This past Father's Day we didn't really have anything special planned after we got home from taking the kids to see Marmaduke, so I figured I would take advantage of the sunny weather in the early evening to go for a solitary hike.
Last year, I had hiked a section of the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt Trail between Jericho Turnpike up to just shy of Stillwell Woods in Syosset. This time, I wanted to tackle a different part of the trail. I settled on entering the trail at Old Bethpage Road, with the goal of going as far north as the Northern State Parkway and then turning onto a loop trail called the Parkway Tower Loop Trail and use it to swing back south before rejoining the Greenbelt Trail on Washington Avenue in Plainview.
The section of trail at Old Bethpage Road is a flat, narrow strip that was originally slated to be part of a northward extension of the Bethpage State Parkway some years ago. There are very few trees and the vegetation consists of bushes and tall plants. As a novice birder, I paused a few times to listen to the cacophony of bird calls. There were a lot of gray catbirds and some red wing black birds, to name a few. This stretch of the trail, as well as presumably the section further south towards Haypath Road into Bethpage State Park, is very easy and would be ideal for young children as well.
The trail leads out to Old Country Road near an entrance road to some buildings owned by the county of Nassau. Crossing north on Old Country Road, the trail picks up again near a bus stop kiosk. In this section, trees begin to predominate and the ground rises slowly. The tree cover increases the further north you go, causing a concomitant decrease in the sunlight.
After about five minutes or so, I noticed a side trail that ran off to the right, and in the distance, a tree with what looked like some kind of tree house on it. I decided to take a closer look. The tree had some wood planking on it in a couple of sections, and between two large limbs some green chain link fence had been fastened into a hammock. On the ground a few feet from the tree was a car seat. Scattered on the ground around the tree were water bottles and cans of ice tea. I would guess that the site is used as a hangout by students from either the Plainview High School or the Mattlin Middle School, as both were close by. Given the absence of beer cans or bottles, it was more likely a haunt for middle school students. I decided to name the tree "The Party Tree" and returned to the main trail to continue my northward journey.
The trail continued a few minutes longer before reaching Washington Avenue. To rejoin the trail, one has to cross Washinton Avenue and then turn right and walk underneath the Long Island Expressway overpass until coming on an opening in the chain link fence on the left side.
This portion of the trail was very hilly, with lots of rises and dips. It can be a bit strenuous and for parents who want to bring children with them on nature walks, I would not recommend this section for kids under the age of 12. The tree cover here was even greater than the previous section. For those interested in birdwatching, this part of the trail was Blue Jay country. The air was filled with their screeching "jay!" and I saw quite a number of them flying around high in the tree tops. At one point, up ahead, I spied some larger bird that I could not identify swoop down amongst the trees and then it appeared to be chased out by a squadron of Blue Jays who seemed determined to defend their territory from other avian intruders.
As I continued further north, I knew from consulting the map in the book I carried with me, Hiking Long Island by Lee McAllister, that I would soon reach the Northern State Parkway. I started looking for signs to point me to the Parkway Tower Loop Trail. As the Northern State Parkway came into view, I continued to look for the trail marker without success. I stood there, baffled for a moment, not sure of what to do. I decided to turn around and head back and perhaps I might spot the trail marker heading in the reverse direction, and if I didn't, I would just go back the way I had come.
Well, my strategy worked. I didn't see the trail marker, but I spotted what looked like a trail. It was overgrown with grass, but it was clearly a trail. I still didn't see a trail marker, but I decided that this had to be the Parkway Tower Loop Trail and forged ahead. Very soon, the grass cover ended, and the trail became rocky. But as I continued along, I got the sense that this trail was not being maintained at all, as certain parts were overgrown or had tree limbs lying across it. Here and there a tree would me marked with a white rectangle with a blue circle inside it, which was the sign for the trail.
The Northern State Parkway was to my left, and to my right were the backyards of houses that were on Harvard Road. I could even see some people in their backyards and for a moment I felt a little awkward tramping along in the woods in my hiking gear. After about ten minutes, the trail turned south and led into a small field. A little bit further on and I was back on Washington Avenue again. I crossed over to the other side and walked past the St. Margaret Episcopal Church and cemetary. The sun was beginning to set, and while there was still daylight, I knew I did not have much time before it got dark.
After the cemetary, there was a strip of woods again. I saw a trail marker, but I could not discern any trail. On the other side of the trees was a road that led into the Kaplan Center. I walked down the road trying to see if I could figure out where the trail continued but had no luck. I had no choice but to walk south on Washington Road past the Long Island Expressway and head back south on the Greenbelt Trail. I probably walked nearly a mile before I got there.
With the darkness beginning to descend, I picked up my pace. I had my water bottle in my waistpack and secured it by closing the zipper on it. However, periodically, the zippler loosened and I would have to re-zip it.
As the last light faded away, I crossed Old Country Road and was on the last leg of the trip back. At this point, I noticed how eerily quiet it had become in contrast to the noisy bird calls that predominated earlier. I was relieved knowing that I was almost back at my car when I suddenly became aware that something was wrong. I looked down at my waistpack and saw that my water bottle was gone. I had a feeling that it must have just fallen out and I walked back a few steps to look for it, but it was very nearly pitch black, and I had no chance of finding the bottle, which was blue.
There was nothing more I could do but go back to my car and see if I had a flashlight. I did, but it didn't work. Still, I didn't like the idea of leaving my bottle on the trail. For one, I didn't want to have to buy a new one. Second, I hate littering and loathed the prospect of littering the trail. So, I decided to go home, grab a flashlight, and return. When I told my wife about it when I got home, she said "Just forget about it." But I couldn't. I grabbed a flashlight, as well as a glow stick in the event that the batteries died on the flashlight, and drove back to where I had begun my hike several hours earlier.
It was now about 9:30 and well past sundown. As I shined my flashlight ahead of me as I retraced my steps, I felt like I was in The Blair Witch Project. To my disappointment, I did not find the water bottle where I thought I had dropped it. The last I had remembered seeing it was when I took a few sips of water by the LIE overpass before getting on the trail at Washington Avenue. I did not relish the thought of walking that far again. I pressed on, crossing Old Country Road, going on another five minutes or so. I decided against continuing on to Washington Avenue and hoped that I had already passed the point where I had lost the bottle. Besides, since I had dropped the bottle on the way back to the car, I had a better chance of spotting it on the return journey.
As I crossed Old Country Road again, I caught something on the other side of the street by the curb in my flashlight beam. Walking towards it with my light shined on it, I was pleased to see that it was indeed my water bottle. I did not see it when I was retracing my steps earlier, because it was obscured by the curb. But going in the other direction, I was in a position to see it clearly. Tired and soaked with sweat, I gladly made my way back to my car, drove home, and took a much needed shower.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
I Don't Get It
The June/July 2010 issuse of Free Inquiry has an article by a Christopher diCarlo titled "We Are All African." Unfortunately, the issue does not seem to be up yet on the Free Inquiry website, so I cannot link to the article itself.
The main thrust of diCarlo's article is that the common African ancestry of all humanity can serve as a means of promoting human unity today. Since "we are all African," he writes repeatedly, "we are all humbled," "we are equal," "We are all exactly the same."
That's all well and good, of course, though I have my doubts that it really gets us anywhere.
The problem I have with the article though is where diCarlo references a book by a Steve Olsen titled Mapping Human History. According to diCarlo, "Olsen has calculated that we have to go back in time only 2,000 to 5,000 years to find someone who could count every person on Earth today as a direct descendant. If we go back just a little further, 5,000 to 7,000 years, every person is a direct ancestor to the over 6 billion people alive today (unless their line of descendancy died out)."
Now maybe I am overlooking something, but I just don't see how this is possible. If the ancestors of the Australian aborigines arrived in Australia some 40,000 years ago or the ancestors of Native Americans reached the Americas some 12,000 years ago, then how can a person who lived in Egypt some 5,000 to 7,000 years ago be the ancestor of all humanity? Since anatomically modern humans first began to migrate out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, it would seem to me that the ancestor of all modern humans would have to have lived more than 60,000 years ago. If anyone reading this could shed some light on this paradox, please feel free to enlighten me.
While I agree with diCarlo's sentiments about promoting a common humanity as a means of overcoming racism and xenophobia, I can't help but think that some humans left Africa some 60,000 years ago because they were either forced out or they were trying to get away from other people with whom they did not get along with very well.
The main thrust of diCarlo's article is that the common African ancestry of all humanity can serve as a means of promoting human unity today. Since "we are all African," he writes repeatedly, "we are all humbled," "we are equal," "We are all exactly the same."
That's all well and good, of course, though I have my doubts that it really gets us anywhere.
The problem I have with the article though is where diCarlo references a book by a Steve Olsen titled Mapping Human History. According to diCarlo, "Olsen has calculated that we have to go back in time only 2,000 to 5,000 years to find someone who could count every person on Earth today as a direct descendant. If we go back just a little further, 5,000 to 7,000 years, every person is a direct ancestor to the over 6 billion people alive today (unless their line of descendancy died out)."
Now maybe I am overlooking something, but I just don't see how this is possible. If the ancestors of the Australian aborigines arrived in Australia some 40,000 years ago or the ancestors of Native Americans reached the Americas some 12,000 years ago, then how can a person who lived in Egypt some 5,000 to 7,000 years ago be the ancestor of all humanity? Since anatomically modern humans first began to migrate out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, it would seem to me that the ancestor of all modern humans would have to have lived more than 60,000 years ago. If anyone reading this could shed some light on this paradox, please feel free to enlighten me.
While I agree with diCarlo's sentiments about promoting a common humanity as a means of overcoming racism and xenophobia, I can't help but think that some humans left Africa some 60,000 years ago because they were either forced out or they were trying to get away from other people with whom they did not get along with very well.
Toilet Talk
It seems every year, as summer approaches, we receive flyers in the mail from our local elected officials or read columns in our local Pennysaver type weekly publications informing us of the importance of using less water and providing us with a laundry list of suggestions, like this one.
One of the statistics thrown at us is that 25% of our indoor water use comes from flushing the toilet. Every time we flush the toilet, we are using about 3 to 4 gallons of water. When you factor in a family of 4 in a home, with each person flushing the toilet about twice a day, that's anywhere between 24 to 32 gallons of fresh water. Most of us take this for granted, which is amazing when you consider that in some parts of the developing world, people have to walk for miles to obtain water from wells and trudge it back to their homes.
I have several things I do on occasion that I guess are not deemed as proper for suggestion on these lists of ways you can reduce toilet water use. In my house, we only have one bathroom for four people. Inevitably, there come times wherein one of us is sitting on the toilet doing a bombing run and someone else needs to take a wicked piss. For instances where I or my son are the ones who have to urinate when there is another occupant on the toilet, the solution seems fairly simple to me, pee in the bathtub.
Due to anatomical differences, it is of course easier for males than females to do it by directing the urine stream towards the shower drain. Once that's done, a short burst of water from the tub faucet does away with any traces of the offending substance. Of course, both genders can urinate in the tub while taking a shower, where aim is no longer really a factor.
Another unconventional thing I do sometimes is simply pee in a cup and pour the contents in my compost pile in the backyard. Thankfully I don't seem to be the only one who does it. Besides reducing the need to flush one's toilet, pouring urine into a compost pile is beneficial because the urine contains phosporous, which is an important fertilizing component.
You will likely never see these ideas listed on any official list of things you can do to conserve water, as they are probably seen as being outside of the mainstream (pun intended). But if water conservation is important, and my suggestions do help to reduce water usage, then the hell with polite convention, I'm putting it out there in the public domain.
For some reason, we take certain ways of doing things so much for granted that the idea of doing things differently is seen as bizarre or beyond the pale, even if an honest examination of the evidence clearly demonstrates their benefit. Several weeks ago, Bill Maher had on his program John Fund of The Wall Street Journal. Fund is from the pro-business/libertarian wing of the Republican Party rather than the socially conservative wing. At one point on Maher's show, Fund was complaining that government is too big and does too much, and specifically mentioned government regulations on how much water a toilet uses when it is flushed.
Given how much water we use on a daily basis from flushing the toilet and the fact that some parts of the country suffer from chronic shortages, it absolutely makes sense to regulate how many gallons of water are used per flush. I know some people will complain that if you reduce the numer of gallons per flush, you will just end up having to flush the toilet more often when you have just taken a massive shit. But more often than not, it is not the crap itself that causes the toilet to clog or be ineffective, it's the amount of toilet paper you use to wipe your ass that causes the problem.
"Tommykey, are you seriously suggesting that we don't use toilet paper?"
In short, well, yes! I don't use toilet paper anymore. I use baby wipes. Instead of putting them in the toilet, I put them in the garbage pail. Since I've been doing that, I can't really recall having any problems with the toilet clogging up on me. By eliminating the problem of clogging or having to do multiple flushes, I am helping to reduce water use further. Unfortunately, my wife and kids are currently not on board with this, so I am the only one in the house who does this. But I like to think that every little bit helps. And hopefully, down the road, I will be able to convince one or all of the rest of the family to follow suit.
There are steps one can take even beyond my modest suggestions to reduce water consumption. For instance, waterless composting toilets, such as this one by Envirolet, have been on the market for a few years. There are even waterless urinals for restrooms, such as offered by this company, which is appropriately named, well, Waterless.
One of the statistics thrown at us is that 25% of our indoor water use comes from flushing the toilet. Every time we flush the toilet, we are using about 3 to 4 gallons of water. When you factor in a family of 4 in a home, with each person flushing the toilet about twice a day, that's anywhere between 24 to 32 gallons of fresh water. Most of us take this for granted, which is amazing when you consider that in some parts of the developing world, people have to walk for miles to obtain water from wells and trudge it back to their homes.
I have several things I do on occasion that I guess are not deemed as proper for suggestion on these lists of ways you can reduce toilet water use. In my house, we only have one bathroom for four people. Inevitably, there come times wherein one of us is sitting on the toilet doing a bombing run and someone else needs to take a wicked piss. For instances where I or my son are the ones who have to urinate when there is another occupant on the toilet, the solution seems fairly simple to me, pee in the bathtub.
Due to anatomical differences, it is of course easier for males than females to do it by directing the urine stream towards the shower drain. Once that's done, a short burst of water from the tub faucet does away with any traces of the offending substance. Of course, both genders can urinate in the tub while taking a shower, where aim is no longer really a factor.
Another unconventional thing I do sometimes is simply pee in a cup and pour the contents in my compost pile in the backyard. Thankfully I don't seem to be the only one who does it. Besides reducing the need to flush one's toilet, pouring urine into a compost pile is beneficial because the urine contains phosporous, which is an important fertilizing component.
You will likely never see these ideas listed on any official list of things you can do to conserve water, as they are probably seen as being outside of the mainstream (pun intended). But if water conservation is important, and my suggestions do help to reduce water usage, then the hell with polite convention, I'm putting it out there in the public domain.
For some reason, we take certain ways of doing things so much for granted that the idea of doing things differently is seen as bizarre or beyond the pale, even if an honest examination of the evidence clearly demonstrates their benefit. Several weeks ago, Bill Maher had on his program John Fund of The Wall Street Journal. Fund is from the pro-business/libertarian wing of the Republican Party rather than the socially conservative wing. At one point on Maher's show, Fund was complaining that government is too big and does too much, and specifically mentioned government regulations on how much water a toilet uses when it is flushed.
Given how much water we use on a daily basis from flushing the toilet and the fact that some parts of the country suffer from chronic shortages, it absolutely makes sense to regulate how many gallons of water are used per flush. I know some people will complain that if you reduce the numer of gallons per flush, you will just end up having to flush the toilet more often when you have just taken a massive shit. But more often than not, it is not the crap itself that causes the toilet to clog or be ineffective, it's the amount of toilet paper you use to wipe your ass that causes the problem.
"Tommykey, are you seriously suggesting that we don't use toilet paper?"
In short, well, yes! I don't use toilet paper anymore. I use baby wipes. Instead of putting them in the toilet, I put them in the garbage pail. Since I've been doing that, I can't really recall having any problems with the toilet clogging up on me. By eliminating the problem of clogging or having to do multiple flushes, I am helping to reduce water use further. Unfortunately, my wife and kids are currently not on board with this, so I am the only one in the house who does this. But I like to think that every little bit helps. And hopefully, down the road, I will be able to convince one or all of the rest of the family to follow suit.
There are steps one can take even beyond my modest suggestions to reduce water consumption. For instance, waterless composting toilets, such as this one by Envirolet, have been on the market for a few years. There are even waterless urinals for restrooms, such as offered by this company, which is appropriately named, well, Waterless.
NOMA Indeed
Came across this article on Yahoo which discusses the possibility that "[a]n obscure compound known as pyrophosphite could have been a source of energy that allowed the first life on Earth to form."
The article has a comments section, and naturally it has resulted in a lot of "God fearin'" people to come crawling out of the woodwork.
My personal favorite attributes it all to "Man's misguided attempt (under the influence of Satan) to explain away the Creator. God is not mocked. Science used to be the study of God's creation, but it has been abused and has become it's own religion to the unbelieving- the Antichrist campaign. Without God, man feels free to sin without conviction and conscience. For the Love for the Lord has waxed cold..."
Another commenter adds "No, evolution is a convenient excuse for sinning. No maker=no responsibilty. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." I really feel sorry for you nonbelievers."
I already dispensed with that "we're atheists because we want to sin without responsibility" canard here.
One thoughtful commentator (and presumably a theist) does make an attempt to bridge the differences between the science and Biblical literalist camp:
"Those of faith and those who are agnostic or atheists, are all sharing the same world. The Bible tells us to love each other, including those with whom we disagree. That is a good concept regardless of your belief system. I don't need to agree with someone to offer them a hand up, and I don't need to agree with them to accept their hand up, either. We need to stop the pointless and petty bickering over ideology and realize that we are all here, and we can work together towards a common good regardless of what we believe in. Hey, we all need food, shelter, clothes, etc., don't we?"
Admirable sentiments, with which I largely agree. However, in the paragraph above that, this commenter wrote:
"Also understand that there is no conflict between religion and science. There is nothing in the Bible (I don't know about other religious texts) that contradicts anything science has discovered, and there is nothing that science has discovered that contradicts the Bible. If you believe there is conflict, you are not understanding either the Bible or science. Or both."
As limited as my scientific knowledge is, it is my undestanding that science does contradict the Biblical account of Genesis, or at least a literal interpretation of it. For example, Genesis has the Earth existing before the sun around which it orbits. Science tells us that planets are the byproducts of star formation, which means that the Earth could not have been created before the sun. These are two mutually incompatible claims. See, I didn't even have to touch on evolution!
Anyway, if anyone is interested in stirring the pot and rile some fundies, click on the link to the article above and join the fray!
The article has a comments section, and naturally it has resulted in a lot of "God fearin'" people to come crawling out of the woodwork.
My personal favorite attributes it all to "Man's misguided attempt (under the influence of Satan) to explain away the Creator. God is not mocked. Science used to be the study of God's creation, but it has been abused and has become it's own religion to the unbelieving- the Antichrist campaign. Without God, man feels free to sin without conviction and conscience. For the Love for the Lord has waxed cold..."
Another commenter adds "No, evolution is a convenient excuse for sinning. No maker=no responsibilty. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." I really feel sorry for you nonbelievers."
I already dispensed with that "we're atheists because we want to sin without responsibility" canard here.
One thoughtful commentator (and presumably a theist) does make an attempt to bridge the differences between the science and Biblical literalist camp:
"Those of faith and those who are agnostic or atheists, are all sharing the same world. The Bible tells us to love each other, including those with whom we disagree. That is a good concept regardless of your belief system. I don't need to agree with someone to offer them a hand up, and I don't need to agree with them to accept their hand up, either. We need to stop the pointless and petty bickering over ideology and realize that we are all here, and we can work together towards a common good regardless of what we believe in. Hey, we all need food, shelter, clothes, etc., don't we?"
Admirable sentiments, with which I largely agree. However, in the paragraph above that, this commenter wrote:
"Also understand that there is no conflict between religion and science. There is nothing in the Bible (I don't know about other religious texts) that contradicts anything science has discovered, and there is nothing that science has discovered that contradicts the Bible. If you believe there is conflict, you are not understanding either the Bible or science. Or both."
As limited as my scientific knowledge is, it is my undestanding that science does contradict the Biblical account of Genesis, or at least a literal interpretation of it. For example, Genesis has the Earth existing before the sun around which it orbits. Science tells us that planets are the byproducts of star formation, which means that the Earth could not have been created before the sun. These are two mutually incompatible claims. See, I didn't even have to touch on evolution!
Anyway, if anyone is interested in stirring the pot and rile some fundies, click on the link to the article above and join the fray!
Saturday, June 05, 2010
On Banning The Veil
First things though, apologies for the lack of posting lately. I just haven't had the time to write, and when I did, I just could not seem to push myself to do it, even though I had a number of topics that were of interest to me. But anyway, here I am.
Unfortunately, due to my recent inactivity, I am a bit behind the curve in writing about proposals to ban the practice of Muslim women veiling their faces in public in countries such as Belgium and France. However, since I had already collected information from various points of view on the subject, I figure I might as well get it done and posted already.
The impetus for wanting to do write about this subject came from reading this post at Daylight Atheism by Sarah Braasch, who is an occasional contributor to that blog. Sarah makes her stance on the issue very plain:
"I support the anticipated public burqa ban in France. And, I would support a public burqa ban in the United States. In fact, I would support a global public burqa ban.
It is beyond ludicrous to think that any society can maintain a liberal constitutional democracy with its electorate walking around in public with their identities wholly obscured. You first have to claim your humanity before you can claim your human rights. You first have to claim your citizenship before you can claim your civil rights. This is not possible without claiming one's identity. Identity is power. Why do you think misogynists impose the burqa upon women? To render them powerless.
I'll admit it: I hate the burqa and the niqab. I hate everything it represents. The oppression of women. The demonization of female sexuality."
In the May 29th-June 4th 2010 issue of The Economist, a letter-to-the-editor by an Elizabeth Purdam of the UK echoes the same sentiments as Sarah's:
"[W]earing the burqa...is purely and simply to do with the subjugation of women. It is about control and possession. It is overt and aggressive sexism and it is a disgrace that it is tolerated at all. We should no more tolerate the wearing of the burqa in public than we permit nakedness."
But while it may indeed be in some instances that the niqab (which is the correct term for the veiled attire worn by some Muslim women in Europe, which is distinguished from the burqa in that it does not cover the entire face but rather has a slit that reveals the wearers eyes) is imposed on Muslim women as a form of subjugation, that is not necessarily always the case.
In a post I wrote before on this topic, I opined that "I find the idea of Muslim women wearing veils in our society to be a provocative act. The veil serves not only as a physical barrier, but a psychological barrier as well. It is as if the Muslim woman views the rest of us as some kind of contamination to be kept at bay."
On the other hand, I also recognized the possibility that for a Muslim woman, "wearing a veil from her perspective is in its own way a feminist act. It is an expression of her individuality and her right to deal with our society on her own terms."
In this, I am reminded of a passage from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book Infidel, which I have mentioned before, wherein she wrote of her feelings when she began to wear Muslim robes during her time in Kenya, "It made me feel powerful: underneath this screen lay a previously unsuspected, but potentially lethal, femininity. I was unique: very few people walked about like that those days in Nairobi. Weirdly, it made me feel like an individual. It sent out a message of superiority: I was the one true Muslim. All those other girls with their little white headscarves were children, hypocrites. I was a star of God. When I spread out my hands I felt like I could fly."
Another thing that unsettles me about the veil is that has the effect of dehumanizing the wearer in my eyes. Rather than seeing a living, breathing human female, I see a thing. Those of you who remember the largely forgotten 1979 Disney sci-fi film The Black Hole may recall that the protagonists discover the long-lost space vessel Cygnus, with seemingly only one human survivor left aboard, Dr. Reinhardt. His only company is the fearsome red robot Maximilian and large numbers of human shaped robots whom Reinhardt has garbed in monastic looking robes and tinted masks. As time goes by, the protagonists discover that these robed servants are not robots but are in fact the surviving members of the original crew who have been lobotomized by Reinhardt to be his obedient servants. My theory about why Reinhardt had their faces hidden behind the tinted masks was that in doing so, he could make himself forget that they were human beings so as not to trouble his conscience about what he had done to them. So much of what makes us human to one another is being able to see each other's faces. Hide that face behind a veil, along with virtually the rest of the body, and that person becomes, well, less than human.
But while seeing a Muslim women wearing a veil in public bothers me on a visceral level, as it clearly does to so many other people, is that a sufficient justification to support banning such an attire? When encountering a Muslim woman garbed in such attire, we tend to project our assumptions on to her about why she is dressed that way, while her actual motivation for dressing in such a fashion might be something else entirely. What we think about the veil says more about us, I should think, then it does about the women who wear it.
Cycads, a Malaysian feminist blogger, turns the issue of female subjugation on its head. European societies that want to ban the niqab or the burqa are actually the ones attempting to subjugate the woman who wears it. In this post, she writes, "The ban on the full-face veil in Belgium seems like the easiest thing to mete out as far as unconstitutional legislations are concerned. Out of about 215 women who wear either the niqab or burqa in the country, many belong to immigrant communities, many are hard done by multiple forms of discrimination already in addition to being economically disadvantaged and politically under-represented. Penalising them is like flicking away ants or beating someone when they’re already down."
In its May 15 issue, The Economist devoted both a leader and a full article on the push for a ban on the veil in various European countries. The magazine considers the arguments in favor of the ban but does not find them convincing:
"Europeans’ hostility to the burqa is understandable. It doesn’t just deprive them of the beauty of women’s faces; it offends the secularism that goes deep in European—and especially French—culture. Its spread goes hand in hand with the growth of a fundamentalist version of Islam some of whose proponents have attacked the secular societies they live in; and, at a time when those societies feel under threat, the burqa makes it harder for police to identify security risks.
[T]he three arguments for a ban—security, sexual equality and secularism—do not stand up. On security, women can be required to lift their veils if necessary. On sexual equality, women would be better protected by the enforcement of existing laws against domestic violence than by the enactment of new laws forcing them to dress in a way that may be against their will. On secularism, even if Europeans would prefer not to have others’ religiosity paraded on the streets, the tolerance that Westerners claim to value requires them to put up with it."
In the same May 29th issue in which the aforementioned letter of Elizabeth Purdam appeared in response to the May 15 article, another letter was published that was written by a Mohsin Zaidi of Brussels, Belgium. Zaidi writes "There is little distinction between a country that forces women to wear the burqa and a country that forces them not to wear it. Although the former is more easy to categorise as going against our Western notions of equality and secularism, the latter just as readily violates those fundamental principles."
As I wrote above, I admit I am troubled when I see Muslim women wearing veils in public here in the United States on occasion. But I believe that in the interest of fairness, I do need to be mindful of my personal prejudices. Thus, at least for the time being, I tend to find myself leaning towards the position advocated by Mohsin Zaidi. A woman should not be forced to wear a burqa or a niqab if she does not want to. Likewise, she should not be forced not to wear one just because I do not like the fact that she may voluntarily want to wear it.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Weekend Funnies - Kramer's Karate Class
Sorry, I've been an absentee blogger lately. Hope to remedy that soon. Meanwhile, here's a great clip from a Seinfeld episode wherein Kramer takes up karate and soon dominates the dojo.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Musical Dinosaur
Having lived for 40 years now as a suburban Long Islander, I reflect a lot now on what has changed in my life over the years, particularly in how changes in technology have altered our consumer landscape.It used to be that one of my guilty pleasures would be to go to a record store and spend anywhere from $50 to $100 on music CDs. One of my favorite early haunts was Uncle Phil's on Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown, which specialized in heavy metal. After Uncle Phil's closed, and my musical tastes expanded, I would make the trip every few months to the Tower Records store at the Country Glen shopping center at the intersection of Glen Cove Road and Old Country Road in Carle Place. I remember my first time there being astonished at the tremendous selection they had. By the end of the 1990's, I had probably amassed over a hundred CDs.
Then one day, I can't remember when, I was in the Country Glen shopping center for reasons I don't recall, when I noticed something. Tower Records was gone. This Wikipedia article offers some background:
Tower Records entered bankruptcy for the first time in 2004. Factors cited were the heavy debt incurred during its aggressive expansion in the 1990s, growing competition from mass discounters, and internet piracy. Mismanagement, managerial incompetence, and crippling restrictions from the first bankruptcy deal also contributed to Tower's demise.
Bummer, I thought. However, by that time, I was living in Plainview, and there was The Wiz just around the block from me at Woodbury Plaza. Granted, it didn't have anywhere near the selection of Tower Records. But it was within walking distance, and because it was owned by Cablevision, I could pay my cable bill there as well. Then, after maybe a year or so had passed by, Cablevision closed The Wiz. There had been a music store in Woodbury Plaza as well, the name of which I can't remember, but it also closed down, though I didn't lament its passing as its prices were too expensive anyway.
Soon I found myself limited to buying my CDs from Best Buy or bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Borders. The music industry was changing, as more and more people purchased songs online and downloading them to their MP3 players. Consequently, music store chains vanished from the suburban landscape.
While I am not a technophobe, I have always been rather conservative when it comes to new technology. There are some people who are constantly on the lookout for the latest gadgets. But when it came to music, I never really got into CD burning and all that. I don't own an iPod, though my wife has one along with an iTunes account. I do buy songs on it and listen to them on my computer when I am at home, but I still buy CDs occasionally (and grumble at the difficulty in removing the security tape from them!) and play some of them on my computer at work. I even still have and continue to listen every now and then to the first CD I ever bought, Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which I purchased in the summer of 1988.
So yeah, I've been slow to adapt to how technology has changed the way we purchase and listen to music, though I am sure one day I will eventually going all digital. But it is not just the music industry that has been impacted by technological change, as I will discuss in future posts.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
God Loves Barack Obama and Hates Chile
As many of you may know by know, the nation of Chile suffered a terrible earthquake today. From this AP article:
One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded tore apart houses, bridges and highways in central Chile on Saturday and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world. Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant, and the head of the emergency agency said authorities believed at least 300 people were dead.
The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless. It caused a tsunami that killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused damage along the west coast of the United States.
There were fears that today's earthquake would also trigger a deadly tsunami across the Pacific, including the Hawaiian Islands.
With a rapt world watching the drama unfold on live television, a tsunami raced across a quarter of the globe on Saturday and set off fears of a repeat of the carnage that caught the world off guard in Asia in 2004.
By the time the tsunami hit Hawaii — a full 16 hours after the quake — officials had already spent the morning ringing emergency sirens, blaring warnings from airplanes and ordering residents to higher ground.
"We dodged a bullet," said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.
Now, since a lot of religious nut jobs like Pat Robertson like to claim that natural disasters, like the recent earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti, are signs of God's wrath, then according to their "logic", two things should be obvious, God loves Barack Obama and hates Chile.
First, the evidence that God loves Barack Obama.
Exhibit A: The earthquake that struck Chile in 1960 and killed over 1,600 people caused a tsunami that killed people in Hawaii. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Evidently, God caused the earthquake and tsunami to happen before the future president was born so that no harm would come to him.
Exhibit B: The tsunami caused by today's earthquake in Chile did not strike Hawaii. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is currently president. God knew that if Hawaii was severely damaged by a tsunami while Barack Obama was president, people like Pat Robertson would interpret it as a sign from God that God was angry with President Obama.
Second, God hates Chile. Since Chile is prone to such powerful earthquakes, God must be angry with Chile about something. But what could it be?
Abortion? Nope, according to this Wikipedia article, "The Chilean abortion law is considered one of the most restrictive in the world."
Gay rights? It doesn't look promising. Again, from Wikipedia:
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Chile may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is legal in Chile, but same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
Although homosexuality was legalized in 1998 in Chile, several court rulings within the last decade demonstrate discriminatory policy. In Chile the current law against sodomy states that the age of consent for homosexuals is set at 18, whereas the age of consent for heterosexual sex is lower at 12.
Below are some excerpts from an ex-pat's personal anecdotes on encountering homophobia in Chile's capital of Santiago.
Today in English class in downtown Santiago, I mentioned that Manchester was celebrating Gay Pride. One of my students immediately responded, “I don’t like gays”. She told me that she’d seen a similar parade in Canada and that she hadn’t liked it because there were too many lesbians there. She thought that lesbians were women who “made the decision to be lesbian because they wanted to be fashionable or because they were too ugly to get a man." She said this without shame or without thinking for a moment that anyone might have a different opinion. She was a young, educated woman who firmly believed that homosexual was not something you were, but rather something you decided to be.
It wasn’t the first time I’d come across such blatant homophobia. I recently went out for some drinks with a group of young Chilean university students. During the course of the conversation, I mentioned that I had gay friends. “So you’re gay then?” “No, I just have gay friends”. This took a while to sink in. I talked about Manchester and the fact that gay marriage and gay adoption was accepted in England. The same girl chipped in, “Oh, but gay parents have gay babies”. I asked her how, with that logic, straight parents had gay children, but she didn’t answer. Perhaps she was the daughter of the taxi driver who, during my first month in the city, pointed out two guys together and told me that there weren’t men, they were ‘gays’. Worse still, on the computer terminal in the staff room at work, I was blocked from reading an article on the internet about Germain Greer because it contained the words ‘gay rights’.
So, if it is not abortion or gay rights, what could be the cause of God's beef with Chile? Two words: Michelle Bachelet. Besides being the current president of Chile, Ms. Bachelet is "a pediatrician and epidemiologist with studies in military strategy—served as Health Minister and Defense Minister under President Ricardo Lagos. She is a separated mother of three and a self-described agnostic."
Could God be punishing Chile because He hates Michelle Bachelet?
Exhibit A: Michelle Bachelet was born on September 29, 1951. Therefore, she was alive when the 1960 earthquake devastated Chile.
Exhibit B: Michelle Bachelet is separated from her husband and is an agnostic.
Exhibit C: Her presidential term ends this coming March 10. If God wasn't mad at Michelle Bachelet, the earthquake would not have happened before the end of her presidency.
So, the next time you encounter a Christian who speaks ill of President Obama, remember this post and tell the Obama bashing Christian that he or she is gravely mistaken. God loves Barack Obama. Therefore, to be against Obama is to be against God.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Belize Trip - Friday, August 7, 2009: Back On Dry Land
This was our last full day in Belize. There were two dives scheduled for the morning at a site called Amberhead at Turneffe, one at 6 a.m. and the other at 8 a.m. I decided to pass on the last two dives and decided to get an early start on packing for our departure the next morning.
After the morning's dives were done, everyone rinsed out and hung their gear up to dry on the sun deck at the top of the ship. I took the picture above of the wetsuits and BCDs hanging from the bar to capture that sense of finality that the trip was winding down and our diving was at an end.
But while there would be no more scuba diving for us, it did not mean that the fun was over. Marnie, the First Mate of the Sundancer II, informed us of several land excursion options that we could choose from later that afternoon after we had docked in Belize City. I and four others, Sam, Tara, Jeff and Josh, opted for the Cave Tubing trip.
We left around 1 p.m. The drive itself took over an hour into the interior of Belize. At several spots along the road, we were surprised to see groups of rifle toting men in camouflage standing around. One spot in particular was where the road crossed over a river or canal, and we speculated they might be Belizean military or police on the lookout for boats bringing in drugs. Later on, the road became pockmarked with potholes, and our driver had to execute a number of movements to go around them. Finally, we reached our destination.
After meeting our guide, we were issued our tubes, and then trekked for about 30 minutes or so through the jungle to get to the river where our tubing adventure would begin. Our guide was emphatic that we avoid touching any of the trees, as some were poisonous, and others had spikes that could puncture our tubes.
At last we reached the point in the river where we would begin our journey. It was an open part of the river, maybe about 50 yards, sandwiched between two caves.
It didn't take long before were immersed in darkness, with only the flashlights strapped to our heads to help us find our way and the current of the river gently pulling us along.
The picture above I took myself just by holding my camera in front of me.
For the first half of the trip we had the cave all to ourselves. In the beginning, we let out a lot of whoops and calls to hear them echo back at us. There were not many formations of interest, owing to the fact, our guide informed us, that during times of heavy rain, the level of the water would rise all the way to the ceiling of the cave.
After about a half hour, we saw light up ahead and the sounds of lots of people, especially children, yelling and laughing as they would jump into the river. It was a large group of people, fellow Americans, I think, who had paused at an area where there was open sky again. As we passed them by, our guide warned us that the rapids were up ahead and to lift our butts up so that they would not get cut by the rocks. At this point we started to move faster as we moved into the next cave.
Unfortunately, the solitude we had enjoyed during the first half was not to last, as the pack of noisy people we had just passed evidently decided to continue on as well. Not long after we entered the second cave, we looked back to see them entering the cave, the shouts and laughter of the children echoing around us. We even had trouble hearing our own guide, who was ahead of us. I joked that it would be great if we had blow guns so that we could puncture their tubes and leave them stranded behind us.
Eventually though, perhaps owing to our fewer numbers, we were able to distance ourselves from our noisy pursuers. Unlike the first section, the second section had a lot of interesting formations. I took pictures of some of them, but because of the dark they did not turn all that well. After a short while, we could begin to hear the roar of the waterfall the guide had told us about. He explained to us that it was in a different chamber, so while the roar became deafening as we got closer, we were not able to see the water fall.
A few minutes after that, we were on the last leg of the journey as we could see the mouth of the cave ahead. The guide drew our attention to the bats in the ceiling above us. I tried to get a picture of them, but to my misfortune, I got caught in a current that diverted me away from them. Finally, I gave up trying to get a picture, put my camera back in the dry bag, and used my hands as paddles to catch up to the rest of the group, who had already stepped out of the water.
The guide took the picture of us below and then we hiked back to meet up with our driver for our return to the Sundancer.
All in all, it was an enjoyable experience, apart from the interlude with the noisy people, not to mention that it was a great way to beat the tropical heat.Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Belize Trip Day 5 - August 5, 2009 - The Birds
After having dried ourselves off from our Blue Hole excursion and had some snacks to eat, it was off to the next activity planned for the day, a visit to Half Moon Caye to visit the Red-Footed Booby sanctuary. It would be the first time we set foot on dry land since we arrived in Belize four days earlier. Because the island did not have the docking facilities to handle a ship the size of the Sundancer II, we boarded the smaller boat to take us there.
Below is my roommate Sam with Marnie, the ship's first mate.
Besides Red-footed Boobies, another of the avian denizens of the island is the Frigate Bird. I was fortunate that the one below hovered long enough for me to be able to get a good shot of it properly centered.
Above is yours truly, though I believe it was taken after we had made our way to the end of the island where the observation tower was to observe the boobies. If memory serves, I had dunked myself with some water to cool off, which explains the dark area on my shirt.
Below is my roommate Sam with Marnie, the ship's first mate.
Besides Red-footed Boobies, another of the avian denizens of the island is the Frigate Bird. I was fortunate that the one below hovered long enough for me to be able to get a good shot of it properly centered.
Above is yours truly, though I believe it was taken after we had made our way to the end of the island where the observation tower was to observe the boobies. If memory serves, I had dunked myself with some water to cool off, which explains the dark area on my shirt.
Unfortunately, I was not able to get a good picture at the observation tower. There were a lot of boobies, but they were at a bit of a distance, roosting on the trees. It reminded me of the Alfred Hitchcock movie the way there were all gathered there.
The shot above is pretty much self explanatory.
When I saw the formation in the picture above, at first I thought it was a series of jagged rocks sticking out of the water. Even though it vaguely resembled a ship, I wasn't sure that it was. However, when I asked Marnie, she confirmed that it was a cargo ship that had gotten wrecked there.
Another common resident of Half Moon Caye is the iguana. If you happen to go there, you will see a lot of them scurrying about or simply resting in the shade.
The shot above is pretty much self explanatory.
When I saw the formation in the picture above, at first I thought it was a series of jagged rocks sticking out of the water. Even though it vaguely resembled a ship, I wasn't sure that it was. However, when I asked Marnie, she confirmed that it was a cargo ship that had gotten wrecked there.
Below is a big-assed termite nest.
Another common resident of Half Moon Caye is the iguana. If you happen to go there, you will see a lot of them scurrying about or simply resting in the shade.
After about an hour and a half on Half Moon Caye, we were all quite hot and looked forward to getting back in the boat and returning to the Sundancer II. Before we docked with it, we did a pass around her in order to get some photo opportunities. In the shot below, I wasn't quite able to capture the entire ship in the frame.
Here we have Jerry, the Sundancer II's master chef, cooking lunch on the grill in preparation for our return. Here I have to digress a bit. For those of you who have never been on a live aboard before, there might be an expectation that it will a spartan kind of existence, with the food consisting of franks and beans or mac & cheese or something like that. I have to say, every meal Jerry prepared for us was a masterpiece worthy of any fancy restaurant. If there is a culinary heaven, it can be found on the Sundancer II. The food was that good.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Belize Trip Day 5 - August 5, 2009: The Blue Hole
Stock photo of The Blue HoleSince nothing particularly eventful happened on Day 4, I figured I would skip right over to Day 5, for our dive to the world famous Blue Hole. During the last Ice Age, when sea levels were lower, the Blue Hole was a cave complex. With the end of the Ice Age, sea levels rose and the cave structure collapsed and filled with sea water to a depth of some 480 feet. Consequently, seen from above, the Blue Hole looks like a dark blue dot in the Caribbean Sea surrounded by a coral atoll.
The early part of the morning was spent getting to the Blue Hole. In the photo above, Captain James and First Mate Marnie stand near the front of the Sundancer II leading the way like proper ship officers.
In this photo, the Sundancer II is just starting to enter the Blue Hole. You can make out the darker water in the middle and part of the surrounding atoll in the background. Below is a closeup of part of the atoll.
For me, the Blue Hole was going to be my most exciting dive yet because I would be descending deeper than I ever had before, to a depth of some 145 feet. The reason for diving to such a depth is because that is where the large stalactites from the old cave complex that once existed, and which form the main attraction for the Blue Hole, are to be found.
Most of the passengers participated in the dive. One of the older men refused to go because he had been there before. In fact, he had even objected to having the Blue Hole on the itinerary at all, claiming that there was really nothing to see there. Tara did not go either. Though her confidence under the water was starting to improve and she did not have any more mask flooding incidents, she felt she was not ready to dive to such a depth. However, she continued to improve markedly for the remainder of the trip, and I think given a few more days she could have handled the Blue Hole. The crew members who would be accompanying us on the dive were Marnie and John.
So, one by one, we did our giant strides in the water. If memory serves, I was the last to go in. As I submerged, I looked down and saw the rest of the group descending below me. Within a couple of minutes, I hit the thermocline and for the first time on the trip, I felt cold underwater. It took a moment for me to adjust to it. As we continued to descend, it grew darker and darker. We all had our underwater flash lights on, and we trained our beams on the walls as we continued on down.
After a few minutes, I can't remember how long, we reached 145 feet and saw the stalactites. There were two really large ones hanging from an outcrop. I swam up close to them and noted the tiny shells embedded in them. Below us, the hole would continue for another 340 feet or so. From what I was told, by Marnie I think, the water at the bottom of the hole was like a toxic slurry. The hole itself was slowly filling up from sediment that has been and continues to settle on the bottom, until one day it will eventually be filled up.
We spent about three minutes at our maximum depth and then we began to make our ascent to the surface. When we hit the thermocline on the way up, it was like suddenly entering a warm bath. It felt really good.
Before we could return to the Sundancer II, we had to do two safety stops instead of the usual one because of the depth we were at. The first stop, if I recall, was at about 25 feet, where we rested on a sandy portion of the atoll. Because it was a 5 minute safety stop instead of the usual 3 minutes, it felt like an eternity to me. I was a bit anxious about running low on air and I kept monitoring my air supply on my LPG while making a conscious effort to breathe very slowly. At one point, I tried making a smiley face in the sand to help pass the time, but it quickly dissipated. After the 5 minutes passed, we ascended a bit further, to 15 feet, for our second safety stop for 3 minutes. We had to hover in the water instead of using the Sundancer's hang bar, because the boat needed to be in the open water so that the hang bar would not damage the atoll or get stuck.
When I finally boarded the boat again, I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment. I had successfully dove deeper than I ever had before. I still had to the buoyancy part of the Advanced Open Water course the next day. But my confidence in myself had grown and I knew I could handle it.
However, had I known that there was a possibility that there could be sharks in the Blue Hole, I might have felt a lot more nervous about going in there. Below is a short Youtube video that gives you an idea of what the Blue Hole is like if you have never been there. The diver who shot the video got some footage of sharks. What Larry told me was that sometimes sharks enter the Blue Hole during high tide and then get stuck in there during low tide, so they swim around in circles near the surface until the tide gets high enough for them to escape. Luckily, there were none in there on our excursion. While I was eager to see sharks during my dives, the Blue Hole, being a relatively enclosed place, was not the sort of venue where I would want to be in close proximity to them.
Sarah Palin Attacked By Hollywood Liberal Elitist
Andrea Friedman, the actress who provided the voice of the character in the recent Family Guy episode that drew the ire of Alaskan ex-governor Sarah "The Quitta from Wasilla" Palin, has issued her own statement on the issue.
My name is Andrea Fay Friedman. I was born with Down syndrome. I played the role of Ellen on the "Extra Large Medium" episode of Family Guy that was broadcast on Valentine's day. Although they gave me red hair on the show, I am really a blonde. I also wore a red wig for my role in " Smudge" but I was a blonde in "Life Goes On". I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line "I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska" was very funny. I think the word is "sarcasm".
In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.
Of course, what does Andrea Friedman know? She's just part of the liberal Hollywood elite that hates America. But seriously, the New York Times article I linked to above also has an interview with Ms. Friedman.
Thanks to my friend Andrea (not Friedman) for bringing this to my attention and for linking to this blog post.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Tiger Woods Sticks It To Brit Hume
As anticipated, Tiger Woods finally got around to making a public announcement in which he apologized for his actions and the hurt it caused not only himself but to his family and fans as well.
Many of you will probably remember that Fox "News" correspondent Brit Hume, among others, had called on Woods to turn to Christianity in order to seek forgiveness and redemption. I did a post on it here, in which I criticized Hume for either being ignorant of or deliberately misrepresenting Buddhism.
In reading the transcript of Woods speech, this section caught my interest:
"I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught." (Underlined for emphasis).
The part I underlined is exactly the same point I made in my previous post. I will be interested to see if Hume has any reaction to Woods publicly stating that he seeks to rededicate himself to his Buddhist faith (assuming of course that Woods is being truly sincere). I certainly don't begrudge that Hume and others may have found solace for themselves in turning to Christianity. But they need to understand that other people can turn to plenty of sources outside of Christianity for inspiration to make positive changes in their lives.
Many of you will probably remember that Fox "News" correspondent Brit Hume, among others, had called on Woods to turn to Christianity in order to seek forgiveness and redemption. I did a post on it here, in which I criticized Hume for either being ignorant of or deliberately misrepresenting Buddhism.
In reading the transcript of Woods speech, this section caught my interest:
"I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught." (Underlined for emphasis).
The part I underlined is exactly the same point I made in my previous post. I will be interested to see if Hume has any reaction to Woods publicly stating that he seeks to rededicate himself to his Buddhist faith (assuming of course that Woods is being truly sincere). I certainly don't begrudge that Hume and others may have found solace for themselves in turning to Christianity. But they need to understand that other people can turn to plenty of sources outside of Christianity for inspiration to make positive changes in their lives.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
How Do You Know God Didn't Punish Haiti?
Readers of this blog may remember my mention of Christian extremist Ron Boehme in this post I did last month on Tiger Woods. Boehme is representative of the kind of religious person we atheists like to rail against, the fervent Biblical literalist who views everything through the prism of a cosmic war between the forces of good (of which he believes he is a member) and the forces of evil (which includes those of us who are atheists).
Boehme ended up on my radar screen a few years ago when he was running for the Washington state legislature as a (well, you probably guessed it) Republican. I checked out his campaign web site, where he stated that atheists and secularists were the enemy of America or something along those lines. So, I e-mailed him and expressed my displeasure at him for categorically declaring such a thing. He replied to me, calling on me to be "civil." I laughed at that, because according to his campaign web site, I am an enemy of America, and yet he had the gall to allege incivility on my part. He never replied to my follow up reply, and to my knowledge, he did not win the election. But he apparently saw fit to put me on his e-mail list and I have since found myself receiving his e-mail sermons that are part of his "Revive America Project."
For the most part I find myself glancing briefly at them and then deleting them. But today's post caught my attention. Titled "Pondering The Haiti Earthquake--and Other 'Natural Disasters'." Note the "scare quotes" around Natural Disasters.
In a nutshell, with the emphasis on "nut", Boehme regurgitates what the infamous Pat Robertson said on his 700 Club program last month and defends Robertson's remarks. Below are excerpts of what he wrote.
"The politically correct (secular) view of the Haiti quake was that God was not involved in the calamity--only (maybe) in the relief efforts. How do they know? Why was there such a strong aversion to even considering that God could be a part of this natural disaster?
Here's the obvious reason: Secularists want to convince the world that there is no God--that they are the ultimate authorities and their forms of human government, including humanitarian relief, are the main things that should be trusted and appreciated. The atheistic interpretation of reality instructs people that there is no God, no such thing as sin and thus no sins to be repented of."
Wow! So, if I read Boehme right, he wants us to think that God murdered or permitted the death of over 200,000 Haitians. Therefore, we must cringe in fear lest the same thing happen to us.
"How do [we] know?" he asks, that the earthquake was not caused by God. Well, how are we supposed to be able to tell the difference between an earthquake resulting from God's wrath and an earthquake that just, well, happens? Are only earthquakes that kill people a sign of God's anger? If that is the case, then God must really hate poor, dark-skinned people, because rich countries can afford to build structures that are more resistant to earthquakes.
As for Pat Robertson, Boehme belches, "Pat Robertson was not saying as fact that the earthquake was God's judgment. He was just trying to understand the disproportionate aspects of suffering that have visited the Haiti portion of the island of Hispaniola. Could there be some spiritual reasons? Fair question if you believe in God, Satan, blessings and curses."
Well, you could try reading a little about the history of Haiti to understand the "disproportionate aspects of suffering" that have affected the people of Haiti. One cannot dismiss, for example, that Haiti had to agree to pay France 90 million gold francs in recognition of its independence in order to lift an embargo imposed on it by France, Britain and the United States. That the United States should treat Haiti in such a way shows a large measure of ingratitude because Haiti's successful revolt against Napoleon resulted in Napoleon offering to sell the entire Louisiana Purchase to the United States at a bargain price. In order to pay the onerous fee imposed on it, Haitian governments had to take out high interest loans and the debt was not paid until 1947.
That Haiti has been plagued by corrupt governments throughout much of it's recent history is no secret, though one need not invoke God or Satan in this. Many countries have had to endure kleptocratic regimes. What adds to Haiti's misery is that it is geographically situated in an area that is subject to frequent devastating hurricanes and tropical storms, as well as being located near an earthquake fault zone. Throw poverty into the mix, and you have a country that lacks the wealth to build sturdy structures that can withstand natural disasters.
Boehme continues:
"What are some of the possible realities behind natural disasters and environmental catastrophes that we experience on earth, including Haiti? I can think of four possibilities or combinations or them:
GOD: The Bible is clear that the God of the Universe uses weather and physical events on earth to reveal truth and draw people to change their lives."
Uh, yeah, right. Because the Bible says so.
"SATAN: The Bible also records that the devil, Lucifer or Satan, has some delegated powers to bring physical calamities upon people."
Okay, so maybe God outsourced the Haiti earthquake to Satan.
"NATURE: many of the physical disasters and calamities we face might not be the direct hand of God or Satan, but simply the fruits of a fallen and imperfect world that are allowed by the Creator."
Well, as I mentioned in my post "The Canyons of Mars", Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our Solar System. The last time I checked, there were no Satan worshippers or flaming homosexuals living there.
"HUMAN SIN: This possiblity involves God but stresses man's part in the curse of creation. None of this scenario is God's fault. It's the direct result of man's sin."
But how can you tell. Is there some kind of "Sin-O-Meter" where one can measure the magnitude of human sin until it reaches a point where acts of rape, gay anal sex, and murder attain a critical mass to cause an earthquake or a tornado?
"So why was there a devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 13, 2010? We don't know for sure, but it clearly could have been an act of God, or influenced by Satan, or simply involved fallen creation, and/or was a direct result of a curse because of people's sins."
Or, it is simply a matter of geologic forces acting as they have done for hundreds of millions of years. You conveniently left that one out, Ronny.
"It would be helpful for us, and the people of Haiti who were devastated by the earthquake, to seek the face of God for the reasons for their misfortune. In response to their repentance and faith, God just might use this terrible tragedy to break an awful and unusual curse on a nation and for the first time, establish it in righteousness, increased safety (better buildings), godliness and prosperity."
Notice the arrogance there. The earthquake must somehow be the fault of the people of Haiti. No recognition anywhere by Boehme of the role of France's brutal system of slavery, the crippling debts imposed on Haiti, the isolation imposed on her by the United States, which feared that the successful slave revolt in Haiti would spark similar revolts in the slaveholding regions of the southern American states, among other things. In the binary worldview of Boehme and his ilk, Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake solely for ths sins of its people.
For people like Boehme, their human egocentric worldview requires that natural disasters be viewed as some kind of validation of their Christian faith. "Oh, those poor, wretched souls of Haiti got what was coming to them because they practice Voudou. If only they would accept the salvation of Christ, which we conveniently have done, they won't have such problems anymore."
Reading Boehme's bile made me recall something from an introductory book on Geology I read last year. In 1902, a volcano erupted on the Caribbean island of Martinique. The pyroclastic flow unleashed by the eruption caused the death of some 29,000 people in the island's capital of St. Pierre. One of the only survivors was a prisoner who was locked in a windowless cell. Do the likes of Boehme and Pat Robertson have any thoughts as to what the people of Martinique might have been doing to bring down divine wrath on them. Or how about the Mt. Saint Helens eruption in Boehme's home state of Washington in 1980 that killed 57 people. Maybe it was God's way of telling Ron Boehme to not be such a douchebag and Boehme just didn't get the message.
Boehme ended up on my radar screen a few years ago when he was running for the Washington state legislature as a (well, you probably guessed it) Republican. I checked out his campaign web site, where he stated that atheists and secularists were the enemy of America or something along those lines. So, I e-mailed him and expressed my displeasure at him for categorically declaring such a thing. He replied to me, calling on me to be "civil." I laughed at that, because according to his campaign web site, I am an enemy of America, and yet he had the gall to allege incivility on my part. He never replied to my follow up reply, and to my knowledge, he did not win the election. But he apparently saw fit to put me on his e-mail list and I have since found myself receiving his e-mail sermons that are part of his "Revive America Project."
For the most part I find myself glancing briefly at them and then deleting them. But today's post caught my attention. Titled "Pondering The Haiti Earthquake--and Other 'Natural Disasters'." Note the "scare quotes" around Natural Disasters.
In a nutshell, with the emphasis on "nut", Boehme regurgitates what the infamous Pat Robertson said on his 700 Club program last month and defends Robertson's remarks. Below are excerpts of what he wrote.
"The politically correct (secular) view of the Haiti quake was that God was not involved in the calamity--only (maybe) in the relief efforts. How do they know? Why was there such a strong aversion to even considering that God could be a part of this natural disaster?
Here's the obvious reason: Secularists want to convince the world that there is no God--that they are the ultimate authorities and their forms of human government, including humanitarian relief, are the main things that should be trusted and appreciated. The atheistic interpretation of reality instructs people that there is no God, no such thing as sin and thus no sins to be repented of."
Wow! So, if I read Boehme right, he wants us to think that God murdered or permitted the death of over 200,000 Haitians. Therefore, we must cringe in fear lest the same thing happen to us.
"How do [we] know?" he asks, that the earthquake was not caused by God. Well, how are we supposed to be able to tell the difference between an earthquake resulting from God's wrath and an earthquake that just, well, happens? Are only earthquakes that kill people a sign of God's anger? If that is the case, then God must really hate poor, dark-skinned people, because rich countries can afford to build structures that are more resistant to earthquakes.
As for Pat Robertson, Boehme belches, "Pat Robertson was not saying as fact that the earthquake was God's judgment. He was just trying to understand the disproportionate aspects of suffering that have visited the Haiti portion of the island of Hispaniola. Could there be some spiritual reasons? Fair question if you believe in God, Satan, blessings and curses."
Well, you could try reading a little about the history of Haiti to understand the "disproportionate aspects of suffering" that have affected the people of Haiti. One cannot dismiss, for example, that Haiti had to agree to pay France 90 million gold francs in recognition of its independence in order to lift an embargo imposed on it by France, Britain and the United States. That the United States should treat Haiti in such a way shows a large measure of ingratitude because Haiti's successful revolt against Napoleon resulted in Napoleon offering to sell the entire Louisiana Purchase to the United States at a bargain price. In order to pay the onerous fee imposed on it, Haitian governments had to take out high interest loans and the debt was not paid until 1947.
That Haiti has been plagued by corrupt governments throughout much of it's recent history is no secret, though one need not invoke God or Satan in this. Many countries have had to endure kleptocratic regimes. What adds to Haiti's misery is that it is geographically situated in an area that is subject to frequent devastating hurricanes and tropical storms, as well as being located near an earthquake fault zone. Throw poverty into the mix, and you have a country that lacks the wealth to build sturdy structures that can withstand natural disasters.
Boehme continues:
"What are some of the possible realities behind natural disasters and environmental catastrophes that we experience on earth, including Haiti? I can think of four possibilities or combinations or them:
GOD: The Bible is clear that the God of the Universe uses weather and physical events on earth to reveal truth and draw people to change their lives."
Uh, yeah, right. Because the Bible says so.
"SATAN: The Bible also records that the devil, Lucifer or Satan, has some delegated powers to bring physical calamities upon people."
Okay, so maybe God outsourced the Haiti earthquake to Satan.
"NATURE: many of the physical disasters and calamities we face might not be the direct hand of God or Satan, but simply the fruits of a fallen and imperfect world that are allowed by the Creator."
Well, as I mentioned in my post "The Canyons of Mars", Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our Solar System. The last time I checked, there were no Satan worshippers or flaming homosexuals living there.
"HUMAN SIN: This possiblity involves God but stresses man's part in the curse of creation. None of this scenario is God's fault. It's the direct result of man's sin."
But how can you tell. Is there some kind of "Sin-O-Meter" where one can measure the magnitude of human sin until it reaches a point where acts of rape, gay anal sex, and murder attain a critical mass to cause an earthquake or a tornado?
"So why was there a devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 13, 2010? We don't know for sure, but it clearly could have been an act of God, or influenced by Satan, or simply involved fallen creation, and/or was a direct result of a curse because of people's sins."
Or, it is simply a matter of geologic forces acting as they have done for hundreds of millions of years. You conveniently left that one out, Ronny.
"It would be helpful for us, and the people of Haiti who were devastated by the earthquake, to seek the face of God for the reasons for their misfortune. In response to their repentance and faith, God just might use this terrible tragedy to break an awful and unusual curse on a nation and for the first time, establish it in righteousness, increased safety (better buildings), godliness and prosperity."
Notice the arrogance there. The earthquake must somehow be the fault of the people of Haiti. No recognition anywhere by Boehme of the role of France's brutal system of slavery, the crippling debts imposed on Haiti, the isolation imposed on her by the United States, which feared that the successful slave revolt in Haiti would spark similar revolts in the slaveholding regions of the southern American states, among other things. In the binary worldview of Boehme and his ilk, Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake solely for ths sins of its people.
For people like Boehme, their human egocentric worldview requires that natural disasters be viewed as some kind of validation of their Christian faith. "Oh, those poor, wretched souls of Haiti got what was coming to them because they practice Voudou. If only they would accept the salvation of Christ, which we conveniently have done, they won't have such problems anymore."
Reading Boehme's bile made me recall something from an introductory book on Geology I read last year. In 1902, a volcano erupted on the Caribbean island of Martinique. The pyroclastic flow unleashed by the eruption caused the death of some 29,000 people in the island's capital of St. Pierre. One of the only survivors was a prisoner who was locked in a windowless cell. Do the likes of Boehme and Pat Robertson have any thoughts as to what the people of Martinique might have been doing to bring down divine wrath on them. Or how about the Mt. Saint Helens eruption in Boehme's home state of Washington in 1980 that killed 57 people. Maybe it was God's way of telling Ron Boehme to not be such a douchebag and Boehme just didn't get the message.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Fundy Fashion
Reading this article from The New York Times Magazine the other day about American born jihadist Omar Hammami, this passage (among many, I might add) about the Salafi Islam movement that Hammami embraced caught my attention, "Followers of the movement, who are sometimes likened to Calvinist Protestants, advocate a strict return to the fundamentals of Islam. To purge their practice of modern influences, they try to emulate the founders of the faith — the contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad and the two generations that came after his death in A.D. 632. Young Salafis, for example, often dress in sandals and robes like those thought to have been worn in seventh-century Arabia." (Underlining mine).
Around the same time, I had read this article in the February 2010 edition of National Geographic about Mormon polygamists in the United States. In this picture, the caption notes that "[f]emale FLDS members wear modest attire—ankle-length prairie dresses—even while swimming." The Mormon Church was established in the mid-19th century United States, and early adherents of the faith had trekked across the United States to Utah. The women in the FLDS wear basically the same kind of clothing as what women wore in the United States some 160 or so years ago.
I found myself struck by the obvious but previously little thought of fact that for many fundamentalist religious believers, what clothing they are required or aspire to wear is essentially determined by the clothing specific to the time and geographic location of that particular religion's founding.
I started to think of other examples of this. Another obvious one to me are the Amish, who trace their origins to late 17th century Switzerland. You also see this with Hasidic Jews, whose sect dates back to 18th century Poland. From this Wikipedia article, "Much of Hasidic dress was historically the clothing of all Eastern-European Jews (and non-Jews), but Hasidim have preserved more of these styles to the present day."
The difference between Hasidic Jews and the Amish, as compared to Islamic fundamentalists, is that the former two are generally insular groups, whereas Islam presents itself as a universal religion that seeks to convert everybody, regardless of their race, nationality, or culture. Thus, pious Muslims, wherever they live, assume the clothing habits of a 7th century Arab desert culture. It's one thing if you happen to live in a desert environment, as many Arab and North African Muslims do. It's another thing when you live in tropical South East Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, where Islamic dress strikes me as rather incongruent.
While the sentiment might exist in other religious cultures, one feature I have noticed with Islamic fundamentalists is that their vision of an ideal society is frozen in an idealized past where the Muslims were supposedly better Muslims than the ones who came afterwards. Thus, they feel the need to dress like they think the prophet Muhammed would have dressed, and to eat what they think he would have eaten, and so forth. Or, to borrow from a popular Christian song, "It was good for Muhammed, and it's good enough for me." But, as I believe I have demonstrated above, one's ideal of religiously appropriate attire is arbitrarily dictated by the time, place and culture of that particular religion's founding.
Around the same time, I had read this article in the February 2010 edition of National Geographic about Mormon polygamists in the United States. In this picture, the caption notes that "[f]emale FLDS members wear modest attire—ankle-length prairie dresses—even while swimming." The Mormon Church was established in the mid-19th century United States, and early adherents of the faith had trekked across the United States to Utah. The women in the FLDS wear basically the same kind of clothing as what women wore in the United States some 160 or so years ago.
I found myself struck by the obvious but previously little thought of fact that for many fundamentalist religious believers, what clothing they are required or aspire to wear is essentially determined by the clothing specific to the time and geographic location of that particular religion's founding.
I started to think of other examples of this. Another obvious one to me are the Amish, who trace their origins to late 17th century Switzerland. You also see this with Hasidic Jews, whose sect dates back to 18th century Poland. From this Wikipedia article, "Much of Hasidic dress was historically the clothing of all Eastern-European Jews (and non-Jews), but Hasidim have preserved more of these styles to the present day."
The difference between Hasidic Jews and the Amish, as compared to Islamic fundamentalists, is that the former two are generally insular groups, whereas Islam presents itself as a universal religion that seeks to convert everybody, regardless of their race, nationality, or culture. Thus, pious Muslims, wherever they live, assume the clothing habits of a 7th century Arab desert culture. It's one thing if you happen to live in a desert environment, as many Arab and North African Muslims do. It's another thing when you live in tropical South East Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, where Islamic dress strikes me as rather incongruent.
While the sentiment might exist in other religious cultures, one feature I have noticed with Islamic fundamentalists is that their vision of an ideal society is frozen in an idealized past where the Muslims were supposedly better Muslims than the ones who came afterwards. Thus, they feel the need to dress like they think the prophet Muhammed would have dressed, and to eat what they think he would have eaten, and so forth. Or, to borrow from a popular Christian song, "It was good for Muhammed, and it's good enough for me." But, as I believe I have demonstrated above, one's ideal of religiously appropriate attire is arbitrarily dictated by the time, place and culture of that particular religion's founding.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Pray For Christian Unity
That is what I saw on a sign in front of the United Methodist Church on Old Country Road in Hicksville as I drove past it last Saturday night.
From my atheist perspective, I couldn't help but think "Wouldn't it be better if we worked towards the unity of all humanity?" Of course, by that, I don't mean that we all become part of some Borg collective with identical thoughts and aims. Rather, for me, the best we can aspire to is a unity that embraces pluralism.
As for the idea of Christian unity. Yeah, sure, why not? However, I would miss not reading stories like this one anymore.
From my atheist perspective, I couldn't help but think "Wouldn't it be better if we worked towards the unity of all humanity?" Of course, by that, I don't mean that we all become part of some Borg collective with identical thoughts and aims. Rather, for me, the best we can aspire to is a unity that embraces pluralism.
As for the idea of Christian unity. Yeah, sure, why not? However, I would miss not reading stories like this one anymore.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Help For Haiti
More reports are coming in now from Haiti, where a 7.0 magnitude earthquake has devastated the capital city of Port-au-Prince. A few examples below from this BBC article suggest the level of destruction there:
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told US network CNN he believed more than 100,000 people had died.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the head of the UN mission in Haiti and his deputy were among more than 100 staff missing.
The Brazilian army said 11 of its peacekeepers had been killed and a large number were missing.
A spokesman for medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) said it was able only to offer basic care to the "massive influx" of survivors seeking help because all its buildings had been destroyed.
I cited the examples above because they demonstrate that not only has this earthquake been devastating to the Haitian people, it has also caused tremendous damage to the infrastructure of international organizations already in Haiti who have been providing aid.
Needless to say, this is a terrible tragedy and the Haitian people and the relief services they rely upon are going to need help. For anyone who can and wishes to make a donation, below are links to the donation pages for several organizations for donating specifically to help fund Haitian relief campaigns:
Catholic Relief Services
Unicef
International Committe for the Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told US network CNN he believed more than 100,000 people had died.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the head of the UN mission in Haiti and his deputy were among more than 100 staff missing.
The Brazilian army said 11 of its peacekeepers had been killed and a large number were missing.
A spokesman for medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) said it was able only to offer basic care to the "massive influx" of survivors seeking help because all its buildings had been destroyed.
I cited the examples above because they demonstrate that not only has this earthquake been devastating to the Haitian people, it has also caused tremendous damage to the infrastructure of international organizations already in Haiti who have been providing aid.
Needless to say, this is a terrible tragedy and the Haitian people and the relief services they rely upon are going to need help. For anyone who can and wishes to make a donation, below are links to the donation pages for several organizations for donating specifically to help fund Haitian relief campaigns:
Catholic Relief Services
Unicef
International Committe for the Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Monday, January 11, 2010
Now We Know Why Sarah Palin Quit Her Job As Governor of Alaska
Seriously, is anyone really surprised by this?
Sunday, January 10, 2010
UPDATED: Reason No. 1,148 Why Malaysian Muslim Extremists Suck - ALLAH! ALLAH! ALLAH!
To me, one of the criteria for measuring a nation's decency is in how its religious majority treats its religious minorities. And in recent days, the Muslim majority nation of Malaysia has been failing that test.
It seems that a segment of the Muslim population objects to the use by Malaysian Christians of the word Allah as their name for god. To its credit, a Malaysian court had overturned a government ban on non-Muslim groups using the word Allah in their literature. So how did some passionate members of the Religion of Peace react to the ruling? Why, by throwing petrol bombs at Christian churches and committing other acts of vandalism such as smashing the windshields of cars that had Christian symbols in them.
It is my understanding that the use of Allah by non-Muslims is not unique to Malaysia. For example, Coptic Christians in Egypt also use Allah, given that they live in an Arab country.
Anyway, the people of Malaysia should really be embarrassed that this kind of nonsense goes on in their country. If this keeps up, I might feel obliged to go out and buy a pig and name him Allah and post pictures of him on the web. Then again, it might be cheaper and easier if I just pick out a stock photo of a pig and caption it "My pig Allah."
UPDATE:
The above is a perfect example of a kneejerk rant rather than a planned post. That's what I get for clicking on Al Jazeera before going to bed.
For a more thoughtful take on the matter from a Malaysian woman with a Muslim background, I highly recommend this post here.
It seems that a segment of the Muslim population objects to the use by Malaysian Christians of the word Allah as their name for god. To its credit, a Malaysian court had overturned a government ban on non-Muslim groups using the word Allah in their literature. So how did some passionate members of the Religion of Peace react to the ruling? Why, by throwing petrol bombs at Christian churches and committing other acts of vandalism such as smashing the windshields of cars that had Christian symbols in them.
It is my understanding that the use of Allah by non-Muslims is not unique to Malaysia. For example, Coptic Christians in Egypt also use Allah, given that they live in an Arab country.
Anyway, the people of Malaysia should really be embarrassed that this kind of nonsense goes on in their country. If this keeps up, I might feel obliged to go out and buy a pig and name him Allah and post pictures of him on the web. Then again, it might be cheaper and easier if I just pick out a stock photo of a pig and caption it "My pig Allah."
UPDATE:
The above is a perfect example of a kneejerk rant rather than a planned post. That's what I get for clicking on Al Jazeera before going to bed.
For a more thoughtful take on the matter from a Malaysian woman with a Muslim background, I highly recommend this post here.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
He Truly Had A Dizzying Intellect
I have been reading the works of Augustine lately, and when I was reading a passage in his Confessions a couple of months ago where he is going off about the origin of time, I couldn't help but think of that line in The Princess Bride where Wesley, disguised as the Dread Pirate Roberts, tells Vizzini "You truly have a dizzying intellect."
So, why is an atheist reading Augustine? Well, part of it is just to read the case put forth for Christianity by an intelligent and well educated man who lived during the period when paganism was being eclipsed by the Christian faith in the late fourth to early fifth centuries in the Western half of the Roman Empire. But on another level, reading his works, particularly his City of God, which I am in the middle of right now, allows the reader to immerse oneself in the mental universe of an intellectual who lived some 1,600 years ago. To read him is to know what he knew about the world he lived in and how he interpreted and explained it, while knowing the future that he did not.
Augustine wrote City of God as a response to pagans who alleged that the sack of Rome by the Goths in the year 410 was a consequence of the Christianization of the empire and the abandonment of the pagan gods. While I agree with Augustine that Christianity was not to blame for the decline and fall of the empire in the West (after all, why did the Christian Empire in the East continue to endure for centuries longer?), could Augustine have anticipated that his dying days would witness barbarian tribes laying siege to his home city of Hippo in North Africa? Even more, while confidently asserting the inevitable spread and triumph of Christianity, I doubt Augustine could ever have imagined that little more than two centuries after his death, a new religion would burst forth from the deserts of Arabia to spread to his homeland, where it retains its grip to this very day.
I hope to write some more posts in the coming days on City of God as I continue to read it (and assuming I can get another extension from my local library!) as Augustine covers a range of topics and even addresses a lot of questions I have had about Biblical interpretation. I am about halfway through the 550 page paperback copy I have on loan from the library. And to think that at 550 pages, this is just an abridged version! While Augustine is an accessible and readable writer, he is not the sort whose works one can just breeze through. I often find myself reading about 5 or 10 pages at a time, usually while on the train ride to and from work, before I pause to contemplate and digest what I have read. Knowing me, I will probably just end up buying my own copy from the book store to add to my personal library.
So, why is an atheist reading Augustine? Well, part of it is just to read the case put forth for Christianity by an intelligent and well educated man who lived during the period when paganism was being eclipsed by the Christian faith in the late fourth to early fifth centuries in the Western half of the Roman Empire. But on another level, reading his works, particularly his City of God, which I am in the middle of right now, allows the reader to immerse oneself in the mental universe of an intellectual who lived some 1,600 years ago. To read him is to know what he knew about the world he lived in and how he interpreted and explained it, while knowing the future that he did not.
Augustine wrote City of God as a response to pagans who alleged that the sack of Rome by the Goths in the year 410 was a consequence of the Christianization of the empire and the abandonment of the pagan gods. While I agree with Augustine that Christianity was not to blame for the decline and fall of the empire in the West (after all, why did the Christian Empire in the East continue to endure for centuries longer?), could Augustine have anticipated that his dying days would witness barbarian tribes laying siege to his home city of Hippo in North Africa? Even more, while confidently asserting the inevitable spread and triumph of Christianity, I doubt Augustine could ever have imagined that little more than two centuries after his death, a new religion would burst forth from the deserts of Arabia to spread to his homeland, where it retains its grip to this very day.
I hope to write some more posts in the coming days on City of God as I continue to read it (and assuming I can get another extension from my local library!) as Augustine covers a range of topics and even addresses a lot of questions I have had about Biblical interpretation. I am about halfway through the 550 page paperback copy I have on loan from the library. And to think that at 550 pages, this is just an abridged version! While Augustine is an accessible and readable writer, he is not the sort whose works one can just breeze through. I often find myself reading about 5 or 10 pages at a time, usually while on the train ride to and from work, before I pause to contemplate and digest what I have read. Knowing me, I will probably just end up buying my own copy from the book store to add to my personal library.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Saving Tiger Woods
Hat tip to Crooks and Liars for bringing attention to remarks recently made by Brit Hume of Fox "News" about the Tiger Woods scandal.
“The extent to which [Woods] can recover seems to me depends on his faith," said Hume. "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of redemption and forgiveness offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger is, 'Tiger turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”
Hume is not alone in offering such advice to the disgraced golfer. I ended up on the e-mail address list of some right-wing Christian whack job from Washington state named Ron Boehme, and one of his recent missives was in the form of an open letter to Tiger Woods. Among the choice quotes from Boehme's appeal:
"Tiger, the only person who has the power to forgive and transform your life is Jesus Christ. Not Mohammed, Confucius, Buddha or Mother Earth."
"Tiger, Jesus died on a cross in your place to save you from the many sins you've committed. He did that for us all. Believe in God's love and forgiveness through Jesus and you will be saved, forgiven, and become a new person. It's happened to millions of us, It can happen to you."
"Want to change your present circumstances? Want to silence the tabloids and paparazzi? "If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Give them nothing to write about except a forgiven, changed, godly life."
Time will tell if Tiger Woods will take the advice offered to him by Hume and Boehme. It wouldn't surprise me all that much if he did. It has become a form of kabuki theater here in America in recent years. A politician, celebrity or other public figure commits a transgression in the eyes of the public and inevitably they try to restore their good standing by claiming to have found or rediscovered Jesus. Whether or not the conversion is sincere we rarely ever know. What does matter is that in a nation that is majority Christian, such a show is ultimately put on because it is a performance that is calculated to win the acceptance of the public.
So, for the Hume, Boehme and their ilk, Tiger Woods ultimately has to make a public show of becoming a Christian because that is the only way they can bring themselves to accept him as a person of good standing.
I find it interesting that Hume and Boehme claim that Buddhism, for example, cannot offer redemption and forgiveness. As someone who once considered embracing Buddhism years ago and who did absorb some of its teachings, I have to disagree vehemently. One of the core messages of Buddhism is that it is our attachment to material things that causes us unhappiness. Tiger Woods damaged his life because he thought sleeping with lots of women while married would bring him happiness and excitement. Buddhism teaches that he, as well as all of us, should shun such things because such activities ultimately cause us misery.
As for forgiveness, one of the most important persons we can obtain forgiveness from is not some invisible sky daddy, but rather ourselves. Forgiveness of self comes from understanding what we did wrong, why it was wrong, recognizing the mental state that drove us to commit the act, and learning that we must change our mental state to ensure that it does not happen again. Then there is the seeking of forgiveness from the person or persons that we wronged.
Being an atheist, I think I can say truthfully that I am a much more inclusive person than the likes of Hume and Boehme. Tiger Woods does not need my forgiveness. But I recognize that he does need to make some public act of contrition and to make amends to his wife and her family for the tremendous embarrasment he caused them. It doesn't matter to me whether he does it as a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or secular humanist. Then let him get back to the business of playing golf again, hopefully as a humbler and wiser man.
“The extent to which [Woods] can recover seems to me depends on his faith," said Hume. "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of redemption and forgiveness offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger is, 'Tiger turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”
Hume is not alone in offering such advice to the disgraced golfer. I ended up on the e-mail address list of some right-wing Christian whack job from Washington state named Ron Boehme, and one of his recent missives was in the form of an open letter to Tiger Woods. Among the choice quotes from Boehme's appeal:
"Tiger, the only person who has the power to forgive and transform your life is Jesus Christ. Not Mohammed, Confucius, Buddha or Mother Earth."
"Tiger, Jesus died on a cross in your place to save you from the many sins you've committed. He did that for us all. Believe in God's love and forgiveness through Jesus and you will be saved, forgiven, and become a new person. It's happened to millions of us, It can happen to you."
"Want to change your present circumstances? Want to silence the tabloids and paparazzi? "If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Give them nothing to write about except a forgiven, changed, godly life."
Time will tell if Tiger Woods will take the advice offered to him by Hume and Boehme. It wouldn't surprise me all that much if he did. It has become a form of kabuki theater here in America in recent years. A politician, celebrity or other public figure commits a transgression in the eyes of the public and inevitably they try to restore their good standing by claiming to have found or rediscovered Jesus. Whether or not the conversion is sincere we rarely ever know. What does matter is that in a nation that is majority Christian, such a show is ultimately put on because it is a performance that is calculated to win the acceptance of the public.
So, for the Hume, Boehme and their ilk, Tiger Woods ultimately has to make a public show of becoming a Christian because that is the only way they can bring themselves to accept him as a person of good standing.
I find it interesting that Hume and Boehme claim that Buddhism, for example, cannot offer redemption and forgiveness. As someone who once considered embracing Buddhism years ago and who did absorb some of its teachings, I have to disagree vehemently. One of the core messages of Buddhism is that it is our attachment to material things that causes us unhappiness. Tiger Woods damaged his life because he thought sleeping with lots of women while married would bring him happiness and excitement. Buddhism teaches that he, as well as all of us, should shun such things because such activities ultimately cause us misery.
As for forgiveness, one of the most important persons we can obtain forgiveness from is not some invisible sky daddy, but rather ourselves. Forgiveness of self comes from understanding what we did wrong, why it was wrong, recognizing the mental state that drove us to commit the act, and learning that we must change our mental state to ensure that it does not happen again. Then there is the seeking of forgiveness from the person or persons that we wronged.
Being an atheist, I think I can say truthfully that I am a much more inclusive person than the likes of Hume and Boehme. Tiger Woods does not need my forgiveness. But I recognize that he does need to make some public act of contrition and to make amends to his wife and her family for the tremendous embarrasment he caused them. It doesn't matter to me whether he does it as a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or secular humanist. Then let him get back to the business of playing golf again, hopefully as a humbler and wiser man.
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