24 February 2011

The one about abortion


In Western culture, abortion was generally permitted within the first 40-90 days of pregnancy until the christian cult came to dominate and abortion was pretty much outlawed based on the christian belief that inception is when a human soul is bestowed upon the fetus. Hence, any deliberate termination of the fetus is technically murder according to this doctrine. Of course, there were times and places of leniency with this rule, but it has remained doctrine since the earliest days of the christ cult whether or not is has always been enforced to the letter.  

The doctrine does not hinge specifically on the bible, though throughout the centuries, christians have used biblical passages and stories as backdrop to the doctrine. Notably these are the pregnancy of John the Baptist's mother, Elizabeth, the pregnancy of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and certain poetic passages from the Hebrew scriptures which mention gestation in the womb.

The fact that the bible is completely silent on the matter of abortion is of little account when it comes to the position of the Roman church on this subject. The church has always maintained the position that God reveals truths in many ways, not just in the scriptures, so it isn't surprising that God has revealed that abortion is always wrong but never said so in the bible. But what about the protestant heterodoxy? That whole movement came into being under the banner that the bible was the sole source of faith and practice, yet they, too, claim abortion is wrong even though the scriptures neither confirm nor deny it. Therein lies something difficult for the protestants to answer. The best you're going to get from them is a long and winding trip through philosophical Disneyland where there are several allusions to the bible, but nothing concrete from its pages. However, even if the bible had mentioned abortion, it would only be valid if the bible were a legitimate source of information about the world and the nature of life.

The christians' first unsubstantiated statement is the linchpin to their whole belief system about abortion: humans have souls. But there is no proof of that; it's just a belief. It's in the bible, but as I say, there is nothing that validates the bible as a legitimate source of knowledge or counsel. The authority of the bible is itself simply a chosen belief. But don't get me wrong. I do not care in the least whether you accept the bible or not. Believe the bible to your heart's content! Enjoy the poetry and revel in the exciting stories! Find your inspiration for life in its pages! It doesn't bother me one bit.  You are as free to believe as I am free not to.

The current mania of the christians to strong-arm their abortion philosophy on all of us is based on three beliefs that have absolutely no foundation. The first is, of course, people have souls.  The second is that God invests a soul on the zygote at inception, and the third is that the bible is true or at least mostly true.  Not a single one of these ideas can be corroborated by facts or observations.  If you want to force your religion, or even part of your religion, on others who don't believe in it, you'd better have a little more going for you than wild-eyed claims about ethereal elements and literary fiction. People have been killed at the hands of christians because of these unvalidated propositions. Now they are on the brink of wresting power unto themselves to enforce their cockeyed fantasies as law.

Abortion is obviously an issue, and it's a serious matter, but it is not a black and white debate where opinions fall neatly on one of two sides. When the church, both the evangelicals and the traditional church, create the false impression that there are only two sides of the abortion debate, they are simply doing that to lend the appearance of credibility to their unfounded assumptions. Creating a false dilemma is an old trick, but it only works on people who have abandoned logical and reasoned thinking. There are many facets to the question of abortion, not just two. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, which is a sin, but apparently not a bad enough sin to avoid.

Nobody is saying the christians have no right to their opinion on abortion. What I'm saying is that christians have no right to claim that all other opinions must be exterminated because they don't accept the idea that humans have souls and the bible is true. If you believe that humans have souls, that God imparts souls at inception, and that the bible is true, so be it. I can't make you see reason. But as soon as you cross over the line and attempt to compel others by force to adopt your unjustified philosophy, then don't be surprised at the opposition you encounter.   Free people do not willingly surrender their freedom to tyrants.  And don't be surprised if some of the opposition comes from those who actually believe the same as you do about abortion, but will not support your attempts to subvert American liberty under the influence of religious fervor.  If freedom isn't for all, then it's for none.


20 February 2011

The one with conflict

During a recent segment of Glenn Beck's Bozo the Clown hour, he called in an "antichrist expert" to talk about where the current political situation in the world fits in to God's final countdown to the end of the world.  Beck and his "expert" often referred to the return of christ, and that just makes me plain old disappointed in Man's progress, and a little annoyed, if truth be told.  Anyone who has seriously looked into the subject of Jesus of Nazareth reaches no honest conclusion other than the Jesus of the New Testament is a mythic figure; there isn't the slightest shred of history behind the Jesus mythology.  Jesus as a flesh-and-blood figure was created to make christian principles more accessible to the uninformed masses and to place the salvific christ sacrifice into a setting that people could relate to.  The Gospels are not a record of historical facts or even doctored facts or even badly retold facts.  They are entirely made up in order to present christian principles in narrative format.  

When you're a believer, as I was for many years, you train yourself to ignore the problems in the bible that indicate Jesus was not real.  You gloss over biblical difficulties and in the back of your mind you trust those wise old preachers you adore to understand it all and comfort you that there really is no problem, these are not the droids you're looking for.  But honesty compels us to look at the bible squarely, expose it to the light, scrutinize its claims, in effect, treating it as if it were the word of God.  If it is God's word, then it will be perfect in all respects, as God is perfect.  Oh, but wait!  Now, the christians claim that because the bible was given to Man, and Man is imperfect, we have somehow corrupted the bible, the perfect word of God.  The perfect word of a God is able to be corrupted by Man?  That calls into question its original perfection, wouldn't you say?  Oh, but then wait again!  It is SO perfect that we just can't grasp it well enough to resolve the conflicts found within it.  Then why did the God give it to us in the first place if He knew we couldn't understand it very well?  Oh, but wait! And on and on in that vein... That's how the christians will lead you down the convoluted path of their circular logic until you get so mired in their preposterous nonsense that you either surrender (a word they LOVE to use!) or just give up on the whole subject. 

When the modern radical right, which includes the evangelical cults all across the country, start bringing in their mythology as though it were real history (or real future), it's a harbinger of serious conflicts to come.  The christians have talked about the "coming conflict" for as long as I can remember, and I'm not a young man.   They feed on conflict.  They become giddy in the anticipation of conflict.  War, battle, and bloodshed are very common themes among the evangelical cults, and when you have millions of people who have grown up inured to those three horrors, who knows what they're capable of?  They anticipate a "second coming" of a Jesus who never came a first time.  They have been hoping for this since the third century, and they have remained disappointed all that time.  Now they have slowly but surely grasped great political power in the most heavily armed nation on earth, the nation that holds the most wealth of the world, a nation whose general citizenry has a long tradition of political apathy.  Will they try to make their prophecies come true?  Was that what caused George the Second to invade Iraq, to invoke his cult's mythic views?  I wouldn't be surprised, though we'll probably never know.  Christians in politics is not in itself a bad thing, in fact, it's a good thing for as many citizens as possible to be active in politics.  However, they are not active in politics for the good of the nation, but to install their mythology and doctrine as the law of the land.  That is not a good thing.  Politics has to come to conclusions that benefit the most people possible, not just one strict ideology.  Politics has to deal with the real world as it is, not as some see it through bible-colored lenses.  

11 February 2011

The one about civic duty

They're cleaning the building today.  As I sit here in my office and listen to the cleaning crew, it reminds me of seminary.  In our seminary, and I don't think this is common for seminaries, the student body was required to pitch in on a weekly basis to clean the common-use buildings, take care of the grounds, and any other chores that needed doing.  We also had to take turns washing dishes in the refectory.  It's based on an old christian principle called ora et labora, prayer and work.  It probably comes from years of communal sharing among earlier christian groups, reflected in St. Paul's admonition, "if he will not work, neither let him eat." There were some of the seminary who claimed that the principle was really ora est labore, prayer is work, but there is no historical evidence that any early christians thought about it that way, though at the time, many of us thought that this was not a bad way of looking at it.

However, there is something cathartic about mundane labor done for the community in which one lives.  When you share something, you take care of it for one reason or the other.  Maybe you don't want others to think badly of you for mistreating communal spaces, or maybe you take pride in your work caring for it, or maybe you like the others you share it with and want them to be as pleased as you are about it.  Whatever the reason, communal living offers many opportunities to serve and be served.

I've read that the ancient Greeks required citizens to participate in cult performances as a civic duty.  Of course, people are always people, and as the old religion was replaced with the new christian cult, the need for civic duty waned, the work done by the lower classes who couldn't afford to shirk the responsibilities, a situation that has remained unchanged to this day.  Though America is a diverse nation, technically neutral on religion, there are still many things that could be done by citizens pitching in.  Wouldn't that be an old fashioned idea come round if perhaps citizens could get their taxes cut in exchange for raking the public parks and sweeping the courthouse walkways?  Scooping trash from the creek and mowing the lawns of the town cemetery?  Civic duty is a phrase fallen by the wayside, or rather, pushed aside by that modern idea of Individualism, what we might be tempted to call "Me-Firstism" as we survey the panorama of it's insidious effects upon our country.  It's not a Democratic or Republican idea, definitely not a "Libertarian" or "Tea Party" idea, this notion of community and civic duty, social responsibility.  It's a human idea.  I am who I am because of the community that bore and nurtured me.

So we probably aren't going to go back to the townsfolk pitching in to paint the school, but we can at least cultivate a mindset of civic responsibility.  We can look at our town, our county, our state, and even our nation as our brothers and sisters.  We can be more patient at the DMV.  We can be respectful at school board and town hall meetings.  We can always be more generous and forgiving of the people we share our community with.  It's an old idea that might just get a second life even in these modern, fast-paced times.