What's Dobson Have Against Fruitcake?

So apparently Daddy Dobson thinks Obama has a "fruitcake interpretation of the constitution" and is "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology." So, Daddy Dearest, is anyone who comes to a different understanding of the Bible a liar? If that's the case, then most of Americans who claim a religious affiliation are liars. An amazing Pew Research poll found that more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith. Or is it as Daddy believes, that they just don't take their biblical interpretation serioiusly? Why is it that unless we agree with you, we can only be lackadaisical liars?

Obama makes an overture to you and what do you do? You call him a fruitcake and a liar. You're just like the guy on who gets rescued off a deserted island. His rescuers observes three huts on the beach and asks the man what they are for.

"Well, the first one is my home and the second one is my church," he says.

"So what's the third hut for?" they ask.

"Oh, I got pissed off at my old church so I started a new church."


Today that same poll shows that seven in ten Americans who proclaim a faith (and the poll states that faith means christian, jew, muslim, buddist, hindu...) believe there's is not the only way to eternal life. That's means maybe three in ten agree with Dobson...of course, that might mean one evangelical, one jew and one muslim. But anyway you look at it, Dobson is finding himself closer and closer to being a congregation of one on a deserted island.

TAGS: James Dobson, Barack Obama, Theology, Religious Right

Love Trumps Fear

Tony Perkins has sent out a new fundraising letter (here) and Eric Sapps blogs about it over at Faithful Democrats. Apparently, not only is the godless left using scripture to sell their agenda, but if real Christians don't hurry up and send money to Tony, they just might succeed.

My God! Has hell frozen over? Tony is actually afraid that the left might successfully hijack the language of faith.

Eric does a good job of dissecting Tony's latest plea for money and is worth a read. In a nutshell, he notes that Tony still has only one tool to combat the Godforsaken left: fear. Well, that and your money.

But even more importantly, Eric notes that efforts by progressive dems to reclaim our faith language and to state clearly and loudly that Perkins' fear and hate based theology is not what Christianity is about: "While we stood silent and abdicated the language of faith to the extreme right, they were given a free pass and never called on their hypocrisy. But now that Democrats and progressives are engaging effectively and forcefully in this area, they are terrified."

Faithful Democrats have had a simple approach to Perkins and his ilk: to counter the fearmongering and arrogance of the religious reich with a theology of hope and humility. Tony's desperate letter certainly suggests that this approach is not only succeeding, but has reshaped the faith and politics discourse.


TAGS: Faith and Politics, Family Research Council

Faith, Science, and the Art of Disbelief

I confess. Pluto bugs me. It really, really bugs me. And the reasons are compelling. Let us review...

When I went to school, Pluto was a planet. There were 9. I understood the universe. Now that Pluto has been voted off the island, I feel uncomfortable, old school, like my education was somehow wrong. The scientists voted, and they voted for 8. It bothered people when they heard the earth was round, too.

9, originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds.

OK, I'm over it, but here's what really does bother me: the Religious Right and their War on Science. (And for the record, I personally believe that the rabid radical right has hijacked religion as merely another political tool to achieve their desired ends. That's right, faux faith on parade. Sincere faith has a whole different feel.) It comes down to this: the decision by the science community to defrock Pluto of planetary status provides fodder to the anti-scientists. It allows them to disregard any scientific evidence that undermines their political objectives. It allows them to say, "See, you can't trust science. It's all wrong. Any assertion is as valid as any other. There is no Global Warming. Evolution is just a theory..." And on and on and on. Al Gore's book, The Assault on Reason, delivers a blistering assessment of the fruits of this strategy.

Scientists have joined together in resisting the war on science. In fact, "in 2004, 62 renowned scientists and science advisors signed a scientist statement on scientific integrity, denouncing political interference in science and calling for reform. On December 9, 2006, UCS released the names of more than 10,000 scientists of all backgrounds from all 50 states—including 52 Nobel Laureates—who have since joined their colleagues on this statement." The Union of Concerned Scientists has documented evidence of political interference in their "A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science", organizing the evidence using four broad categories:

1. The Environment
2. Public Health
3. Pollution and Contamination
4. National Security and Other

"From air pollution to Ground Zero, the A to Z Guide showcases dozens of examples of the misuse of science on issues like childhood lead poisoning, toxic mercury contamination, and endangered species."

Speaking of Evolution...Like others, I have wondered why the Religious Right is so resistant to the notion of Evolution. It's really quite simple: If they can get you to ignore science over the first line of the Bible, they can get you to ignore science anytime, anywhere. It's the alpha, the gateway, the beginning. They assert that if you want to stay in the group, which for some is an important cultural heritage, you must believe the literal interpretation of the first line of the Christian Bible: "In the beginning, God created..." The ability to lead people to reject carefully, conservatively collected scientific evidence--to suspend their disbelief--is obviously valuable. Creation is the beginning, and it's a slippery slope from there. Next thing you know, you're willing to believe that war is peace, censorship protects the right to free speech, spying on America protects the right to privacy, and that forcing a new style of government on a region through military assault and occupation is really "Freedom on the March."

And so the 2008 Republican presidential candidates have bravely signed up to do their part to fight the War on Science. These chickenhawks walk the Creation Science walk. Perhaps they have visited the Creation Museum described here by our resident unruly minister, RevPhat. It's bad enough that science is attacked through doctored government reports and our own complicit corporate media, but the advance of "Creation Science" marks the American classroom as the new front on the War on Science.

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, a site I rather enjoy, describes the current tension between politics and science well:

In this case, science and politics are at exact opposites: science wants information to uncover underlying truths, while political operatives use information as a tool — or, more accurately, a weapon — to further political gain despite the truth. Politicians may actively distort the truth if it disagrees with their pre-determined goals, whereas with scientists, truth is the goal...

I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat, what’s happening in the U.S. is a wholesale dismantling of one of our most precious resources: the scientific ability to sort truth from fiction.

(Click to enlarge; it's worth it! H/T SadButTrue)

How can we let Freedom ring, if we can't even let Truth ring?

As a scientist, I object.

Creation Science, Roy Zimmerman

"I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has
endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect
has intended us to forgo their use."
~Galileo Galilei

---

P.S. I find it amusing that the newly discovered space object whose discovery in 2005 launched the recent debate about what constitutes a planet and eventually led to Pluto's excision from the planetary family, has been named Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord and strife.

TAGS: Creationism, Science, Faith, War on Science

On gratitude.

I hope this makes sense. I'm feeling scatter-brained today, so I'm not sure if this will all come together or not. But I want to talk about something I don't think we all think or talk about enough, and that's gratitude.

I am feeling grateful today, for lots of reasons, but for one in particular: I went to my Meeting for Worship this morning (the Quaker name for "going to church"), and - thank goodness - there was one of our younger Friends (I can call him that, as he's half my age), safe and sound and sitting on one of the ancient benches. This young man is one of my heroes, although he'd blush and shuffle his feet if I told him that to his face. He's recently graduated from law school and just finished his law boards. While he was a student, he and some other students started a program to provide free legal assistance and representation for women and children who are victims of domestic violence. That program will continue now that he's left the school. We are all grateful for knowing him, and I know the people he's helped were all grateful that he and his colleagues were there for them in their time of need. But that's not the half of it.

Late last month, this young man joined a group from Christian Peacemaker Teams and went off for two weeks in Hebron, to live and work with the Palestinians there. Now, if you know anything about the Middle East, you know that this is one of the most dangerous cities on the planet, so we were all desperately worried about him while he was gone. We also all had at the back of our minds the story of the beloved Friend Tom Fox, who, as a member of a CPT group, was taken hostage and subsequently murdered in Iraq. So, we were all terrified for him the whole time he was gone. As is his way, he told us all today that the scariest part of the trip was riding with the cabbies in Hebron, because they drive "like maniacs." We took him at his word. He talked about what an amazing experience he'd had, and we all can't wait to hear more in the coming weeks.

So, as I sat in the silence today, I felt grateful for his safe return to us and to his family. I thought about how grateful I am that my own adult son is safe at home (finally, now, as I write this, after his being away for three days at a "music festival" in America's most dangerous city) with his mother, his brother, and me, and not overseas in harm's way fighting Mr. Bush's War of Empire. I felt grateful for the rain that's been falling here all day, because we so sorely need it, and grateful at the same time that we're not in the path of a hurricane, as so many folks will be tonight. I felt grateful that no one in my family has to go hundreds of feet underground to make a living, and, while I'm saddened at the thought that so many families are grieving today, I guess I'm grateful that I am not, even as I hold those families in The Light.

Most of all, though, I felt grateful just to be in that place this morning. In a week or so, the fifth anniversary of my mother's death will be upon us. My mom died exactly ninety days after my father died of a sudden heart attack. My mom had been sick for years - dying by degrees, really - and my dad's death was the final blow. She literally gave up after he was gone. It wasn't really surprising, but I was there when she died, and it was a really difficult struggle coming to terms with all that, with the experience of watching her die. It's a lot of emotional stuff with which I'm still dealing. For a good six months after she passed, I was totally consumed by the settling of my parents' estate, and I didn't really grieve much. Shortly after the final settlement and the sale of their home, my emotional roof caved in. I should have probably gone to a therapist or something, but I didn't, and I'm still picking up those pieces because of that. Being the cement-headed person I can be sometimes, I wanted to try to get my life straightened out "by myself." My wife and kids were a big help, as were my colleagues and friends at work. The September after my mom's death, I was blessed with a roster of some of the most amazingly compassionate and kind-hearted middle school students I've ever had the honor of teaching, and they helped me get through the year without even knowing what they were doing for me. Things started to work out, although they're still not all "right" yet, but they're getting there..

And I did something else back then: I went back to Meeting. I tried a spiritual route to dealing with my grief, but, at first, it was hard. I'd been away from organized religion for many years, but although I still felt like I was a believing, "spiritual" person, the old way of doing things - the United Methodist Church in which I was raised - had stopped speaking to me in my late teens. I dabbled in Buddhism, but found some its basic teachings clashed with some of my core personal beliefs, although the practice of meditation worked wonders for easing my pain, in the way that sitting in silence does now. Then I remembered having visited the same Meeting where I am now a member during another time of crisis and pain in my life. During my second year in college, my closest friend in the world was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was the first friend I'd ever lost to death, and everyone who knew him was devastated by his untimely passing. I knew Dave (yeah, we were "Dave and Dave") through my old church: we were youth group helpers together. But after he died, the very last place I wanted to be was in that church, because everywhere I went in that town reminded me of him. A close friend recommended I try a Quaker Meeting for Worship. "You'll like the silence," she said (I've never forgotten that). So I attended for about a month, four First Days in a row. I never talked to anyone there: I just went in, sat in the back, took in what was happening, and left at the "rise of Meeting" (when the Meeting for Worship ends). Then I moved on, but I had been moved. Obviously. Because when I needed that warm and trusting silence again, it was there for me, almost twenty-five years later. So I went back one day, almost without thinking, on a whim, really.

And this time, I stayed.

I've been attending my Meeting now for four years, and I've been a member for three. I have made friends there, people I think will be friends for life. I serve on two committees (Quakers love committees), and this past year, I co-led an Adult First Day School ("Sunday school") class, where we discussed and picked apart one of my favorite Quaker books. Becoming a Friend has enriched and informed and improved my life, and it has helped heal and make me whole again. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Yes, there is a point here. When we scroll down the page of this and the other blogs we read and contribute to, it's really easy to become angry or cynical or frustrated or just plain sad. There is so much pain and suffering out there, and so much that makes us angry. And I hope I haven't bored y'all too much with all this religious talk here. I don't think you have to be "a believer" to get my point. But one of the things being a Friend has taught me is the importance of gratitude: of taking the time to think about and to be truly grateful for the good things we have in our lives, whether it be our health, our families, our friends, our careers, or having a place like this to share and rant and laugh with other like-minded folks.

Or just being grateful for a quiet place to sit on a rainy Sunday morning.

TAGS: Faith, Hope, Misc. ramblings

Life lessons from football.

Soccer to you, probably.

I was driving around this morning, coming home from an appointment, and I saw the first sure sign that fall is coming (in spite of the oppressive heat and humidity today in these parts): the soccer trainers are out on the fields with the kids already, with their cones and their flags and their practice vests and their very shiny new boots (cleats to you). I coached youth and school soccer for fifteen years, and even though I "retired" from coaching four years ago, I still miss it... sometimes. I still love the game, though, and still follow it as best I can without a satellite dish (a-hem).

One of the best soccer related stories of late was the victory of Iraq's national team over Saudi Arabia in the recently concluded Asian Cup competition, a cause for rejoicing that, sadly, was spoiled when terrorists (or militants or insurgents or whatever we're supposed to call them) attacked some of the spontaneous celebrations this victory caused and killed a whole lot of innocent people.

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer featured a column by César Chelala about this victory, which featured these fascinating and insightful observations:

... Jorvan Vieira, the Brazilian coach hired by the Iraqi team shortly before
the final game, has spoken - in an interview published by Clarín, an Argentine newspaper - about animosity among the Iraqi players, especially between Sunnis and Shiites. The team was in total disarray on his arrival. Many players didn't even talk to one another, and, for the first two weeks, coaching was extremely difficult for him.

When asked how he managed to encourage civility among the Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish and Christian players enough for the team to pull together, Vieira replied: "What I did was talk with them every day and tell them that unless they decided to work together, they wouldn't get anywhere and that they would leave the Iraqi people without any happiness. Every time two players had a problem, I took them into a room and didn't leave that room until the problem was overcome."

After the victory in the semifinal match against South Korea, hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to celebrate - interrupted by two
suicide car bombings that killed 50 people and wounded 135. A cause for
celebration had become a cause for mourning.

"The day afterward was very difficult for us," Vieira said. "We all cried
on watching the TV images of the tragedy, and we thought if it really was
worthwhile to win, since if we won, people died, and if we lost, people also
died."

According to Vieira, it was despair that gave the team the strength needed to play and win the final game. The players had learned that a mother who lost her son during the celebrations had spoken of the happiness of her boy's final moments, thanks to their team's victory. It made them think, "We have to win this final at any price and offer this triumph to that mother."

For a few moments the Iraqi people were able to forget they were living
in a country ravaged by war and senseless killing. Their team's victory gave them hope, an example of the possibilities ahead if only they worked together, just as the team had done in order to triumph...

The rest of the piece is here, and it's the title that gave me the idea for this post. I love that part about how the coach brought these factions together to forge a winning side (man, and I thought I had problem players!). I enjoy learning how coaches deal with difficult situations, and this had to be one of the most challenging ever faced by a coach. And it made me think about what coaching and being around soccer has taught me about life, the universe, and everything. It comes down to these six basic "rules," the things the game taught and reinforced in me:

1.) Life, like soccer, has very few, and very simple, rules. There are only seventeen laws (rules) for soccer. It's a pretty simple game, actually. Like life. Basically, as in soccer, you can get by day-to-day with a few simple rules for living. Love your neighbor as yourself. Or at least like her or him. Be honest: don't cheat or lie or steal. Keep your hands to yourself (unless invited to do otherwise). Don't touch what isn't yours. Be respectful. Value your life, and the lives of other living things. If you can't help someone, at least don't hurt them. Show up ready to do what needs to be done. Simple things like that. Play the game the way you want the rest of the world to play it, because how they play effects you, too.

2.) Not everything is that simple. The offside law in soccer seems relatively simple, and yet it can be so subjective and so subtle as to be maddening. Over the years, I saw more arguments and ejections over the calling (or not) of offside than I did for anything else besides rough play. That's because it's called based on a) what an official sees, and b) what she or he knows about the law. It's not really open for interpretation (if you really understand it), but people do see it that way. In other words, it's not always black and white. They are grey areas, open for debate and discussion, based on knowledge, interpretation, experience, and bias. Like... life.

3.) Everyone can - and should - have a place on the team. One of the great things about soccer is that you don't have to have some sort of genetic enhancement or glandular abnormality to play. Tall and short, slim and stocky, all kinds of folks can play. My older son, who I had the honor of coaching for many of those fifteen years, is somewhat short, not real muscular, wasn't gifted with great speed or a big leg, but he could see the field well, understood the game and played smart, was a good leader on the pitch, and was an absolutely fearless goalkeeper. As a coach, I had all kinds of players to work with. I always had a system for my teams, but I tailored it to their strengths (and weaknesses). And within that system, there was always room for each kid to shine. It was like a very together jazz quartet: everyone knew the basic tune we were playing, but everyone also got his chance to solo. In life, there's a spot for everyone. At least there should be. Everyone brings something to the table. We all do better when we use our collective talents together, and when we don't dismiss or overlook those with skills and abilities that might seem "different." And besides that, there is the fact that we can rarely do it all on our own. Players usually score because someone else on the team made an equally good play before they did. Trying to go through life alone - especially the hard parts - means you may not have as good a life as you could have.

4.) Everyone deserves a second chance. When you make a mistake in soccer, the ref shows you the yellow card, which means that you're on notice: do that again, and you're out of the match (which means you get a dreaded red card). Unless you do something really dangerous or disrespectful of the "laws," you can get a second chance and can continue playing. If a soccer ref can do this for players, we should do this for our fellow everyday humans, too. And it also means giving yourself a second chance, too.

5.) Decisions have consequences. If you decide to play the ball at exactly the right moment, you can set up a goal. Wait a second too long, and the play falls apart. No big deal: you learn from that and play on. However, if, for example, you commit a dangerous foul, or go rudely bananas over a ref's call, you've decided to break the few rules we have, for which you can be dismissed from a match. Because you made a bad choice. You now have forced your team to finish with only ten players. Ask Zinedine Zidane of France whether he regrets his blockheaded decision to head-butt that Italian defender in the final match of the last World Cup, a game France could (and should) have won but for his bad decision. His glorious career will be remembered for nothing else but that one incredibly bad choice. He has to live with that. The difference between being a little kid and being a grown-up means finally recognizing that when you make a bad choice, you gotta deal. Sadly, some people haven't seem to have learned this yet, or maybe they never will.

6.) You will work a lot harder, and suffer a lot more, than you will exalt in your successes. Americans who don't get soccer often wonder why soccer players do such crazy dances and celebrations after they score a goal. It's because scoring a goal in soccer is hard to do, and rare. The field is huge, the games are long, and - take it from me - making everything come together to make a scoring strike happen is a difficult, complicated physical and mental process, usually involving lots of people other than the lucky player who finally slots the ball into the back of the old onion bag. Just like life. I don't entirely suscribe to the Buddhist notion that all of life is about suffering, but, let's face it, life can be a... difficult, complicated physical and mental process. After a while, most of us recognize that this is a given fact. So when good things do happen, it's okay to do the happy dance. In fact, there should be more happy dancing in the world. On a daily basis, preferably.

Here's hoping that someday, the people of Iraq can dance in the streets - together - and celebrate - together - for real. Without fear. Maybe this coach is on something as to how to get them all there. Together.

TAGS: Soccer, Iraq

What I'm Doing On My Summer Vacation.

So, I spent last week in a rented house down at the Jersey shore, one of my favorite places in the whole wide world, with my wife and younger son, a fifteen year old to whom I refer as The Liberal-In-Training, mainly because he's already quite the well-informed, compassionate progressive. We had an almost perfect week, relaxation-wise and weather-wise (which is good, because few things can be worse than a rainy summer day at the shore, stuck in a house with a bored teenager), and the waves were (for a change) big enough for some serious boogie boarding almost every day. I did pass on the para-sailing, however. I don't do heights.

Anyway, we came back this past weekend, and I got down to work, getting some things done before I have to get back to my middle school classroom in three weeks. One of the first things on my August "to do" list was to write a letter to my son's soon-to-be guidance counselor at the high school which he will be attending this fall, letting him know that we are "opting out" of the No Child Left Behind-mandated program which forces high schools that receive federal money (which means all public high schools, basically) to provide personal and normally confidential information about soon-to-be recruitable students to the military. You didn't know about this? You should, especially if you have kids. The Pentagon has access to all your child's personal stuff, and unless you tell the school you don't want them to have it, the school must provide it. (Read more about it here.) Most parents don't know about this, and many don't care. But, see, we here in The Garden State do care. I'm a devout Quaker, and even though neither of my sons are Friends, the whole family agrees on this issue: the military, in our opinion, has no business using the schools as a rent-free recruiting office. Students, who are a captive audience under our system of compulsory education, should not have to put up with military recruiters in their classrooms, in their cafeterias, at their school activities and athletic events. If a kid wants information about enlisting, she or he can freely visit one of the (several) local recruiting centers in our town. They're easy to find. But my family's unlisted phone number, and my son's Social Security number, amongst other things, should not be available for the asking to some stranger who just happens to wear a uniform. Nuh-uh. Nope.

So I wrote the letter, and I downloaded and filled out a form for my son's school files, and stuffed it all in an envelope, and stuck on the stamp. And then I settled in to catch up on some of the news I had missed (I - happily - had no Internet access at the shore, and had avoided watching the news, at least until the end of the week when I first heard about those trapped miners in Utah), and one of the first things I came across online was this piece:

ANNVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Brittany Vojta survived boot camp. It was high school she couldn't make it through. Now, however, she has benefited from a program the National Guard started this year in Pennsylvania for privates who drop out of high school after signing up.

In an old barracks at Fort Indiantown Gap, the 18-year-old Cleveland woman and other dropouts spent three intensive weeks in class this summer to help them pass their GEDs — so they would meet the minimal educational requirement for staying in the Guard.

Straining to fill its ranks with the Iraq war in its fifth year, the military is taking on an ever bigger role providing basic education to new recruits. The strategy is potentially risky for the military as it strives to maintain the quality of its force, but it's giving dropouts like Vojta a second chance.

"Something happened in that soldier's life that was bad. ... We have the ability to stop another bad action from happening — them getting discharged from the military," said Sgt. 1st Class John Walton, 32, who started the Pennsylvania program. He says it is not about filling quotas but helping the troops.

The rest is here. Now, I have no problem with folks who go the GED route. I used to teach high school, and I know that kids don't always finish on time with a diploma for all sorts of reasons. And getting a GED shows that, in spite of difficulties and obstacles, many young kids still value an education and will do what they have to do to get their diplomas. But. There's something kind of insidious and also telling about this. It's like those so-called "prep schools" that get athletes ready to be exploited by top-shelf NCAA football and basketball powerhouses, making sure they have the minimum "grades" and test scores to be eligible, in spite of the fact that they (the universities) know the athletes will never (or rarely) graduate. I know something about this: I tutored some of these guys at Temple University back in the day, and I also worked with athletes at the community college where I worked before taking my current job.

The military claims it's mostly meeting its monthly quotas (at least the Army says so: yeah, I trust them), and people in the Bush administration and at the Pentagon are running away from our new "war czar's" comments last week about bringing back the draft, but stories like this make me wonder about just how well things are going on the recruiting front. Maybe our young people and their families are finally starting to wise up about what really goes on when it comes to military recruiters and their lies. And maybe that comes from watching the news.

Hopefully, at least, they'll be staying away from my kid. But I'm not counting on it.

PS: This is my first post as a member of The Unruly Mob. I am truly honored to have been invited to contribute to this blog, and I hope my work proves worthy of y'all's faith in me.