In the various talks, debates, and arguments about the merits and details of national health care/health insurance reform, I have become increasingly confused at the position of the religious right on this issue and, indeed, on their position on most social issues, not just health care.   They, along with most of the conservatives are hellbent on stopping any sort of reform in any format or flavor.    What confuses me about this, however, is that it simply doesn’t fit their moral structure.

Frankly, religious right — WTFWJD, eh?

Here’s the thing — based on the teachings of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, or any of your typical mainstream religious figures, the staunchly religious should be all over social reforms such as poverty, homelessness, and health care, right?    I mean, what did these great teachers instruct if not tolerance, kindness, taking care of the poor, the sick, the needy, befriending the outcast, reaching out to the lowest or loneliest in society and wrapping them up in arms of love, service, and help?   They as a group should be jumping all over the idea that we’re trying to reform health care so more people get the proper care and we add the 40+ million uninsured Americans into the system.

And yet on that side of the aisle we see exactly the opposite, opposing reform, opposing taking resources from those that “have” to give to those that “have not” and generally turning a blind eye and an upturned nose on those who can’t make it as easily as they have.    “They’re just lazy,” comes the reply when you ask about the lower-class family struggling to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads.   “If they just worked harder, they could have health care insurance, too.”

It’s simply astounding to me at the attitude carried by this group about social matters.    Instead of, “alms for the poor”, it’s “go work at Walmart”.     When considering a proposal to provide cheap housing to low-income neighborhoods, the response is, “Stupid bum — why don’t you get a job and buy a house?”   Eyes roll at the kids who have to get free or reduced lunches in order to get a decent meal — “Bloodsucking parents…”

Their rhetoric spreads far and wide in teabagging protests and angry townhall meetings — “You are NOT entitled to what I earn!”    Oh, really?    Let’s hope God thinks you’re entitled to what you earn, you hypocrite.   Maybe you ought to be a better steward of your earthly riches?

The counter-argument to this is that such donations to help the less-fortunate should be given voluntarily, not through government intervention.   As nice of a sentiment as this is, it obviously doesn’t work or we wouldn’t have the problem in the first place. The fact is, most of these people touting these ideas are hypocrites and prefer to hang onto their cash at all costs, the needy and desperate around them be damned.   At least I will be freely honest about the fact that I don’t donate much to charity because I prefer to use it on my own family.    But even I’m not enough of an asshole to say, “Oh, no, don’t raise my taxes slightly so more people can get health care.   I prefer having that on my conscience.”

There is far too much emphasis being placed on whose fault it is that we have the poor and lowly amongst us and not enough action being done to attempt to correct it.    There are legitimate concerns, I realize — some folks in these tight positions are there because they were incompetant or reckless — but does taking the attitude that they must all be in that position really do anything to help or resolve the issue?    Instead, it ends up being a distraction to the real problem at hand — we have under- or uninsured people getting sick, going broke, and sometimes dying because they can’t get the help they need.     How do we solve this?

In the end, if the religious right is going to preach a particular theology, then they would do well to live by it.   After all, Jesus did not ask Mary Magdaelene for her financial records to see if she was a prostitute out of desperation or because she gambled it all away.    He did not tell Zacheus, “I’m coming to your house — but only if you’re not crooked.”    He did not commission his followers to be servants to humankind just so they could make excuses about why they shouldn’t.

Who knows?  God might even approve.

Time to pull out those textbooks, folks, and gear up for your next exam — this time, in theological engineering! (an oldie, but a goodie — let’s see what answers you can come up with!)

THEOLOGICAL ENGINEERING EXAM 1
5 Questions, 60 Minutes

• You may use a calculator, the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and the Book of Mormon.
• The speed of light is c and is always blindingly pure.
• Show all work. Notate all divine inspiration.
• For all problems, assume a perfectly spherical Jesus of constant density D.
• No praying during the exam.

Question #1: (20 pts) Bob and Joe are standing on a street corner. God loves each an equal amount L. Bob then accelerates to 0.9c. In Joe’s rest frame, how much does God now love Bob?

Question #2: (20 pts) Sven, a Lutheran, is in a state of grace. He then has sex with standard-issue sheep S.

a. (8 pts) What is Sven’s atonement coefficient following the act if the sheep was not willing?

b.(12 pts) What if the sheep, while not technically being willing, could not be said to mind, either?

Question #3: (20 pts) Let the eternal, all-abiding love of the Holy Spirit be the x – y plane. Let Sue’s soul be at (0,0,5) at t=0 seconds, traveling at 5 m/s in the direction of the positive z axis. Everything is in Cartesian coordinates bespeaking subscription to a perfectly rational Enlightenment attitude towards the Universe. At what time t will Sue be saved? (Hint: Assume a point soul.)

Question #4: (20 pts) Assume the Rapture occurs at time t. Cornelia, a saved human being weighing 90 kg, in a state of grace, has her head in the closing jaws of an alligator at time t. What mass of meat will remain to the alligator at time t + 10 sec.?

Question #5: (20 pts) Stan is a frictionless, massless Mormon in a rest state. His sin level (l) for his faith is currently at 11 McBeals. He eats 0.3 kg of pork and enjoys it very much. Assume that the Jews are right about, well, pretty much everything:

a. (10 pts) What is Stan’s sin level now?

b. (10 pts) Assuming Stan repents at a constant acceleration of 0.32 petitions/hour, at what point will he reach a state of Holiness?

Extra Credit (10 pts): 25 grams of wafers and 20 ml of cheap wine undergo transubstantiation and become the flesh and blood of our Lord. How many Joules of heat are released by the transformation?

Hand in the exam when done and may God have mercy on your work.

This is the second in a series of postings called, “Controversies”, which examine various sectors of my current beliefs, opening them up for the comments and criticisms of my readers. For a more explanation, please view The Introduction or my first writing, God.  I thought Easter Sunday an appropriate release time for this piece, don’t you think?

Jesus of Nazareth:  Did he exist?   If he did, what’s the true significance and influence on history, faith, and our understanding of God and the world?   If he didn’t, what’s the influence of the mythical person on today’s society?   These and many, many other questions surround this “historical” figure that, real or not, certainly can be said to have affected a great many aspects of our modern world.

For myself, the jury is out on the actual nature and existence of Jesus, either as historical or messianic figure, because there is a vast array of evidence for and against both his life and his acts, and sorting through this to find the kernels of truth, without influence or bias, is nearly impossible to do.    Too many people have a stake in the nature of Christ to let an investigation into the actual truth and evidence go without a hitch or an skewed interpretation.

That being said, I think examining Jesus is a worthwhile pursuit, for even if it’s an entirely made-up story, the way he has soaked into the world’s traditions, thoughts, and actions clearly means that there is something of significance in his teachings and attitudes that appeals to a great deal of humans, and that in and of itself is interesting enough to pursue a thought train about.

To be fair and honest, I place the same onus and emphasis on all messianic characters found throughout the world’s religions — Islam with Mohammad, Mormonism with Joseph Smith, and so forth — they are all considered transformative people within their own frameworks, and I think they each deserve attention; if not for belief, to glean the wisdom and intelligence they presented to their peoples.   As a philosopher, I must gain knowledge and insight from any well that happens to have a bucket hanging above it.     But that being said, I’m only there for the good bits — just because it’s full of water, I don’t have to tip the bucket over my head to get the point.

Jesus’ historical existence seems to have a great deal of followers although there are always dissenters, especially where the accurate historical record is concerned; however, when debating his influence, it’s the manner of his nature that is always in question.   His chroniclers recorded the events many years after the actual events, after having been passed around via the typical oral tradition of that time, and after a significant number of people had become believers in the movement, it certainly wouldn’t have been the first instance of “embellishment of the press” or “literary license” that we’ve seen.

All that being said, biblically speaking, Jesus is a very interesting character. He is an advocate of peace, but he is not a

Buddy Christ

wimp — there are too many impressions of Christ as a pacifist when, in reality, he is often calling for action more than discouraging it. The scene in the temple with the moneychangers proves that he is not against taking action in the correct circumstances.  Remember his preaching about, “if he slaps you on the cheek, turn the other one to him also”? It seems a pretty pacifist statement until you look at the underlying history and context (which is why it’s infinitely important to do so with everything in the book, not just this example.)

Jesus was not silent and calm all the time, although he certainly had his moments. He was a great storyteller and a very charismatic individual, as he seemed to charm huge crowds. From what I can see, he was a lover of parties and friends, as evidenced by his participation in the famous wedding where the water was turned into wine. Regardless of whether the miracle occurred, the story reveals some character of the man. I envision him either up and dancing to the music or reclining on cushions in some corner with a circle of friends around, engaged in a huge belly laugh at somebody’s joke. Some of the wisest people in the world were great partyers and I don’t think this was an exception. Socrates was off his nut most of the time and yet had extreme moments of profoundness.

I think this speaks to his understanding for a need for balance in one’s life, juggling the important with the amusing, responsibility with recreation, friends and family with good work ethic.  Reading through the books, you get the feeling that he didn’t always want to go traipsing off to the next town, spending days on a dusty road, but at the same time, he realized the importance of it, and the draw of the people was always in him.    For myself, I can reflect and understand what that’s like, to find the thing that takes you forward and motivates you, whatever the circumstances, simply because you must.

Jesus spoke of leaving behind standard conventions and reaching for higher understanding of God, the world, and human interaction. He could see beyond the day-to-day activities of people and their default needs and deeds. The people of Israel in that day were locked into years and years of tradition and were handling issues and thoughts the same way they always had…or the way they were told by the priests. Jesus urged them to think for themselves, to examine each situation and respond as they think an intelligent, morally-engaged person would, not as they always had traditionally. “He who is without sin throw the first stone.” Breaking the default paradigm was very much Jesus’ credo.

Personally, I am all over this, and adore opportunities in life where I can challenge the status quo and be the advocate that questions the real purpose in it.   I do not do it often enough, and that is my fault, but I try to find ways to say, “Look, just because you’ve always thought that doesn’t make it so, and tradition isn’t necessarily fostered out of something that is applicable today — why not re-evaluate?”

Christ of Saint John of the Cross -- Salvador Dali

I like to think of Jesus as the human-aspect of God as a whole; in a sense, a distilled version of God, extruding the human aspects thereof while yet retaining the essence of Godness. Hence, if Jesus is God-in-a-man, then it was used to translate the nature and attitude of God to the human masses at their level.

Of course, the concepts weren’t always clear to his followers; I think this is for two reasons: One, at that point, everyone’s minds were still reeling from the idea that they could possibly be doing something different than the way they were, and Two, because metaphysical, moral, and ethical concepts require a great deal of higher thought and intelligence, something we take more for granted nowadays but that had to be incredibly uncommon in that world. To wrap your head around complex ideas like these when previously your entire life has been about how many fish you caught and whose boat you were on is — well — very difficult.

My examination of who and what Jesus is/was is still continuing as I haven’t completely decided what it’s all about. I get more and more discouraged about the traditional view as I go along; however, whether or not he was the Son of God, this much is true: There is much wisdom to be learned from his teachings, from his actions, and from his manner of interacting with his fellow humans. These are concepts and ideas that people that everyone of every faith or belief can take away to make a better, more conscious and wise world.

I have decided to do a series of interviews of various people online who have graciously agreed to answer my odd questions in an attempt to get to know them, to find out new ideas, and to show my readers some potentially interesting people online.   Everyone is answering the same series of questions so we can compare the various answers.  If you would like to participate, please feel free to go to my contact page on my personal site and send me a message, I’d be happy to send you the information.

My first interview is with Sadie from Sadie’s Skinny, a gal on a mission of health.    Here’s what she had to say:

Yourself

1. Introduce yourself — your name (or nom de plume), where you hail from, what you do during the day, and what you do at night.

My name’s Sadie and right now I live in Hampton Roads, VA with my husband. We’re originally from Alabama and are moving back there in the spring. We can’t wait!! It’s beautiful here at the beach, but we miss our family and friends. Next month I’ll start my job search so I’ll have a job when we get there. Right now I work at a large publishing company in the accounting department, so I shouldn’t have any trouble with that on my resume. We also can’t wait to rejoin the Young Professional group we were a part of back home. Several times a month there were get-togethers and parties, and it was a great opportunity for networking. Right now we pretty much stay home in the evenings. My husband owns his own business so that takes a lot of our time, plus, we’re having to save our money right now so that we can afford to move home in a few months. It’s a sacrifice that I gladly make. Besides, we do get out every now and then and go to dinner or go have a drink at the beach or something.

2. Plug yourself — do you have a blog, a Facebook, a MySpace, a website, a software project…tell us where to find more information about you!

My website is called Sadie’s Skinny.  On the front page I highlight a different health blog or website each month. It’s called my ‘Skinny of the Month’. I’m always looking for new people, so if you’re interested, go to the site and click on the ‘email me’ link! The site also features monthly recipe and fitness ideas, and has a page of links to other great sites. From there you can also go to my blog. On my blog I have weekly weigh-ins, monthly picture updates, I bring you information from around the web that I find of health products, and I talk about my daily trials and triumphs.

You can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Plurk as “sadies_skinny”.

Politics

3. 2009 should be an interesting year for politics. A new president, a new Congress, and some huge problems to solve. Tell us what you think the (A) best thing that will be accomplished in the world of politics will be and (B) the worst thing that will happen in politics.

As far as the best thing for politics, I hope that there will be a turn around in the economy. The way things have been going lately, I’m not really sure how that will happen. I’m afraid that with all of the bailouts being handed out, the government is going to become way too involved and they will ‘own’ all of our large industries. On the other hand, I am optomistic that something will be done to help the ‘average’ citizen and hopefully we can get out of this slump.

I think the worst thing we can do right now in politics is pull out of Iraq – or even give an exact pull out schedule. That’s like if, in the Super Bowl, one team walked over to the other sideline and said, ‘Here, look at my playbook. This is what we’ll be doing.’ I think there does need to be some kind of plan. We need to give the people there something to look forward to. Having family in the military, I’ve been told that the people there really are thankful for what we have done. The media has skewed things so much to show only what they want that the truth gets lost. But at some point we have to let them handle their own country. The only problem is, if we tell the world exactly what our plan is to leave, that’s just opening the door for the terrorists to come back and take over as soon as we leave. We need to make sure that we leave the country in safety.

4. A good leader is often known for the company you keep. If you were president, you’d have to pick your own cabinet. Give us a rundown of 4 people in your life that you would make as your cabinet, how they are related to you, what position they would hold, and why. (They must be real people — friends, family, coworkers…) For non-Americans, the question still stands, but you can phrase that as “advisor”.

I would have to pick my Mom for Secretary of State. She’s just got a way with people and I think she’d be great with foreign affairs. She’s been a volunteer with our church for shut-ins and has done work with all kinds of different counseling services.

For Secretary of Treasury I’d pick my Dad. He’s retired now, but he used to be a VP for a bank and worked in banking his whole career. He’s a real ‘analytical’ thinker, and very good with money.

For Secretary of Defense I’d pick my step-Dad. He’s retired military – he made a career out of the Army. He went to Vietnam, and he now works for a government contractor that does work with aviation services for the Army. He’s got great ideals and he loves our Country.

Attorney General is a little more tough. I guess I would pick my father-in-law. He’s not a lawyer – he’s an insurance sales man – but he’s smart, he’s good with people, and I just think he’d be good at it. He’s just got the kind of personality of a lawyer.

Religion

5. Sometimes the traditions, dogma, and rites of religion help us and sometimes they hurt us. Give an example of each kind — a religious tradition or ritual that helps people and one that hurts.

Well, off the top of my head, since it’s that time of year, I think Christmas is a great example of a religious tradition that helps us – not just individually, but as a community. During the holiday season we become more in tune to giving and helping others. There seems to be more people willing to donate to the poor and the homeless, which is a wonderful thing. Of course, it would be better if it happened more times out of the year, but it’s great that it happens around this religious holiday.

A bad example – that’s tough for me. I have a hard time judging other religions. I’m a Christian, but I’m not one to say that other people are necessarily wrong. Who am I to judge? Isn’t that God’s job? So, having said that, I’m not really sure that I can pick a religious tradition that’s bad because all traditions are good to someone, and I don’t believe that I have the authority to say otherwise.

6. Some people think that God (if he/she/it exists) must have a sense of humor. Given this, what sitcom would God most likely sit down in the cosmic easy chair and giggle at and why? You can pick current or past shows.

I’ve never really thought about God having a sense of humor. There having been so many things happen in my life that it’s never really been something that crossed my mind. It’s an interesting point, though. Reading this question has made me think about it. I bet God would like to watch Everybody Loves Raymond. I say that because it’s got a sense of family and real life, but it’s also really funny because people can relate to it. I think God would like to see how people can find humor in family life.

Philosophy

7. Some people think that if we can make a robot sophisticated enough, it will behave exactly like a human would in all situations and therefore be essentially indistinguishable from a flesh-and-blood human. If this becomes possible, do you think we should treat these robots with the same rights afforded humans? If not, why not?

That’s a hard question. I think that should be decided when it happens. I know it won’t be in my lifetime so I won’t have a say. There should definitely be some kind of way to hold them accountable for their actions, but as far as rights, I don’t know. Immediately I want to say no, but that time period is going to be completely different from anything we can comprehend right now, so it’s hard to say.

8. Is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder, subject only to what a particular viewer thinks, or are some things universally beautiful because of certain properties?

Some things are definitely universally beautiful. I’m not sure that anyone would argue that the beaches in Tahiti are beautiful, or a sunset in Hawaii, or a temple garden in Japan. There are a lot of natural wonders that are universally beautiful. As far as people and objects, however, I believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Love makes things beautiful.

General

9. Name a Disney cartoon character that you would like to get intimate with and where.

Definitely Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp!) on a deserted island somewhere. No questions about that!

10. Pick a feature of your particular gender (physical, emotional, psychological, etc) and tell us why that’s the best feature of all.

I believe that the best feature of being a woman is our ability to nurture. The world would be a cold place without that element. It’s also a very rewarding feeling to be able to give yourself in that way to someone. Our ability to love and nurture and be soft is what I enjoy best about being a woman. No matter what else is going on in the world, we have the ability to bring a calmness and center back to it.

End

That’s all for Sadie!    Many thanks to her for exposing a bit of herself and her thoughts on these questions.    I’ll have various interviews from time to time as I get answers from folks.    In the meantime, feel free to comment on Sadie’s responses and, if you don’t want to do the full interview yourself (you’re welcome, of course) you can feel free to answer some of the questions in a comment yourself!

Instead of going on to the next topic in my Controversies series, I am going to post what would have been a reply to a comment but instead is big enough to warrant a separate posting.

So, here is the continuation of my original posting on the existence and nature of God. If you are new to this series, please read the Introduction and then catch up.

Becky brings up a good point that I did not properly expand upon the why, exactly, I came through experiences and logic to deduce that a god must exist, so I thought it a useful exercise to write it out, both for my readers as well as to concretize it within my own mind.

My original journey into the existence of God took a path very similar to Descartes’ own reduction, insomuch as I proceeded from what I thought I knew about God and proceeding to doubt that knowledge, and all proceeding foundations of that knowledge, down until I reached the point of saying that God did not, in fact, logically exist.

And here I began; wandering for hours lost as a freshman in college, seeing nothing but darkness before me and lies behind me. It was not, as I recall, one of my shining moments in my personal life. There were other factors at play during that time, of course; it was a formative year or two in my life when many things collided — friends, women, and schooling — but losing the religion that had governed and soaked my life for so long was extremely depressing and confusing for a long time.

So, having arrived at the point where there was no god whatsoever, I proceeded to think about this and decide what made logical sense, as that was the only tool left in my bag. I knew that during my life there had been various events that clued me into there being something beyond the standard physical world.

Visions of things that weren’t supposed to be there, or didn’t make sense given the circumstances (and no, I wasn’t under the influence), events of such extreme serendipity or otherwise impossible circumstances (items appearing where they weren’t a minute ago, certain events unfolding in a way that just wouldn’t happen randomly, etc.) — these and other things led me to conclude that there must be something behind this, and it must be outside of the defined world as we know it which, for all intents and purposes, is pretty much what we term the, “spiritual world”, whether or not it truly involves “spirits” or simply corporeal beings of a higher dimension. For now, it’s a useful term.

With the idea that there was something in the spiritual world propagating, as far as I could tell, random, small events of non-logical possibilities, it made me think further. If there are one or more higher-dimensional beings, then it is reasonable to say that they embody certain properties given their dimensional status — just as we are able to look at a sheet of paper and tell exactly what is happening to all 2-dimensional things upon it, so could a forth-or-higher being tell, simply by the nature of it, what’s going on in the 3^rd dimension. This gives both omnipresence and omniscience to this person (or persons).

Omnipotence comes in the form of being able to manipulate anything within a lower dimension. Much as we can draw a line on a sheet of paper, thus altering their reality, so could a higher-D being manipulate the 3^rd dimension without much trouble.

Omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence — if those three features don’t designate a god-figure as existing, I don’t know what does.

Moving on brings the argument for or against a monotheistic arrangement. While this is a bit of a leap, logically, it did seem as though the various events and happenings in my life that I would term, “spiritual”, were somehow coordinated. This may be only my perception, of course, but it seems logical for now to say that if they were indeed all synchronized that a single mind would be behind it. Hence, a single god.

That being said, I don’t think that it necessarily eliminates a polytheistic viewpoint nor do I think that should be eliminated. I don’t have a solid enough argument against it as yet. There is also the idea that perhaps, for simplistic reasons, it behooves us to group all of such beings into one category because they either think of like mind or the events appear coordinated simply because they are all viewing the same reality as each other.

So, that basically establishes the nature of god insomuch as I can argue it. Is it a foolproof argument? No. I’d even go so far as to say it’s kind of weak. Am I, as they say, seeing nails because I happen to hold a hammer? Maybe; it’s entirely possible that I’m unable to let go of the idea that God exists and therefore am trying overly hard to make one appear. I’ve thought about it a lot, and this doubt always corrodes my inner confidence that what I think is correct and true. At the moment, I simply don’t have a way to determine exactly what is going on with that except to simply say it might be a factor.

As always, your comments and reflections are appreciated.