doubt have a mitigating effect on the overall slide to the left should she and McCain prevail this fall.

Of course we liberals aren't looking forward to a possible Reagan-style backlash if Team Obama gets elected and the Democrats do overreach. Keeping aspirations modest while in power would be the best way to delay - or moderate - the next inevitable pendulum swing back to the right.

Pondering An Intellectual Obscenity

Questioning the very quality of the love I have for my family and friends simply because it does not emanate from your God --

If you've never pondered what an intellectual obscenity might look like, this is a perfect example of one.

Cry of the Conservative: Believe in Something

Conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has many ardent criticisms of people disposed to a liberal way of thinking. One of his more persistent is: "Liberals believe in nothing. They have no faith in anything." Does he have a point, or is this merely code for they don't believe in God?

If Mr. Limbaugh means to suggest that liberals and free thinkers simply are not willing to forgo the process of rational examination for investigating that which has yet to be explained, then he is correct. The "dittoheads" of the world are plainly of the mind that God is the answer for all that is as yet unexplained. They have leapt right over the river of reason and onto the bank of banality.

One would think the track record science has for explaining the innumerable puzzles once deemed inexplicable would be reason enough to forgo invoking God as an explanation for anything. As civilization advances, the great misconceptions about the world are brazenly laid bare by the wondrous tools of science.

Rush Limbaugh has it all wrong. We skeptical liberals believe in plenty. It's just that the things we believe in survive the strenuous tests of rational examination and intelligent reasoning.

On the Political Centering of Religion

A new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveals a clear trend toward an electorate becoming less tolerant of the mixing of politics and religion. This is very interesting data in light of the Democratic Party's recent efforts to chip away at the stranglehold of support Republicans have enjoyed from the religiously inclined for some time.

From the Democratic Candidates Compassion Forum on CNN in April of this year to Barack Obama's venturing into the lion's den of Rick Warren's Saddleback Church earlier this month, it appears as though the political support of religious people is a commodity ever-increasing in value despite what the numbers say.

These opposing observations seem to point to an escalating of the culture wars being waged on the political battle grounds, with Republicans trending toward a less rigid brand of religiosity, while Democrats are simply trending toward more religiosity in general. While these trends no doubt owe their emergence to the political realities of eroding popularity among traditional voting constituencies, they also point to the somewhat homogenizing effect these very trends are having on society at large. Forces now commonly referred to as the religious left and moderate evangelicals have emerged to employ more politically expedient tactics for the upcoming presidential election.

A close look at the agendas of these new coalitions reveals much commonality of aspiration among them. The newer more centrist right now shares with the progressive religious groups of the new left focus on a broad range of issues including hunger, poverty, the environment, AIDS, health care, corporate responsibility, and human rights - issues more traditionally associated with the secular progressive movement.

Oddly, both secular atheists and the religious faithful are likely to claim benefit from these trends. Even though the conservative right wing of the Republican Party is becoming increasingly marginalized as a political force at present, they can nonetheless claim an overall advancement of their agenda by noting the increased courting of the religious by liberal Democrats. Conversely, ever hopeful skeptics would point out that eliminating the extremism of ultra conservatives is simply a must-take, first step on the long road to a more secular society.

Ultimately, the privileged status religion enjoys in this country is not likely to change any time soon, but the redefining of priorities reveals a sense of self-doubt on both sides. Election '08 may yet prove to be a watershed moment for the relationship between religion and politics in America.

"Fides et Ratio": Making Sense of the Senseless

Few concepts seem more incompatible than those of faith and reason. Their relationship to each other is a fascinating one to contemplate. One of the most famous documents to attempt their reconciliation in recent times is the late Pope John Paul II's Fides et Ratio, an instructional letter from the pontiff to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the relationship between faith and reason.

This treatise is not for the faint of heart, among whom I readily consider myself one. (Nor does it lend itself to fair examination with just a few hundred words.) It is written by, and intended for, those who have no doubt achieved an advanced understanding of many philosophical principles and schools of thought. Nevertheless, its flaws in reasoning are plainly revealed in the very things it unapologetically claims to be integral to its understanding: reliance upon perfect faith and divine revelation as instruments of paradoxical resolution.

Early on, a conspicuous prejudice is revealed, one which states by mere fiat that the church is in possession of the ultimate truth about human life via nothing more than what it proclaims to be a mystery: the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Attaining truth via mystery is decidedly unreasonable to us faint of heart.

The intended path of reasoning in Fides et Ratio seems to be the following: The act of believing - that is, faith itself - reveals truth; and this revelation of truth imparts reason upon the act of faith by grounding the object of faith in reality. Convoluted though this may appear, this circle of logic is nonetheless intended to provide the human intellect with the access it seeks to this very reasoning. In fact, invoking the benefits of faith as regards its power to reveal is a constant theme throughout Faith and Reason. It is apparently too much to ask that truth be revealed or evident prior to demanding one's belief in it. To strain logic further, the pope criticizes modern philosophy for not being able to arrive at that which he clearly states only faith and revelation can aspire to in the first place - truth. Not to be caught off guard, the pontiff warns of the dangers of fideism (fee-day-iz-um), the reliance upon faith alone without reasoning and philosophical discourse, which he asserts are necessary for the understanding of faith.

A precept of this dissertation that reveals more circular reasoning is the notion that complete freedom is a prerequisite to the perfect act of faith, and yet it is faith which will set one free. And around it goes. Further, without adequate explanation, it is demanded of reason that the transcendent sovereignty of God simply be recognized. What it fails to acknowledge is that an act of faith - not reason - is required to achieve this recognition.

To its credit, Faith and Reason often contemplates the virtue attained in the mere pursuit of meaning through philosophical contemplation, and rather magnanimously acknowledges even the contributions of "erroneous" philosophies in provoking a more discriminating discussion of purported theological truths. It nonetheless discredits any philosophy which does not find itself eventually in total lockstep agreement with every aspect of its own.

Fides et Ratio only succeeds if one is willing to abandon all commonly recognized definitions of reason itself, and completely buy into the strained and self-serving definitions it proposes. Yet this does not necessitate its total rejection so long as it is seen for what it is: a dogmatic manifesto of Christian philosophy which is beyond its own claims to accessibility via the human intellect. If the purpose of this document is to rationalize Catholic dogma by exhibiting a comprehensible philosophical symbiosis between faith and reason, it fails completely. If a symbiosis between the two exists at all, it is one of convenience only and not rational thought.

In the end, the unintelligibility of Faith and Reason is surpassed only by its verbosity. And in keeping with its utter reliance upon paradox, it is flawed to perfection, providing nonsensical, gift-wrapped answers for every question it poses. This, alone, is reason enough to dismiss this package of papal profundity in its entirety.

The German theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546) offered a bit of timeless analysis when he declared, “Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

I Wish My Brain Had A Delete Button

Today was an especially beautiful day. Bright sun, a few lazy clouds, not too warm. A perfect day for what else - golf. So my brother, Henry, his girlfriend, Jen, and I decided to inflict a little humiliation on ourselves and play a round of that game we so love to hate - and hate to love.

After Jen remarked on just how gorgeous the weather was, I replied, "Yes. Isn't it heavenly?" Being aware of my aversion to God and religion, Jen said to me, "Heavenly? I thought you were an atheist." She was no doubt just ribbing me, and in all honesty, I did appreciate the humor. Nevertheless, I did feel the need to offer some explanation for invoking what is sometimes considered to be a religious term, and disabuse her of the notion that I might be, deep down inside, a religious person - just in case she wasn't kidding. (When you think about it, saying, "Isn't it a heavenly day," is no more an expression of religiosity than uttering "God damnit!" as a profanity is.)

"Well, you got me there, Jen. It just goes to show how deeply ingrained all of this religious stuff is. It's too bad my brain doesn't have a delete button." We shared a laugh and promptly returned to the business of bad golf.

Then I got to thinking. Wouldn't it be great if our brains really did have a delete button - like computers. Better yet, one of those high-security, data-sanitizing programs that actually obliterates all traces of selective information. If there were a brain-based equivalent to one of these programs, I could permanently remove all those seared-into-my-memory incantations of, "Our Father, who art in heaven ...," "Hail Mary, full of grace ...," or "Oh My God, I am heartily sorry ..." Heck, why stop there? I could remove the memory of every painful experience I ever had.

Reality, however, tells us that we are today where the sum of all yesterdays has taken us, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and unless I contract an incredibly selective case of amnesia, I am stuck with the troubling images and memories of my religious upbringing.

I don't consider certain aspects of my younger life an obscenity merely because religion was such a big part of it. Rather it was the way in which it was all presented to me that was so offensive. I was made to feel loathsomely inferior if I dared to challenge any aspect of the dogma being served up. Worse, I was made to feel immoral over the most insignificant - and normal - of childhood mistakes. This was mind molding in the extreme, the kind that frustrated every attempt of the inner self to instinctively surface. Individuality was anathema to the kind of guardianship I was subjected to.

Yes, a virtual delete button would have come in handy at times, but knowing such a device wasn't likely to be forthcoming has lead me to rely instead upon colouring the worst of my memories with some honest introspection and a little self love. Slowly but surely, it's making a difference.

There's A Reason It's Called Faith

My atheist predilections do not preclude me from having respect for people of religious faith so long as they acknowledge a few simple things:

• First, that the central claims of religion require a leap of faith precisely because they defy the demands of logical truths. -- Many of my religious friends readily concede this point. It causes them no consternation to admit that what they believe in defies reason and cannot be proved by any logical process, and yet they are still called to faith. This I can respect.

• Second, that their faith is not the only authentic source of guiding principles for morality and ethics. -- Acceding on this point is a very difficult thing for many religious people to do; but, again, there are those among them who are quick to disavow religion's exclusive claims as to the origins of these guiding principles. Another point to respect.

• And third, that their faith does not require them to disqualify skeptics and non-believers from a life endowed with the full complement of redeeming human values. -- This is problematic for the vast majority of the religious. How often I have heard it said that life without God is a sad existence or is a life without purpose. This is condescending to say the least. There are, admittedly, some moderate believers who are quick to distance themselves from this kind of arrogant thinking thus disabusing us skeptics of the notion that all religious people think alike.

The act of believing in something that cannot sustain challenges to its logic and reasoning is by no means an ignoble deed. Trouble arises when wholly unsupported claims of truth emerge in specious attempts to authenticate one's belief. Indeed, the brand of faith most deserving of respect is the one which acknowledges no foundation in universally verifiable truths and exists knowing that its core tenets are beyond the scope of rational query. This faith demands the most of its believers. Conversely, the brand of faith least deserving of respect is the one which claims - with abundant certitude - to be borne of nothing more than self-evident truthfulness or divine revelation.

A mature and responsible faith is one that is amenable to criticism, understanding that criticism is not the same as disrespect; is quick to disassociate itself from the many lurid aspects of organized religion's less than exemplary past; and is not possessed of an arrogant infallibility regarding scripture, the nature of humanity, and the nature of the universe.

All this is not to say that we atheists don't have our unreasonable factions among us as well. Some of us are all too quick to display the very same kind of unappealing dogmatism we criticize in our faithful friends.

Belief in something despite its implausibility - that's faith. And its very implausibility is the reason it is called faith.

My Dog Is My Coffee Buddy

My wife Jami and I had a fairly brief courtship before marrying, so we weren't able to find out everything couples usually do before tying the noose. For eighteen years now, we've had fun finding out these little things about each other. One day, early on, I found out something very important - the hard way.

On my way home from work, I thought I'd surprise Jay by bringing her a cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. I even got a blueberry muffin to go along with it knowing what a delicious combination that can be. I raced home, eager to please my mate with this loving gesture, walked in the door, and joyfully announced, "Honey. I brought you a little surprise."

"What's this?" she asked.

"I got you a coffee and a muffin."

What followed left me in near-total dismay: "Oh, thanks for the muffin, Sweety. But I don't drink coffee."

I froze for a moment as she plucked her gift bag from my fingers and pranced away muffin in hand. For several minutes I ambled aimlessly in circles fending off shock. What have I done? Have I chosen as a partner-for-life someone who doesn't partake of one of its greatest joys? I was looking forward to many years of blissful coffee-drinking moments with her. Now what? What else is there?

Needing to compose myself, I left her coffee on the kitchen table and went into the office to gather my thoughts. After the shock came the disillusionment: She's left-handed, has brown eyes, and doesn't drink coffee. Surely, any divorce court in the land could see just how cruel this is. Maybe it wasn't too late for an annulment. She's even poisoned my daughter against me with this coffee thing. Alycia wants nothing to do with it. Hates the taste of it. Another coffee soul mate - lost for all time.

Then I thought better of things. Looking on the bright side: Jay loves watching golf with me on television every Sunday. How many husbands can say that? She enjoys watching baseball, too. Another good thing. I guess it's not so bad, after all. A year or so of marriage counseling should clear things right up.

Feeling a little better, I went back into the kitchen to get the coffee I left for Jay and put it in the microwave to heat up. (This was a two-coffee moment for me.) As I approached the kitchen, I heard the distinct sound of a slurping dog. Hmm. The dog's water dish was not in the kitchen. Wonder what it could be. What I saw next was unnerving. I entered the kitchen to the sight of a canine caffeine addict in the making. Our precocious young dog, Riley, had propped himself onto a chair and was voraciously drinking the coffee I left on the table!

To this day, whenever I leave my coffee unattended, I can be sure Riley will be right there to avail himself of the fruits of my absentmindedness.

I've given up yelling at Riley for just following his instincts, strange though they are. In fact, I may have inadvertently happened upon that precious, missing commodity in my social life: someone to drink coffee with.

Now whenever I'm in the mood for both coffee and a little company, I know better than to turn to my own wife and daughter and simply look to my dog and say, "C'mon Riley. It looks like it's you and me today. One extra cream, no sugar. Right?"

The Wordless Wonder of Music and Emotions

How is it I can tune in to the opera channel on my Music Choice selector, not understand a word that is been sung, and yet experience such a definitive array of emotions as I listen? Admittedly, my knowledge of opera is very limited - I may only 'know' three or four with any intimacy - but even that doesn't prevent me from enjoying immeasurably the sublime conspiracy of voice and music in offerings I know nothing about.

In the final act of Turandot (by Giacomo Puccini) - as Turnadot commands that no one sleep until the name of her suitor prince is revealed thus allowing her to escape the fate of marriage by condemning the Prince to death - the Prince, anticipating that his name will not be revealed by anyone, sings the excruciatingly beautiful aria Nessun Dorma ("None shall sleep"). Even without the benefit of translation, the unmistakable emotions of intense longing, selfless love and joyful anticipation can be experienced by those with absolutely no inclination toward opera.

So distinct and powerful are the emotions conveyed in 'Nessun Dorma', as well as those conveyed in the simplest of human communiques such as a soft kiss or a gentle touch, I am compelled to question the very capacity of words to suffice as a means of communication. Does it mean more to say, "I love you," or is the feeling of love, evoked by any number of means, simply more meaningful to experience? As an amateur writer, I often feel helpless when attempting to capture complex emotions or ideas, as though words are totally inadequate to the task. And yet, I am driven by the challenge to find those very words which, when deftly applied, can accomplish the near-impossible.

On those occasions when words are, indeed, destined to fail, fortunately there is not necessarily a corresponding void of communication altogether. Some of the most meaningful things people ever say to one another are "said" via the intricate language of a loving silence or mesmerizing gaze. And surely most of us have experienced the transcendent joy that often comes from just listening to an intimately pleasing musical composition.

So I'll continue my search for those elusive words as long I aspire to convey meaning through the nominal conventions of written and spoken language. But hopefully, I'll be tuned in when those special moments demand that I let go of the keyboard, put down the pen, shut my mouth and communicate in that most nearly perfect way - without words.

Faith-Based Initiatives: Solution or Threat?

It's easy to be cynical regarding the motives of those who are promoting the church/state alliance known as faith-based initiatives. On the surface, it is a political coup for the conservative cause where religious organizations, being denied front-door access to the machinery of government, have seemingly found a way in through the side door.

Many suggest this is too dangerous a glide on the slippery slope toward an eventual theocracy, thus rendering it unworkable. Is it? Or is it a modest and noble endeavor of government to provide assistance to organizations that have experience in tending to many of the symptoms of society's ills?

So enticing is the allure of capturing the votes of religious conservatives and evangelicals, soon-to-be official Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama is even proposing the expanding of faith-based initiatives. This capitulation points up the reality of religion's staying power and influence in the political arena. Indeed, no major party candidate has failed to pass the virtual religious litmus test imposed upon him or her by the election process. Exposing this litmus test for what it is, however, is at least a step in the right direction.

In theory, these faith-based programs can make a difference. But at what cost? Is it realistic to expect a religious organization doing outreach work for battered women, or ministering to prisoners, not to provide even a sampling of its core beliefs to its beneficiaries? Will they adhere to laws affecting the practical implementation of their programs? Most assuredly, the lawyers will be waiting - on both sides - to answer these questions. In fact, the amount of litigation these initiatives have already prompted is proving just how serious the threat to religious liberty - and the First Amendment - is perceived to be.

Even if government assurances were made that funds would only go toward the most dire or basic needs, by funding religious organizations to do this work, government is actively promoting religion because this support frees up other funds the churches take in to concentrate on their true mission: religious instruction and proselytizing. This is plainly an end run around church-state separation.

If we knew the real motives of groups applying for funds to be totally benign and selfless, faith-based initiatives might have a place in our society. Political reality, however, appropriately calls into question these very motives, and warns us not to turn back the clock on a doctrine the demise of which would be a disaster.

Will I Ever Just Let It Be?

The perception of having been seriously aggrieved by one's own parents is no doubt one of the more daunting burdens one can be called upon to bear. So many feelings come into play when navigating these treacherous waters. Love, hate; loyalty, betrayal; anger, fear, guilt - all conspiring to steal away one's sense of emotional well-being.

Sadly, having to dispose of the obscenity that was my religious inculcation as a child has complicated my path to emotional maturity. Only recently have I come to experience some sense of inner reconciliation so vital to the prospects of letting go.

So desperately did I want to begin the healing process with my father, the last words I spoke to him as he lay dying were, "Thanks for being such a good dad, Pop." I thought it right to leave him with something loving from me as he left this world. Funny. Most of the time I didn't think he was a very good dad, but I told him he was in the hopes that it might ease his burden for whatever journey he was about to embark upon.

Finding those words of reconciliation for my dad at that moment was made easier by his having mellowed considerably the more he aged. A little wisdom appeared to come his way. He stopped badgering me about God; starting smiling a little more. I took these subtle changes as a sort of apology for all his mistakes given that he was not disposed to articulating personal apologies as a rule. It seemed he wanted to let go of the past; forgive himself. To deny him this purging of bitterness would have been to deny myself an opportunity for reconciliation and inner peace, to say nothing of the opportunity to love him in a way I hadn't before. I'm thankful a little wisdom befell me on these occasions and I accepted his conciliatory gestures.

Reconciling with my mother is proving much more problematic. The spectre of mental illness has been hanging like a pall over her daily life for many years. It interferes with what's left of her family relationships. And in a cruel twist of circumstance, her illness only drives her more desperately toward her obsessions: God and judging others. The obstinance and aggression I know deep in my heart are symptoms of her illness, but they are nonetheless difficult to get past. Her facade of self assuredness can be quite convincing, yet I know this is simply a tool she uses to cling to whatever is left of her withering sanity. For some reason, her immense suffering - mostly in the form of self-persecution - doesn't reveal itself to some, but to my eyes, it is ominously undeniable.

I am not very hopeful for the prospects of some wisdom coming my mother's way as it did my father. As long as her illness remains untreated, she cannot hear or receive messages of love and wisdom. This saddens me greatly. It seems she won't ask for help because this would mean - in her eyes - that God does not have all the answers, something she is plainly not willing to concede.

One thing I did that eased my consternation was write my mother a letter. One I admittedly haven't sent to her, but as I explained in my very first blog post (where it can be seen) the writing of this letter provided much needed catharsis.

I'm comfortable suggesting there's been progress toward letting go of the anger I have for my father. There's a hint of serenity now where once there was only turmoil. And it's a good feeling. With my mother, anger is no longer my demon. What possesses me now is the burning desire to see her acknowledge her illness and seek treatment for it, because the reward that awaits here - being able to give and receive love - is too precious a commodity to live without.

Maybe we don't ever let go of it completely. If so, hopefully I'll still find some comfort in the knowledge that I have loved as best I could. Perhaps, after all is said and done, that's all we can ask of ourselves.

Definitive Expression: What's To Fear?

Lately, I'm beginning to sense in myself a literary weasel at the helm of my compositions. So many things I observe or comment on "seem" this way or "appear" that way. Seldom do I articulate the preciseness - or definitiveness - of ideas, unless of course they accommodate my prejudices.

What's wrong with taking a stand? Why my aversion to certainty? I suppose some might see it as being in keeping with my flexibility in moral matters, i.e., not being an absolutist. Or could it be that I don't like confrontation and this is my way of avoiding it? Either way, I am of the mind that the sharing of ideas doesn't lend itself to certainty. Certainty conveys a subtle message to one's audience that you are not open to criticism and have answers for everything always at the ready. I am more likely to say to someone who might tell me the world is flat that his understanding of things is somewhat skewed. Somewhat skewed? Why wouldn't I just say, "You are dead wrong, sir. Don't you know the world is round?"

Precisely because I fear losing this person's engagement. That's why. Inflexibility increases the risk of sounding unreasonable - of indeed, being unreasonable - and possibly ruining an otherwise healthy debate. Being convinced of one's own correctness - or truthfulness -about one's ideas is precisely when flexibility is needed most. We must dare to invite challenge to that which we believe ourselves to be most certain about.

Having been raised in a black and white world where nuance was a rare commodity has left me yearning for all of the wonderful shades gray that enrich us the most. I admit my goal is to find the common ground, to strike a balance, grasp the subtle, and amicably coexist with my ideological adversaries, not assault them with overconfidence and arrogant assuredness.

Maybe I am a weasel after all.

Sharing the Blame

If there's one thing I've learned from years of group and individual counseling, it is the need to accept responsibility for our own behaviours (at least to the extent that some serious patholgy has not left us incompetent). That which we delve into so painstakingly in our sessions ideally serves to explain why we feel and behave the way we do, not offer excuses for misbehaviour. The question I'd like to pose is: Do these explanations offer mitigation - in moral terms - to any measurable degree?

Philosophically speaking, the presence of love seems to be the ingredient most necessary in order for people to be motivated to do good things. Conversely, the absence of love appears to accommodate evil behavior. Putting aside for a moment the undeniable complexity of why some people do evil things, one cannot underestimate the influence we all have on each other in our everyday encounters. By not being - or giving - the best of our nature to our fellow man at every turn, we all share a small part in each other's transgressions. By failing to give each other love, show compassion, or promote justice, we potentiate the seed of evil present within each of us.

Nowhere is this idea more clearly demonstrated as when we examine the root causes of crime. In study after study, researchers reaffirm the link between the existence of inequity in society and its propensity to facilitate criminal behaviour. While this link may not rise to the level of excuse, its effect on an individual's culpability is nonetheless mitigating. In other words, the first place any of us should look when searching for answers to the pervasiveness of evil and crime - is in the mirror.

Sharing the blame. Sometimes it's the right thing to do.

Elevating Evil: An Empty 'Doctrine'

One thing I never quite understood about the Catholic Church was its handling of the subject of evil. It was made very clear to me during my childhood indoctrination that good and evil - God and the devil - were locked in an epic battle for the hearts, minds, and souls of everyone for all time.

The practical effect of this teaching was the elevation of evil to a status comparable to that of good. In the mind of the Catholic believer, the devil was as much to be feared as God was to be worshiped. For all intents and purposes, the devil was every bit as powerful as God, commanding an army just as mighty. They were co-equals in the power structure of the universe.

To my way of thinking, this concept was utterly misguided. It was a little too much like devil worship. Even in my younger days, while I was still grappling with this nonsense, my take on the devil was that he was much more of a non-life form, an entity void of substance, more like death than anything else. Not some living, breathing, intelligent creature obsessed with commandeering people's souls. For me, evil was not some devil creature's doing, but rather man's doing, and it usually flourished where the influence of love could not be found.

It was not even beyond my parents to constantly remind their own children of the reality of evil whenever we strayed. It was more important that we be made to understand the magnitude and immorality of our offenses whenever we did something wrong than it was to be made to simply understand that we all make mistakes growing up and to learn from them.

Believing that evil doesn't exist is, of course, the great trap of many religious people. They set it out like rat bait waiting for us godless heathens of the world to bite, figuring if we do we'll be devoured by our own deviant philosophy. Well, if it will make some of them feel any better: Of course there is evil in the world. I simply choose not to glorify or worship it, and instead prefer to emphasize the power goodness and love have over the grand negativities of evil.

"Well, She Is Getting Old, Father"

Maybe I was slightly incorrigible in my youth. Strike that. I was downright incorrigible in my youth. On one memorable occasion, however, my incorrigibility actually served me quite well - a greater good, if you will.

After finishing eight years of Catholic elementary school, my parents insisted I attend a Catholic high school. I'd begun to display some disciplinary problems, so they must have figured continuing with a religious institution was the best hope for containing my penchant for misbehaving. Well, it was a nice thought.

At the time, my objection to attending a Catholic high school had less to do with any aversion to religion and more to do with athletics. As an aspiring young swimmer and diver, I wanted to attend a public school nearby simply because it had a swimming program and the Catholic school didn't. But my parents - my father in particular - were adamant about my remaining where they sent me.

After a year and a half of wearing a jacket and tie to school, group prayer twice a day, not being able to tend to my skills as a diver, and ever-escalating tensions between myself and school administrators, I decided it was time to do something. Figuring the honest and direct approach would have little chance of success, I resorted to what I knew best: obstinance and disrespect.

Mission Objective: Get myself kicked out of this school at any cost.

After a couple of days of skipping nearly every class in sight and saluting the dean of girls with my middle finger on several occasions, then came the pièce de résistance: the paper airplane in silent study hall. It was a large masterpiece crying out for some bold lettering on the side of the fuselage. So I gave it some: "FUCK YOU."

I thought I had better play it safe so I took the airplane home with me that day and threw it away, but that keen-eyed octogenarian Sister Elizabeth apparently saw it very clearly before I escaped the premises and she reported my hi jinx to the principal. First thing next morning I got called down to Father Frascadore's office. It was a free-for-all: Vice-principal, dean of boys, guidance counselor, dean of girls (must have been those fancy salutes), two janitors - you name it. All there ready to make certain this was an expulsion and not something I had engineered. Heaven forbid they should be outfoxed by a tenth-grade idiot.

"What happened yesterday in silent study, young man?" Father Frascadore asked.

"I don't know what you mean sir."

Then Father Frascadore thought he would throw me for a loop: "I'm talking about the 'fuck you' you wrote on the paper airplane you made."

"Whoa. I did not write that on any paper airplane."

"Oh you didn't, did you? Did you make a paper airplane?

"Yes, sir I did."

"Did you write on that airplane?"

"Yes, sir. I did"

"Did you write, 'fuck you' on that airplane?"

"No, sir. I didn't. I wrote USAF for United States Air Force."

"You mean to tell me Sister Elizabeth mistook 'USAF' for 'FUCK'?"

Momentary pause . . . leaning into my audience . . . and then, just above a whisper: "Well, she is getting old, Father."

Mission: Accomplished.

Everybody was happy. I was on my way to my new school that afternoon, and Father Frascadore and his minions got their wish: I was unceremoniously expelled, and in their eyes I wasn't allowed to leave with so much as a shred of dignity. Little did they know, they could keep their precious dignity. I only wanted out.

Giving Up Religious Profanity

One thing in life I enjoy just a little too much is swearing. No, my everyday conversations are not laced with profanities. What kind of example would that be to my daughter? But when my patience is seriously challenged, my sense of verbal decorum has been known to go right out the window.

I will confess, for a long time my favorite profanities were those of the religious type. This, no doubt, I owe to my religious, alcoholic, abusive father. (Sorry, Pop. You know I loved you anyway.) His favorite expression was "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" The next time I am tempted to use that one, I think I'll change the names and see if that does it for me. "Josh, Marty, and Jake! What were you thinking?" Hmm. Not quite the same.

There's something psychologically soothing about invoking the name of God out of a sense of intense anger or total exasperation. It relieves inner tension like nothing else. One of the most popular religious profanities is, "Jesus Christ!" Interestingly, this is one expression I have been fairly successful at minimizing - thus, hopefully eliminating - from my sordid verbal repertoire.

The further away I get from a God-driven mindset, the more offensive I feel religious profanity is. I just don't think it's right to offend such sensibilities in people whether they are within ear shot of my outbursts or not. As for "God damn it" well, what's the point if you don't believe he exists? I want to be rid of God so completely in my life that I will try like hell not to even use his name when I swear.

Speaking of "hell." There's another swear word that can be said to have religious origins. Hell, after all, being that place where believers say God will send us heathens and infidels to spend eternity after we die. I am very fond of, "What the hell did you do that for?" and, "I sure hope you know what the hell you're doing." And let's not forget the tried-and-true, ever-popular, "Go to hell!" These are going to prove very difficult to give up.

I'm proud of myself for trying not to use religious profanities. I think it's the right thing to do and even shows a little maturity. There is one word, however, - not particularly religious in nature - that may prove the most difficult to give up in my quest to swear less frequently: the "F" word. The "F" word and its many variations still provide the greatest amount of release and satisfaction when I've lost all control. "God damn it!" is nice in a pinch, but "What the fuck are you talking about?" relieves my boiling psyche better than any "Jesus H. Christ!" or "God damn it!" ever could.

Just writing about profanities seems to calm that edge in my nerves, sort of like feeding an addiction. Maybe there's a twelve-step program just for pithy little foul mouths like me. If there is, I might be just who they're looking for.

Catholicism and Sex: The Ugly First Message

Christopher Hitchens has used the word "toxic" to describe the teachings of many Christian faiths regarding sex. My own experience as a Catholic "indoctronee" tells me this is not far off the mark.

While there is plenty of room for disagreement with the Church's teachings regarding the nature and purpose of sex, birth control, abortion, homosexuality, masturbation, etc., these teachings are not what necessarily offend me most. As I recall the earliest days of my subjugation to Catholic education, one firmly-planted idea stands out more than most: the notion that Jesus, both God and the son of God at the same time, was conceived by, and born of, a woman who, the whole time, remained a virgin.

In the second grade, of course, I didn't understand what a virgin was. It wasn't until I reached adolescence that this concept jelled in my mind and I began to question why virginity was a prerequisite for the birth of man's saviour. The message I was receiving was not even subtle: sexual intercourse would have tarnished Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her image, as well as offended God himself. Why was it necessary for the Holy Spirit to be the vehicle for this non-corporeal impregnation?

To my mind, this doctrine of the virgin birth had the distinct effect of sullying the whole concept of sex, and in so doing implanted in my psyche the idea that sex is a bad thing. After all, if we were to aspire to be Christ-like, or God-like, then certainly we should not engage in anything that either of them would look so disdainfully upon. This was plainly an ugly first message about sex.

It took a while before an understanding of the normalcy of sex replaced the "toxic" notions instilled in me as a young person. I eventually learned that when sex is seen as the basic, instinctual human need that it is and not as a vehicle for sin and evil, it assumes a much healthier role in the development of mind and body.

Spirituality: A Personal Definition

Most of us would likely agree there are two major aspects of our being where we should aspire to be in good health: body and mind. A third, some would say, is just as real and important: spirit. The spirit seems to be the most difficult to quantify. For some time I have been struggling to construct a personal, working definition of "spirituality" that satisfies my need to adopt a convention others can readily relate to. I'm making some progress - I think.

First off, my burgeoning naturalist instincts notwithstanding, I do tend toward the notion that we do, indeed, possess a spiritual - or more precisely, a non-physical - persona, if only in the narrowest of interpretations. My personal spirituality assumes no association with the religious or supernatural. This may be problematic for some because of their strongly-held belief that spirituality is necessarily born of a supreme being. To me this is simply the expression of an idea flowing from one's personal belief system - or religious faith - and not something more universal.

Brain researchers have suggested we possess a natural affinity for the ethereal - or spiritual. (NPR, On Point: "The Science of Spirituality") This may explain why man has created for himself all manner of gods and supreme beings throughout history. Combining this with man's innate tendency to socialize also may explain how organized religions came into being. That is to say, religion seems to provide an efficient vehicle for the expression of our natural inclinations toward both spirituality and socialization.

In much the same way the totality of experience derived from the five senses - sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell - provide us with a sixth sense, so too does the totality of experience derived from our non-physical wherewithal, including thought, intellect, intuition, and the complete range of our emotions, provide us with our spiritual essence. In each case, the totality of assets considered creates a virtual entity greater than the sum of its parts.

This definition of spirituality may have trouble surviving my humanist - or naturalist - mindset. For now, I am resigned to the evolving nature of defining my spirituality. Hopefully, what I end up with will at least offer a point of reference accessible enough to encourage engaging discourse with others drawn to the same task. Such engagement would, no doubt be - spiritually - rewarding.

"Mystic Shoreline"

Mystic Shoreline
by Alycia Cooney

The shoreline
The sea air
On the beach
With no cares

No worries, no stress
All my troubles laid to rest
Everything drifts away
Leaving me feeling safe

Watch the boat in the harbor
See the people in the shop
Life just seems to stop

The shoreline
The sea air
Just sitting here

A place of peace
To spend the day
Away from the city
Oh how I want to stay

No tall buildings to block
A perfect view
Of the ocean
So beautiful and blue

Clear day, clear mind
Relaxation is easy to find
Here on the Mystic shoreline

------------------------

My daughter Alycia wrote this poem while tending to her senior-year English assignment to compose a memoir. This was one of my favorite entries.

Golf, Brotherhood, and Politics

A few days ago I played a round of golf with my brother Eugene. Great guy. Fun to be around. Lawyer by trade. But I must say I was not quite prepared for some of what transpired that day.

After playing a couple of holes engaged in simple small talk, I mentioned to my brother that I was becoming a loyal reader of The Nation magazine. I conceded that it was basically a liberal rag - or progressive to be more accurate. At that point it was "ignition sequence on" for Eugene. I knew he had a basically conservative approach to life and politics. What I didn't know was that his particular brand of conservatism made William Buckley look like Phil Donahue!

He told me of a great book he was reading by so-and-so, a regular contributor to National Review. (Right away, up went my antenna - and with good reason.) Eugene went on to tell me how this brilliant writer explains in his book that liberalism and progressivism have their roots in fascism! I kid you not. Fascism! I nearly threw my golf clubs on the ground in front of my brother and said to him, "You know. We're having a great day here. But you just went over the line!" Instead, I bit my tongue, labored in preparation for my next shot and - clank - into the trees it went.

A few holes later, the topic turned to the economy. I made the observation that unfettered markets and unchecked capitalism didn't appear to have answers for the permanent ills of unemployment and poverty. Gene's response was a real beaut, "Hey, 5.6% unemployment is nothing. There will always be a number of people in transition. Did you know in many socialist countries in Europe where they claim virtually no unemployment, they are excluding (all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons from government statistics) and that the real unemployment rate is over 20%? As for poverty: It's not that big a problem in the Unites States. It's much worse throughout the rest of the world." I kid you not. I labored in preparation for my next shot - and whiff! I actually missed the ball altogether!

Three holes later. The topic: health care. I told Gene of an interesting program I'd heard on NPR entitled, "The Doctor Can't See You Now." It examined the issues of people not being able to find primary care physicians and the uninsured. Gene was quick to lend me his analysis: "Look. Of the 47 million people in this country who don't have health insurance, 63% are between the ages of 18 and 33, and they simply choose not to buy health insurance because they figure they are young and healthy and don't need it." I kid you not! Kaboing! My next shot - right into the water! At this point I didn't know what was upsetting me more, my errant golf shots or my brother's impression of Rush Limbaugh.

Then came the clincher: "Did you know in New York City they are teaching fourth graders how to have anal intercourse?" Kwank! My next shot nearly hit another golfer right in the head, and he was behind us!

I shot a 107 that day. Eugene, an 82. Could it be that maybe he just says all this stuff to get me riled up and make me play bad golf? Does he really want to win that badly? He did take me for $20. Hmm. I don't know. If the scores were reversed, something tells me I still would have gotten the very same litany of liberal-bashing inanities from him. But you know what. It didn't matter. Why? Because we were playing golf. And on the golf course, all is forgiven in war and politics - especially when you're playing with your brother.

Pat Buchanan: Tolerable Critic?

Old habits die hard, and one habit I started about fifteen years ago was despising Patrick Buchanan, conservative author, commentator, and former presidential candidate. It's easy to understand how someone as left-leaning as myself could find Pat Buchanan difficult to stomach. He has that effect on us queasy liberal types.

Pat Buchanan had been around for quite a while, serving as an aide to then candidate and president Richard Nixon back in the '60s, but I didn't really come to know of him until he began hosting CNN's Crossfire years later. The presentation Crossfire offered was, of course, that of diametrically opposed political commentators - liberal versus conservative - doing nightly battle over the hot-button topics of the day. Michael Kinsley was the co-host from the left who made the biggest impression on me.

Night after night I found my political and social sensibilities being assaulted by Buchanan, this lunatic from the right. It wasn't long before I loved hating him. On issue after issue, I sensed little or no negotiation. He was a bull dog. But maybe that's what the producers of Crossfire had in mind.

When Buchanan made his deadly serious runs for the White House in 1992 and 1996, I remember being taken aback by his popularity. It unnerved me. Was this country actually at a time and place in history where the likes of Patrick J. Buchanan could ascend to the presidency? Was I that out of touch? Turns out the country decided Buchanan was a little much for its sensibilities as well, and he never really threatened for the Republican nomination seriously.

Buchanan's return to the air waves - not that he ever left them - brought with it what could be described as a suggestion of moderating rhetoric or nuance. No, he couldn't hide his indelible conservative stripes, and I'm offended as much today as I ever was when they surface, but attacking from the fringe just isn't his game anymore. He has morphed into a being with both subtle and complex insights to offer - something I never expected from him. Now, whenever I see and hear him on shows like MSNBC's Morning Joe, his offerings are much more palatable. He likes to put things into historical perspective, and his knowledge, as well as experience, make him well-suited for the task.

In an era of ever-polarizing influences in our political debates, Pat Buchanan, while remaining a staunchly conservative animal, these days gives us more than just fuel for the fire. If this keeps up, maybe I'll even buy one of his books. I said maybe.

Recalling a Brother's Suicide

In February of 1981 my older brother Stephen, at the tender age of 28, apparently felt he was out of options. A witness to the incident that claimed his life said to police, "I don't know what the guy was thinking. He darted right out in front of that car."

So ended the flickering of a bright, yet tortured, young light. The last several years of his life serving as one long suicide note. Steve's demons were many. Alcoholism, anger, depression, religious delusion, to name a few. As one who has benefited from the competent - and yes, loving - intervention of mental health professionals, I have learned that these so-called "demons" are manifestations of mental illness, pure and simple. Alcoholism is insidious; anger is ubiquitous; depression is horrible; but religious delusion is one symptom of illness that appears to simply confound most of those who venture into its path.

I can still conjure the image of Stephen proudly posing for a photograph under our blossoming apple tree, adorned with his bright red, eighth-grade graduation gown, hands clasped together in prayerful repose, fingers pointing skyward. A portrait of pure religious conformity. A veritable soldier for the army of Christ. No, this is not delusion. Not yet. This is, however, where the substance of his later delusions would find their origins. So obsessed was he with God, religion, and the supernatural, that when he eventually became ill, these very obsessions invaded his perceptions of reality. He often spoke to me of the time he was visited by God. As difficult as this is to disprove, I would suggest such a visit was unlikely. Yes, Steve claimed to have been paid such a visit, and it probably occurred during one of his many hallucinogenic voyages fueled by the drugs he experimented with in his youth.

There is a distinct difference between possessing a general belief there may be something beyond that which is observable and an obsessive belief in the truthfulness of an entire religious doctrine, the details of which fly directly in the face of all reason, logic and reality. This is my understanding of religious delusion. Unfortunately, for my brother, the brand of religiosity that was visited upon him by his Christian educators - and especially my parents - was without question a factor in his suicide. Stephen saw himself as totally undeserving of the only kind of redemption he was taught was valid: Christian redemption of the eternal human soul. Attempting to reconcile his imperfect, i.e., sinful, nature with the perfection he demanded of himself, proved a deadly undertaking. Harsh though this is, I perceive my brother's final act of desperation to be a direct consequence of the moral and religious overkill so egregiously thrust upon him by my mother and father. Totally forgiving them this transgression will no doubt take a very long time.

Steve eventually escaped the gnawing clutches of drug abuse. It even seemed to me that he was attempting to defect from the religious army that had conscripted him many years earlier. Reasoned thinking was on the horizon. But, when the "beginning of the free" took hold, and smatterings of a truly independent self began to emerge, the resulting inner conflict became too much to bear and he threw himself into the path of an oncoming car.

I often wondered if Steve was merely calling out for help; trying to reset the variables of his own perceptions by causing this "accident" which, had he survived intact, might have given him the respite he so desperately needed. A prolonged hospital stay. A brush with death. He might have emerged invigorated enough to actually assert his freedom from lifelong religious incarceration.

My guilt over never having found the keys to his emotional prison cell and aid him in his escape from irrationality has persisted these many years despite knowing in my heart I was a good brother to him. Could I have loved him any better? Could I have lent him just one more gesture of understanding? Would it have made a difference?

Steve's death taught me many things. Among them to always be on the alert for despair in my fellow man; not to make excuses for poor behaviour either in myself or in others, but to search for that which explains. By doing so, another remarkable human virtue - forgiveness - suddenly appears within reach of our grasp.

Your life, your suffering, your death, were not in vain, dear brother. You reminded us all just how precariously perched we sometimes are upon the tree limb of life. I believe you would have made a great ally in my quest for enlightenment.

No Alphabet Soup Required

BA, BS, APRN, LMFT, JD, MD, Ph.D. What do they all really mean? Ostensibly, all of these letters after one's name - most of them capital letters - indicate that this person has achieved a minimally prescribed amount of formal education in a given discipline. Some letters authenticate one's license to engage in the commercial practice of certain disciplines. These letters also recognize a very important convention in our society, a convention that suggests fundamental standards of competence and proficiency. In addition, all of this "alphabet soup" is an attestation of the many value judgments we make regarding education. Within any given theatre of debate, we place a greater value on the words and ideas of those in possession of this alphabet soup than we do those without it.

Among the more concrete benefits of advanced education is the perfection of the skills and tools developed in the pursuit of one's education including the ability to perform research and communicate effectively and efficiently. For many among the educated elite, the goal is simple: the dissemination of one's own ideas no matter how inane the premises for these ideas may be.

There's one more thing all of this alphabet soup does, and it's quite possibly one of the most powerful: It confers upon those who possess it the apparent right to take themselves seriously. What more does anyone need to command a mere modicum of respect for their efforts? Not much, I submit.

Ironically, the vast majority of what I would describe as incomprehensible nonsense comes not from other HSDs (high school dropouts) like myself, but rather from those who have acquired a virtual smorgasbord of alphabet soup. They wear their credentials like badges on a boy scout uniform - plain for all to see. And yet their baseless propositions, agendas and prejudices cannot conceal themselves. It is to these people I say, "Your education means nothing." But, to the many honestly educated and humble aspirants to the truth I say, "Thank you for your moderation, your wisdom, and your intellectual selflessness. You I can learn from."

A Brief 'Trek' Through Moral Absolutism

The virtual pantheism of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Star Trek brand, offers a wellspring of opportunities to dissect his many creative offspring. My personal favorite