Date: 2009-12-03 21:59 Subject: Christians Lighten Up! It's Just Yule Security: Public Mood: pleased

Christians lighten up! Christmas isn’t actually Christmas. It’s Yule, a winter festival celebrated in Europe in the days before the early followers of your Middle Eastern God man brought their heavy handed religion to those fair pagan lands.

It’s no secret that the Christian church, having no actual birth date for Jesus or proof he existed for that matter, stole the festival of Yule from the pagans and then subverted those traditions into Christian ones in an attempt to establish their political and religious superiority. That Christianity was heavy handed from the days of Theodosius I on is perhaps one of its greatest shames.

Yule singing became Christmas Caroling and the garnishing of winter trees with the entrails of your vanquished enemies became garland. In fact just about every tradition we associate with Christmas including Yule logs and mistletoe are non-Christian in origin. Mistletoe was used in Druidic celebrations of the winter solstice by the peoples of Gaul (France) and Great Britain. There is some debate over the origin of the Christmas tree. Some folklorists cite a tradition of Yule or winter solstice trees, but many Christian scholars claim the decorating of a tree to be entirely Christian in origin.

The Christmas tree was the source of the infamous Yule log – a tradition that started in Germany. In Medieval Germany trees were considered to be a source of good luck. The name Yule is also of Germanic and Nordic origin. The Christian Church simply absorbed everything it came into contact with. The final insult was moving the lunar based solstice from its date around the 21st of the month to the 25th because of the preferential use of the Julian calendar.

Christmas has further perverted the ancient traditions with marketing. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was a marketing gimmick created in 1939 by Robert L. May, a writer for Montgomery Ward. Rudolph was born to sell more products to wrap and put under the tree. Christmas is a retail holiday despite all the religious organizations that want us to put “Christ back in Christmas” and cajoling us to remember “the reason for the season.”

These are not necessarily bad ideas given that the idea behind holiday implies “holy day.” But, marketing and commerce are the American secular religion and we dress it up in Christian clothes. That is, unless we want to get some of that prime Jewish or Buddhist market share. Given the modern secularization of Christmas it is a real head scratcher to consider why the American Family Association got so pissed off over the GAP’s recent holiday ad campaign. They just begged retail businesses to further their secularization and piracy of their sacred day.

The AFA launched a boycott of GAP stores because of their failure to mention Christmas along with the other holidays. It would seem that they really aren’t as concerned about the birth of their personal Lord and savior as they are over maintaining exclusivity on the holiday season they stole fair and square several centuries ago.

The AFA website now boasts that the boycott has ended because the GAP “has heard you loud and clear” and now released “a very Merry Christmas television commercial.” But who really won here? The AFA who sought to preserve the proprietary nature of their holiday or the GAP who stands to benefit fiscally by pocketing more conservative Christian money now that they won’t be boycotting their stores?

Sadly this time of year is the make-it-or-break-it season for retail business. Their success and overall profitability is measured by how much crap they can sell you for Christmas morning. Pandering to the mouthy Christians of the AFA only benefits them and is really a victory for them rather than the Christians who are patting each other on the butt right now over their victory.

The AFA is perhaps the most supercilious religious organization I know of. They may or may not be preserving the sanctity of Christmas, but one thing is certain, they are preserving the conservative Christian traditions of intolerance and small mindedness.

Have a happy and safe Yule Season. May the pantheon of non-Christian gods grant you health and good fortune this year.

So mote it be!

Date: 2009-12-02 13:33 Subject: The Farce of Post Modern Economics and the Free Market Security: Public Mood: indescribable

The farce of post modern economics is that it considers consumption as the measurement for the standard of living and not quality of life. In other words the more we seem able to consume the better life must be for everyone. After all more disposable income must mean people are happier. Yet in a credit based economy people consume by buying things with money they have not earned yet. Some may actually never earn that money at all and end up defaulting on their contractual credit obligations.

Rate of consumption is a false measurement. It fails to consider other important factors such as emotional well being and the health of the individual. It also assumes that a person using credit is credit worthy and will be able to repay what they have borrowed. The failure of the home lending market has demonstrated, with tragic consequences, how impoverished this thinking is. The deregulation of lending in recent years made it possible for people who were not credit worthy and, dare I say it, not generally responsible with money to purchase homes they had no business buying.

This is not so much a statement about these individuals moral character as it is about the general state of our education system that does not teach people economics and finance as part of their basic education. Most people truly do not understand money and how it works. They are sold deceptive ideas by marketing professionals and purveyors of crap. They have been convinced that we need these items. Congress attempts to free up lending so Americans can start spending again is only adding to the problem. A good American is one who consumes and consumes conspicuously. How can we solve our problems by falling back into the same patterns that got us to where we are today?

Americans are less healthy then we were 20 years ago even though our life spans have been extended. We are more obese, sleep deprived, stressed out and prone to depression and anxiety. Heart disease has become the number one killer of women. This is not factored into the government’s stimulus programs as they try to get people spending money again.

We are no longer an agricultural economy or even an industrial economy. We are not even an information based economy. We are an economy of consumers. It is only as solid as our ability to purchase all the gadgetry and cheap plastic shit we import from China. Most of which we could live just as well – if not better – without.

The American way of life is not sustainable. The problem is that many are unwilling to admit this. It’s a lot like the person who has an aneurysm that has not burst yet. It could happen at anytime but he has no way of predicting it. So, instead of doing something about it he elects to ignore it and go about his life as usual. On the surface life is good.

At the moment the lights are on and we able to drive our cars and use our portable handheld computing devices. The free market supports this because it follows the path of least resistance. It goes to where the demand is. Right now the demand is oil. The demand is for business as usual. It cannot cost effectively create alternatives since the demand is quite small and perhaps non existent in most places.

The free market will only address problems once the demand is there for it. By the time there is such a demand we could well be too far off to effectively solve the problem. It could very well be too late.

Date: 2009-11-30 20:50 Subject: Despite CRU Scandal the Science is not cooked. Security: Public Mood: curious

The anti-global warming crowd is heading to their bully pulpit using the dubious scandal of emails obtained illegally from The University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). The emails supposedly obtained by hackers allege that data regarding global warming have been manipulated or falsified where the data doesn’t support the preferred model of global warming favored by the United Nations and the international community. Those who adamantly insist that human beings and the copious amounts of green house gasses we are emitting into our atmosphere do not cause global warming have been making this claim for years. So this is nothing new. However, it is fascinating that this scandal comes to light just one week before the United Nations Climate Change Conference convenes on December 7th in Copenhagen.

I find it challenging, as an average educated citizen, to determine the difference between factual information and so-called junk science. My science background is limited to my undergraduate credits received at a local community college. In other words I have just enough information to fool myself into thinking I know what is really going on. I believe that most of us are in this very same predicament.

First of all we live on a geologically active planet and with this come the phenomenon of climate change. There is plenty of credible research indicating that the earth’s climate has changed over its long history – heating and cooling, perhaps several times. At one time Antarctica was not covered in snow and ice. This is why climate change is preferable to the overused and misapplied term Global Warming. In fact there is research to indicate that global temperatures have been on the decline since 1998. I remember a lecture I attended in 1991 where the speaker suggested that one of the paradoxes of “global warming” is that an ice age may occur first.

It would seem that with all the research being done no one can accurately describe what is really going to occur next in the climatological history of our blue marble. I have read where it is possible that human beings may find themselves living on a planet with virtually no ice in the next 50 to 100 years. Another researcher claims that increasing temperatures is melting off the permafrost in the arctic tundra releasing mega tons of trapped methane. The methane will make the air on our planet unfit to breathe. Still others suggest that the planet will freeze over first. The only thing anyone can seem to actually agree on is that overall the climate on our planet has been changing. Even the most ardent of conservatives will now acknowledge that even as they deny humanities culpability.

Yet even while temperatures may be cooling globally it is still hard to ignore the dramatic footage of melting glaciers at our world’s poles. But, is this even what the debate should be about in the first place? It seems that with the issue of carbon emissions we are missing the most immediate problem – clean air and clean water. It seems odd to me that we actually debate this issue at all. When you consider that asthma is the number one cause of school related absences and that diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis are increasing you would think it would make perfect sense to talk about cleaner air and water.

My brother-in-law is a pilot and he finds himself flying through some of the nastiest muck as he takes off and lands around the world. We hold differing views on the whole issue of global climate change, but we both can get behind the need to improve the air and water quality in our cities and around the world.

Another little factoid I have come across over the past couple of years suggests that if we were all suddenly to stop driving our cars and to shut down every factory producing green house gasses it would still take close to 200 years before the gunk we put in our atmosphere cleared out. This is even more alarming that climate change. We need to concentrate on this issue first. If we reduce or slow down climate change then all power to us. The fact is we are profoundly affecting the ecosystem in which we live. We are doing so beyond its capacity to repair itself quickly.

Common sense would seem to dictate – global warming or not – that we can’t continue to pollute our air and water without dire consequences befalling us. Could you imagine storing a coffee can in your kitchen so you could take a shit while you prepare food? We do seem to be fouling our planet and wrecking the ecosystem. The evidence supporting our culpability in climate change is still more compelling then the evidence against it especially when that evidence is the result of illegal activity.

The only people that are taking the CRU scandal seriously are those who are invested in proving that green house gasses are not affecting the climate. What it gets down to for these folks is that the cost of reducing our carbon debt is expensive. In other words it cuts down on their profits. During an interview Senator Inhofe ( R ) of Oklahoma could not directly answer the questions put to him. This is typical of conservative opponents. When confronted with information that runs counter to their view point they never offer solid data to the contrary. They simply try to confuse the issue by discrediting those whose opinions differ. The senator could not provide an adequate response to the interviewer’s assertion that those who have reviewed the alleged emails claim that there is no proof of falsified and manipulated data.

Talk of global warming and green house gas emissions is uncomfortable in a society that was built on a platform of cheap fossil fuels. Oil is a finite resource. There is some evidence to suggest that our chief suppliers, such as the Saudis, have hit peak production despite their reports to the contrary. We are no closer to replacing foreign oil supplies. Here in Colorado the local natural gas supplier has the audacity to air commercials where actors representing the average American has a “eureka moment.” The eureka being their discovery that we have 100 years of gas right beneath our feet. Here is my eureka moment – what happens in year 101? This is the real conspiracy.

The real tragedy of the CRU hacking is that it makes it difficult to determine the facts from fiction. A recent poll shows that fewer Americans believe in the threat posed by climate change even as they believe that our government should actively work to reduce carbon emissions. This is a page ripped from the former Bush Administration’s playbook. If you don’t have solid data to the contrary you work at undermining the credibility of your opponent’s data. Given the deficiency in the average person’s science education it is not difficult to create deadly doubt in the minds of the voting public. As long as we can still afford cars and gas we seem destined to ignore the problem until it is too late. We would rather deny the potential threat to our grandchildren believing the cost is too high to move us in a more carbon neutral position. But, the cost will be much greater to the generation that follows.

Date: 2009-11-24 16:11 Subject: The Seeds of Destruction: Activism & Democracy Security: Public Mood: dorky

We have mentioned before the old axiom that everything carries the seeds of its own destruction. This would be the second rule of activism. The first rule, being of course, that no one asked you to save the world which we have discussed previously. After all your plan of salvation is based on your personal worldview and what you consider to be right or wrong.

Activists, as a broad group, are not moderates. Moderates are quiet and often observe the status quo while occasionally voting their conscience in matters of morality and justice. A moderate tries to be even handed and fair. You don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. They are they good neighbors who smile and wave at you from the street and invite you over for backyard cookouts regardless of how they feel personally about what is often deemed “your lifestyle.” In religious circles we might call them Episcopalians. They may titter and gossip behind your back, but to your face they are more than pleasant.

Activists are idealists. Idealists always lean in one direction depending on where they determine the winds of change to be blowing from. The harder the winds the more extreme they can become. They see the ideal they revere and often little else. If you agree you are a comrade in arms. If your opinions differ then you are the enemy – the barbarian at the gate that must be doused in boiling oil lest you batter their ramparts and enter the citadel unbidden.

They pine for what they see as solutions to the problems before us. But, they are not always realistic. An activist not grounded in reality can become jaded if things don’t work out or, at the worst, extremists willing to do anything for the cause – whatever the cause may be. In the United States activism often degenerates into small bouts of social unrest, sign waving and name calling. Occasionally a real lunatic such as a Timothy McVeigh may resort to outright terrorism.

If you want to be a successful activist; if you want to help create the change you desire then you must see beyond the upsides. You must see the downsides as well. Every solution carries with it challenges. Challenges of implementation – yes – but, often more far reaching challenges as not every downside can be predicted and unfortunate and far reaching problems can upend any good you seek to do

You must be willing to go beyond just admitting the problems presented by solutions you seek to impose. You have to recognize them. You need to determine ways to overcome or at least compensate for them. The Labor and Environmental movements have not done this well and our economy has been wounded because of it. The blame is often left at the doorstep of the corporations and they accuse the beast of capitalism for its appetites.

The problem is that often times the anti-capitalist activist here in the United States points to Europe’s implementation of democratic socialism as if it were without problems. But, the implementation of socialist idealism has played a big role in the decline of Europe and the problems besetting the European Union even as it has solved some issues of inequality.

That is not to say that American Capitalism is necessarily any better. The decline and devaluation of the dollar, the erosion of job loss overseas and the greed of Wall Street and the insipid day trader have dealt a near mortal blow to the American economy as well as the world economy.

The purpose of this short piece is not to present a systematic outline of the pros and cons of each system, but rather, to suggest that both have potential benefits that should be well considered as well as potential negative impacts that often get overlooked by the idealist who prefers one system to another.

Another old saw that is a favorite of mine is, what once was, is no longer. The needs of post modern Americans are different then they were when we first formed our democratic republic. The world we live in is different. We have different challenges even though human nature has remained the same.

For one thing our population is much larger and is far more diverse. We are no longer a society of famers and artisans. We no longer have the power of a mighty industrial nation. We are nation of information specialists and consumers. We are in a sort of post modern decline that the old ideals of Capitalism vs. Socialism can only fail to address if we try to adhere to rigidly to them.

For the first time since the Great Depression we are, as a nation, facing the possibility that the majority of us will not be able to adequately provide for ourselves and our problems. Sadly, many of us are in denial about the problems beyond our own immediate needs. We expect the government to solve it. We blame the previous administration in the White House and then elect one whose rhetoric we currently are willing to believe.

When that administration fails to meet our expectations then the cycle of blame will begin again. In fact, it is currently underway. The need to blame others for our predicaments prevents us from taking charge of our lives now. We split along the left and the right, the liberal and the conservative and the religious and the secular and duke it out with each other. Each group sees the gains of the other group as an infringement upon their own inalienable rights. Is it any wonder that our problems seem to get much worse before they get better?

Economies, as anything in this world, are cyclical. But today we are facing some new challenges that will hammerlock us into a very long downward spiral if we don’t start making tough decisions today. Today’s tough decisions will morph into tomorrows more difficult ones. The next generation may end up facing decisions that will seem inhuman making tyrannical regimes such as Stalin and Hitler seem like boy scouts in comparison. But those decisions may well need to be made in order to preserve the continuity of our species. Some will end up being cast into the outer darkness despite our desire to do otherwise.

We are getting ahead of ourselves here. In discussing our somewhat arbitrary rules of activism we are attempting to lead you down the path and to a deep ravine. The ravine is filled with jagged tree stumps and rocks and losing your footing will result in death. What we need is to build a bridge. It is a bridge of compromise. The more willing we are to compromise the sturdier that bridge will become.

Before compromise can be accomplished we need to decide what is important? This is, and almost always will be, the problem. This is the greatest weakness of any democracy. Competing voices create dissention more often than they build the much needed in roads. Compromise is the only way the economic and social equality can ever be achieved.

Date: 2009-11-21 13:07 Subject: The American Lie Security: Public Mood: rushed

{No one}, who seeks liberation and spiritual freedom, can afford to yield passively to the appeals of a society of salesmen, advertisers and consumers.

Thomas Merton
New Seeds of Contemplation


Sometimes I think the United States is based on a lie. If not a lie, then at least a perversion of the ideals our democratic republic’s founders forged out in sweat, blood and sleepless nights. Men and women gambled their lives, and some surely died, in pursuit of an ideal of justice and personal liberty that had been largely untried through the course of human history.

We have mentioned before that as noble as our founding principals are, it is still a largely imperfect ideal as we have not perfectly translated it from paper to action. That all men were created equal is a lofty idea, but in the early years we forgot to include women, Native Americans and the countless black men, women and children who toiled, suffered and died under the under the oppressive yoke of America’s slavery institution. Today the gay man or women and the transgendered person struggle.

It took years to right these wrongs and then even after they had been addressed they were not perfectly redressed. There is still a great gap of injustice in this country. We fool ourselves into thinking that there is equal justice among the divergent ethnicities that cohabit this land with us. The gap seems to be getting wider and deeper even as we have elected our first president of mixed racial background. Even as the race barrier to the nation’s highest office has been overcome many are still poor and living substandard lives; lives of violence and despair. It isn’t just blacks, but Latinos, whites, and people of every race.

The problem comes in living as a self serving individual working toward the achievement of their own American dream in the midst of a community. We see ourselves as separate from our others. We have rights and expectations. We live in a free country after all. We meet those who would dictate to us with vitriol, but are ourselves part of self serving groups who seek to dictate to others.

No doubt the patriot and the conservative will point their finger at me – as the always seem to – shouting me down and telling me that I am what is wrong with this country today. As if a single person observing injustice and our failure to meet the ideals of our nation’s founders is the reason this country is seemingly in decline. Generally these people label themselves “libertarian” but their peculiar post modern evangelical Christian faith is anything but “libertarian” in any true sense of the word.

Everything - every noble purpose carries the seeds of its own destruction. Just as socialism and the general disregarding of religion (an odd position for someone who considers himself a humanist) has lead to the decay of Europe so will our rampant religious idealism, selfish individualism and pursuit of capitalism lead to the decline and failure of the America we know today. We see this in the debates over health care reform, immigration and the rights of same sex couples to marry and enjoy the benefits of that union.

We can no longer ignore the others among us. The Gospel of Christianity and the principals of Humanism demand that we rethink the way we are living – radically – and then take action to change it. The false libertarian sees every attempt to do this as creeping socialism and believes anyone needing help to be a lazy lay about looking for a free hand out. Rather, our culture has created an incubator for the so called slacker to be born. Children today are being birthed to be drones in a hive of out of control consumerism. This attitude robs those who, with a little helping hand, could live productive lives.

Resources for education are at an all time minimum and vital programs that could enrich the minds and lives of our children are cut from school budgets. Instead of the arts and the humanities we focus on the new industries of the information age. We are bred to consume information. We raise children to play video games and compete on the new age of game shows – the life deadening reality show that brings out the worst in us for sheer entertainment value. The infotainment industry elevates celebrities to a status they truly do not deserve. When they get bored of the Paris Hiltons and the Lindsay Lohans they create new celebrities from the deep pool of insipid and shallow people who have nothing useful to contribute except to entertain us with their appalling moral deficiencies.

The Capitalist has taken hold of the wonderful promise of our Declaration of Independence which states all have a right to the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and twisted it to include consumerism. We need this computer, this satellite television set and we need to drive this car to be happy. We need to have rock hard abs and drink the right beer so we can get into the pants of the right people. Yet, all the while they are taking our jobs and giving them away overseas.

Labor has forgotten its purpose which is to protect the lives and livelihoods of the working class and in its greed and complacency helped create an environment that allows the greed of the capitalist to send our jobs away. The politician has twisted the so-called protestant work ethic – a lie of Calvin – to make the religious pursue nice things as a sign of holiness.

We are entering a new era. We must understand that the platform of fossil fuels that made our suburban post modern lifestyle and hegemony possible is not sustainable. We have to decide to do something different while the choice is still ours to make. A commercial on television recently has people talking about their “eureka moment” when they realize that domestically we have 100 years of natural gas in the ground.

My eureka moment is what will happen at year 101? Fossil fuels are finite. How do we solve the merging crisis of climate change and economic melt down that seem to be looming toward us? I am not sure we can? Certainly we cannot solve them and maintain the style of living we believe we have a right to. Compromises must be made. Change is coming.

Maybe that change isn’t today or even in the next 25 to 50 years. I am not certain we can predict that with any real sense of accuracy. But, it should be common sense that we are being beggars to our own demise. We cannot continue to live as if we have unlimited resources and can do whatever we want without eventually incurring the wrath of nature or God – if he exist and cares about this world at all.

Simplify, simplify, simplify, come the quiet words of Thoreau. We have too much stuff and we strive to collect even more. Once upon a time I read – in Reader’s Digest I believe – that for every month a person lives in a home they accumulate 40 pounds of stuff. Now multiply that by 12 months and by the number of people in that home and you can see the staggering accumulation. How much of that stuff is unnecessary to survival or even to happiness? What is the financial cost of such accumulation? Do you ever ask yourself who went to bed hungry tonight so that I could be surrounded by my shiny baubles?

We need to throw out the tired political ideas of the left and the right – Capitalism and Socialism – and toss them to burn on the funeral pyre of our misdirected religious idealism. We need to seek a new way to live. Politics is part of the human condition. We are social beings and we will clump together in groups of people in order to survive. We need each other. The rugged individualism of America’s past has gotten us into trouble. But most people don’t see that yet. As long as we still have mind numbing technology to plug into and shiny baubles to buy it may be too late for those poor unaware folks.

We need to think in terms of sustainability. We need to decide the difference between our needs and our desires. We need to scale back our consumption and use only what we truly need and share with those around us.

Next: Creating a sustainable humanist or spiritual economy

Date: 2009-11-20 19:14 Subject: Bad Theology: My Imaginary Friend is Better Then your Imaginary Friend Security: Public Mood: awake

Bad theology!

That’s what Jerry the Evangelical’s friend, Marcus the Holy Roller told me after reading several of the entries on Hello From Uranus. Apparently Jerry had confided in Marcus about his concerns for my hell bound humanist soul.

“Isn’t all theology bad in its own way?” I asked him.

Seriously, if God’s ways are not your ways and his wisdom is beyond human understanding how can you even be sure you are on the right track and not deluding yourself?


“Would you say that your intellect is superior to a squirrel’s?” I asked Marcus the Holy Roller.

“Yes,” he replied albeit somewhat reluctantly. He smelled bait sitting in the trap of reason and he was wary of losing a leg.

“Have you ever tried explaining yourself to one?”

Jerry pointed out that this was the proverbial apples to oranges conundrum. I didn’t disagree. But, here is my problem with theology. Who is to say that any one individual or group possesses the truth that gives them the right to declare a particular theology good or bad? If God’s capacity for wisdom and knowledge is larger than ours how can we be certain that we have a true grasp of his word?

“Grace”

The magic power of Grace, but it would still be like trying to stuff a water buffalo in a VW Bug. God’s mind won’t fit into ours.

Why must it be the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity that are considered the inerrant word of God? Why not the Koran or the Vedas? I read somewhere once that scholars believe the Vedic scriptures to possibly be the oldest sacred texts in the world even predating some of the oldest Hebrew Scriptures?

With all of these sagely and holy voices each from different traditions, emerging from wildly divergent cultures how can we be certain of the truth? I have never bought the odious argument that each faith tradition has a sliver of the truth. That bit of New Age baloney leaves the door open for some traditions to posses more of the truth than others. It also makes it possible to declare a tradition as being incorrect. The Big Three – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – are already a little too big for their britches without adding fuel to the fire.

“We have the bible and we have the capacity for reason,” Marcus replied.

“Is Marcus a theologian?” I asked Jerry, “He talks like a theologian.”

Only a theologian could use their imaginations in this way and claim that they are using the faculty of reason. That isn’t to say that the imagination doesn’t play a role in our thought processes. Even the scientific process makes use of imaginative or subjective thinking, but only after collecting hard, tangible evidence does it declare it anything other than speculation.

Theology cannot say the same despite its many attempts to claim over the course of the history of ideas to the contrary. Theology is a lot like making up a biography for an imaginary friend. In this way, I am not certain that it can ever be said to be a true academic discipline. It’s an exercise in creativity to be sure, but as an academic discipline – hardly.

Theology looks around at the world and jumps to conclusions. It mistakes correlation as causation and doesn’t stick around to collect any further evidence. It’s Ray Comfort and his banana all over again – and again, and again, and again. The best example of this thinking is the Creationist debunking of Evolution. It sees gaps in knowledge and they declare it a failed theory. But, they completely overlook the impoverished quality in their own thinking. Evolutionary scientists do not lay claim to having it all figured out. They are well aware of the problems presented by their research and discoveries. But, they press on collecting more data with the understanding that as our knowledge changes so will our ideas and our theories.

Theology is like trying to catch a thought in the palm of your hand. It’s an impossible task that no one benefits from attempting. Even in the Christian world theologians disagree. Who was Jesus? Was he an historical person or a template of God-Man mythologies laid over an obscure figure we cannot prove existed? Was the resurrection real or metaphorical? Theology – at least in the Western sense – is gleaned from accepted scriptural texts. It requires that God reveal something of himself to us. Natural Theology – the notion we can prove God’s existence through nature with out the aid of revelation will lead us only to deism.

We can only know of God through revelation. The problem with revelation is that once the prophet, who received the revelation, shares it with others its no longer revelation. It becomes hearsay. Several thousand years later it is hearsay stacked upon hearsay. The stories are no more reliable than the mythology of any other culture in terms of historical reliability. At best they represent stories that might shed light on the collective processes of our psyche. But, more often they reveal nothing more than the clannish nature of the human being and how elitism and tribalism can lead to violence against those other than us.

When I was a child I had an imaginary friend named Sammy that only I could see. Sammy and I had our language and our own shared history. One day my dad sat down next to me on the couch while I was watching cartoons.

“Dad!” I shouted, “You are sitting on Sammy.”

Dad immediately jumped up and moved over apologizing profusely to Sammy in the process. I assured Dad that Sammy forgave him. My dad could not see or hear Sammy, so he took my word for it. He had no choice. Since he was not privileged with the special relationship that I had with Sammy his only choice was to dismiss it as the work of a child’s imagination. I had already given him the complete story of my friendship with Sammy so he was aware of the story. No rational adult would base their entire life around my invisible friend who seemed to be everywhere and at all times. Yet, we do this with religion.

This is theology. I have an imaginary friend that only I can see or experience. Therefore, in order to get others to see him – if I care at all for what they think – I must create a system of thought to support his existence. I look out into the world that I commonly share with others and try to use that to create a systematic and rational means by which others can come to the same knowledge and experience that I have. Unfortunately, with all the competing spiritual voices how is one to know whether I am delusional or I come about my “revelation” honestly.

If one man hears the voice of God he may be insane. But, if others can be persuaded to accept it then we call it a religion. My imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend. Who wants to fight?

Date: 2009-11-19 17:20 Subject: The Crucified Christ: Further Reflections on Loss & Grief Security: Public Mood: sad

Growing up Catholic the crucified Christ; the suffering and sorrowful God-Man was ever before me. I often wondered why God would have to “send his only son” and allow him to suffer so greatly in order to redeem humanity. Wasn’t it enough that God was supreme, all powerful and sovereign? If the Blessed Virgin could emerge from her mother’s womb born of the flesh, yet free of the stain of original sin could not God make that happen for everyone? Why the pain? Why the loss? Why the grief and blood letting?

Perhaps the problem is with the idea of the immaculate conception of Mary, a doctrine that is not alluded to in any way in the scriptures. In fact, when it was introduced the great theologians of the Church debated it heavily. I have many problems with the doctrine of Original Sin, but at least in the Pauline letters we see its antecedents. It can be said to at least be based in scripture.

I have trouble conceiving of the notion “God is Love” and trying to reconcile it with the condemnation that a metaphorical first man – Adam – brought upon us all. I suspect that these doctrines are impoverished attempts to theologically explain the human condition.

If the story of Christ Crucified; Christ resurrected is true then why did this have to be the pathway for redemption? Is it possible that as infinite and omnipotent as God is he still cannot spare even himself from suffering? If he cannot even prevent his suffering, which must – indeed – be greater than all of ours combined – how can we expect to be spared our own loss and grief?

Loss and grief is part and parcel of the human experience of love. We enter into each intimacy knowing, at least in the back of our minds, that one day we will be separated from our beloved. We know loss and its resulting grief is an inescapable part of our human life. If we cannot be spared loss and grief while we are separated from our eternal beloved while in the flesh than is it possible that God’s only choice is to suffer along with us until such time when we die and join him in eternity?

The inevitable pain of love is enough to make weaker hearts eschew intimacy altogether. But, it is truly and impoverished man or woman who lets that happen because without its persistent stalking we would never experience the wonders of joy.

Still I wonder why the pain? God’s must come from the tremendous responsibility for his creation and ours from our smallness and pettiness – what the orthodox would call our sinful or fallen nature.

Date: 2009-11-18 17:17 Subject: Further Reflection on Loss and Grief Security: Public Mood: depressed

The experience of profound loss and grief can send even the most faithful of souls down the pathway of despair and ultimately doubt. There is something hard and resilient with in us that mistakes the experience of grief to be proof that God cannot possibly exist, and if he does, then at the very least he or she is cruel.

When I am sitting at a funeral service and the Pastor or Priest suggests that God understands the pain of our loss, because he too lost his only son, I want to shout, “But, God chose to let his son be murdered. He incarnated his son in the flesh for that sole purpose.” The mother or father mourning the loss of an innocent child; the spouse bereaved of their lover did not. The choice was made by circumstances that they had no control of. God, according to our limited understanding, has total control as the supreme creator of the universe and our individual lives. There is something in an unexpected loss that stinks to heaven of injustice.

Date: 2009-11-16 21:19 Subject: The Cosmic Sadist Security: Public Mood: curious

There is something unnatural and surreal about a child’s funeral. I haven’t always felt that way. But, my mind has been opened to this pain. On Friday – a Friday the 13^th no less – I went out to Colorado Springs to join my sister and her husband in saying good bye to the sweet little guy who had charmed our lives for less than a year. It was the hardest thing I have had to do in years.

I am generally dispassionate about the death of children. To my way of thinking all life is precious whether it is 9 months old, 19 years old or even 90 years old. Death is something that is an unavoidable part of life. We all must enter into that experience. I have never quite understood the fuss generated over the age of a person who has died. Death is…However, I had a glimpse into the sorrow and feelings of injustice that follow when a young person seemingly dies what we would deem an untimely death.

A week ago Sunday my 9 month old nephew lost his struggle to live. His body had been racked by countless infections including bacterial meningitis, pneumonia and H1N1. By the time the poor little guy had contracted the swine flu the sepsis had pretty much ruled out any chance he had of survival. A CT scan earlier that day had shown no brain activity and he was non-responsive. An autopsy demonstrated that his vital organs had all been severely ravaged by disease. So even if he had been responsive there was no possibility that he would survive.

Seth, who had been sickly since his birth, was paradoxically one of the happiest babies I had ever met. He needed little reason to smile. Even as his little body was wracked by fits of coughing the grin would return once the coughing stopped. Babies have this precious way of communicating joy, or at least what I perceive to be joy. The kick their legs and flail their arms as the coo and giggle in that bubbly baby way. I find it easy to fall in love with children, especially when they are so joyful. If only we could retain a small amount of that experience as we grow into adulthood. It seems that a little light that could have illuminated the darkest of hearts has been taken from our midst and for no apparent good reason

It was heart wrenching to see his tiny shoebox casket at the front of the generic evangelical church his parents go to. If I had dared to open it I was convinced that my nephew’s body would not be there, but rather a plastic baby doll from my sister’s childhood would be staring at me with blank plastic eyes.

The question I can’t answer is why? Why this child? Why was he born sick and prone to dying so early? As an agnostic I have come to feel that the world makes more sense to me when you remove God from the equation. Without God we don’t have to answer the delicate and tricky question as to why a loving and compassionate God could allow the death of an innocent.

God is an absurdity created by the human mind in order to make sense out of life, the universe and everything. It helps us order our world in such a way that allows us to hold at bay the anxiety created by the gaps in our knowledge. The problem is that the more we contemplate this issue of theodicy the more we must conclude that the God of our choosing may not be real at all. If God exists then perhaps it is the God of the Deists who is a part of the natural order of things and not a separate supernatural entity that need be cajoled, petitioned and prayed to.

After the events of this past couple of weeks the practice of prayer seems to be wasted effort and time that could have been channeled into something more productive than beseeching a supernatural entity that seems to have forgotten his promises. I can see God ignoring my prayer. I am, after all, not his most faithful son. I am certainly no prodigal returning home after various misadventures. What of the prayers of the deeply faithful? Believe me when I tell you the faithful prayed and they prayed hard.

I know to a devout individual my understanding of prayer seems puerile. It is with the reasoning of a child – an angry one to boot – that I approach this subject. But, I give you Matthew 18:19.

If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by your Father in Heaven.

If there was ever an agreement by a group of people then we had it here. We needed a miracle. We prayed for a miracle. But, we got no miracle. There was no miracle to be had. The fortunate thing was that Seth died quickly. He would not have to live with brain damage caused by the swelling from the meningitis or other potential problems caused by the level of illness. It was a severe mercy, of sorts, that when his parents decided to take their child off life supports that he passed quickly. He passed before they could get all of the machines and monitors disconnected.

I say it is merciful because it helped remove all doubt that they had made the correct decision. Their son was dead and there was no saving him unlike, my father whose passing took four long agonizing hours to pass once they removed his life support. My brother, who was there and an integral part of the decision, is still plagued by doubt. The doubt and uncertainty troubles him even though our father was not eligible for an organ transplant and would never be able to resume normal activities even with oxygen equipment.

This is the problem with taking scripture at face value. The Gospel says, “If any two of you agree…” It is hard to take that to mean anything less. This is not the only biblical promise of this kind. There are others. Yet, I am hard pressed to think of any time in which God granted any of my petitions.

I think of The Doors song, The Soft Parade.

Jim Morrison: “In seminary school we learned you can petition the Lord with prayer.”

Jim Morrison (shouting): “You cannot petition the Lord by prayer!”

Perhaps it is as the writer of the Epistle of James tells his readers: I have prayed amiss.

My prayers must not have been inline with God’s plan. Yet, Matthew 18:19 belies this. Perhaps, “Whatsoever you ask in my name” is an empty promise. Yes, I realize that the prayer must be one of wholehearted faith. But, once upon a time I did have faith. I know that my sister and brother in law and their whole damn church had the kind of faith that should move mountains.

No – the only thing that was amiss was our trusting in something outside ourselves in the first place. The unheard cry for meaning still remains unheard. The word of God is just a word. It is writing on a page that has value because of a subjective decision to imbue it with meaning and nothing more.

Friday, night I was unable to sleep so I stayed up rereading C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed hoping that the great apologist of the Christian Faith – a man who had experienced great grief himself – could give voice to the words hiding at the edges of my mind.

Lewis’ had a towering and brilliant intellect. He was also a man of reason who made a compelling case for the Christian faith. If a man of his intellectual stature could find it possible to have faith, then why can’t I. Still when I read his work it is hard to remain unconvinced when I am finished. But, unconvinced I am.

A Grief Observed was a different kind of book for Lewis. It was gleaned from several notebooks that he kept following the death of his beloved wife Joy Davidman after a brief but intense marriage of only four years. She had died of cancer leaving Lewis angry and bereft. Years ago a spiritual mentor of mine told me that when Lewis published this book many people were angry at him. They could not accept his anger and bitterness toward God.

I suppose it is for the same reason that a posthumous publishing of collected letters and writings of Mother Theresa caused a similar stir when it revealed moments of darkness and doubt in her life. The faithful cannot face the humanity of those whom they place on the great pedestal of religious faith. If these great giants of spirituality flair, doubt and occasionally despair then what hope do they have? Yet was it a saint but a man or women whose doubt, bitterness and despair have been used as in instrument of God’s grace? Indeed, these maybe the tools of sanctification itself. This is the true baptism and not the dunking or sprinkling of water.

Those who were angry with Lewis needed only give the man a chance to speak his mind. His anger, his grief was a journey back to the faith. Yet, I can’t help but think that the pastor of my sister’s church – a supercilious man – would disapprove of this kind of bitterness and anger. In fact, in his funereal sermon he warned against it.

But, unless you experience this level of anger and pain I am not certain you have anything close to true faith. What you have is mere superstition. It is indoctrination and nothing more. I am glad that my sister and her husband find comfort in their church and in their pastor. They will need it in the long weeks and months ahead of them. As for me if it had been my son’s funeral he was presiding over I would have slugged the fucker. I might have unzipped my pants and offered to give his mouth a more meaningful task to occupy itself.

His God is the God of Job. He is the God of original sin and eternal damnation. He is the cosmic sadist or cosmic vivisector, as Lewis said during the height of his anger and grief. This is the God that wagers on the lives of his worshippers with the dark angel and when they complain tell them to shut up. This is the punisher and torturer of innocents – A god who has punished everyone that has ever been born for the actions of one man – whether he was metaphorical or real it matters not. This cannot be anything remotely close to a good god. This god is the demiurge of
the Gnostics, at the very least.

In the end life has nothing to do with supernatural beings regardless of their temperament. Human life is finite. Sometimes babies are born sick and they don’t survive. We are creatures that arise out of nature like every other creature. What we are is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection.

To Be Continued…

Date: 2009-11-12 11:53 Subject: The Justification of God: Science vs. Mythology Security: Public Mood: curious

Lying on the grass with my dog last night, back to the ground and eyes staring up at the growing twilight it is easy to understand our collective impulse to worship something. We have a desperate need to make sense out of the seemingly incomprehensible mysteries of our life. Random chance and the possibility that there is no inherent meaning to our individual existences cause us great emotional and psychological pain. If there is no purpose then what is the point of living? We ask.

Here we are floating on this tiny island in an ocean of mystery. Science and reason are like the lighthouses that use to shine the way for passing ships making their way through the murky darkness of a foggy or stormy night. Science and the understanding it brings does not always occur at a pace that makes us feel comfortable with our place in the universe. We are anxious standing at the edge of the abyss. We get vertigo easily and sometimes get this overwhelming urge to jump or, at the very least, faint from the dizzying height.

For every question science seems to answer new ones, more complicated, more awesome in their scope take its place. It seems that we are in no shortage of mystery. The gaps in our knowledge fuel others on in their journey toward truth. Some choose science; still others prefer the irrational to the rational. Confronted with gaps in our knowledge they begin to worship the mystery. The call it God and imagine it to have an independent sentient quality apart from the natural universe.

This God or Gods we imagine to have created our universe, the world and every form of life on this planet. We tell imaginative and, often, psychologically insightful stories about God and our relationship to him or her. We explain everything away so that we are comfortable. That is, until, something traumatic such as the unexpected death of a child or a natural disaster that takes many lives occurs.

Then we get mad at this God, we struggle to find meaning to what happened. How can such a good loving God allow such terrible injustice in the world? We blame God’s cruelty or, if we are truly twisted by theology, we imagine this world to be a corruptible place and that everyone in it is under a death sentence. We realize that our sinfulness is the root cause and that we are lucky that more evil doesn’t befall us as it rightly should. This is the plight of the monotheist. They have only one god, one source to turn to. He must be the end all to their be all. They think, contemplate and meditate.

They change their views to meet the challenge of their experience and believe it to be spiritual insight or growth. All the while they miss the fact that if we were truly created in the image of God the world would be a different place. On the other hand, the God of the Jews, Christians and Muslims is often angry, violent and temperamental, especially if he doesn’t get his way. Perhaps, human kind truly is created in the image of this god after all. Still, I prefer to think that we created God in our own image and not the other way around. Our concept of God and the theologies that surround it are an irrational attempt to make sense of a basically rational world, albeit one that is seemingly random and irrational at times.

The world seems indifferent to human beings. On the other hand that indifference may very well belie any sense of a special creation. We are no less or no more than the other creatures that occupy this planet. We simply have ascended the evolutionary latter in such a way that our cognitive abilities, imaginations and skills with language give us feeling of superiority. When in fact we just followed a specific pathway created by natural selection.

Does it seem logical and improbable that events such as the big bang and processes such as natural selection should give rise to us? It’s the old fill a room full of monkeys and typewriters and eventually they will bang out the works of Shakespeare scenario. It does. But, the notion that some supreme, eternal, supernatural being created the universe also improbably and defies all reason in ways that evolution and natural selection do not.

To Be Continued:

Date: 2009-11-11 18:48 Subject: Vindicating God - Theodicy, Human Nature and The Reality of Human Evil Security: Public Mood: curious

Theodicy – The vindication or justification of God as omnipotent and good despite the presence of evil in the world.

Can God be vindicated? If God is the all powerful, all knowing and most importantly supremely good creator of the universe how can we reconcile the torture and suffering of innocents in the world? The old bat of a nun who taught my 4th grade catechism class would say yes. To her way of thinking even an infant is a sinner and a supremely selfish creature the same as a fully cognizant adult.

My 10 year old mind could not grasp that concept and my 42 year old mind all these years later cannot either. This was my first encounter with the injustice of the doctrine of original sin and later would become pivotal in the formation of my developing skepticism. If there is sin in the world than I side with the Gnostics and other heretics who thought that, if there was any sin in the world at all, then the blame should fall at the feet of the creator. After all he is supposed to be all powerful and all knowing. Presumably he has the foreknowledge of where his creation was headed even before he spoke the first word. This presents us with a supreme being that may simply be amoral. His needs or wishes are more important than the resulting creation and the creatures who must toil away in it.

The crusty, hateful old bitch taught that an infant is selfish and cited its cries to get its needs met as an example. My sister, having just been born, made it difficult for me to comprehend how the sweet little bundle at home could be selfish for crying when at the time that was the only way for her to communicate. I saw sweet innocence. The nun saw a child born under the death sentence of original sin. I saw promise; she saw justice where there could not possibly be any.

The justification of God through theodicy seems nothing more to me than making excuses for a supreme being who should intervene way more than he does in the world. The arguments of the philosopher Leibniz and others are pretty, erudite and intellectually interesting, but they are nothing of substance.

Even if you argue that God must honor our free will how can that apply to a child or to someone whose diminished capacity makes a truly honest and open exercise of free will questionable, if even possible at all? If I invade someone’s home and torture and murder those inside I can see God leaving me to suffer the consequences of my actions. But, what of the people whom I tortured and murdered? What is the justification to allow their suffering? Why should my free will to murder override my victims need to be safe and live their life unmolested by my decisions?

The answer is that there is no justification. I believe in evil, but it has a human face. Human evil is real; supernatural evil is not. Human evil is the result of the decisions and actions of individuals and the groups they belong to. It is easier to accept the existence of evil when you examine human nature and remove God from the equation.

We are born self interested and self centered beings. It is our socialization at home and then among our peers and the society that we live in that gives us an understanding that helps temper and tame our tendency to live entirely for ourselves. A young child does not naturally have empathy. While there is some debate as to when a child first develops the capacity to empathize with others – some suggest four years of age – it is clear that they are not necessarily born with it as if it were some inner spiritual trait. In fact given the evidence presented by victims of trauma and child abuse it seems that it is quite easy to retard and even prevent that quality from developing or fully forming at all.

We need to understand evil as the result of free will choices of individuals and not the result of anything else. The persistence of a belief in supernatural evil continues to some degree because once the believer removes that from the equation than the value of a supernatural source of good disappear along with it. We need to blame Satan so we can continue to grasp at God. If there is no supernatural evil then there is possibly no hell, which casts doubt on heaven. If there is no evil then there is no good and therefore no eternal reward which can be lauded over those you believe are destined for hell.

I am no expert in psychology but it seems that sociopaths are made not born. A person may have some genetic predisposition that might push them over the edge one way or another if the circumstances for creating a sociopath or its exact opposite are there, but it still depends largely on the environment they find themselves in.

This is why I loathe comments made by law enforcement personnel or the victims of crime who appear on the true crime reality shows that are in over abundance today. It is easy to refer to person as evil and heap upon them the full derision and hatred we have for those who commit atrocious antisocial acts. Some of these people are the very sociopaths that we have talked about previously. Most often they may be truly incapable of remorse and appreciating the pain they have created. Some of them may even love the pain. The perpetrators of evil are often victims of evil first. It is this victimization, which is often repeated in escalated fashion over time that leads to continuing cycle of violence. I am not convinced that every perpetrator is capable of making a conscious decision to behave contrary to their impulses. This makes them extremely dangerous.

The problem is where is God in all of this?

To Be Continued….

Date: 2009-10-30 17:47 Subject: Uncertainty & The Religionist Security: Public Mood: sympathetic

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.

Thoreau
Excerpted from Walden


There seems to be a general attitude among the religiously credulous that because their religious beliefs have existed for thousands of years, as in some cases, their religion has somehow past the so-called test of time. But, the exact opposite should be considered to be true. The older something is the more important it is to scrutinize it in the light of modern knowledge to see if there are any falsehoods that persist. The history of human civilization records many false ideas such as, the earth being the center of the galaxy, or that the earth was flat that were defended rigorously by the authorities of the day even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Sometimes the defense of the most untenable and preposterous of ideas was conducted in violent and unjust ways.

There are many people who object to this sentiment. Among them the Catholic writer Thomas Moore who suggests that somehow the rationalist and the scientist are guilty of trying to solve the great mysteries and answer the great questions of existence. He accuses them of wanting to strip away all that remains of the great mystery. That is a silly position to have and it speaks of the religionist’s deepest fear rather than of any deficiency in the rational minded individual. One day we may pierce the veil of existence and find proof positive that God does not exist at all – at least their concept of God. This is more than they can bear.

Paying homage to the great mystery is like worshiping ignorance. It’s stumbling around in a dark room refusing to turn on the light so you can see better what is in front of you. We have stated before a mystery solved is no less breathtaking. Those who worship “mystery” want their lives to have some kind of penultimate meaning, a meaning of deep spiritual existence. They fear death because they fear non-existence. This life with its pains, sorrows and fleeting joys is not enough for them. So they create myths of afterlife existences and put their faith and hope in that rather that focusing on creating meaning in the here and now.

It’s much easier to believe things that may not be true rather than to examine them too closely. We defend our faith and accuse anyone who might question are belief of being uncharitable and of lacking an open mind. They fail to recognize that a true open mind is willing to accept new ideas as long as it comes with some evidence to support it; WWWaccepting something as true with out scrutinizing it is the opposite of open mindedness. It is credulousness. It is a selling out of the truth for a flight of fancy.

The religionist fears uncertainty. So in the face of the unknown they create their own certainty by embracing mythology. They are uneasy with the uncertainty of life. They are uneasy with the possibility that this is it. They would rather be certain regardless of how ridiculous or untenable their beliefs may really be.

Date: 2009-10-29 19:53 Subject: The First Lesson of Activism Security: Public Location: in an Igloo Mood: curious

The first lesson of activism is this: If you want to save the world understand that it is impossible. You can't save the world and, most importantly, no one asked you to. If that depresses you then activism isn't for you. You run the risk of becoming a burn out and burned out idealists are the worst kind of cynics. God knows the world has an abundance of cynics.

Toss your misguided idealism on the funeral pyre.  A good activist is a realist. He or she understands that it is important to do what you can and make every effort count.  It is important to savor small victories and to build bridges of communication with those who would oppose you. Communication and compromise are the basis of all good change. 

It’s important to find reasonable people. You can’t reason or compromise with unreasonable people. Battling them will turn what is creative in your anger into outrage and that will transform into rage. That will blind you. Once you are blind you are lost in the dark.

Date: 2009-10-02 15:19 Subject: The Dogs in My Life Security: Public Mood: happy

Sweetie

Date: 2009-10-02 15:08 Subject: These are the Dogs in My Life Security: Public Mood: happy

Daisy Dumpling

Date: 2009-10-01 14:24 Subject: A Theology of the Rational? Security: Public Mood: mellow

Anyone who really knows me would agree that when it comes to spirituality and religion, I am a skeptic with supernatural enthusiasms. Its not that I don’t believe in God or a god, it’s that I can’t reconcile the myriad traditions of world religions with my rational experience. Theology seems a puerile absurdity. How does one “study God?” One of my more passionate avocations is the pursuit of a “Theology of the rational.” Even as I say I recognize that the notion is an absurdity. Yet it does not stop me from trying.

Date: 2009-09-29 15:50 Subject: I swear if I turn into a Neo-Con it will be all Polanski's fault - and the French... Security: Public Mood: crazy

I am proletariat sympathizer. But, the past couple of days I have begun to sound like my neo-conservative sister and her husband. I loathe Roman Polanski and see him as a symptom of the disease of Hollywood and the liberal media. Polanski has evaded justice for 32 years and lived a comfortable life in France. His career was hardly harmed as he continued to make films – nine total to date – including winning an Academy Award for The Pianist. 

It is appalling, yet not surprising, that Hollywood is attempting to whitewash the bastard as a brilliant artist whose life has been beleaguered by trials and tribulations. Even his victim, Samantha Geimer (formerly Gaily) wants the charges against him to be dropped. Geimer was sought out shortly after The Pianist was nominated for an Oscar and she is quoted saying that "He made a terrible mistake and he has paid for it.” Yet, I am not sure, victim though she is that as an adult she gets to make this all go away. She may have a responsibility that is larger than her own interests here.

The French Foreign minister is “dumbfounded,” which seems to be a general state of being for the French, in general, and a recent documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, seems to play down the sodomizing rape of an innocent 13 year old girl.

Polanski is a pedophile. Whether this was simply a crime of opportunity or one incident in a long line of other unreported rapes we will never know. But, statistically rapists and pedophiles are repeat offenders. Polanski lured his victim, gained her trust, drugged her and then sodomized her. He continued to do so even after she pleaded him with him to stop and told him she wanted to go home. These are all traits of a dangerous sex offender – a predator from whom the world would be better off protected from.

Any other offender would have served time and upon their release would have to register as a sex offender with local law enforcement agencies wherever they went. The stigma of their crime would never be forgotten and it would follow them around like a foul stench. Polanski not only has avoided all of this he is even reported to have taunted the Los Angeles district attorney saying that they gave up. Asshole!

During his court case there was alleged misconduct and Polanski had a hearing scheduled. He refused to proceed and decided to plead guilty. He wasn’t innocent then and he isn’t innocent now. The evidence clearly points to the fact that the crime was committed. The misconduct is an alleged series of ex parte communications between the judge and attorneys or some such nonsense. But, this does not exonerate him of the rape. He raped and molested a child. End of story.

Judicial misconduct is a big deal. We should not gloss over it either, but we cannot allow the amoral liberals of Hollywood and the film industry to use this to eclipse the seriousness of what Polanski did. Polanski admitted guilt. He is a self confessed rapist and child molester. He is a coward and a reprobate of the worst kind. Why should he get a second chance when so many others won’t? He shouldn’t! Why give sympathy for Polanski when no other child molester would be given the same? He shouldn’t.

Hollywood is complicit in his crimes. They are complicit because they have continued to work with him and even honor him with awards. They may defend themselves by falling back on the “art” but that is an excuse. They are making excuses for a horrible criminal.

Polanski is not a victim of some hideous legal machine that wants to strip away his humanity and keeps hounding him relentlessly. He committed a crime; he confessed and then fled the country to avoid the prison time he so richly deserved.

It’s hard to glean motivation of people you don’t know through media coverage. But, I imagine that Ms. Geimer’s principal motivation on wanting charges against Polanski dropped is so that she can once and for all put this matter behind her. I would imagine that every time it is brought up she relives the trauma and humiliation of the assault against her. It isn’t enough that she was traumatized by the rape itself, but she was continually retramatized by it with the ensuing trial and the media circus that followed it.

Who can blame her for wanting this to all go away? She has stated that it has caused difficulty for her family and her husband. Unfortunately, wherever Polanski goes so does Samantha Gailey, the lovely and innocent 13 year old girl who was sexually assaulted. Technically her role in this is over and the media ought to leave her alone. The facts of the testimony are well known and documented. Polanski admitted to the rape (notice how we keep coming back to his confession) now it is really about Polanski the fugitive from justice.

It should not be an international issue. The French Government should be ashamed of itself for allowing Polanski the privilege of escaping justice. But, given the overall lack of morality among the French regarding sexuality they will keep howling like injured children. They want to paint America as a global boogeyman. It’s always about “scary America.”  It may be permissible to drug and sodomize underage children in France, but it is not permissible in the United States.

If you want to experience something really scary try being accused of a crime in France. In the United States the accused has his Miranda rights and the right to have an attorney present during questioning. In France you may the right to an attorney, but you don’t have the right to have them present when the Gendarmes question you. The United States, despite our many flaws, is one of the few places on this globe where an accused criminal gets the assurance of a fair trial. The accused even has the presumption of innocence. The burden of proof of guilt lies on the state. This basic assumption of innocence isn’t a guarantee in the democratic socialist backwater of France. If you want an argument against so-called democratic socialism France has a lot to recommend.

Polanski is not a victim. Polanski may have endured many ordeals, but regardless of his own personal pain he is not excused from his crime.  Samantha Geimer is the victim. However, there are countless other unknown, anonymous victims whose cases we may never hear about that are victimized not only by their perpetrators but by the very system that is supposed to protect them and help them seek justice and healing. If we let Polanski off we tell the world that it is okay to drug and rape people – not just children, but anyone we desire, especially if we are rich and powerful. Geimer may have a responsibility to stand in the gap for everyone else who has been denied justice. It certainly not what she wants, but despite the trauma she needs to show other traumatized people they are not alone and help them find the courage to raise their voice and demand that justice be served.

 Polanski is a disease. He is virus that threatens all that is decent. I find that my outrage over Polanski is bringing out all sorts of neo-fascist outrage and neo-con vitriol. But, anytime the French government is involved in anything that is bound to happen. I had an economics professor once announce during a lecture that the French killed all the smart people during their revolution. Sometimes I think that is true.

Yesterday I made a snarky observation that the last time the French were relevant Cornwall handed Napoleon his ass at Waterloo. It has come to my attention through a Francophile that Cornwall is a town in England and The Duke of Wellington was the person who handed Napoleon his ass and made him wear it like a hat. My bad! However, there are few things I care less about then the French and that includes getting events in their history correct. They are irrelevant. 

Date: 2009-09-28 13:27 Subject: Polanski: Europe's Lack of Moral Compass Security: Public Mood: angry

The Mutant Gnostic Cabal discusses the nature of justice frequently. We ask what “justice” is and does our legal system always serve to this end? Our opinion is no. The case of Roman Polanski may prove to be a scenario that forces us to look more deeply at the issue of justice and our nation’s legal system. On one hand we have justice for the victim and on the other the needs of our legal system.

The previous post was filled with outrage and as I reread it this afternoon I find that I need to clarify something. The victim of Roman Polanski’s violation was not a child prostitute. It was a young model by the name of Samantha Geimer. But, whether the child victim was a model or a prostitute or just a child playing in her yard it matters not. This is a grave crime. We are talking rape and molestation.

Ms. Geimer has stated that she wants the charges against Polanski dropped. They have caused her, her husband and family a great deal of pain. This seems a simple request. The victim, now an adult, certainly is in a position to request this and we might do well to consider her needs. She was the victim and continuing to revisit it, especially as it is now ramping up to be an international incident, truly does harm to Ms. Geimer who literally becomes retraumitized each time she is forced to relieve the incident.  There is no need for this. Ms. Geimer’s role in this is over. Polanski pleaded guilty. There is no need to revisit the assault. Polanski simply needs to serve his term and possibly additional years for his flight from the United States.

The issue is much bigger than Ms. Geimer. It is even much bigger than Roman Polanski. This incident speaks to the violation of all children who are raped and molested, often repeatedly, and are powerless to prevent themselves from being harmed. The issue speaks of an unrepentant criminal who refuses to take responsibility for his actions. This is often the case with rapists and pedophiles. It speaks of a man who fled his lawful punishment under a legal system in, which he pled guilty, and took flight to a country that was tolerant of his criminal act.

Justice might well mean dropping the charges so Ms. Geimer can live the rest of her life in peace and come out from underneath the shadow of this crime against her. But, what does it say to all the other victims of rape? Does it say that a convicted sex offender can leave this country and escape justice? If the charges against Polanski are dropped what are we really saying?

It was disturbing to read comments on The Daily Beast where some readers almost seemed to make light of this truly moral outrage.

One responder said:

WOWWWW! Osama Bin Ladin's still on the loose, but we nailed that Roman Polanski! Way to go U.S. authorities! I feel sooooooo much safer now that I think I'll start sleeping with all my doors unlocked! What could possibly go wrong now that we got that arch-criminal, international poon-tang terrorist Polanski? This must mean Osama gets his around....2033?

Some seem as incredulous as Polanski that he should still be held accountable for his crimes.

Rdschenkel

It's terrible that we are still pursuing this man after all these years. He is a greatdo film maker. Why do we care about his pedophilia and rape that happened so long ago?

seemoreglass

"Why do we care about his pedophilia and rape that happened so long ago?"
Because Christian extremists see things "other people" do only in white and black...and they never forgive.

Comparing Polanski to Bin Ladin is ludicrous. These are different cases. Blaming Christian extremists is also ludicrous as it is completely puerile. Rape is rape! This is not about religious intolerance or being “uptight regarding sex” as many in liberal Europe want to believe this is. It is about drugging a 13 year old girl and having sex with her. It is about a convicted self-confessed rapist who has evaded justice.

That respondents such as the two above don’t seem to understand why we would continue to persecute such a great film maker and then saying it is because Christians can’t forgive is a testament to their lack of intelligence and moral grounding. So does referring to Polanski as an international poon-tang terrorist. The young woman is not poon tang. She is a human being who was violated by someone with power over her life.

Polanski may be the great filmmaker. But, this does not give him the right to rape anyone. It also does not give him the right to evade serving time for a crime. It makes me angry that some are even referring to Polanski as a man who has faces so many ordeals in his life as if that somehow excuses his criminal act.

There is sex and there is rape. Sex occurs between consenting adults. Rape occurs when one of the parties is underage or is forced to perform without consent. In Polanski’s case both of these are true. The liberals of Europe like to opine about the lack of morality in the United States, but I submit that more often than not it is Europe itself that lacks a properly calibrated moral compass.