Pastors Behaving Badly

So, the pastors in Shelby County, Tennessee staged a huge demonstration to protest extending benefits to same sex partners of county employees. Some Memphians are ashamed of Memphis. For what? The pastors' display of ignorance? What intrigued me about the video is how impassioned the pastors are about this issue. I noticed the ways both sides presented their points. The pastors could only be preaching to the choir, because they had no persuasive rational arguments. The pastors' pronouncements are irrelevant to anyone who doesn't accept their narrow and dubious interpretation of the Bible. The pastors' opponents didn't have much to contribute either except defensiveness and labeling the pastors' protest as "hate" - which the pastors, being full of God's loving kindness, mercy and grace, didn't care for. I don't like it when another person tells me how I feel. The pastors, clearly don't see themselves as hateful, but as doing the will of God.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/videos/detail/pastors-speak-out/

I tried to think of ways to improve the level of discourse on this subject. The pastors should know that their Bible arguments are meaningless unless the other party shares their religious beliefs. The supporters of the new policy could try to shout louder, but unless the sides can first negotiate a common reality, they will have no basis for understanding each other.

So, I thought about it.

I couldn't think of any secular reason to oppose gay marriage and gay rights. So I googled, "are there any reasons to be be against gay marriage that aren't religious". Sure enough, there were some lists. Not a good reason among them. These people came off as more homophobic than the religious crowd. I need to learn that if a person or pastor has a good reason for an argument, he will tell me right off the bat. (This isn't the first time I've taken the responsibility of trying to justify irrational arguments.) If there is a good objective reason, it must be in the category of unknown unknowns, because no one seems to know what it is. Just to be fair, someone in the crowd tried to bring up the question of whether the county could afford this change. No one wanted to talk about that. Certainly the pastors didn't care. They opposed the policy change on "moral" grounds - not economic.

So why is this matter so important to some religious people? No one is making them change anything. They can continue to believe what they have always believed. They can continue to preach against homosexuality in their churches. What are they afraid of? Because that is what it is - fear.

Ms. X who was never concerned that her children saw her lie, steal, cheat and pursue other un-Christian goals, would become consumed with self-righteous rage over the issue of homosexuality. She would cry, sob, wail - I'm trying to describe how extremely emotional she would get over something that did not affect her life one iota. What she most feared, what she was most upset about was, "What if my children see?"...The answer is obvious. "Nothing" happens - even if she maintains her belief, as she has every right to do, that homosexuality is sinful. All she has to say is that not all people have the same beliefs as they do.

If I ask myself, "What would Jesus do?" I'd say that he wouldn't be worrying about the sins of others, he'd be telling those Pharasees to get the beams out of their own eyes, and focus on the spiritual needs of their flocks - and themselves. I can't think of a single time Jesus, or Paul for that matter, tried to change the behavior of a non-believer. If anyone has an example, I'd like to know about it. I can't think of one. The Jews had laws, but they didn't expect non-Jews to abide by them. Jesus pretty much surrendered to secular law and authority when he was executed, not for breaking any law, but for being a threat to religious tradition.This is the sort of thing that happens when religious authority controls secular authority. Crucifixion.

I know what those fundamentalists believe: homosexual or not, every person who isn't saved is going to hell. I have a hard time imagining why it would even matter what a non-believer did if it did not affect them or harm them. Controlling what children see in public is a slippery slope that will lead straight to "What if my children see those gargantuan phallic crosses erected so they can be seen from the highway?" They are scary. Or what if my children ask why the church on the corner has all those little crosses planted in its lawn? I might have to explain abortion to my three year old. Claiming that children will be damaged is silly. And it is un-Christian to worry about a person's behavior before that individual's heart is changed.

But for the people to have such impassioned feelings, they must feel they are losing something or will be hurt to accept this change. What could it be? The only thing I can tell is that they are afraid of losing their scapegoat. By focusing on the sins of others, they can feel superior. They can avoid looking into their own hearts. They will lose part of their identity if the way they live their lives becomes as legitimate as the sinners they feel morally superior to.

Homosexual rights do have parallels with civil rights and racial equality. There has never been a rational reason to deprive any individual of the full benefits of the larger society for no reason other than skin color. Yet this was codified in our laws for many years, changing slowly over time. Racial bigotry persists for the same reason these pastors resist gay rights. Some individuals have a need for a scapegoat and somebody they can compare themselves favorably to. These people experience equality with those they are scapegoating as a put down. I'll bet most of us have encountered people who have difficulty relating to others from any position other than a superior one. This type person will take umbrage when asked to accept certain others as equals or expected give the same consideration to others' ideas as he/she expects others to give to their own beliefs. Identity issues are serious business to human beings. We don't easily give up our ego attachments. But reason, over time, wins, it seems to me. Even the old segregationists like George Wallace, Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd gave up their obsolete ideas eventually. Now, people who hold overtly racist beliefs are marginalized. I remember when these beliefs were the norm. People change - individually and collectively.

The issue of civil union versus marriage is notable for being largely one of nomenclature rather than substance. The word "marriage" carries a cultural meaning that isn't easily changed. Most Americans feel strongly about government intrusion into their private lives. I've noticed that a lot of people who have no problem with homosexuals or civil unions resist defining gay unions as "marriage". The word itself has power. I think, too, the meme that marriage is a sacred union between man and woman has deeply roots in our cultural identity.

There can be no rational discussion with an irrational argument. Unfortunately, this has come to mean that often, the supporters of gay rights are put on the defensive. I noticed in the video the word "hate" was tossed around a to describe the pastors protestations. The pastors did not like this label. It's wrong to presume to know how others feel. The emotion I see being expressed by the pastors is fear, not hate.

So, what to do? One thing is to stop arguing and require the pastors to support their case. Ask them questions. If you are informed, it isn't all that hard to point out the problems with their point of view. When someone says to me, "Because the Bible says", I usually say, "The Bible says a lot of things." The Bible is against divorce, too. It isn't hard to find that the Bible says to do and not to do a lot of things that the pastors regularly ignore.

Leviticus 20:13 (King James Version)

¹³If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Bible doesn't say, "Thou shalt not give homosexuals (the Bible doesn't acknowledge homosexuals - just homosexual acts) civil rights." It says to kill them. Bible says! Take it literally! Don't cherry-pick to support your prejudices!Have to believe it ALL!

There is a verse that says to take your disobedient child to the elders and stone him to death. I don't see anyone advocating stoning children. Bring up polygamy. The God of the Old Testament not only had no problem with multiple wives, he expected it. My point is, have the discussion in the context of their own Biblical value system.This is the position the pastors have taken. Meet them on their own terms, This so effective, it could get you shot. You have to be calm and do your homework. It works.

However, I think the word "marriage" goes beyond religious belief. I think it is cultural. The only solution I can imagine, until the culture changes, is to give the sacred instution back to the church (or whatever spiritual authority the individual chooses). The government can get out of the marriage business entirely. There are proponents of this idea. It doesn't seem to be catching on. The whole rights issue needs to be framed in different way. Why should the law grant advantages to people who "marry" and deny these advantages to citizens who are't in man/woman union? If, instead of a ceremony, couples had to fill out a form for civil union and choose to be married to sanctify the union they might end up taking the relationship more seriously than they now do. In this sense, gay couples have been getting married for years. Lots of churches will sanctify gay unions. What has been denied gay unions is legal status.

We can't coerce those who don't share our private beliefs to behave according to our beliefs. This is a boundary violation and not what Jesus would do. I've learned something here today. I no longer believe that the issue of gay rights is primarily a religious issue. I think its a cultural identity crisis that some religious figures are exploiting.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Too Much Info

deleted due to the fact that it was thirty-two pages long

Republican Mind Games, Racists, Fundamentalists, and the Nature of Propaganda

This entry is about PROPAGANDA. It can be said that any persuasive speech is propaganda. We usually associate the word with bias and even deceit. All political campaigns are propaganda campaigns.

To be clear about my own biases, I don’t like the Republican Party. I’ve never voted for a Republican candidate. From what I understand, my ancestors have long been Tennessee Republicans, even before The War. Bunch of contrarians if you ask me. They probably got pissed at Andrew Jackson and never veered off to the Democrats like the rest of the south. Anyway, if I don’t like the Democrat I’ll abstain before I vote for a Republican.

I have my personal values which are more in line with the typical Democratic Party agenda than with the Republican’s, but I am frequently disappointed with Democrats. The nature of politics is hard for me to stomach. I’ve heard politics compared with making sausage - nasty and disgusting business.

So if all politics is sausage, why are my negative feelings for Republicans so much stronger than for Democrats? It’s because for all my adult life Republican sausage hasn’t been made from by-products and entrails. Republican sausage has been made of almost 100% bull feces for at least 30 years.

I see the Republican Party as a particular kind of evil dressed up to appear to be righteousness. I see them as opposite of what they purport themselves to be. I’ve written about this before on this blog. The Republican Party is the party of self-righteous hypocrites, racists and race-baiters. They break one of my cardinal values routinely without compunction: they violate boundaries of individuals, groups and other countries. They ignore the Golden Rule of Reciprocity. They are judgmental, deceitful know-it-alls. I don’t want to be associated with values that are so far removed from my own.

My opinions developed over the years. My opinions are based on my interpretation of the ordinary news available to everyone. My interpretation as an ordinary citizen. I’ll also say that I was very busy during the 1980’s with my personal life, so pardon me if I’m a little lean with information during these years. I mentioned in a previous entry that the neoconservatives were rooted in Trotskyism - Marxist “Menshaviks” rather than “Boleshiviks”. I learned this from Pat Buchanan, a self described paleoconservative. I asked several smart people I know if they knew this fact. They didn’t. Hmmmm..... This is interesting. I have to wonder what other information is hiding in plain sight.

The Republicans are supposed to be the party of rich, well-educated east coast elitists. The Democrats are the party of populism - ordinary people. In the left/right political paradigm, the Second Estate (regular people) should be the Democrats on the left, and the Third Estate (nobility) should be the Republicans on the right. This is America: we don’t have a meaningful nobility. The differences in upper and lower classes are fluid. Indeed one of the defining strengths of our culture is that we believe that no matter how low we start, the potential exists that we will succeed to a higher status. Like “Joe the Plumber”. Ha-ha! Status increases and decreases between generations and even within single lifetimes. The Haves v. The Have Nots. This division makes sense: those who struggle to keep what they have from those who want a bigger piece of the total pie - not because they want to steal from the Haves (redistribute wealth), but because they want their fair share from those Haves who would keep it for themselves if they could get away with it.

Mostly it went this way in the USA, the Haves v. Have Nots. Whether out of conscience or self-interest, sometimes the Haves sided with the Have-Nots ( Noblesse oblige ), rarely vise versa. The Have Nots can’t afford to side with the Haves. Then something strange happened. It happened as a response to the civil rights movement. The white Have-Nots, against their own best interests, crossed over to the side of the Haves. While the usual political divisions are economic, this anomaly made race the major divider.

Of course, there are black Republicans. Not many. The 2008 Republican convention was a sea of white faces. Overt racism isn’t accepted in 2008, so the GOP can’t be direct about it. (The self-righteous deniability that allows them to reap the benefits of racism without having to pay the political price.) I wonder sometimes if every black Republican has a high profile appointment (a la Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas) or a mouthpiece job speaking for the GOP on TV. If Obama wins, I will be happily proven wrong. I though our first black or female president would be a non-threatening Republican.

In the south especially, Have-Not white people have become Republicans. They have been voting against their own interest for many years now. They have no health care, a ridiculously low minimum wage and working wages and little job security because of so-called “right-to-work” laws. The working and middle class bear an unfair and disproportionate tax burden. The little wealth the ordinary people do control is stolen from them by unfair business practices that allow greedy Haves access through predatory lending practices and deregulation which amounts to putting their money into a vault with no locks. The Republicans have deceived the fundamentalists and racists to get their votes without actually caring about their interests. How’d they do this?

Tangent #1

I’m not an expert, but expertise isn’t needed. Fundamentalists and racists (there is considerable overlap) are easy marks because they don’t think. That’s right. Fundamentalists forfeit their God-given rational thinking for a feeling of reassurance that they are safe and worthwhile-SUPERIOR even! Better than those with other beliefs. Better than the dreaded “Secular Humanists”. Like the cargo cultists, fundamentalists believe that they are the elect and that their beliefs are THE Truth!

I’m not sure why fundamentalists don’t think. Other people don’t think, too. I think it has to do with the “M”’s and “W”’s. I think I wrote about this before. Didn’t I? Some people reject fundamentalism, but still stop thinking anyway. I’m pretty sure that the more first person bias an individual has (narcissism) the less likely that person is to consider novel data and the less open that person will be to The Truth, “the true truth at all times.” Ha-ha! At the core narcissistic individuals and groups are AFRAID. Afraid of losing control of their familiar world. I think, that for some people, giving up ideas they have been taught are sacred triggers guilt feelings. Others have just never been taught how to question and think critically and rationally. Like most human phenomena, critical thinking (or lack thereof) is probably a combination of “nature” and “nurture”.

A lot of smart educated people don’t habitually think critically. Critical thinking is even rarer among the uneducated and unintelligent. I stopped writing the other day (Critical Thinking entry) after I read that 65% of adolescents and adults never develop the capacity for formal reasoning. When I thought about this, I had to admit that my personal experience confirms this distressing datum. Irrational thinking is everywhere. I’ve been listening to cable news as I write this. Maybe 35% is rational? Maybe I’m optimistic.

The questions I asked myself when I read that disturbing stat were, what was meant by “formal reasoning” and did “never develop capacity” mean “unable to develop capacity” or “unwillingness to develop capacity” or “never taught to develop capacity”? I also wondered if there was an adaptive advantage to being unable to reason formally. I did a bit of research that didn’t take me anywhere. I had reached my own limits of reason so I developed a working theory (or belief). Except for primitive people (who have an excuse) and certain low intelligence individuals (who also have an excuse), people are either not being required to develop rational thinking (educated) or are refusing to think for emotional reasons (denial and inability to handle The Truth, “the true truth at all times”).

Sub - Tangent A

I’m writing this with two types of readers (friends and family) in mind, fundamentalist Christians and those people who are vexed by the fundamentalists in their lives (often loved ones). Why do the fundamentalists reject their God-given ability to think rationally (and therefore vote for Republicans against their own best interest - ha-ha!)? How should the rest of us approach our interactions with the fundamentalists in our lives?

I believe that fundamentalists are capable of rational thinking, but are afraid of what they might have to face about both themselves and the world they live in. I also believe that those who eschew rational thinking are easy prey for the wolves in sheep’s clothing who will use them to advance personal and political agendas. I also believe that those who interact with fundamentalists can learn to interact differently and stop being frustrated and wasting time in circular arguments. I have sooo much faith!

Sub -Tangent B

It’s taking me longer than I anticipated to write the possible reasons (fundamentalists in particular) people are vulnerable to propaganda. I won’t be able to get to the meat of the matter in this entry. I discovered a couple of interesting articles about the issue of fundamentalism and thinking. Neither article is hostile to fundamentalists at all. Both are respectful, but both articles contain serious truths that fundamentalists won’t find flattering. I hope this doesn’t keep anyone from considering the merit in the writings.

A description of fundamentalism that is as good as any I know of:

“It is therefore better to say that fundamentalism is a strong defense or opposition by people who feel their identity threatened by the dominant modern culture. Their defense, reaction, or opposition consists of returning to the premodern readings of the Bible. Their reaction is foremost one of restoring the past rather than participating in the progress and change of modern times.” - Quote from the link below


This is a good article about the nature of fundamentalism. Not just fundamental Christianity, but Islam and other religions as well.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3783/is_200104/ai_n8945567

From the next link at zimbo.com:

“...critical questions are silenced and critical thinking is minimized (Rose 1991, 463) at least in relation to matters of religious faith.8 Ammerman (1988) concludes that "[E]ven in the high school, there is no attempt to move toward creative, critical, or integrative thinking....”

“The teaching of critical thinking is probably the most profound difference between fundamentalist education and orthodox education, at least in the conception of orthodox education that Thiessen (1993) offers. Normal critical openness is a legitimate educational ideal, he argues. Critically open people are tolerant of others who hold viewpoints different from their own, listen to people who express differing viewpoints and consider objections to their own viewpoints. Christianity is according to him the advocate of normal critical openness. Therefore, in his view Christian nurture can and should foster normal critical openness (165-168).(emphasis mine-JG ;-)

“...One of our main missions [non-fundamentalist, church-related, liberal arts college.], if not the main mission, is to create critical thinkers. With critical thinking, the truth is open to question. To question sacred positions held by many in our society requires courage-- especially if one's questioning results in novel answers. In short, critical thinking can be painful and cause distress. [a phrase I find personally amusing ha-ha, Big O! - JG] From this perspective, fundamentalists are seeking a world that makes sense, and they cannot bear living with ambiguity. Therefore, they opt for unquestioning certainty. It is those people, those who cannot bear to live a life of ambiguity and would rather believe than investigate, who ultimately become attracted to fundamentalism.”

http://www.zimbio.com/Fundamentalism/articles/45/The+Road+to+Fundamentalism



Narcissistic people are like children. They are easy to manipulate with flattery. They are the easiest people in the world to manipulate. Then there are all kinds of narcissistic groups. Fundamentalists are a narcissistic group therefore easy to manipulate. To follow Jesus’ main teaching, The Golden Rule, an individual must transcend his or her own ego to connect with others through love. Love requires respect for the other and strong ego boundaries. Fundamentalists, being narcissists (at least in regards to their religion) are emotionally immature. They, in a childlike way, maintain their belief in the superiority of their beliefs by means of magical thinking. This prevents them from respecting those who hold different beliefs. Yes, it does. This lack of respect prevents fundamentalists from treating others with the same regard they themselves want from other people. Therefore, fundamentalists (like my relatives in the previous entry) are unable to follow Christ’s main teaching - to love one another and treat others the same way that they themselves want to be treated.

I assert that an individual can’t be a fundamentalist and a TRUE Christian. That’s right. “Fundamentalist Christian” is an oxymoron. I’m prepared to defend that statement with all kinds of data both scriptural and scientific. And circle back to the topic of Propaganda, too.



Next: Fundamentalists are peculiarly sensitive to the manipulative effects of propaganda.

Bless Be the Tie That Binds

I put a lot of effort into understanding the people in my life. I work hard to maintain cooperative relationships. I’ve learned a lot from my observations and experiences with my family and friends. Here, I’m using a situation with a couple of my relatives as an example of a serious and troublesome aspect about the relationship between religion and politics in America. My story illustrates how religion has been corrupted by the politicalization of Christianity and the church. My assertion is that the Republican religious right has promoted un-Christian ideas and values to serve a political agenda and have sacrificed the spiritual lives of the believers to this political agenda.

I have a couple of relatives, a married couple, who are ashamed of themselves and are currently avoiding me. These two have been active participants in their fundamentalist churches all their lives. I've seen the woman become so passionate about the evils of homosexuality she can barely speak. She preaches with loud conviction about how homosexuality is against God's law. How homosexual marriage is wrong and will destroy this Christian nation. And the worst thing, the reason above all others that homosexuality must be stopped, "What if my kids see them?!!!" There's no stopping her when she is possessed with homo-eradication mania. She won't hear any alternative opinion. She won't listen. Those who disagree with her are “deceived by Satan”. The passion of her conviction is profound. While I, of course, respect her right to hold her belief and speak her personal truth, I'm concerned about how this belief and her personal behavior fit within the values framework of Christianity. In other words, her behavior is inconsistent with the Christian values she claims to live by.

Since she isn't gay and gay individuals have no role in her life, there is no reason that homosexuality should be such an personally emotional issue for her. I've never heard her mention that white supremacists or investment bankers are immoral and should be wiped out. There are plenty of other types of sinners, but these others don’t concern her.

There is no consensus among Christians that homosexuality is a sin. There is far more agreement about sinners like cheaters, liars and thieves. She has never mentioned that a homosexual has transgressed her personally, but she complains regularly about others who do all manner of wrong to her. It makes no sense that out of all the possible sins she could campaign against, she picked homosexuality. If she feels strongly that homosexuality is sinful, then she should REFRAIN FROM PARTICIPATING IN HOMOSEXUAL ACTS. She should follow her conscience and act according to her own standard. If her child sees a homosexual couple use it as an opportunity to teach him/her to respect those who have different beliefs. This is the way she would want to be treated by those who have beliefs that are different from her beliefs. The Golden Rule.

My relatives' are prejudices are inflamed in their churches. This disturbs me. My relatives go to church several times a week, but they don't behave as Christ instructed nor do they live by the Biblical values that they claim are sacred to them. My relatives are ungenerous and greedy. They steal when they can get away with it. They are always on the lookout for what they can get, but contemptuously reject opportunities to give to those less fortunate. They overtly covet. They rarely show compassion, or have a kind word for anyone. I had long wondered how it could be that people who were in church so much could have so little Christian virtue show up in their behavior.

Occasionally, I'd chide my relatives when they would say or do un-Christian things. I'd remind them that Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies and be generous to those in need. I reminded her once when she was scheming revenge for some minor perceived wrong done to her that Jesus taught to turn the other cheek. She said, "that's not what he meant"! Needless to say, their little lights are very dim and do nothing to glorify their father , who is in heaven.

In recent years, I had not attended church with them, so I don't know the precise words they have been hearing in church. I have, though, had many occasions to hear them speak and observe their behavior. They weren’t learning anything in church that influenced them to behave according to Jesus' teachings. This doesn't mean that I didn't notice the influence of her church. I did. They clearly felt that church attendance alone was getting them quite a few gold stars by their names. They are proud of their church attendance. Occasionally, they learned in church of certain movies that Jesus didn't want their children to see. Roger Rabbit was an evil, corrupting influence on children they were told from the pulpit. As a family, they habitually watch movies and TV that had equivalent or worse language and sexual content. Except for Roger Rabbit, they never seemed concerned about the TV and movies their kids saw. Did the sacrifice of Roger Rabbit make it possible for the children to watch Real World? I wonder. Also, Jesus really likes Passion of the Christ and wants everyone to see it. And listen to contemporary Christian music on their radios. And attend mega-revivals in big arenas and wave their hands in the air. I noticed, for decades that the church had a great influence on them. And without hyperbole I can say, none of this church influence led them to be more Christ-like. They always seemed genuinely clueless about the un-Christian nature of their own behavior.

It's not just my two relatives. The kind of behavior I’m describing is common and widespread. I frequently hear or see the antics of "Christians" and wonder if they have ever read a word of the New Testament. Being a traditional Baptist, I have always been strongly opposed to the politicalization of Christianity. Usually when the effects of the religious right are discussed, the focus is on the impact of the religious right on the secular political system. My personal opinion is that this impact on secular politics is not positive, but it is part of the process I accept as a legally legitimate (that phrase may seem redundant, but it is what I mean to say) reality. The bigger concern to me is the impact of the politicalization of Christianity on the church itself.

Vocal political Christians like the late Jerry Falwell and his ilk don't talk or act like Christians to me. They talk and act more like the Pharisees that Jesus didn't like. Hypocrites. I'm a Christian. These so-called “Christians” do not represent me. My Christianity is based on the words and teachings of Christ, not the self-righteous bombast of manipulative narcissists. So often after I hear the words and witness the actions of those who most loudly and proudly proclaim themselves to be "Christians", I think, "Do they even teach the New Testament in these churches? Have these people ever read the Bible? How come so many of these "Christians" are so worried about the sins of other people instead of their own sins? Do they teach anything in these churches except the eradication of homosexuality?"

Because Christ taught that we should not judge others, and that we should get the beam out of our own eye before we help others with their splinters, I don't feel righteous enough to easily criticize others. I respect the beliefs of others. If I feel strongly about something, I will often try very hard to influence others by presenting my point of view in a rational, respectful way. But I won't coerce or manipulate anyone to behave the way I choose. Unless they change because it is their own decision, it is meaningless. I didn't speak out strongly to my relatives about their offensive un-Christian behavior until they behaved so egregiously I could no longer keep quiet.

Several months ago, instead of paying an honest man for his professional services, they, with no evidence whatsoever, denied their personal responsibility and accused this person, (who had done them a big favor by discounting his usual fees by half), of being a “crook”. Their false accusation didn't surprise me because they have reputations for greed, selfishness and getting something for nothing. Ingratitude is not Christian. Assuming entitlement to the labor of others without compensating them is not Christian. Although they had initially agreed to pay for the services, they were hoping for a freebee. When the bill came, they didn't want to pay it. It must have "felt" unfair to them to be charged for something that they hoped to get for nothing. Around the time they were trying to cheat this person of his fees, they were saying and doing other selfish things that caused serious harm to other people, including me. After practically a lifetime of observing their un-Christian behavior, but being unwilling to judge them or embarrass them by telling them how I felt about their behavior, I finally told them the truth. Which wasn’t accepted very well, I’m afraid.

So what is going on with people who claim to be Christians, go to church three or four time a week, and only listen to contemporary "Christian" music on the radio? Why do these individuals seem to be so clueless about Christ's teachings? Why do they act like Pharisees instead of humble servants of Christ? Why do they not see that Jesus said almost nothing about homosexuals, but regularly did all out Dennis Miller rants against the self-righteous hypocrites who were more concerned about the minor infractions of others than they were their own serious unrighteousness?

This kind of behavior is very common among political "Christians". They are all about forcing others to behave a certain way, all about imposing their ten ton boulder of Ten Commandments illegally on a all citizens, all about making little school children pray to their God, all about (and this may be the worst corruption and intrusion of religious manipulation into objective fact and reason) teaching creationism under the guise of "intelligent design". My relatives could not deny their behavior. The cheating, stealing, greed, judging and maligning are habits, not isolated sins. These transgressions are performed in the open for all to see. (I shudder to think what seeing this kind of behavior everyday from their parents has done to their kids! ha-ha)

When their preacher was inciting the congregation to oppose homosexuality and telling them how opposing homosexuality was what God wanted from them, and how wonderful and righteous the warriors against homosexuality are, he probably used this scripture:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." (NIV).

They didn't see themselves in this verse. Why did they not see their own wickedness? I've seen the behavior over and over again over a period of many years. I have seen them regularly cheat and swindle. I have seen them steal. They talk about it. I have heard them malign and slander and bear false witness against the innocent. They have been so eager and willing to take, but so unwilling to share their own abundance. No, they just saw gay people in that verse. Isn't that interesting and odd?

Something is deeply wrong with churches. My relatives have gone to many different churches over the years. It is always the same. The same message is preached in all the churches they attend. This message is to scapegoat people who transgress differently from the way they transgress. If the preachers aren't preaching to homosexuals, then why do they emphasize this particular "sin"? He was likely to have many in his congregation who were sinning in all the other ways the verse mentions. Preachers who do this sort of thing are neglecting the real spiritual needs of their congregations. My relatives aren't gay. They are greedy, slandering thieves. This is the message they needed to hear. Shouldn't they leave church humbled and convicted to clean up their own lives instead of fired up to fight homosexuality? Of course. Of course they should have.

How can this travesty happen? I can think of a few reasons. People like my relatives don’t go to church for spiritual lessons that would lead them to be better Christians. They delude themselves into believing that they are good people because they go to church. It's hard to hear the truth when the truth isn't flattering. If the minister preached about the sins they are guilty of, they may leave church feeling guilty and ashamed. If he gives them a scapegoat in the form of a sinful other, they will leave feeling superior and righteous. They will come back to church. Maybe tithe. They have full permission from their religious authorities to avoid looking inward at their own hearts, to blame the other person, and abdicate their own responsibility for their own actions. From the pulpit they hear, " Attack this evil other. God wants you to fight against homosexuals. You will be a righteous person if you fight sin in other people." This is not Jesus' message. Jesus' message is for us to get our own hearts right with God. Jesus' message is to take the beam out of your own eye before you even think about helping another person with their tiny splinter. The “feel good, tell 'em what they want to hear, no personal responsibility” Gospel has replaced Jesus' teachings.


I understand how easy it is to manipulate people through their religious beliefs. These beliefs were often imprinted on us when we were very young. Many, if not all, of the authority figures in our lives perpetuated and reinforced these beliefs. We received approval when we embraced these beliefs. Eternal reward and eternal damnation are dependent on these beliefs.

Often people say they believe the Bible when they in fact believe an interpretation of the Bible they have been taught. The Bible is a complex text that is full of paradoxes, as all spiritual truth is. The preacher in Ecclesiastes validated this when he told us that there was a time for everything. All kinds of opposites are equally true and necessary in the totality, the all. Jesus himself said that the laws only existed because the people's hearts weren't right with God. Jesus said that if a person was acting within God's will he or she would be incapable of sin. They would have no need for rules and law.

Jesus, and the Bible in general, gives minor attention to homosexuality, but considerable attention to the infractions of the type my relatives are guilty of. This is a reasonable question: Why is homosexuality emphasized in these churches instead of the Golden Rule? The simple Golden Rule would have addressed my relatives’ transgressions.

I finally spoke up to my relatives. I told them facts about the behavior I'd witnessed. I told them how their behavior was selfish, hurtful and against the teachings of Jesus. Like the kids would say, "they were so busted". It's hard for me to believe that on some level they didn't know when they were doing wrong, but on another level they seemed genuinely surprised at how I saw them. When they attempted to justify their behavior, they seemed to realize that the lies they told themselves to rationalize their wrong behaviors, were transparent and lame to other people. Their excuses were baseless and irrational.

We tend not to say unpleasant things to people if we can avoid it. I probably don't speak up often enough about the bad behavior of others. I really believe that they didn't fully appreciate their own wrong doing. The lies they were telling themselves to justify their behavior were so lame and so without basis in any fact at all that it was embarrassing for them to speak their defenses out loud. It was like Adam and Eve when they realized that they were naked. God knew they were naked all the time. The ones who didn't know were Adam and Eve themselves. They were ashamed only after they realized that God could see through them.

My relatives have been unable to face me for many weeks now. I don't know if they are avoiding me so that they can continue to deceive themselves without changing, or if they are plotting to kill the bearer of the message they didn’t want to hear. I hope they are examining their hearts. Maybe they have dedicated themselves to the eradication of homosexuality even more deeply. I don't know. I do know that their churches have failed them spiritually by shunning the real teachings of Jesus and replacing them with shallow values, counterfeit politics and convenient scapegoats. If they eliminate Roger Rabbit from their lives and fight homosexuals, they get a pass on their own sins.

I’m trying to illustrate how Christianity and religious belief isn’t a problem. Jesus emphasized the doctrine of reciprocity, “love thy neighbor” and “The Golden Rule”. Jesus emphasized changing our hearts and looking inward. Jesus taught that God and government existed in separate realms. These are the fundamental lessons of Christ that the fundamentalists forfeit in favor of scapegoating and self-righteous hypocrisy.

I read something a while back that suggested that the church was stronger in the U.S. than it was in European countries and other countries where they have official state sanctioned religions. The writer attributed this phenomenon to the fundamental Constitutional value of separation of church and state. It should scare the bejesus out of us when people like Mike Huckabee want to change the constitution to be in line with “God’s law”. Not only would this undermine the inclusiveness of our system - a hard won inclusiveness - that is a fundamental and key aspect of that which is truly good about America, it would also further distract the church from fulfilling its true cultural role, that of serving the spiritual rather than political needs of the people.

Will you all please rise and join me in hymn number 18?


Its a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps they’re better left unsung.
I don’t know, don’t really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.

Ta-boo-hoo

Religion and politics. The two topics that we can’t discuss if we expect to get along with each other. Paradoxically, we can’t truly cooperate unless we do talk about these quasi-taboo subjects.

For my friend who likes “operational definitions”, this is the vocabulary I use when discussing these issues:

Religion-social (political) belief (spiritual) systems consisting of a vocabulary, a set of paradigms, and interpretations that can be shared and communicated among separate individuals. As a social construct, religion is used to coerce people to behave themselves.

Politics-the efforts of individuals to cooperate with other individuals. This can be as small a group of two or as large as everyone on earth (and beyond if it comes to that).

Spiritual-that which is beyond rational understanding. It is always purely subjective. It includes God concepts. Often that which is beyond rational understanding becomes rational as we learn more. Then the concept shifts from the spiritual realm to the political realm. Sometimes a rational discovery leads to more questions instead of answers. These questions can go in the spiritual column until answers are found. Science has taken many concepts out of the spiritual realm into the political realm. It has probably added just as many.

For instance primitive people when exposed to technology they didn’t understand, put this technology into the spiritual column. (cargo cults) Modern humans, when faced with information they don’t understand will 1. try to understand it 2. dismiss it altogether 3. or like the cargo cultists, put it in the spiritual column.

Religion is particularly troublesome because it combines subjective beliefs with politics in ways that are often destructive. Some people like Bill Maher (an individual who expresses a narrow perspective), ridicules religious beliefs, devalues these beliefs, and focuses on the negative about religious beliefs. I take it he thinks that religion should be disposed of altogether because it makes us worse instead of better. Lots of people have suggested this theory for a long time without much widespread success. Religious ideas wouldn’t survive if they didn’t serve some very important need in human beings.

Empirical thinking is a relatively new to us humans. For westerners anyway, it dates from only as far back as 17th century Enlightenment. Sometimes I wonder what thought was like for people before the Age of Reason. I doubt issues like the literal truth of religious beliefs came up very often, because it wouldn’t have made a difference in the way these individuals used their religious paradigms. After Enlightenment things were different. The truth of empirical data began to intrude into the commonly accepted truth of religion. Whereas previously people cooperated (or didn’t cooperate) on the basis of religious paradigms, Enlightenment provided another way. This new way was seen as a threat to the old paradigm. The whole structure of society could crumble under the scrutiny of the ever growing accumulation of empirical data.

I have never believed in taking away a person’s beliefs or ego defenses without having something to offer to take it’s place. Our beliefs are essential to life. We can’t function without beliefs. It’s scary when these beliefs are attacked. It is comforting to find beliefs that give life structure and meaning. Facts, empirical data, are tough. They can be denied and resisted, but they win out when people are bombarded enough. When facts conflict with beliefs that are important to people, they get scared. They have to change their world view to accommodate this new information. This is hard for some people. Eventually, religion found ways to give up the flat earth for a sphere. Religion learned to accommodate some facts, but in a one-to-one battle, the facts against religious myth, religion lost every time.

I wonder if that is why it is so important to some people that their religious beliefs be the same as empirical fact? The risk is that these important religious paradigms have no power against the almighty fact. To keep the myths alive as viable paradigms to modern people, the myths had to be seen as factual as well. People dig their heels in instead of adopting new paradigms and different beliefs. Mainly, I think people literalize myth, not to convince others that they are right, but to convince themselves that their beliefs and world views are worth believing. For many people, secularists and religious alike, there either is no spiritual truth or spiritual truth has taken a backseat to empirical data. Beliefs have become worthless unless they are factual. There is power in having faith in a fact, even an unprovable fact. Faith in spiritual truth is felt to be faith in nothing at all.

I see a tug-of-war between the skeptics like Bill Maher and religious literalists. From my perspective these groups are more alike than different. They are versions of the same thing. Skeptics often have very flawed reasoning because they are prejudiced against so many ideas that they don’t understand. Unless a person is willing to be open to the possibility of truth of an idea (no matter how outlandish it might seem) , they will not be able to understand it well enough to honestly argue against it.The literalists do the same thing in reverse. They are unwilling to accept the limitations of their beliefs by considering the possibility that they may not have it right themselves.

To me, both groups come across as arrogant and smug, lacking humility and openness to others. The skeptics throw out the baby with the bath water. When they devalue religion, they concurrently toss out spirituality. And the religious do the same thing. They cut God’s balls off by confining him to rational limits. By focusing on the literalness that can’t be substantiated, they, too, ignore the spiritual realm where God properly presides. Both the skeptics and the religious ignore the major part of what it is to be human. Our spiritual aspects.

I believe in God. Primarily I think of God with my traditional language of Protestant (Baptists don’t think of themselves as Protestant) Baptist Christian augmented with other ideas that make sense to me. In fact, I should say that I know there is God. I can’t tell you about him (that’s just a word, “him”). As I’ve learned more about how those different from me think about spiritual matters, I have learned that my inability to talk about God is probably a good indicator that I’m on the right track. Our Jewish tradition says that the name of God should not be spoken. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. God is beyond language and reason. The simplest way to put it in Christian language is God is love.

I don’t think people take those three words very seriously. Or they’d be nicer to each other. It does beg the question, “What is love?”. It’s hard to say that, too. All I can say about that is if you are able to get your own ego out of other egos, get rid of your projections and introjections, (sorry about the Freudian words, but I’m in a hurry and they were the first ones I thought of), when you realize that you are alone and separate and that every one else is alone and separate, too, there is love. It’s about connection and separation at the same time. That’s as good as I can do. Sorry. But that much I have confidence in. I’ve got to go.

I’ll end with some profound words as sung by The Grateful Dead:


... if you fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then who’s to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.


Next: I'll get to the relatives and the political church sooner or later.

Neoconservatives/Communists/Trotskyists/Socialists/Liberals/Left-Wing/Anti-Americans or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Fox News

It's hard to know what to do and think when you don't have the information you need to make informed decisions. Even our sincere and dogged efforts to learn can leave us feeling inadequate and even more confused than when we started. We humans, while capable of a degree of rational thought, don't use it much. We rarely have the opportunity to use it because we have to make most of our decisions without the time to find and consider all the possibly relevant data.

Like everyone else I know, I spout off opinions often without a lot of specific facts and details to back up what I say. It isn't realistically possible to know everything, so we have to have generalities. These are a few of mine. Pardon my lack of detail.

I'm a child of the cold war era. Communists (socialist, pinko, red, leftist - same thing) were our boogie man. People seem to need a boogie man, an other, an enemy to define us, contain our shadow and give us purpose. Americans were adrift and confused until we we got another boogie man. Who is our boogie man now, boys and girls? That's right. The terrorist is our boogie man.

The Communists of my childhood were going to take away all our freedoms, our God, and our businesses. Communism was the ultimate imaginable evil. This force from the dark side was so powerful that it couldn't be tolerated anywhere in the world except for the Soviet Union because they had The Bomb, too. The United States fought Communism, overtly and covertly, wherever it popped up in the world, even when Communism was preferred by the people in these countries over the repression from their status quo governments. The idea was that if Communists gained control in one country, other counties would fall to Communism, too, like dominoes.

I'm going to give Little Jackie props for not completely falling for the Domino Theory. It seemed that Communism would have to be pretty fantastic if it was able to influence people so easily. I had serious doubts that Communism was all that because we were always hearing about how the Soviets never had enough toilet paper. Besides their ballerinas were defecting all the time. Also, I wondered why, if the United States was so fabulous, the Domino Theory didn't work in the other direction. Why were countries not all becoming freedom loving democracies like us? And why were those Vietnamese giving us so much trouble when we were just trying to save them! Why did nothing make sense about this?

I was grown when the Soviet Union fell and everyone gave credit to Ronald Reagan (and still do). This never made sense either. What did The Gipper, Bonzo's pal, have to do with anything? He was clueless. We all were. We fought wars and shed a lot of blood to rid the world of Red Menace. Then suddenly and surprisingly, no one saw it coming, the Communist boogie man was gone. Not a shot was fired, which, coincidentally or paradoxically, was exactly the way my mother and father told me the Communists were going to take us over. Without firing a shot.

Looks like we got it backwards. The world is still under the spell of the myth of Ronald Reagan. One day all those who remember his "charm" and "wisdom" will be dead. He will be re-evaluated by history as a leader who allowed the U.S. Constitution, American values, and our laws to be ignored in favor of the policies of an elitist oligarchy. And the truth will come out about why the Soviet Union really fell. No toilet paper.

Last week, I saw a surreal interview of a Congresswoman from Minnesota named Michele Bachmann. Congresswoman Michele was one creepy bitch. The most vacuous face I think I've ever seen. She wears this fixed grin like a flag lapel pin. She, with her Stepford emptiness on display for all to see on satellite cable TV, used all the buzz words good Republicans use in place of intelligent thought and serious policy discussion. I think her goal was to serve the McCain campaign's single remaining campaign tactic, that of associating Obama with our boogie man, The Terrorist. "Liberal", "leftist", and to top it off, "un-American ". Words of note. And she said that she believed that the press should "investigate" the congress, conduct a witch hunt, for anyone who didn't believe the way she believed and was therefore a suspect "un-American" and a potential terrorist. Ladies and Gentleman, we have our new Joseph McCarthy!

HUAC! McCarthyism has long been characterized as a dark spot in our American history. McCarthyism was un-American. It was McCarthy and his allies and Michele Bachmann and her ilk who are shamefully un-American. It is Bachmann's wing of the political spectrum that has spawned the likes of the worst our most recent domestic terrorists, the McVeys and the Rudolphs. Anyway, what moral authority do the Michele Bachmanns of the world have to decry the use of violence and the waste of innocent lives instead of peaceful problem solving? None. None at all.

Now we will step back in time to the old boogie man, Communism and its milder counterpart, socialism. Stay with me, now.

• Which political party is right-wing? Republicans. Right.
• And Democrats are left-wing.
• O.K.
• Communism and socialism are left wing, correct?
• McCarthy and Bachmann are anti-communist, "pro- American", right-wing Republicans.
• Communists and socialists are "un-American" haters of mom and apple pie and all that is good and righteous about American? This is how they are branded by Republicans. Right?
• Socialists want to get the government involved in healthcare and social programs that target disadvantaged citizens and redistribute the wealth of hardworking rich people. The Republicans think this is really, really bad - and un-American.
• Republicans believe that the private sector can always do everything better and cheaper than the monstrously inefficient government. Privatization is a great idea, especially when you have the ability to give no-bid contracts to to your family, friends and cronies while you hold public office.
• Republicans have no problem running up huge deficits with obscene military spending, while effectively scapegoating social programs which are a small fraction of what is spent on "defense" and the war machine. The poor maligned "earmark" is an insignificant fraction of a percentage of government spending.
• Republicans believe in small government and free market, trickle-down economic policies with little or no government regulation of business. Republicans hate taxes.
• Democrats are all about controlling peoples hard-earned money with taxes and redistribution of wealth.

I could go on. But you get the idea.

You can think of Marxist communists as divided into two groups. The intolerant, homicidal Stalinists and the nicer Trotskyists. Stalin had a policy of killing those who didn't totally support him. Or saying that anyone who disagreed with him was insane and locking them away. Or relocating them to an inhospitable environment. A lot of Stalin's enemies were of the Trotsky wing of Soviet communism. Some of these got out of Dodgesky and came to the United States where they eventually became known as NEOCONSERVATIVES.

Yes, my friends. Everything you think you know is wrong. Everything is topsy-turvy. The communists and socialists, the ones that want to take away our freedoms and our businesses aren't the Democrats at all. It's the Republicans who are actually rooted in socialism. It's the neocons who have orchestrated the Bush administration's campaign to get as much of the public treasury as possible into private hands where the ordinary citizen will have no say about it. Neoconservatism is about oligarchy, not democratic principles. It is about an elite cadre limiting and controlling information from those of us who are "too dumb" to understand what is in our own interest. They think they know what is best, not just for the Americans in their own country, BUT FOR EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD ESPECIALLY THE MIDDLE EAST.

Well, they had their chance. W gave it to them. They were wrong at every turn. They had the typical problem of oligarchies, ignoring the "wisdom of the crowd" and opting for dumb assed "group think". "They think they are sooo smart." NOT!

So, my friends, these smart-assed elitists have targeted and tricked a couple of large blocks of American voters, the religious right and the "low-information" xenophobe. They don't seem to have anything else to turn to given what we are seeing with the current Republican presidential campaign. They can't tell the truth, that they are really a bunch of lying pinkos. Yeah, that would get them two votes in Vermont. This has been done to advance an agenda that is vastly different from what the American people are being told. The past eight years have established an on-going war, solidified the military industrial complex, and shunted public money to private entities for them to control. Or they aren't going to control the $700,000,000,000 bailout money? The American people are investing in these failed free market enterprises? The American people will own these questionable assets and will eventually profit when the value rises? Is that what you say? That sounds like socialism to me. You've been PUNKED!

Finally, this is why you should love Fox News. Listen to whatever they are saying about their opponents. They will be telling you what they themselves are doing. Easy as pie. "un-American"? "socialist?" "lying", "redistributing wealth"? "terrorist?" Uh-huh.

I was watching Neal Cavuto one afternoon during this recent financial crisis. He was interviewing an ordinary looking fat white man who was saying that the U.S. banking system should be nationalized. It was, for Fox, for any TV interview except for maybe Jim Lerher, a remarkably sedate interview. This fat man was suggesting something radical and un-American, especially for Republicans who don't want government involved in their economic affairs - so they say. The interview was not an attention getter, barely a blip. Cavuto asked something like "isn't this socialism?", but there were no attacks, no challenges, no follow-up interviews arguing about how un-American this was.

The interview just sat there. All fair and balanced.

So it is.

Next: You can choose your nuts at the market, but you are stuck with the ones on your family tree.

Critical Thinking

This entire blog, Prequellia (so titled because it is mostly about that which comes before where we are now) is based on single blog that was written in my usual stream-of-consciousness circumstantial, tangent filled style. I pulled it. It was long, so I’m breaking it up into smaller bites that are easier to chew and digest.

The older I get, the more I notice how little critical thinking is used. It’s rarer than I keep expecting it to be, even among the smug intellectuals (I have considerable faith, ha-ha!). They may be as likely as anyone to reject potentially invalidating information without honest consideration. Maybe more likely, because they have their egos deeply invested in their ideas. It's hard for me to accept how little rational thinking people do. Intellectual dishonesty is offensive to me.

People can believe whatever, for whatever reason they choose, rational or irrational. I do. I have a great many beliefs that are intuitively true for me, but I don't have much objective fact to support them. I don't demand that others adopt my private beliefs. Conversely, as a matter of respect for my personal boundaries, I expect others to accept that my beliefs are based on subjective information that they cannot access, therefore, my beliefs should not be ridiculed or demeaned. In other words, because I acknowledge that certain of my beliefs are based on private information that others can't verify, it would be an ego boundary violation for me impose these beliefs on others and demand that my beliefs be accepted as true for them as it is for me. It is also a boundary violation for another person to invalidate my private truth. Get it? That is an important, but poorly understood, concept and the secret to world peace.

I'll even happily respect anyone's belief as true for them, just don't expect me to treat poorly informed and illogical opinions as ...ummm... I'll say it, morally equivalent to ideas that are well reasoned and have basis in fact. I'm saying that a lot of people, smart people, are intellectually dishonest and expect others to accept their confabulations as rational thought. Believe whatever, but if anyone expects another individual to respect the belief (as opposed to respecting the person's right to hold it), they should be prepared to be intellectually honest and be able to support that belief with objective facts that the other people are able to access. In other words, stop deceiving yourself that you hold rational beliefs when these beliefs can't stand scrutiny. Just admit that you believe whatever for your own reasons and leave others out of it. I keep taking the bait. If you hold an idea up to be rational, I will treat it as such, so be prepared to defend it with good data and honest arguments.

I have a great deal of faith and optimism. This blog is about my fundamental (isn’t this an overused word? I just heard a guy on Fox News use the word three times in a single sentence, and how do you like my lengthy and awkwardly place parenthetical phrase, pay attention to the word that precedes the next period, it's important) values. My “world view” or “Jackie Doctrine” has been fundamentally consistent since shortly after the 1968 election when my eyes were opened to the fact that my parents had a lot of beliefs that were inconsistent with their own stated values and frankly, didn’t make sense.

....several minutes later....

Well. I’m going to have to tweak my doctrine. I just now fact checked developmental psychology, moral development, “Age of Reason” to see at what age children begin to think independently and critically. I read that 35% of adolescents and adults never develop the capacity for formal reasoning. Never. I must say that this explains some phenomena I have long observed.

I just asked the college students who work for me if they had taken logic. One had taken “Logic and Critical Thinking”, a lower level undergraduate course. She stated as matter-of-fact that she was surprised that the percentage was as high as 35%. I’ll have to think on this more. My question is why don’t 65% of people have the capacity for critical thinking? What percentage of this 65% have the potential but don’t develop it? What would block this development? Is there an adaptive advantage in being unable to think critically? Or is simple denial? A way to resist the need for adaptation? Fear?

When I started writing, my goal was to encourage readers to use rational decision making, facts, truth, and clear thinking as it relates to the 2008 presidential election. Politics exposes the extent to which individuals will deny the obvious and assume facts not in evidence according their prejudices. I am particularly concerned that many people have come to believe ideas that are the opposite of what the facts actually represent, and so are undermining their own stated goals and values. If 65% don’t have the capacity for critical thinking, it’s likely that those that I most want to understand what I’m saying won’t be open to it. They will be uninterested. Preaching to the choir is a waste of words. I need to rethink this. Then I’ll continue on with the whole objective/subjective pseudo-bloviating about religion and politics.

If I decide it still makes a difference.

Next: I’m not sure, except that I intend to keep my promises.