Arrogant Thumb Suckers

Some people have faith in the God of their faith. Others seem to have faith in godlessness. And yet again, other onlookers  seem to be confused, not really knowing whether one position of the other makes more sense in any kind of absolute terms, and perhaps wondering why the discussion generates such passionate debates.

Those on both sides seem just a bit too certain and willing to cast aspersions on the moral character of those in the opposition. What has pride got to do with it?

There is there is, or there isn't a God. Our believing one way or the other doesn't alter the truth of the matter.

Believing in God doesn't make people somehow automatically good. Nor does disbelieving automatically make people bad. But clearly both sides are capable of being arrogant.

Having faith in the God of one's faith doesn't make a person deserving of righteous scorn, or ridicule. Nor does being an arrogant godless heathen make a person less human.

What's the point of belittling an arrogant thumb sucker who takes pride in sucking.

It seems that there are those on both sides of this issue who are arrogant thumb suckers. The discussion seems to always degenerate into a game of up-man-ship. The winner is the is the one who is better at smearing the opposition.

If there is a God, I wonder how many truly know him, or are simply self delusional. It seems to me those that truly know him would have no reason to argue about it.

In the story of the New Testament the one person that I most truly admire is St. Thomas. I admire him because of his personal honesty and respect for what it means to know something factually.  How does Jesus respond to Thomas?

John 20:29 Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

In this passage, although Jesus chastises Thomas, he also confirms that seeing is believing. Thomas, perhaps, is not as good as other saints, but neither did Jesus curse him.  To me, personally, I prefer Thomas' honesty.  I cannot declare to believe in unseen or unknowable things even if that would make me somehow appear to be a better person in the eyes of people with faith in the God of their faith.

I simple want to be honest with myself about what I know to be true and what I do not know to be true.

In all cases, at all times the feeling of "deadly" certainty is potentially dangerous.  Those who are willing to die for a cause are often just as willing to kill for it.

If that results in me becoming the target of a smear campaign by those "blessed" with faith in the God of their faith, then so be it.

Proud to Have Faith

Reflecting upon an item I see on Street Articles called "Proud To Be A Faithless Heathen" , I can perceive a self-assured but sadly arrogant individualist. There is nothing wrong with logic per se, except when an individual, with a small range of subjectivity, begins to maintain that he or she has got the whole of it, along with, I presume, "The Truth." Logic should be our vade mecum but it should not cover over our hearts.

I deem Adolph Hitler as an example of an individual whose reliance on a specific (ill-founded) logic allowed his heart to be completely suppressed. Surely there is danger to encourage any and all individuals to abandon traditional faith and pursue their own brands of logic. No, people need a blueprint for ideals for behavior that can be provided by faithfulness.

One big trouble that the author of the article has recognized in the progress of history is the misuse of faith. Faith should not be invoked to trump logic any more than logic should be invoked to trump faith. But what is faith? Personally I see faith as largely misunderstood. Faith is not knowledge, but many will rely upon faith as if it were. This is the primary danger inherent in religions of all sorts. It is potentially a disaster of semantics. I am deeply hesitant to start any sentence with the words, "I believe..." This is because I want to be very careful about what I believe and what I need to have faith in. NO ONE can tell me with absolute certainty what I should have faith in--not a priest, not a preacher, not an imam, not an avatar, not a pope. But I should seek Truth, and perhaps in those places where those same authorities are pointing to.

Faith is a choice. I choose God. I do not choose to have the faith that there is no God, such as Nietzsche's belief. His beliefs set him free from the moralities ingrained in him during his very young years. His freedom led him to an early death due to venereal disease--not very logical at all. Humans have many natural tendencies that are very difficult to defer by logic, such as revenge, greed, and slothfulness. I can assure the reader that, in my many years of teaching, I have found few successes in using logical arguments against these vices that I have recognized in my students. Heart-felt arguments tend to work much better.

The author quoted the famous saying "God works in mysterious ways." Avoiding any logical argument for rejecting this statement, he simply shunts the words aside, saying "even a first-grader wouldn't fall for" [that explanation]. Funny, I must, I suppose, confess my stupidity because I fell for that explanation as a first-grader, and I fall for it now as a senior adult. Humans do have great capacities for huge depth of great understandings. But one person's mind cannot hold the entirety of truth and logic. We all need, and rely upon, the whole experience of civilizations that preceded us. Personally, I do not bother my little brain about whether God has a mind that can hold all that, I just accept that God does work in ways that are beyond a human's capacity. I find "heathen" irreverence akin to the shallow ethnocentrism of by-gone ages. It's a by-product of a dangerous combination of small-mindedness and overblown pride. (Talk about condescending!) Tradition does have something to offer (and, yes, some things to reject by logic). Individualists should stop presuming and accept their own personal limitations.

Responding to Newt the Nominee

It appears that Republicans will never be able to win an election without substantial help from the  Jackasses. Here we stand, at the starting gate for the presidential campaign with Iowa only a few weeks away and the GOP seems ready to throw in the towel. They have no agenda ready with well conceived ideas; they have no organization singing the praises of Capitalism; and they have no charismatic leader to rally the faithful. (Or if they do, they are hiding him among the corn stills in the backwoods of the Ozarks.) They only seem to have talent enough to throw stones at Obama, so they do that incessantly. It may be great fun but it won't put ballots in the boxes. What happened to the RESOLVE that was so common during the 20th century? 

Paul Samuelson Was Remarkable

Paul Samuelson – If any reader found themselves in college and enrolled in “Economics 101” (between 1948 and up to the present time) the chances are very good that the text book he would read for the course was Samuelson’s Economics: An Introductory Analysis which during the 1950’s became entitled simply Economics. He was and remains a giant figure in the world of economics education.He was the first American Economist to be awarded the Nobel Prize. He also won the Swedish Royal Academies prize in the 1950’s. And all his work and accolades came while working in the shadow of John Maynard Keynes, the most celebrated Economist of the 20^th century, and In fact it has been said that Samuelson was the first to be able to understand and present Keynes’ General Theory in laymen’s terms.   

Paul Samuelson

However, the most important thing to emerge from the theoretical kinship between Samuelson and Keynes is that Keynesian theory was disseminated university-by-university and class-by-class for over 50 years through Samuelson’s text book monopoly. The stagnation of thought caused by that fact has been staggering. 

Very few students outside those with an economics major have had any exposure to divergent thought on the matter.  

In 1999 Time magazine printed the following in an article about the influence of Keynes: "His radical idea that governments should spend money they don't have may have saved capitalism." That statement is so comical that it could have come right out of John Stewart’s nightly dialogue, and that’s no joke.

A few years ago I read a compilation of articles by prominent economists titled Contemporary Economists and one of the contributors was Paul Samuelson. He summarized his article with (I am paraphrasing): "My goal has always been to help the common man."

He didn’t attempt to the find the truth, or to reveal some unknown gem of information, or to teach objectively. At heart he wanted to be a social worker but became confused along the way.  


The quantity of well meaning but misguided thought-cum-theory and the egotistical refusal to re-examine the fundamental premises on which he had built his work and written his text is immense, and the damage done is  in-calculable. 

The world would be a far better place had he aspired to follow in the footsteps of Mother Theresa than to have posed as a scientist.

Responding to Newt the Nominee

Whereas, Newt the Nominee rings rather plausible at this point, I recall having some significant doubts about citizen Cain's chances when his sudden surge came along. As it turns out, my wonderment about Cain's campaign was not misplaced. Now, after his disastrous start, we find Newt's star rising. But will it continue to rise? Again, I experience doubts in my expectations. Newt's earlier flubs were downright astoundingly huge. Will he avoid those tendencies from this point? Personally, I doubt it.

In my view, the GOP collective mindset is meandering about, looking for the various alternatives to the steadiest candidate so far, Mitt Romney. Will his religion stop him in his tracks? Can Newt shove him aside? Newt also has an issue on the religion-side: a twice-divorced now Catholic convert!

The pattern has favored having no front-runner and sudden surges from the lesser ranks of candidacy so far, and that probably indicates an unsettled polarization within the party as brought on by the Tea Party and Libertarian influences on this year's political campaigning.

Who's Offended Now?

Displaying tolerance in the face of bigotry is a trying if not impossible task.  Someone is always taking offense at something.  Recently, the Catholic Church has taken offense at an ad campaign started by the Italian fashion company, Benetton.  Their ad campaign shows various enemies kissing.  The fashion campaign is called UnHate.  The firm withdrew one faked image featuring Pope Benedict kissing Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb after the Vatican filed suit against Benetton. 


As a means of giving a little background to the following discussion of religious motivated bigotry, I want to clarify that I support the freedom of religion.

As a skeptic/non-believer, I want to support and protect the freedoms of religion and expression.  And I think the best protector of these freedoms is a secular government.

I agree that it isn't wise to provoke offense if you are trying to win over hearts and minds.  But you must also recognise that there are people who are dedicated enemies of the LGBT community.  And there is literally nothing gays could ever possibly do to win them over.  This fact, in part, explains the in-your-face attitude and the commonly seen slogan, "We're here, we're queer. Get used to it."  Part of reason gays "act out" is because people want them to feel ashamed of themselves.  In deed, it is perhaps the shamelessness of their behavior that makes it so offensive to some.  Liberating themselves means shedding the feeling of shame that has, for so long, kept them in the closet.

We never expect heterosexual people to feel ashamed of their sexual orientation nor apologize for their overt sexual behavior in public when it happens, but then again heterosexuals aren't persecuted because of their sexual orientation are they.

And like you, I think some LGBT activists go too far.  Homosexual nudity and displays of overt homosexual behavior should be kept in the privacy of a bedroom or perhaps, forgive me, a closet.  Those obnoxious activists should realize just how utterly offensive such overt behavior is to those who hate them.  Oh, yeah, I forgot.  They are aware.

Offense, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

I'm not saying that I think people should be allowed to act out sexually in public.  Little innocent kids, at least, should be protected form seeing it.  And there are existing laws against "lewd" behavior in public for just that reason.  And although, there is nothing inherently "wrong" in sexual behavior, I think it is right to enforce such laws to protect kids.

Atheists and the LGBT community actually have a lot in common.  They share a common enemy that is manifest in the ever so commonly encountered religious motivated bigotry.  Atheists also report having difficulties "coming out" to family and friends just like gays do.

There is a hazard in criticizing any particular belief system in an open forum.  I don't want to foster or spread religious bigotry.   When I criticize a particular religion in public I like to make sure that the criticism is as specific as possible.  It is easy to overgeneralize.  There always exceptions to  any generalization, so I try my best to narrow and qualify my statements.

My mentor in the area of skepticism is a virtual atheist named ZipZink, who has repeated warned me about labeling myself an atheist.  He says that the word is nearly always misunderstood and that it is almost always better to refer to oneself as an agnostic.  One of ZipZink's favorite saying is, "It is not what we believe but what we know that really matters."  He constantly warns me about overstating things especially when I approach a topic with feelings of certainty.   He's much wiser than I am.

If you are to believe the lies told by some "God fearing" Christians,  the gays are out to recruit your kids and Atheists have no morals because they hate and reject God.  Personally, I don't take offense at such expressions of ignorance but I do recognise how dangerous such nonsense can be.  I just hope that maintaining the freedom of speech will be enough to combat such stupidity.

Separate Isn't Equal

All arguments are inherently matters of semantics.  Sorry, but it is unavoidable.  Public perception and behavior do change over time, and not just because the courts make rulings on issues of justice.

Court rulings may at times lead and promote that change and at other times follow changes in cultural norms.  The recognition that blacks have the right of equal treatment under the law is a good example of how norms change.  One could semantically argue that racial differences make one race inferior to another, a belief that was, as you know, the norm in America when we were children.  And as you probably recall interracial marriages were not only considered immoral but were actually illegal at that time.

In the case of same sex orientation it is primarily religious beliefs about sexual orientation that makes "coming out" an act of courage.  And, by the way, although one might argue that all crime is "hateful," they aren't all motivated by hate.

During the 50s and 60s, in sympathy to blacks, and in recognition of a need to treat them more fairly, the segregationist principle was established called "separate but equal" under the Jim Crow laws of the time.  The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.  Labeling unions between same sex couples a "civil union" only complicates the legal and social climate in which we live.  And it allows people to maintain a perception that one form of sexual orientation is indeed inferior to another.

In my post that used the term "overlapping" I was referring to the overlapping domains inherent in marriage.  Religions define marriage differently than the state that issues the licence to marry.  Religions deny the right to divorce but civil law does.  So, whether or not one admits that cultural norms change over time and that our laws should reflect those changes seems moot.

Religious people who belief that marriage is a sacrament that joins a man and woman together forever by God are still free to do so, even though civil laws allow for divorce.  Divorce laws don't interfere with their religious freedom to believe that marriage is forever.

In the same way, civil laws could be easily expand to allow for people of all sexual orientations to marry under existing statutes, and in the process grant everyone equal protection under the law, not just heterosexuals.