..then maybe you need a different job.

A Muslim bus driver in London ignored the needs of his passengers and bus connections in order to kneel in the aisle and pray towards Mecca.

Ms Griffiths, 33, an NHS administrator of Camden, said: “I was in a hurry to get home to pick my little girl up from school. We had just let off people at a bus stop and moved off again when the driver stopped the bus very suddenly.

“He got out of his cab, leaving the engine running, and walked towards the middle exit door. He laid out a fluorescent jacket on the floor and I thought that somebody must have been sick and he was covering it up. But then he took off his shoes and began praying.

“I was gobsmacked. He hadn’t addressed the passengers or given any kind of explanation. I didn’t say anything and nor did anyone else. As the engine was running anyone could also have got in the cab and driven off with a bus full of passengers.

“He was also blocking the exit, so if something had happened we would not have been able to get off. When he had finished, he just got back up and set off again — all without any explanation or apology.”

She added: “We live in a multicultural society but there is a time and a place for prayer and the middle of a journey with a busload of passengers is not it.”

Griffin took her complaint to Transport for London and a spokesman said the company discussed it with the driver involved. Prayer rooms and other areas have been set aside for this business so there’s no reason to stop a bus and do it. Would Allah strike the guy down for praying on a coffee break later? Somehow I doubt it.

Comments on the article range from rage to “What’s the problem?” Ahmed makes a good point in his, though:

I worked as a bus driver in London for 3 years and I can tell you that both Muslims and non-Muslims often hold up the service for all kinds of reasons. I drove routemasters and have had conductors who have nipped off the bus for 5-10 mins to place bets, get Kentucky Fried Chicken, and on one occasion have a lady conductor get off the bus, tell me she needed the loo and reappear about half-an-hour later by which time the passengers had had enough and had all got off the bus.

He offers a few more examples of shoddy service that had no religious overtones, just self-centered idiots who cared more about themselves than their work.

Like this guy. I used to ride a route here where a guy would stop in front of his house and wait for his wife to bring him lunch and coffee. Others have wandered into convenience stores to stock up on lotto scratchers or take a crap and left the bus sitting for nearly 10 minutes.

There’s also this worth asking – how much good does it do to stay quiet when things happen and then scream about them later? Why didn’t anyone on the bus take it up with the driver right there? Too worried about coming across as culturally insensitive? Would rather get a name in the paper than a punch to the face? Or killed? From the Telegraph:

The NHS administrator added: “It even went through my mind that this might be some sort of terrorist attack with the bus blown up because I had heard that suicide bombers prayed before attacks.”

Way to instill fear in all future passengers, Telegraph. The driver was new to the job, so let’s stick with the hopeful assumption that he was unaware of the allowances made by his company for people of his faith and for some reason didn’t feel he could delay his prayers for a couple hours, even though his faith allows for some leeway when necessary.

Personally, I think he should have waited and done his prayers on a pee break or something. When people depend on transit, transit service needs to be dependable. It wasn’t right for him to stop the bus to do his business. It’s not right for any driver to do it.

By Smaktakula

Recently, France has escalated its ongoing assault on religious displays and symbols, most recently manifested in the official denunciation of the burqa worn by some muslim women.  The French government is winning the war of forced secularization, outward signs of religion–the crucifix, turbans, the burqa and more–are quickly becoming anathema in French culture.

Recently the French government has decided not to award citizenship to a Moroccan man whose wife wears a burqa.  Regarding the decision, Immigration Minister Eric Besson offered this explanation:

 This individual imposes the full veil upon his wife, does not allow her the freedom to go and come as she pleases and bans her from going out with her face unveiled, and rejects the principles of secularism and equality between man and woman.

This is only the latest outbreak in this contentious issue.  Several months ago French President Nicolas Sarkozy floated the issue of banning the burqa from all areas of public French society.  France has a long and shameful history of religious discrimination and inequality, but this latest push for secularism has manifested itself into an assault on religious expression.

Why does it matter to the United States that France has its collective tête jammed at least ten centimetres up its own Citroën with regard to religious freedom?  It is certainly important as a cautionary example.  Despite the long-held mantra that “It Can’t Happen Here,” recent anti-religious trends should give Americans pause.

Unlike France, which is an explicitly secular nation, the United States is not.  The First Amendment precludes the government from establishing a religion or favoring one religion over another.  This is not a rejection of religion or religiosity.  In fact, by preventing the government from interfering with the free worship of its citizens, the Bill of Rights affirms the importance of religion in many people’s lives.  The United States may no longer be a specifically judeo-christian nation, but it is a religious one. 

There is the temptation to regard this religiosity as a flaw or weakness in our national character, an adherence to superstition over science that paralyzes our intellectual development.  While not without some merit, this characterization is simplistic and, I believe, largely mistaken.  Our national religiosity is one of the primary reasons why the US doesn’t suffer the religious ghettoization and integration woes currently plaguing Western Europe.  It is our long-standing and varied religious traditions–and the necessary tolerance which accompanies those variegated beliefs–that allow our citizenry to proudly display their religious affiliation, be it a cross, yarmulke, veil or platter of spaghetti.

This tolerance doesn’t manifest itself in such a way that a spaghetti adherent must believe what a Jewish person believes, nor does it mandate that members of differing religious groups even like one another.  Our creed demands only mutual respect, in that ideally, Americans of all faiths recognize the right of peoples of different faith to practice and express their respective religions, no matter how ridiculous or bizarre.  This delicate balance puts American culture somewhere between the European extremes: France, striving to gut religious expression entirely; and the United Kingdom, which has resurrected its long-dead policy of appeasement in dealing with its growing Muslim population.

It is always naïve at best and foolish at worst to say that anything “Can’t Happen Here.”  Nonetheless, our democratic traditions of religious liberty are long-standing and deeply ingrained.  Can it happen here?  Sure.  Will it?  I don’t believe so.

I was discussing this issue not long ago with a friend, who said to me, “Don’t you think the burqa represents repression against women, and only encourages a subordinate role?  I’m all for liberté but not at liberté of treating someone in a sub-human fashion.”

The beauty of living in a country where every man, woman and child is free to express his or her religious beliefs, is that it doesn’t matter at all what I think.

It started with a Craigslist ad and ended with a website designed solely to rank church experience. What makes it interesting is that it was set up by Jim Henderson, a former pastor, and marketed toward unbelievers.

“When people go to church they go out to lunch afterward and they dish about the sermon, the music, whether the pastor was boring that day,” Henderson said. “We’re just a vehicle to let people do in public what they already do in private.”

Barry Crane, lead pastor at North Sound Church, says he’s using the service because Christianity has a brand problem.

“It’s terrible to say, especially coming from me, but a lot of people these days don’t trust Christians. This isn’t to turn us into some supermarket of religious goods and services. It’s to open ourselves up, to see if we can regain some lost trust.”

So far only 40 churches in Washington have been rated on the Web site, not enough for it to reach a critical mass. Henderson says 30 more have expressed interest in his paid ratings services, which can range from $250 (for two visits by raters plus a written report) on up to $2,950 (for a weekend-long focus group between “outsiders” and church members, moderated by him).

I wrote about this last year, too. A fellow in Denver was doing something similar as a consultant. I don’t see anything wrong with this method. Maybe it’s not polite to complain but if nobody complains, then nothing changes and sometimes things really do need to change. It’s probably a hard thing to admit in a place still using a two thousand year old storybook like it was uttered by an invisible magic man in the sky just yesterday, but still.

Is a church’s worth determined by the number of butts in pews, or something else? If a congregation is being treated more like a cash cow than an audience, isn’t that going to affect their experience and expectations? If it barely interests the regulars, how is someone brand new at the service going to feel about it? If the regulars are insular, how will they treat an outsider? I think it’s a good thing that churches are willing to risk a bad review to find this stuff out.

This cartoon never went anywhere.

Why?

Because after I finished it and was ready to submit it, I got this feeling that I’ve seen his “birthmark” idea before…somewhere…

Kind of a “cartoon-déjà vu” moment…

A few years went by and I was thumbing through an old “Far Side” book — and there it was…

…I had ripped off Gary Larson…unintentionally, but still…I’m not messing with Larson!

So, I pulled “Goliath’s Birthmark” from submission.

Situationist Contributor John T. Jost and his co-authors Lindsay E. Rankin and Cheryl J. Wakslak recently published a fascinating article, titled “System Justification and the Meaning of Life: Are the Existential Benefits of Ideology Distributed Unequally Across Racial Groups?” 22, Social Justice Research 312 (2009).  Here’s the abstract.

* * *

In this research, we investigated the relations among system justification, religiosity, and subjective well-being in a sample of nationally representative low-income respondents in the United States. We hypothesized that ideological endorsement of the status quo would be associated with certain existential and other psychological benefits, but these would not necessarily be evenly distributed across racial groups. Results revealed that religiosity was positively associated with subjective well-being in general, but the relationship between system justification and well-being varied considerably as a function of racial group membership. For low-income European Americans, stronger endorsement of system justification as an ideology was associated with increased positive affect, decreased negative affect, and a wide range of existential benefits, including life satisfaction and a subjective sense of security, meaning, and mastery. These findings are consistent with the notion that system justification satisfies psychological needs for personal control and serves a palliative function for its adherents. However, many of these effects were considerably weakened or even reversed for African American respondents. Thus, the psychological benefits associated with religiosity existed for both racial groups, whereas the benefits of system justification were distributed unequally across racial groups.

* * *

To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “John Jost Speaks about His Own Research,” “The Situation of Ideology – Part I,” “The Situation of Ideology – Part II,” “Ideology is Back!,” “A System-Justification Primer,” “Barbara Ehrenreich on the Sources of and Problems with Dispositionism,” “The Motivated Situation of Inequality and Discrimination,” “John Jost on System Justification Theory,” “John Jost’s “System Justification and the Law” – Video,”

To review other Situationist posts about system justification or ideology, click here or here respectively.

Who started the “turn-around-and-greet-your-neighbor” thing?

If I had to guess,  it started at some huge “Mega-Church” where you really had no idea who was behind you or in front of you.

To me, it’s just a good way of spreading the flu — or worse.

[ Ekta Note & Fair Warning: This blog contains some words I don’t normally use, hence the “fair warning”. If you choose to read on, it’s not my fault if you get offended. ]

Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff, really disappointed me last week when he caved to Sarah Palin and apologized for using the word “retarded” – not for using the word “fucking” (which would’ve gotten me bitch-slapped by my parents) – but for properly using the word “retarded” in a sentence, as in “That idea is fucking retarded!”

Mr. Emanuel has put me in the awkward position of defending him; as an American and a speaker of the English language, Rahm Emanuel had and has every right to say the word “retarded” – as often as he likes – anytime and anywhere he chooses.

This brings me to our first word – now referred to by anal-retentive-politically-correct-talking-heads as “The ‘R’ Word”…

1. Retarded – the word means to delay, to hinder, or to slow the advance of. This is the exact meaning of the word in Mr. Emanuel’s recorded exclamation. Some very liberal, progressive elements of the Democrat Party were acting in a way so as to “retard” the progress of the White House’s 2009 agenda.

Unfortunately, “retarded” can also refer to children who are born with less than normal mental faculties – children that are “slow”, “held back”, “special” or…

Retarded.

2. Nigger – oh, sorry, “The ‘N’ Word”. This word is so bad, I can’t even find it in any dictionary I own – yet, somehow, my Microsoft Word Spell-Check recognizes “nigger” as a legitimate word. Racists at Microsoft?

I remember this word popping up quite often in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – it would, wouldn’t it – it was the 19th Century – but I also hear the “N-Word” on a few CD’s I own (Alicia Keys, Morcheeba, to name a few) and on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (Krazee-Eyez Killa) where Larry David becomes a “nigga”.

This word is so forbidden that real words that sound like it can’t be said – such as “niggard” (a miser, one that is stingy) or “niggardly” (small, few or scanty) – there have even been cases where “Niger” (a river in West Africa) has been mispronounced much to the chagrin of the mispronouncer.

3. Midget – very small of its kind; miniature, see dwarf. Another perfectly good word outlawed because of hurt feelings. We must say “little people” now, as in, Little People, Big World. But, what are “little people”? Miniatures, very small of its kind; see midget.

4. Handicapped – to cause to be at a disadvantage. In 2010, the proper term is “disabled” or “physically challenged”. The only time one can properly use the word “handicap” is when one is referring to the game of golf – as in, “What is Tiger Woods’ handicap?”

In my dictionary, “the handicapped” are defined as “those who are physically disabled or mentally retarded.” How insensitive!

5. Oriental – a member of the Orient or a member of the people native to that region; SE Asia, south of the Himalayas, Philippines, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and other associated continental islands. Jackie Chan is not “Oriental”, he’s “Asian”.

Now, Charlie Chan, he was Oriental – because Mr. Chan knew that Asians have the characteristics of Asians, not Orientals. Confused? If you’re confused, say “Aye”. All right, check the “ayes”.

 6. Fag, Fagot, Faggot – which can mean everything from a cigarette to a hemstitch with wide spaces, has been outlawed by one of the word’s minor American slang meanings. It amazes me how one small vocal group of people can suddenly claim possession of a perfectly good word. (“Can I bum a fag, mate?” – see what I mean.)

7. Crazy – unsound of mind, mentally unbalanced or deranged, experiencing extreme excitability or rage. Why did Andrea Yates drown all of her children in the bath tub? Why did Casey Anthony kill her baby daughter? Why did Charlie Sheen hold a knife to his third wife’s throat? Why did Charlie Sheen get married a THIRD time? Why do the Duggers have 19 kids? That’s right – The “C” Word.

No, not that “C” Word – crazy – is what I meant.

Misunderstandings happen when we don’t say what we mean.

Wasn’t Jesus Christ a pacifist? I’m amused by this story I found in the New York Times that pretty much contradicts whatever people claim Jesus talked about.

Down Tennessee way is something called Xtreme Ministries and they’re using martial arts as a way to demonstrate love for the Lord. The school/church motto is Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.

Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low.

Sounds fun. I guess I’m too girly to see the thrill of making a sport out of kicking heads until they bleed.

Recruitment efforts at the churches, which are predominantly white, involve fight night television viewing parties and lecture series that use ultimate fighting to explain how Christ fought for what he believed in. Other ministers go further, hosting or participating in live events.

Going by all that was chosen to preserve, I think it’d be more true to say Christ fought with rhetoric, something which seems like a lost skill these days. He fought with words and deeds, not violence.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

Maybe if they didn’t paint the man like a long haired hippie all the time and let the world know he had a penis they wouldn’t have this problem now.

The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.

“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”

Sure, and blame single moms for that while you’re at it. Oh wait, they do:

“You have a lot of troubled young men who grew up without fathers, and they’re wandering and they’re hopeless and they’re lousy dads themselves and they’re just lost,” said Paul Robie, 54, a pastor at South Mountain Community Church in Draper, Utah.

Learning how to kick the crap out of someone makes them better parents? Somehow I doubt that one. Tennessee, Utah, Seattle – this mixed martial arts religious movement is all over the place, apparently.

Paul Burress, 35, a chaplain and fight coach at Victory Baptist Church in Rochester, said mixed martial arts had given his students a chance to work on body, soul and spirit. “Win or lose, we represent Jesus,” he said. “And we win most of the time.”

And of course winning is everything. Winning hearts and minds through violence. Can a nice message really be found under all that blood?

Although they wouldn’t call themselves traffickers – they’d call themselves Good Christians.

“God wanted us to come here to help children, we are convinced of that,” Laura Silsby, one of 10 Americans accused of trafficking Haitian children, said Monday through the bars of a jail cell here. “Our hearts were in the right place.”

But brains obviously weren’t. They were detained at the Dominican border with 33 kids in their possession – some of which were not, in fact, orphans.

Although Ms. Silsby said the group did not intend to offer the children for adoption, the Web site said they would “strive” to “provide opportunities for adoption through partnership with New Life Adoption Foundation,” which subsidizes adoptions “for loving Christian parents who would otherwise not be able to afford to adopt.”

The status of New Life Adoption Foundation was not immediately clear. The group is not registered as an adoption agency in Idaho and does not appear to be registered as a federal nonprofit. The group also did not appear on a list of accredited international adoption agencies on the Web site of the State Department.

So basically they think having the right god on their side is all they need and they can do whatever the hell they want, wherever they happen to be. I’m glad they got caught and I hope sitting in a Haitian prison for a while will finally teach them that having god isn’t good enough to get around the laws of another country, no matter how good the intentions.

The once-prosperous megachurch has had to cut fifty jobs and wants to sell the property they worked on, the Rancho Capistrano retreat. From the L.A. Times:

Charles said the church’s revenue sank 27% from roughly $30 million in 2008 to $22 million in 2009. Anticipating a drop in 2010 revenue, he added, “If it maintains, that would be fine, but we don’t have a crystal ball, so we are cutting.”

Sorry, I can’t help but ask where their god is now. I just love the crystal ball reference, like they’d be willing to resort to magic and new age frippery to ascertain their chances of survival. Funny that he didn’t say they’d be praying for help instead. More proof that a church is just another business, I guess.

The church, founded by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller more than 50 years ago, lost members in the wake of a family feud after he retired. His son, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, succeeded his father, but stepped down in 2008 after disagreements. His sister, [Sheila Schuller Coleman] is now the church’s leader.

Charles said the church surveyed its members last fall to see if the dispute had caused a drop in contributions. “We found out it had no effect. It is the economy. We have a lot of older, retired people,” he said.

Retired people who are perhaps more worried about their own future survivability to care about funding a glass castle of materialism? Money woes means cuts to the entertainment budget, too. The Glory of Easter pageant has been canceled for this year and the new leader appears to be heartbroken:

Coleman said she had tears in her eyes when she heard the board’s decision to temporarily suspend “The Glory of Easter,” the pageant that depicts the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ with flying angels, special effects and a live animal parade.

I wonder how much tickets were costing to attend that and I wonder how much money was required to make it fly in the first place.

Charles said suspending “The Glory of Easter” has been an “emotional issue” for staff and hundreds of volunteers who help put the show together.

“But it is a very costly production and advance sales were down,” he said. “It was a business decision that was extremely tough to make.”

Also according the O.C. Register, they’re having trouble unloading the property – the retreat office building and all the land it sits on.

The sale of the office building fell through, and selling the 150 acres in Rancho Capistrano is contingent on what happens to the retreat, he said.

“The city of San Juan Capistrano has imposed a lot of limitations on us regarding what we can do with that land,” Charles said. “That and the real estate market have posed a serious challenge in terms of selling the property. But we want to sell it. We’re not going to give it away.”

Philanthropist John Crean gave it to them in the first place, and more.

Dr. Robert H. Schuller officiated [his funeral] along with the Rev. Robert Richards, Crean’s Lutheran pastor for many years.

“The church you’re sitting in, the Crystal Cathedral, would not be here without John Crean,” Schuller said, recalling a $1 million donation that helped get the world-famous house of worship built.

I guess that’s the trouble with relying on generous people to get ahead. Maybe they got greedy. Maybe they got too big. Maybe they made some bad money decisions, bad management decisions. Why did that house of worship have to be world famous anyway? Anyone can pray to god in a field, so why fund the building of something like this in the first place?

I hope the people who are now out of work find replacement employment soon. It’s probably a terrible time to be looking for work. I hope for the best.

Or any other group, for that matter.

I don’t have the chops to do this story justice, I’ll admit (go see Paliban Daily’s take on it), but I thought it was interesting enough to write about anyway.

Lancaster residents were urged by Mayor R. Rex Parris in a state of the city speech to support a city ballot measure that would authorize daily prayers at city council meetings.

In his speech, Parris said “we are growing a Christian community, and don’t let anybody shy away from that,” according to the Antelope Valley Press.

Ideally, prayer shouldn’t be a part of any government business. God should not be in government. It’s divisive and unnecessary.

In a later interview with the Daily News, Parris expressed surprise that some religious leaders object to prayers to Jesus at city meetings, and blamed opposition on activists who “want a fight,” the newspaper reported. “They want their 15 minutes of fame.”

And if they can’t have fame, can they at least feel some equality?

Kamal Al-Khatob, head of the Islamic Institute of the Antelope Valley, told the Daily News that the mayor’s belief that Lancaster is a Christian community alienates Muslims. “This is not what America is all about. America is for everybody.”

He’s as big an idealist as me, I think. I also think he’s right to remind people of that. America might have been founded by theists and religious pilgrims but “We the People” shouldn’t be read as, “We the Christian people” and mayors who encourage communities to play favourites based on what god they love best should get a slap down.

One week ago, Lancaster city council member Sherry Marquez wrote on her Facebook page that the beheading murder of an Islamic woman by her husband in New York shows that vicious murders are what Muslims embrace.

“This is what the Muslim religion is all about — the beheadings, honor killings are just the beginning of what is about to come to the USA,” she reportedly wrote on the Web Jan. 23. “We are told this is a small minority of Muslim’s (sic) in America, but it is truly what they are all about.”

You know what else they’re about? They’re about 400 years or so behind Christianity. Christians did their share of beheadings too, and it wasn’t just kings. It really isn’t fair to judge the whole pile of them based on what a few do. Would local Muslims feel comfortable running for council seats knowing Jesus is the only god allowed in the room? Is this going to make them proud to be a part of that community? Or is the mayor ultimately hoping that they’ll pack up like unwanted gypsies and bugger off to someone else’s property?

I wonder if this is happening in other places. American Christians love to claim they’re facing persecution in their schools and workplaces just because they can’t wear a necklace but then stories like this pop up. How is this not worse?

—
edit Feb. 2 to add Paliban Daily link. It really is a good post.

My Freethinker club started a book discussion group and we had the first meet yesterday. The book we’re reading is called Reason & Religious Belief: an introduction to the philosophy of religion. Our book group leader, a philosophy professor at the university, suggested it as a good place to start. We had to read the chapters on religious experience and the relationship between faith and reason.

Religious experiences first:

In order for an experience to fit the criteria, the person has to come out of the experience feeling like some supreme being had a hand in it. One of the fellows in our group had been in seminary school as a younger man and gave us an example out of his own life. He and a good friend had spent a nice evening out walking and talking about the any and the all, as good friends do. They paused to watch a spectacular show of northern lights and that’s when he thought he saw a sign – tendrils of light forming themselves into the shape of a man kneeling before a giant fish. His friend claimed to have witnessed the same, but friends and family who were later told about this amazing event were skeptical.

Apparently a lot of people claim they’ve seen signs and they’re never verifiable. Now that he’s an atheist, he wonders if it was a hallucination. The two of them had been talking about where to go in the future and the man kneeling by the fish could easily have been a “message” for him to head for missionary work like Job was trying to avoid and couldn’t. That was certainly the way he wanted to rationalize and justify his vision at the time, when he wasn’t questioning it.

In the book, the writers give an example from Augustine’s Confessions. It seems he was at a crossroads in his life, questioning purpose or something, when he heard some kid singing or hollering the words to a game. Whether it was the actual phrase of the game or not, he thought he heard the kid say, “Take it and read, take it and read.” This he took as a sign to open his bible and read the first passage he saw.

It was important enough to this great Christian philosopher that he just had to write down what happened. Did anyone ever question him? Did no one tell him he must have imagined it? Apparently not, if people still quote the guy’s so-called religious experience.

How is Augustine’s experience any different from, say, people who think they hear messages in white noise, or a mishmash of garbled syllables that become a mantra about not getting dinner or some damn thing? He heard a completely random thing and attributed meaning to it that would fit what he thought he needed at the time.

Like that hasn’t happened to just about everyone at some point. The difference is, most of us attribute those experiences to chance or coincidence rather than assuming it was a message meant only for us from some greater being being subtle instead of obvious.

The relationship between faith and reason:

The prof talked about the Platonic approach to thinking of perfect forms from which all lesser forms are a flawed copy. Christianity in particular borrows a lot from Plato’s divisive world view – perfect heaven and an imperfect earth. The perfect god and imperfect humans made in His image and left to strive for what is impossible to achieve.

He also mentioned Hegel and the revamped dialectic – a method of arguing to prove a point of view, or at least persuade people to agree with it. It starts with a thesis, the opposing argument is the antithesis, and the end result should be a synthesis where both points of view have reached an agreement. The more this is done, the closer we get to the Truth, I suppose, whatever it is. Closer to that perfect, virtuous level of knowledge. I’ll borrow from Wikipedia for an example here.

In the Logic, for instance, Hegel describes a dialectic of existence: first, existence must be posited as pure Being (Sein); but pure Being, upon examination, is found to be indistinguishable from Nothing (Nichts). When it is realized that what is coming into being is, at the same time, also returning to nothing (in life, for example, one’s living is also a dying), both Being and Nothing are united as Becoming.[21]

Sounds like pure hokum to me, but I suspect philosophers live for that kind of esoteric Idea behind the idea stuff. That’s high falutin’ rootin’ tootin’ thinkin’ when they’re thinkin’ like that.

They think that reasoning things out can get you closer to the ideal. Faith, on the other hand, often seems to require no reasoning at all. Take the leap of faith. No proof is required in order to believe what you do and often no proof seems to be wanted.

A mathematician named W.K. Clifford was mentioned in the book. He was of the opinion that belief needs to be questioned, needs to be challenged. It’s not good enough to just believe something is true without proof, without good reason. Since religions so rarely offer evidence that proves beyond a doubt, religions should be taken to task for that and discarded – or at least be willing to discard what isn’t provably true. Since that would probably be everything.. well, so be it. Fideism, on the other hand, rejects that very idea. It rejects the need to use reason or rationalize beliefs at all. They take God as a given, basically, and work from there.

Kierkegaard was a fideist. He’s mentioned in the book as heaping scorn on people who seek evidence in the face of faith. Since rationalizing is only an approximation, there is always more evidence that must be measured. He sees this is as a colossal waste of time, apparently. He’s quoted as saying, “every moment is wasted in which he does not have God.” There’s a concern that proof would negate the need for faith. Personally, I don’t see that as a bad thing, but Kierkegaard thinks that this quest of objectivity stands in the way of truly knowing God. You don’t have to Know; you have to Believe. Faith is a commitment to a risk and a lot of people like it that way.

Of course then the question becomes, which faith is worth the risk? As an atheist, it’s a non-argument. They’re all equally invalid and pointless and offer me nothing I desire. For someone who feels they need a faith in order to be whole, it can be a big deal. But the catch-22 of fideism means that a person can’t really weigh and measure which faith is best because that means having to question each faith and make critical, positive/negative decisions about each one. A fideist is solidly against measuring faith in any way, shape or form.

If they do have to measure, they measure with their beliefs as the given – the thing that doesn’t need proving. The book gives an example from Martin Luther who’d heard of the earth revolving around the sun even though the bible clearly states the opposite. Martin Luther had no trouble believing the bible had it right by using Joshua 10:12-14 as his proof – the fight where God held the sun in the sky for a whole day. The sun had to be circling the earth in order for that to work…

There are people today who argue for biblical truth that way. You show them a contradiction between the Word and reality and they’ll try and show you the truth of the Word anyway. Their faith in the Word cannot be shaken no matter how much evidence to the contrary you have in front of you. It’s evidence of commitment to the risk and they revel in the solidity of their faith every time.

It’s amazing, really. It’s amazing how people can trick their minds into believing all kinds of bizarre things. And about mind tricks: after this meeting we decided we ought to see if we can hire a hypnotist to come to a meet up and show us how that works so we can talk about how much of church ritual resembles hypnosis.

Next time around we’ll be reading from the chapters on evidentialism, religious language and whether or not science and religion are compatible.

So I guess beards will be in fashion now? It’s out of World Net Daily – a new film in theaters that is supposed to change the minds of suicidal teens and make them more hopeful people. It’s called To Save a Life:

Jim Britts’ “To Save a Life” debuted at No. 15 on the box office charts, topping $1.5 million in ticket sales on opening weekend (which already puts it on pace ahead of another church-produced film, “Facing the Giants”) in 441 theaters nationwide.

The film’s story is about an all-star athlete and his girlfriend, who find their lives spinning out of control when Jake loses a childhood friend to suicide. Breaking out of the patterns of peer pressure and popularity to reach other hurting students, however, proves a life-changing challenge.

“Some people are just dying to be heard,” states the film’s tag line. “The movie asks, ‘How far would you go? How much would you risk? How hard would you fight … to save a life?’”

Teenagers themselves are raving about the film…

Anything willing to deal seriously with the serious issue that is teen suicide is generally fine by me. It’s nothing I went through, and I had no close friends that experienced this either (that I know of). If it has to peddle a religion in the process, well.. it’s better to be a pain-in-the-ass god botherer than dead. At least there’s the possibility of growing out of it. Dead is just dead.

New Song’s website for teens to share their reactions and stories attests to lives being changed:

“I am a cutter, and I could really relate to Jonny in this movie and how he felt,” writes Marisa. “I even thought about taking my life a few times, but now I’ve learned that there’s so much more to life than what I thought it was. God gave me a reason to be on this earth, and I am now seeing what I’m here for.”

Marisa and others who wrote in apparently needed a dose of hope and an increased feeling of purpose. I don’t know that a two hour movie would ever be enough to actually change a life but if it’s helped her express her reason to be around and encourages her to be a role model for other troubled teens, then good for her. And good for them, as well.

From Variety:

elements of Jake’s spiritual dilemma ring true, and in less compromising hands, an examination of the wedge that religious conversion drives into existing relationships could have yielded great insight. But the film’s invocations of faith’s knottier issues are defanged by its easy answers (teenage pregnancy? Just let the youth pastor handle it) and many supplemental dramas that swell the running time to a bloated two hours.

The missionary impulse is an essential element of Christian faith, so to fault a Christian film for proselytizing is ultimately a meaningless criticism. Nonetheless, “To Save a Life’s” agenda is proclaimed so loudly that it tramples all over the film’s quieter elements, and often seems designed less to steer viewers toward salvation than toward a very specific (and at times borderline cultish) type of suburban youth ministry

While I can’t offer much advice on the suicide aspects, I think it is worthwhile pointing out that church-run youth groups aren’t the only options for kids who want to make new friends or make a difference in their communities. Check with your schools, check at a library. There are all kinds of groups out there. Hobbies, books, music, sports, volunteering — whatever. There are kids that come to a mall here in town every Sunday just to play Magic-the Gathering, or whatever card-based RPG is in style these days. At least a dozen of them set up at a game supply store and play. Just get involved with something positive and fun. Find the fun. And if you can’t find one, start one.

Just because it’s hilarious. Apparently she admitted to having a crush on Christ via Twitter recently.

“I’m looking at a picture of Jesus on the wall. I would have totally dated Jesus. Love that beard. Too bad he’s dead,” she posted on her Twitter account.

When some followers on the micro-blogging website took offence to the suggestion that Jesus was not alive, she added: “Ok, ok my friends. I know Jesus is not dead. I’m saying that the fact his body has ‘risen from the dead’ makes him un-datable.”

Dating Jesus obviously stayed on her mind for some time, as she later tweeted: “Did they do circumcisions in Jesus days?

Yes, Jenny, they did. Obviously your love of the dude is superficial – and more than a little creepy.

First, I have to say I’m glad groups are looking to place these poor kids with loving families in the United States and Canada. What bothers me is the insistence on thinking this so-called God did a good thing by allowing the earthquake to decimate everything just so lonely desperate Canadians can finally have a child.

Haiti allowed the fast-tracking of the adoptions, which meant some parents who had only been processing their applications for two months are now eligible to get children.

“This is a blessing from God,” Bickel said. “The earthquake was a terrible disaster, but something good has come out of this.”

A process that normally takes two years got a break in Haiti on account of everything falling over, including the government agencies that hold up the paperwork. Rather than wait an additional two years to get things sorted out again, they just got on with it. Fine and dandy.

Bickel normally places 70 to 80 children a year in Canada and the United States. Last Thursday, she transported 81 kids to the U.S., flew back on Monday, and Wednesday will deliver the 20 to parents waiting at the Ottawa airport who have come from British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

And more are on their way. I’m glad the kids are getting a second chance. I think the cold and snow will be somewhat alarming for the first bit but they’ll get used to it. No doubt the parents-to-be have gone prepared with coats and good boots to keep them safe and warm.

I think the blogger at My Sister’s Farmhouse feels the same way I do about this. She quotes from a Kansas paper about a pastor who got four children from Haiti:

In the past, Tim and Alecia O’Byrne had thought other disasters would prove a vessel to carry their children home. None had done so yet. But Tim, thinking about the Book of James, said of the earthquake, “There are no accidents.”

What a way to look at it. Hey, thanks God for laying waste to an entire country (even if it wasn’t your “fault” but a “message” you couldn’t just write down somewhere), just so I could get what I want. Ain’t God swell?

At least the article out of Billings Montana about a family glad to add to their family has no religious pepper in their sweet story.

Adoption is nothing new for the Marble family, which includes eight other children, ranging from 4 to 17 years old. Five of them — a quartet of Ukrainian siblings and a young boy from Russia — are adopted. John Marble, who runs the volleyball program at Dawson Community College in Glendive, said the family has made a point to adopt harder-to-place kids who are past infant and toddler ages.

“It’s great to see their smiles,” he said of the Haitian girls. “This is some stability for them now.”

The girls were immediately surrounded by their new brothers and sisters. Florencia was quick to warm up to them and flashed a wide, easy grin while listening attentively to the other kids as they helped put on her new coat before pulling her outside for her first taste of the Montana winter.

I hope they all find happiness in a new land and soon feel at home.

I found out about this via @ebertchicago yesterday. She’s on a Lay’s potato chip this time, apparently.

I fail to see the similarity, but Jane Symington is going to put it on eBay anyway.

Well, why not, I guess. Although she could have made some jewelry out of it first. I seem to recall seeing a Muppet Magazine article as a kid showing how to make a necklace using a green edged chip, the ones they say you aren’t supposed to eat on account of them being poisonous. ireallylikefood.com has a pic of a chip necklace, but I think it’s plastic. Ah well.

Shrunken potato chip bags were all the rage when I was in grade school. It was like Shrinky Dinks or something but I never got to try it. Turns out others have wondered and Wiki How provides instructions! Whee! Now I have a reason to buy a bag and maybe find my own bizarrely decorated chip for eBay, too!

—-
edit Jan 30/10 – @ebertchicago links to eBay, where the $10 chip is still waiting for first bidder. His next tweet was, “Virgin Mary Potato Chip owner spills handful of Trail Mix, which forms as a Nativity Scene. On eBay (unassembled).”

heh.

At least 117 Siberians are in the hospital on account of tainted well water. It’s a pity Forbes doesn’t have a better article about this but:

A spokesman for local investigators told The Associated Press on Monday that 117 people, including 48 children, are in the hospital complaining of acute intestinal pain after drinking water from wells around a local church last week.

Vladimir Salovarov says a total of 204 people required some medical treatment. Salovarov said is too early to say what caused the illness.

Why were they drinking unclean water? Because the 19th of January is celebrated as Epiphany and they believe any water drank that day will be holy water. Know what else they do on the 19th over there? They go swimming in their holy-for-one-day water. Even if it’s -60C. From RiaNovosti:

On this day, while honoring an old Russian tradition, believers dive into ice holes, usually made in the form of a cross, in lakes, rivers and other water bodies.

Some 30,000 believers dipped themselves in ice holes in 37 fonts in Moscow where waters were blessed by Orthodox priests during the night, with 260 rescuers monitoring the safety of swimming as air temperature was below minus 20 degrees Celsius.

A Moscow district official and some other 50 people bathed in an Epiphany font in the center of the Russian capital.

“I feel as if I was reborn. This is the first Epiphany bathing in my life and I am sure it won’t be the last,” Leonid Sidorov, deputy head of Moscow’s Central Administrative District, told journalists.

The feast’s peculiar feature is the rite of the Great Blessing of Water, performed in Russian churches twice – on January 18, on the eve of the feast, and on Epiphany proper, after Divine Liturgy.

Holy water is then given to believers, who store it for long periods and use it to cure illnesses and bless themselves or things and premises around them. Some people think any water – even from the taps on the kitchen sink – poured or bottled on Epiphany becomes holy.

Have I said lately how much I love being an atheist? I don’t have to buy into any ridiculous crap like this. I hope everyone recovers from their holy water bugs and lives to tell the tale of how God chose them to be .. well, patsies to tradition, I guess. Next time just boil the hell of it first, okay?

It’s official – researchers have studied the remains believed to be burnt up bits of Joan of Arc and discovered one human rib and a mummified cat bone. But don’t take my word for it, read MSNBC:

The bottle containing the bones first surfaced at a pharmacy in 1867. Its label read: “Remains found under the pyre of Joan of Arc, maiden of Orleans.”

Different techniques, including DNA analysis, several forms of microscopy, chemical analysis and carbon dating, were used to examine the bottle’s contents.

A few years ago, Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist at Raymond Poincare Hospital in Garches, France, and his team first determined that the bottle contained an approximately 4-inch-long human rib covered with a black coating. It also housed part of a cat femur covered with the same coating, three fragments of “charcoal” and “a brownish textile scrap” about the same length as the rib.

What’s really interesting is the fact that Joan died in 1431 but the bones themselves are far older than that by..oh, at least four thousand years. So how did that happen?

The researchers believe the remains were first stored as “mummia,” which were parts of Egyptian mummies used in medieval pharmaceuticals. Medieval medicine, for example, may call for a compress made of a mummy bit and the juice of an herb (Bursa pastoris) to stop nosebleeds.

So either someone mixed up the labels and Joan’s bones were prescribed to cure someone’s epistaxis, or it was a handy bottle to relabel as a hoax and nobody bothered to take credit.

Roadside America lists Maria Stein, Ohio as one of its quirky stops, simply on account of their collection of supposed saint fragments. I wonder if anyone outside the Shrine of Holy Relics has been allowed to inspect the stuff out of scientific interest. They also claim to have one of the crucifixion nails and I wonder how many more of those things are sitting in special boxes being prayed on around the world.

Replica nails have been sold, too, but not for the purpose of tricking friends into thinking you’ve got the real thing. Nope:

These solid steel 8″ nails are replicas of actual Roman-legion nails recovered in Europe and dating back to the time of Christ. These nails are extremely moving to hold it in your hand. Few things quite communicate the truth of Christ’s love and sacrifice.. so powerfully. Each comes with a poem card that reads:” This nail is a replica of the roman nails used during the period of Jesus’ crucifixion. Hold in when you pray – lay it beside your bible when you read – daily reminder. It is not magical nor mystical its just a nail. But because of it’s size it is a testimony to the size of His Love for You.

And it doesn’t look at all phallic, resting there…

I saw it at World Net Daily but This is Local London has a full story that presents facts with less bias. Nadia Eweida made headlines back in 2006 for refusing to remove or hide her cross necklace while working as a baggage clerk at British Airways. She was home without pay for a good long while and is now appealing a tribunal decision. Her argument seems to be of the “it’s not fair!!WHAA!” variety where they point to hijabs and items from other faiths to demonstrate what must so obviously be discrimination. From Local London’s article:

Human rights organisation Liberty have supported Miss Eweida and will represent her at the hearing, being held at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Twickenham MP Vince Cable and senior MPs David Davis and John Reid are expected to turn up and offer their support.

Corinna Ferguson, legal officer for Liberty, said: “This woman’s cross was as important to her as a turban or hijab to other people in our country.

Okay, but here’s the thing. Turbans and hijabs are built into the rules of those faiths. They must be worn. WND brings up Sikh bracelets which do sound like jewelry until you read about why the band, called a kara, must be worn:

The kara is a steel or iron bangle worn on the wrist and is one of five kakar, the articles of faith required to be worn by the Amritdhari Sikh, a Sikh who has been initiated into the order of Khalsa.

* The kara is a bracelet made of pure steel or iron.
* The kara is to be worn on the body by the Amritdhari at all times.

Crosses are optional. Crosses have always been optional. Seeing people wearing crosses might be as common as finding no toilet paper in public restrooms but it is by no means a rule or law that they must. (It just feels that way when you scramble for something..anything…not even a tissue? Crap…)

WND quotes Ingrid Simler, the airline’s legal counselor:

“Ms. Eweida reflects her religious belief in a way similar to the way people wear symbols for … gay rights – that it reflects their core beliefs but it has nothing to do with religion.”

It’s religiously inspired, but not religiously required. From a Telegraph blog byGeorge Pitcher, an Anglican priest (breaks and bolding added):

Since other news today tells us that a full 96.6 per cent of Britain’s 3.6 million regular churchgoers “look forward” to a sermon, I have a very quick, three-point sermon to make:

1) BA’s uniform policy was bloody silly in the first place and it subsequently revised it so that cross necklaces could be worn. Ms Eweida served a very useful purpose in making that happen.

2) Of course we should be allowed to wear crosses around our necks. But we should distinguish between cultural requirement and the vanity of jewellery. Schools have got into trouble supposedly for banning crucifixes, when in reality they have simply said that jewellery isn’t allowed.

3) Can anyone tell me that BA didn’t have bigger priorities at Heathrow Terminal 5 in 2006 than what a member of staff was wearing on her necklace? “Hmm. Let me think. Our customer service is rubbish and we’re losing hundreds of millions of pounds a year. I know, let’s send Nadia home for wearing a cross.”

Oh, and actually there’s a fourth point: Ms Eweida is seeking £120,000 in damages and lost wages. So actually today’s day in court is about money. She should naturally have her wages, but if she’s after damages she’s rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. And, as it happens, I don’t think you wear a cross to make a fast buck.

Money and media attention – that’s all a modern martyr seems to need.

Call me one of those psychotic/sociopathic types, but I get tired of the religious punting that goes on. If its not some well meaning Muslim folk, its one of the Charismatic Christians inviting me to come and see, or some Hindu relative convinced that I’ll see the error of my ways and come back to the fold. The very fold I knew nothing of when I was a Hindu and no one bothered teaching me either.

Now maybe this is sacrilegious but I am getting tired of all the religious advice, because the one thing that I have noticed is that religious people, you know the people that fill up their spiritual void with dogmatic practice and doctrine. My father did this so therefore it must be right. Or it says so in print and therefore it must mean those people are going to hell. Now when I hear those things I think why would anyone want to worship a petty, mean, angry, selfish, god like this? And the preachers are getting younger and their voices are getting sterner.

People come to me and tell me, God has a plan for you. As if the current state is some miraculous, heavenly pause button. Isnt this part of the plan? You can’t suspend God for the bad things and credit only the good. If God’s plan is true you have to believe that even the bad things that happen is part of His plan. And hearing that from some self righteous cocksucker doesnt make the medicine go down any easier. It feels like broken glass to be honest with the chips becoming sharper and sharper by the day. The last thing you want to hear when you’re in a tight spot, is that God knew about it and this, is all part of his plan.

Off course I’m just saying. Who knows what God is up to. I don’t. And from the sounds of things some of the so called learned folk have no fucking clue. headless chickens bumping into each other we now look for solace in Islamic Hip Hop. That is the title given to Islamic Music by a still smelling like mother’s milk Moulana. I giggles. But it was all fire and brimstone with that cat. He didn’t pick on the moffies. That is always a firm favourite and I wonder, what is the obssession with gay people. Surely what they do is between consenting adults and God? I mean you can take the believer to the water but you can’t drown them. Easily. That is the obvious target these days. The folk different from us. All of a sudden as we all return to God’s holiday house in our suburbs, the stompers and bashers go a little mad and leave you thinking, the world is your enemy, be careful where you sleep.

All the riotous screaming and shouting and wild accusations and finger wagging, has just turned me off. Because I don’t think that Muslims are the world’s most secret victims. I don’t think every Jew is out to get “us”. I don’t think we need to slaughter and say we’re doing it for God. I know I am speaking in extremes, but that is what its become. The Yahudi and Nasaarah, sworn enemies according to some. And I am just a little tired of trying to figure out where I fit in. Because whatever I am doing, I am doing it wrong. One person says Music is haraam, someone says its halaal.

I dont know anymore.

I dont give a fuck anymore.

Because God is quiet through all of this. Because while we’re being honest, the plethora of Muftis and Maulanas are about as clueless as a rock. Their answer to everything it seems is to go back to the old ways, which to me reads like going back to old fashioned, cruel times where we try to ignore the fact we don’t and have not lived like that before. Virtuous some would say, but its head in the sand tactics. We face different challenges, our minds are different and we have questions now that require intelligence instead of heavy handedness. In the course of our history, Muslims stand at an important point, we must look forward if we truly believe that our way of life is universal way of life. Leaning forward with one foot in the past, picking on the usual suspects smacks of self righteous indignation and a sign that we are dying as a nation. We’re living forward dying to go back. Back to what? A time of ignorance? A point when we can deny the progress human civilisation has made? So that we can get drunk on the achievements of the Arabs? I’m not Arab. Does anyone understand what I am saying?

For me personally, its been a challenge. And it is becoming more challenging all the time. I don’t know where I stand. Its all very confusing and I dont know where to turn to get answers.

So please would the preachers please STFU.

Hamish

A quotable Facebook comment (not one of mine) in regards to Haiti and Why does God Allow Natural Disasters?

“Allow”? Funny, as there was a time when theists were certain that their god actually *caused* these so-called “Acts of God”. In more modern times, it seems, this god character passively waits for natural disasters to happen, arriving only afterward to perform a “miracle” by not completely killing a random victim or two. Public relations is all in the timing, apparently.

Now quoting from the BBC article:

Why wouldn’t he have freed the Haitians from slavery himself, or prevented them from being enslaved in the first place? And why, in particular, would he punish today’s Haitians for something their forbears putatively did more than two centuries before?

So what should believers say? To make progress, we might distinguish two kinds of evil:

* the awful things people do, such as murder, and
* the awful things that just happen, such as earthquakes

Sorry, earthquakes aren’t evil. It’s sad and terrible to hear about quakes and aftershocks (can’t imagine how I’d react while experiencing one) but they’re not evil. The earth has no ability to feel an emotion, nor does it have ambition. The earth has no hatred for human beings, nor does it have the capacity to love itself over us. It just does what it does, with no regard for where we are and what we want or expect.

St Augustine, author CS Lewis and others have argued God allows our bad actions since preventing them would undermine our free will, the value of which outweighs its ill effects.

But there’s a counter-argument. Thoroughly good people aren’t robots, so why couldn’t God have created only people like them, people who quite freely live good lives?

However that debate turns out, it’s quite unclear how free will is supposed to explain the other kind of evil – the death and suffering of the victims of natural disasters.

I would think the answer is obvious. All people have to do it stop trying to attribute purpose to those events. Free will has nothing to do with natural events. Why do they happen? Because someone chose to sodomize someone? Because someone else chose to pray to a voodoo doll? Because someone chose to sacrifice a kitten? Hardly.

I have a much better suggestion: move out of the areas where quakes, floods, hurricanes and tidal waves are likely. Then nobody would be at the epicenter or in the path of such destruction. Quit wondering why they kill people. Just get the hell out of their fucking way!

And if you can’t? Maybe figure out better ways to build so stuff won’t fall apart when the earth shakes and waves roll over. Work on better methods for predictions and advanced warning so people aren’t caught unawares. Figure out how to change what needs changing. If that’s still beyond ability and skill, then learn to deal with loss constructively. Assigning blame, creating guilt, and making excuses is not the way to improve matters. That doesn’t help anyone, except those who seek to take advantage of the people who DO think that way.

Here’s an entertaining quote about American religiosity from a book by Hans-Dieter Gelfert entitled Typisch amerikanisch: Wie die Amerikaner wurden, was sie sind (17):

Europeans must see American religiosity as naïve, if not primitive. Here, the educated are helped primarily by enlightened theologians who reinterpret Christian doctrine for everyday use, but at the same time for philosophically abstract ethics. At the same time there are pastors who believe that they can get by without mentioning God’s name. It’s quite different in America, where the Bible is still the Word of God.

Those stupid Americans.

Ahh, well bless my soul what is wrong with me?

My hands are shaky and my knees are weak.

I can’t seem to stand on my own two feet

Who do you thank when you have such luck?

I’m all shook up

uh-huh, mm-mm, yeah, yeah ~ Elvis Presley [edited], 1957 

It is unbelievable I know, but some people actually think they know why the Haitian Earthquake happened. 

For example, Dr. Pat Robertson, Pentecostal/Charismatic leader and End-Time Guru (can I use “guru” to describe a Pentecostal?) stated that the sole source of Haiti’s trouble was that the country had made a deal (a literal deal) with Satan himself to rid the island of those rude and evil French. This terrible earthquake was God punishing the Haitians and, at the same time, God was shaking the Haitian capital to get the Haitian’s attention – to get them to turn from their evil devil-dealing ways. 

[ Remember Pat Robertson ran for President of the United States of America in 1988 – yikes. ] 

Danny Glover, actor, mostly known for his role in the many Lethal Weapon movies, said that the Earth itself was punishing we evil humans for not coming to an agreement on reducing greenhouse gasses at the Copenhagen Climate Summit  last year. According to Glover the Earth is pissed off and this is an attempt to get our attention. 

[ I guess this is what happens to you when you hang around Mel Gibson too much… ] 

NASA, among other U. S. governmental agencies, said that according to satellite imaging there is a fault line near Port Au Prince that runs diagonally (from north to south) and has been known to “slip” abruptly causing violent earthquakes. 

[ Yeah, right – these are the same clowns that were complicit in “accidentally” erasing a hundred year’s worth of climate data – but – but – it really did shown that the Earth was getting warmer – really! ] 

So, what do I think? 

Outta Haiti

When I first heard about the Haitian earthquake, I had no idea that Music Man Extraordinaire, Dr. Frank Garlock, was actually in Haiti when the quake happened. According to posted accounts Dr. Garlock was thrown against an iron gate while all around him the shaking Earth and collapsing stone and concrete buildings gave new meaning to The Big Beat: A Rock Blast. 

Apparently Dr. Garlock arrived in Haiti around Thursday, January 7 – 

The earthquake happened on Tuesday, January 12. 

Coincidence? 

When I mentioned this to some friends, I expected dirty looks and comments like, “how dare you!” – but instead, one guy piped up, “Maybe his giant ego tipped the island.” 

A common sentiment when Dr. Frank Garlock’s name is mentioned. 

As an example, check out this little note mentioning a delay in Garlock’s return: 

Returning Home Delayed: 

 Dr. Garlock and Missionary Sarah Bennett planned to fly out of Haiti this morning at 7:30 am but the Haitian government blocked their airspace to allow Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arrive in Port Au Prince. As a result, they missed their connecting flight out of Santo Domingo. ~ posted 01-16-2010 

Didn’t Secretary of State Clinton know that Dr. Garlock had to get out of Haiti? Can you believe the nerve of that woman? 

And if you think I’m being cold, “The Fighting Fundamental Forum” is a place where fundamentalists battle it out on the net for all of us to read. The site is a mess – hard to read – hard to follow – a lot like the Bible. Anyway, I would think these “Fundamentalists” would be “Garlock Cheerleaders” with nothing but good things to say about all the music in Garlock-land… 

The following are a few posts… 

Get yourself up to speed on Frank Garlock…There are about 20 people in the USA who share his view (if it makes you tap your foot, it is of satan) — post by “grounded grid” 01-13-2010, 07:12 PM 

Frank Garlock could be suffering right now in darkness, with no water. Who cares what his musical tastes are? — post by “BASSENCO” 01-14-2010, 03:17 AM 

I sat through a week of his music seminar as a freshman in 73. I could care less of his veiw of music…I’m praying he’s alive. — post by “pmart2″ 01-14-2010, 08:51 AM 

No matter his views on music…This is the time to pray for him, and not make fun of him. — post by “SouthernLouisanaGal” 01-14-2010, 09:02 AM 

I disagree with this guy on so many levels but we will share eternity together — post by “just john” 01-14-2010, 12:07 PM 

Pity about the thousands of dead blacks, but at least someone can still tell the rest to burn all their drums. — post by “Ransom” 01-14-2010, 05:00 PM 

[ I found that last post especially chilling – and typical. ] 

What’s the common theme? 

Most everyone wishes Dr. Garlock well… 

Most everyone disagrees with what he has to say.

Rationality is scientific, rationalization is mythical.

Rationality uses as tools, calculation (induction) and logic (deduction) based on facts and/or human experience, and is based on the principle that science (or human reasoning) cannot define the Real (reality as a whole) but only can define concepts. For rationality, there’s a part of reality which is not possible to rationalize.

In the case of quantum mechanics, rationality uses the formal logical mathematics (deduction) based upon empirical data collected by means of physical measuring devices.

On the other hand, rationalization is based on the principle that the Real (reality) is forcibly and totally subject to a definition by the human Reason. It consists in a construction of a logical coherence based upon incomplete or erroneous data, or based upon a reductive discursive principle.

Rationality exists not only in the theoretical building ― i.e., in the structure of a specific scientific theory ― as well as it exists through and by means of a dialogue with human experience and with the external world, which is concrete and objective. As soon as facts and human experience denies, jeopardizes, or even put in doubt a given theory, rationality revises its previous standards based on evidence or auto-evidence.

On the contrary, rationalization imposes itself to the facts and makes them void by means of a excessive exercise of logic in relation to the sphere of the empiric, and by refusal of reality as it presents itself to us in all its complexity. Rationalization is a characteristic of the “illuminist philosophizing” by which the symbols acquire themselves an autonomous life and independent from human experience. Through rationalization [which led to the political religions] the reality is accommodated to a specific ideological vision of it.

Science depends upon human rationality which is the axiom (the principle) of science; before and beyond the axiom, there is nothing else and everything depends on it. Therefore, science cannot test rationality in a retrospective way, by putting its own principle in doubt or/and in a jeopardize position.

Human religiosity cannot be a subject of science unless science questions its own axiom (rationality) and therefore denies itself as science by adopting rationalization which moulds reality at someone’s subjective will.