Salt

Elections and Stuff

My deacon got up during the service yesterday and pleaded during the announcements for everyone to pray for the Iraqi elections.  She had asked me right before the service if we would add it to the prayers also.  I'm glad she brought it up, I guess.  She was very passionate.  And she's usually allergic to politics. 

The elections are a good thing - I think it will offer breathing space for some Iraqis.   I am still pretty sure that there were less painful ways for Iraq to get to this point, but maybe, as the wildfire burns, the seeds will have more fertile soil in which to grow.  Look - I'm not trying to be optimistic - I just think that if this offers even a smidgen of happiness - we might see some positive ripples:  groups might decide to get organized; and there might be a conscious local resistance against the insurgents, which is the key.

Al Jazeera [is it the Arab Fox News?  Well, I'm always for self-representation]  is a bit less optimistic about the percentages, but perhaps this is a "were you there..." moment that will galvanize those who would fight for an Iraqi republic.   As I've said before, it is not the ideology of this administration that bothers me [although it does bother me] as much as its utter incompetence.   

Christopher Hitchens reminds us that the Iraq war is nothing like the Vietnam war - which is something I'm inclined to agree about. 

I think the success of the war hinges on our ability to find credible Sunnis who will work with Sistani.  Again, my worry is that we'll find ways to undermine the people who've been elected.   At least the US has politically credible side can lose to without losing face.   This is the right direction.  I'm amazed it happened.

And, perhaps the calculations of the neo-cons are right.  If this does inspire the Egyptians, the Saudis, the Syrians, and the Iranians to work for democracy in their own countries, we might find a worthy counter to popular fundamentalism.  On the other hand, maybe those fundamentalists will get elected.  Robert Fisk, is very cynical. 

Raed isn't so positive, however.  He writes: "If anyone thinks that the current elections are fundamentally different from the ones that used to happen before the war, you are wrong. Maybe at that time Iraqis had one fake option, and now they have 100 fake options.

The current elections will open the doors of hell. They'll open the doors for internal conflicts, and they'll increase the attacks on the occupation forces, when everyone sees how the bush administration has no intention of pulling out from Iraq and paying compensation for the illegal war they started.

I really wish that Iraq will have the chance to hold real and sovereign elections one day."

Also, today, one parishioner gave me an article, blown up in 100 point font, from USA today about the Church in Rochester NH closing.  "See!"  He said. "The communion is going up in flames." 

I told him I had heard about it, and that I was very sad.

Which I was.

But I just wanted to have a danish and talk about football with him instead.

The Free Market

Brilliant article from Left2Right on the market.  Article in memory of my less favorite Hayek.   The poor cannot, by nature, predict the free market, otherwise the free market would not be free.... 

"For the function of the market isn't to reward people for past good behavior. It's to direct them toward producing for current demand, regardless of what they did in the past...."

"Several implications follow.... (a) The claim "I deserve my pretax income" is not generally true.... (b) The claim that people rocked by the vicissitudes of the market... are getting what they deserve is also not generally true.... It is in principle impossible for even the most prudent to forsee all the market turns that could undo them. (If it were possible, then efficient socialist planning would be possible, too. But it isn't.)... (d) The volatility of capitalist markets creates a profound and urgent need for insurance, over and above the insurance needs people would have under more stable (but stagnant) economic systems. This need is increased also by the fact that capitalism inspires a love of personal independence.... This fact does not yet clinch the case for social insurance... maybe private insurance would do a better job meeting people's needs for insurance in the event of unemployment, disability, loss of a household earner, sickness, and old age.... [But] no argument that people have a moral claim to their pretax incomes, sufficient to preclude taxing it for insurance purposes, has survived critical scrutiny. Certainly, "I deserve it" doesn't."

Bush and Hitler

Via Brian Leiter:  Canadians clear up the relationship between the two.

"Some refer to George W. Bush as another Hitler. This is a gross exaggeration. He has constructed no death camps and only one concentration camp — at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"While it does seem, in Nuremberg terms, that Bush could be called a war criminal (invading other countries on the flimsiest of pretexts), he has not engaged in genocide. Nor, unlike Volkswagen supporter Hitler, does he promote the production of small, cheap cars...."

 

Falls Episcopal Church as a GOP hangout

Falls Church, an Episcopal Church that takes the antiquated view on homosexuality, is revealed to be the Hot Sunday GOP hangout.  Cute girls in the photo of their favorite bar.  Thank God they drink.  Otherwise we'd have absolutely nothing in common [Let me buy you a shot, sweetie, can I get your number?  There are many ways to explore... conversion, both political and... spiritual].

Democrats might go here on a Sunday.  The President goes here occasionally.  My former mentor is now here, although I'd probably worship here. 

How is the Bible True

A review of a book about Lot's daughters.

Sometimes the bible is true, but it is not, properly, a moral truth. 

Pluralism

[Update:  The Creative Guy comments on my use of "absolute certainty" in his blog.   I don't think that tolerance towards other religions is scriptural, but charity towards foreigners [who have other religious beliefs] is certainly true.  It is also clear that Jesus healed and encountered Samaritans and Greeks.  I would look to Acts, however, for clues to Christian engagement with other religions.

The issue for liberal Christians is not about tolerance; the challenge is moral relativism.  There are some kinds of Christianities [say, the fundamentalist sort] that I think are absolutely wrong.  I am certain that Christians who exclude gay people from their communities on the basis of their orientation are wrong.   I am certain that other religions that do the same are wrong also, as I have asserted that one certain aspect of God is his redemptive love.  I think the confusion lies more in the relation of church and state power.  I don't think that the state, as the ultimate arbiter of violence, should make statements about the supernatural, which is the way religious feeling is articulated.  On this, also, I am absolutely certain.]

Recently a Methodist pastor in my neighborhood had a Sunday service where they blessed banners from several different religions.  There was a press release.  The pastor said that he was happy to be in a time of interfaith religious activity, and that this was truly a new thing. 

Well it's not exactly new.  What of the first conference of World Religions?  And what about Emperor Akbar and the University of Salamanca in the 13th century? 

Pluralism, to me, is a tactic that describes an empirical fact - there are different, irreducible perspectives about the world.  Still, since I am a neo-platonist, I think that truth is one, and that Christianity is absolutely correct in its description of the spiritual and religious life.   I say this although I have Hindu relatives who generously e-mail me with me wise sayings from "the Mother" which are usually pleasant, albeit very confusing.  Overall, I'm suspicious of attempts to bring religions together.  It seems to be a kind of thing that emperors do to consolidate power.

Another Social Security Story

Slacktivist Tells a Social Security Story.   "Social Security is, among other things, a valuable form of insurance against "living longer than expected and being flat broke."

It reminds me about the story regarding the law that repealed the estate tax.  It will last until 2010.  One lawyer remarked to me that in 2009, there will be an increase in the mysterious deaths of old multimillionaires.

Right now, on NPR, I'm listening to this surreal comment that goes like this "because the government has spent Social Security, private accounts would keep the government's hands out of your money."  Wait.  So we're rewarding the financial irresponsibility of the government?    They spent the money because they wanted to destroy the program in the first place. 

Also - forget about Sponge Bob.  Our minds were corrupted by Bugs.  Via Robotjohnny.

Spongebob, Salvadoran Option etc

World O Crap does a little rant on some ... traditional versions of the household.  I think conservatives should stick to Christopher Lasch's book Haven in a Heartless World.... 

Spongebob welcomed by the UCC.  I guess he's baptized.   Dowd has a good time writing this article about Dobson's speech to some conservatives.

The spokesperson at nickelodian said, "It's a sponge, for crying out loud."  Is it at least kosher?

Alternet comments that the El Salvadoran Option is the wrong way to go about doing this.   Here are some experts from the UN truth commission report.    It's a good way to create a holy war.  Oxblog calls it the "Israeli option."  Links to Doug Ireland, Religious Liberal.

I hate Theology

Never been much of a theologian.  I prefer philosophy and literature.  Granted, a few contemporary theologians I've been interested in:  I've been reading, alternately, books by James Alison, who is a talented Catholic Priest.  He asks, "which is closer to the New Testament Theology?"

"A gay Catholic holds that 'not going back like a dog to its vomit' means, first and foremost, not going back to gay meeting places, relationships, places where there is a risk of sex"

Or

"A gay Catholic holds that 'not going back like a dog to its vomit' means, first and foremost, refusing the lure of the ecclesiastical closet which binds conscience and makes people unfree, leading to dysfunctional relations and an inability to love and tell the truth."  [pp112-113, On Being Liked]

And Brian Gerrish is the other fellow I've been reading.  Gerrish is more well versed in both the fathers, scripture and the reformation fathers, so I find him a little more thorough. 

"It is because Christians believe in Jesus Christ that they trust in the reliability of the natural order; because they see nature as the theater of redemption, they are reassured that human creation is not chaotic but ordered and meaningful....  A dogmatic system is not a complicated proof ...  but an attempt to uncover the layers ... of consciousness moving in presentation from the most abstract to the most concrete:  that is, from elemental faith, to theistic creation faith, to the Christian redemption faith, in which the other two faiths are contained.  [p74, Saving and Secular Faith]

Still, I suspect, if you really want to undersand God, stick to literature, comic books included.

"If great suffering forces theology into embarrassed silence and atheism into cocksure noise, it prompts literature to measured lament, which is all we have right now."  James Woods, from the Guardian.

Rolling Stone refuses Ad

Rolling Stone refuses Christian Bible ad.  Perhaps because they don't want to offend the offensive?  Well, the materialist drug dealers shouldn't worry.  Conservative Christians are just as eager to purchase sins as the rest of us [they may, however, give a little more away, however].

"Now our very lifestyle as evangelicals is a ringing practical denial of the miraculous in our lives. Satan must laugh in sneerful derision. God's people can only weep," says Ron Sider.

Thanks Canonist.