Once Infallible, Always Infallible?

Amongst the numerous inquiries that must be made in the wake of Pope Benedict’s announcement that he will retire at month’s end, is the question of Papal Infallibility. Yes the issue of child rape is paramount. And no the church should not be permitted to remain shielded from secular agencies that- if this were any other kind of institution lacking the dubious supernatural element at the core of religion- would normally be investigating and prosecuting without discrimination, the lurid accounts of rape and molestation at the hands of the Catholic clergy, world-wide.

Propelling these egregious abuses of power is a claim that exceeds audacity and pomp. And yet, after one hears it, it’s not difficult to discern where the all too prevalent idea of church impunity originates. The idea that the Pope, in each successive embodiment, is infallible. In other words, the Pope- who is a mere human being- upon ascending the throne of St. Peter- is immediately anointed with the power to be without fault, error, or imperfection. Everything he does and says is beyond reproach and must be considered divinely inspired. He is a conduit; a kind of mouthpiece for a sky deity which has (for some reason) given him heavenly authority on earth. (A separate question altogether would be why an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being would require any help?)

You tell me in what other institution that kind of claim would be treated seriously? Of course there have been examples of governments and populations that have been coerced and controlled by dictators to the extent that any dissenting opinion against the validity of their rule was considered heresy, treason, or worse. But I think it’s fair to state that the distinction between these two “infallibilities” is glaring. Admittedly, this parallel finds more sodality in the church’s earlier days of violence and control, and it’s not a stretch to suggest that it was totalitarian in many ways. Even when confronted with life in somewhere like North Korea, where everything and everyone is immersed in the “Dear Leader”, you wouldn’t find anyone outside of that nation, or any like it, willing to swear allegiance to him or any of his brethren, in the same manner that billions acquiesce to the major religions, and Catholicism in particular.

The reach for this power isn’t hard to imagine is it? Centuries ago, a group of charlatans realizing they had a monopoly on the public consciousness, decided to adorn this man-made station with complete and total amnesty. The remnants of this monopolization exist still. Exploited is the all too human act of allowing our perceptions to be shaped, not by something that is objectively or inherently true, but by something that we’ve been inculcated (culturally) from birth to believe. And so rather than render suspect any beliefs that affirm the objective superiority of one’s religion or religious leader, these ideas are treated as fact, beyond the discerning eye of skepticism, even though they aren’t rationally assessed to be true, and carry with them the supreme prejudice that comes with being “trained” to believe in them.

The fact is, in the civilized parts of our world, there is no other institution that would grant a human being this kind of leeway. If the leader of a secular organization was to claim infallibility granted by an invisible being, after it was discovered that he/she had participated in major criminal activity, not only would said leader be deposed and arrested, but he/she would invariably find themselves institutionalized. And yet because this is religion, the church remains immune to all but criticism. Credulous believers adhere to the church’s idea that once the priesthood is attained, the priest has become something of a man apart. His insight and morality have miraculously transcended the level of mere mortal, becoming a liaison between man and God. The church has exploited this superstition, both in the power their clergy enjoys, and in what they are allowed to get away with.

In many of the child rape cases, a recurring theme of parental refusal to believe that a priest would commit such an act, is based in this belief of priest/layperson inequality. This kind of “head in the sand” mentality, is no small thing, particularly in the mind of the child. They see their parents’ denial as a refutation of their own sense of discomfort. Self-doubt begins to brew. Perhaps they had misconstrued the Father’s intentions all along? He is, after all, a priest and someone who so many adults seem to trust. And thus, the cycle of indoctrination by way of superstition continues, with much more at stake it seems than one’s personal atonement with God.

All of this begs the question, if the Holy See decides that the handling of these cases is something only the church is fit to undertake, and the Holy Father is considered infallible, and the source of that infallibility is God, then who is right? Surely an institution, and a man, that makes such large claims for itself has it on good authority that their perfection is warranted? Certainly the rest of us do as well, right? But, since no Pope has resigned in 600 years, and since the church (and belief in general) has begun to wane in the modern era, (granting us the freedom to ask these questions), what I’m curious to understand is what happens to Pope Benedict’s infallibility once he is officially retired? Will he retain his state of perfection? Or will it be stripped from him after he becomes Joseph Ratzinger again? If he remains infallible, then what happens when the new Pope is crowned? Won’t he also be infallible? Can two infallible beings coexist on one planet? Would they be equal conduits of God? Or, like all “Divine Right” monarchies of the past, can there only be one? There is no precedent for this. 600 years ago suggesting these kinds of inconsistencies would have resulted in death. There was no alternative perspective, let alone a questioning one. And so this is quite possibly the first time the church has ever been confronted with this detail.

Basic logic is at stake here and I’m anxious to have the church pressed on this problem. I see this for what it is: human beings enjoying protection and success, as the result of what Christopher Hitchens used to say is a, “species that prefers a conspiracy theory, to no theory at all.” Even still I find these inquiries valid. If only to illuminate how preposterous and infantile this claim of infallibility really is. The desultory manner in which humility is disdained should find crescive doubt permeating the flock. And the vertiginous rationale behind the church’s accountability (or lack thereof) should be abhorrent to all Catholics that take their faith seriously.

But this is religion after all. And religion has a peculiar affect on the superstitious. And because of this affect, the disconnect between humility and audacity is rarely acknowledged. And so one must ask- if only to hear the church address it- once infallibility is granted, can one simply surrender it? If you’ve been blessed enough to win this faculty, surely you aren’t expected to relinquish it? I don’t see how you could ever retreat from that kind of power. You could literally stand up in front of millions of people, and say things like, “Condoms are more dangerous than AIDS.”, and be believed, because you are, after all, infallible. In the midst of two infallible beings, an ineluctable power struggle could ensue. After this weekend’s disclosure that the Pope’s resignation could have more to do with being notified that he would be susceptible to arrest for being complicit in the cover-up of child rape, and less to do with old age, I don’t think it’s implausible to suggest that Ratzinger is reluctantly leaving power, and could find himself in a rather lugubrious state of seclusion.

Infallible? I don’t think so. Ratzinger, like all men, is extremely fallible and has proven to be so, time and time again. The church should drop this claim, admit that no human being is entirely without error, and concentrate on helping those in need. Allowing rampant child rape allegations to be investigated, and seeing the perpetrators charged, would be a good place to start.

Obama’s Hubris: The Drone “Rule Book”

Over the weekend the New York Times reported that President Obama- feeling slightly ambiguous about the election’s outcome- decided that it was imperative that his administration define more clearly, the legal process behind drone strikes, out of a supposed fear that Mitt Romney and the Republican Party could inherit the program.  The underlying theme of the story is that Obama has/had reservations on how poorly defined the opaque program is, and that parameters need to be installed in order to ensure that the appropriate levels of checks and balances are in place.  The implication being, that Republicans would certainly abuse the power to assassinate perceived terrorist threats if left unbridled, while Democrats are innately more responsible at handling the program as is.

The irony of this “concern”, is that Obama has already used this power, and the secrecy it’s wrapped in, to assassinate three American citizens, without trial or open commentary on the matter.  When pressed, they even leaked that the primary American citizen who was targeted, Anwar al-Awlaki, had his constitutional right of due process “satisfied” behind closed doors, conducted by a biased panel of Presidential advisors.  It’s hard to imagine a more egregious abuse of this power.  Yet the illusion of responsibility abounds.

Setting aside the hubris that it takes to issue such a statement- one that obviously was approved to be leaked by the administration- there are a few issues that should be mentioned.

First, it appears that Obama is quite aware of the scrutiny he’s faced regarding drones.  He’s also cognizant of the fact that his administration, claiming to be the most transparent ever, has done much to protect the secrecy of this program- under the premise of national security- which has stifled constructive public discourse.  We know his team has exaggerated- and in some cases completely fabricated- the number of civilian deaths in drone strikes, while also conveniently re-defining the word “militant” to mean “all military-age males in the vicinity of a strike, unless proven otherwise posthumously.”  One gets the impression, that perhaps Obama wanted to clean up something that could negatively impact the legacy of his presidency.

Second, it’s interesting to examine the parallel between religious faith, with the faith of partisans in their political leaders.  Both cases require and encourage, the suspension of reality by way of ignoring evidence and reason.  If a Republican president had used the “Global War on Terror” excuse, to kill American citizens without due process, and continued to indiscriminately bomb Muslim countries with a method known as “Signature Strikes”- which essentially examines behavioral patterns of potential “targets” and kills them without actually knowing their identities- most of the Democrats now supporting Obama, would be outraged.  If Democrats discovered that a Republican president had been bombing funerals and rescuers, in order to assassinate targets they believed were in attendance, they would invariably label such a practice immoral.  They might even go so far as to call that president, a war criminal.  But Obama leads their party;  he’s a former constitutional attorney;  he’s erudite and reads Thomas Aquinas;  he ran on the lofty rhetoric of hope and change, and wants to move the country forward;  he believes in transparency and the judicial process.  It doesn’t matter what he does; that’s irrelevant.  All that matters is what he tells us.

It doesn’t matter that he continues to allow warrantless wiretapping, and protects the NSA at every turn as it continues to collect and store billions of domestic communications every day.  It doesn’t matter that he has continued to indefinitely detain anyone, including American citizens, that he believes is a threat to national security.  It doesn’t matter if those he indefinitely detains, are never actually given a trial.  Nor does it matter if there is ever any evidence proving the imminent threat that Obama says exists.  It doesn’t matter if Obama says he believes in whistle-blowers, even as he prosecutes more of them than all other presidential administrations combined. And it certainly doesn’t matter if he claims that no country would tolerate missiles being rained down upon them, while supporting the Israeli occupation of Gaza, and continuing to rain down missiles of our own, on the populations of countries we aren’t at war with.  It doesn’t matter, because no matter what evidence is produced, Democrats believe that Obama has good intentions, which far outweigh the actions of his policies.

Most of all, the faith one exudes in Obama rests upon the simple fact that he is our President, and that if he is assassinating people, it’s because those people without question were trying to do harm to the United States.  No evidence is needed.  No need to uphold the innocent until proven guilty mantra that we esteem and espouse in most criminal situations.  No need to provide any actual proof, that the “militant” in question is guilty of what our government says they are.  Even if the penalty for that accusation is death, and even if that death results in “collateral” damage- such as the deaths of innocent children.  No evidence is needed, even if the “militant” in question is an American citizen.  That is the very definition of faith, and it’s so extreme that it blinds us from acknowledging just how severe this assumption of power has become.

The audacity of the assumption that a Republican president would need “clear standards and procedures”, is embodied by what that statement implies:  That Obama feels the program he’s been running is indeed operating without “clear standards and procedures”, but that he believes he should be trusted with that lack of accountability.  Romney, in his view, could not be.  No clearer example for what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he said, “In questions of power…let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution”, can be provided.  And yet this religious-like faith in Obama’s inherent goodness and right intent- despite the evidence to the contrary- persists.  Is it just partisan nationalism?  Could it be a continuation of the lesser of two evils rationale?  Or is it the unfounded belief that “we” are trustworthy, and “they” are not?

Perhaps the most telling line in the NYT story comes when the author admits that since Obama’s re-election, the “matter may have lost some urgency.”  This reaffirms my point.  Obama and his followers don’t feel that they require “clear standards and procedures.”  They believe that they can be trusted with vague and broad definitions of who constitutes a target, where that strike can occur, and what the legal consequences of such a strike might be.  They, and they alone, are responsible enough to determine when the loss of innocent life is worth the risk.  They are even bold enough to suggest that they can kill three American citizens, including a sixteen year old boy, and have the temerity to keep the citizenry in the dark.  Obama says, “trust me”.  The public doesn’t need to know how this process works.  It can rest assured, that it’s in good hands.  Sounds eerily like the faith argument we often hear from religious zealots.  And like that argument, evidence and reason are ignored every time.

God is Superfluous

I received a multitude of scathing replies to my recent post on the difference between believing and knowing.  There was virtually no effort made to intelligently respond to my assertions, but there was much emphasis placed on holy books, and the Bible in particular.  The general premise of my critics’ counter-argument was that the Bible, and all other holy books by definition, offer all of the evidence one needs in determining if God exists and how we relate to him.  These books are the guidelines, the instruction, and the proof that supports the faith in which people use as life’s navigation system.

I’m not going to spend much time on the paradoxical nature of these books.  There is ample scholarship on the subject, and any honest reader that devotes his or herself to a deconstructed and impartial reading of the text, will find the messages ambiguous, the characters derived, and the history and science to be vague and implausible.

These problems aside, the distinction between what we know and what we believe, endures.  Particularly if our only supposed link to “knowing” anything about God are the ancient stories presented in these books, disseminated by illiterate “prophets” who had conveniently received the “Word” while in isolation.  Indeed very few narrators in the Bible agree on the order of things, nor do they seem to ascertain what the messenger was attempting to convey.  There are numerous places where the narrators contradict one another, or offer sclerotic variations of one another’s depictions.  Why exactly, should we trust this text?  There is no evidence to support the conclusion that these books are the word of an ineffable being.  (We don’t even know what is meant by the term God?)  And if there were, the only rational conclusion would be that he/she/it suffers from bi-polar disorder and possibly even amnesia.

A few questions:

Monotheism seems certain that God is male.  Why?  How can we know that God has a sex?  Because we’re told?  Because a book says so?

God, we are told, is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and all-good, but yet evil abounds?  Let’s assume that God does exist.  Why should we believe he/she/it is good?  History proves otherwise.  Unless of course you believe that vast swaths of people are punished for being whatever religion you aren’t, or for being part of a population that you are not also a part of.  Or that evil exists as a counterbalance to God’s goodness.  All of these excuses are moronic, not to mention racist and vial.

Morality you say?  A preemptive response to the moral argument, which typically states that without God, and religion as His conduit, there would be no morality.  Or put another way, without God, there would be not only no personal sense of morality, but also no moral incentive, because without an afterlife there would be no reward for adhering to God’s code.  Without going into the relativity of morality, and how I believe our human sense of right and wrong has developed slowly with our evolution as a species;  and without going into detail about how we have learned, over hundreds of thousands of years, that substituting certain predatory and selfish instincts for broader social good and altruistic inclinations, is where our morality originates, there is a far simpler question that puts it to those who claim monotheistic superiority on the moral question:  If the Christian God introduces morality and goodness, explain then, the obvious goodness and morality of those that preceded His arrival?  The Greek and Roman philosophers are obvious examples of this moral sense, many of whom predate Christianity by many centuries.  To gloss over the simple fact that there were virtuous humans prior to Christianity, is to manipulate the argument rather ignorantly, in favor of historical revisionism.  In short, this approach is barren and fatuous.

Even if God does exist, which again we have no way of knowing, what evidence do we have that would support religion’s depiction of he/she/it?  Religion, after all, is a man-made concept and institution, and is certainly not an intrinsic facet of human life.  It is subject to man’s fallibility, his avarice and thirst for power, and his innate sense of self-importance.  It is, by definition, ego-centric.  Those that have created religion, are as intellectually limited as the rest of us in terms of knowing anything about God, the afterlife, or any other element involving supernatural occurrences and deities.  It’s mere speculation.

We’ve created theology in an effort to try and understand who we are, where we come from, and what our purpose is.  These are noble endeavors- no matter how futile they might be- but the problem is that religion strives to do the heavy lifting for us, by teaching us what to think instead of how to think.  Rather than promoting existential questions that arise from reason and evidence- or the lack thereof- we’re taught to have faith in an ancient text, and what authority figures tell us about it.  This is belief, by way of faith.  (A faith that is arguably a manufactured one.)  It is not knowledge.  There is no reason to trust a human interpretation of what God is and what It wants for us.  This is precisely what religion is.  A human interpretation of an unknowable idea.

Which brings me to another point:  If the religious amongst us believe that the Bible is the literal “Word of God”, then they must own that claim by accepting and taking responsibility for, the entire breadth of the Bible, and not just the conveniently poetic.  There is much ugliness and ambiguity in the Bible- as is the case in all holy books- mostly because of the time in which they were written, and the cultures they were written for. (This is a historical indictment of the moral relativism of that era, and certainly not meant to be taken as racial or cultural bigotry.)  But this only matters if you don’t believe God dictated the texts.  People who are detached from religious belief can examine these books historically, placing them in their proper social and political context, whereas believers have to reconcile the mythological and the parochial, by interpreting them in a way that fits with modernity.  As I’ve said before, if you are choosing what is modernly relevant in the Bible, then you are interpreting it to fit your belief, which means that you do not believe that the Bible is wholly relevant in the present age.  This means that you either do not believe that God is real;  or that you don’t believe the Bible is the literal word of God;  or that you know better than God and have taken the liberty to translate his ideas in a way that fits nicely with your own prejudice.  All of this is of course, happening on a subconscious level and can vary in their meaning.

What all of these scenarios have in common, is that they are assumptions at best.  To be dexterous enough to say one believes in loving thy neighbor, while ignoring the passages where God advocates genocide, takes a deftly selective conscience, not to mention an astounding level of denial. (As does the ability to ignore the relevancy, at different points in history, of religions that preceded monotheism, which are now largely extinct or referred to in our modern parlance as myth.  But what validates the monotheistic worldview?  A cursory comparison from one to the other shows- to say it mildly- at least a strong influence, if not absolute plagiarism, of the older pagan religions.  What makes the younger faiths true, and their ancestors false?)

Why can’t we be satisfied by the fact that God’s existence (and what God is) will always remain a mystery to us?  I can only assume that we hang on to this false understanding out of a fear of death, which is nothing more than a physical manifestation of our deeper fear of the unknown.  We cling to this because we possess an inherent sense of hope.  It’s depressing to feel that life as we know it, ceases one day.  The idea of having consciousness one day, and having none the next, is one that we cannot fathom, let alone adequately cope with.  And so religion preys on our hope.  It counts on it.  It needs it.  It manipulates our need to feel that there is a purpose to our lives and that there is something waiting for us in the great beyond.  Admittedly I’d love for this to be true.  It’s a pleasant fiction.  But immersing oneself in this fantasy is a manner of believing, not knowing.  And a childish one at that.

Why should we assume God?  If nature makes sense without having to introduce an unsatisfactory human construct that cannot be universally defined, and that there is no evidence to support, why invent one?  It’s an unnecessary step meant to evoke the idea of eternal life, but has no basis in reality.  We can’t know it, and nature has proven that it doesn’t need it.  Until he/she/it descends from the heavens and proves its existence (something that most people value in all other arenas) there is no reason (especially not a literary one) to nurture this superstition.  It is a superfluous idea.

 

 

 

 

 

Three’s A Crowd

We need third-party inclusion in this country.  We need an alternative perspective that is coming from outside the existing two-party corporate paradigm.  We need a party that is unfettered to lobbyists and special interest groups, and looks to act in the interest of the people.  We need a political voice that is at once dissident and unifying.   We need a party that would challenge the normative policies and indoctrinated orthodoxies that pervade our political discourse.  I don’t know if that party exists at present, but I’d very much like the ones that do to have the opportunity to be heard.  The Presidential debates would be the ideal platform for that hearing, but these variant perspectives are being excluded, based on the criteria of a partial organization called the Commission of Presidential Debates (CPD), that is biased, partisan, and inequitable.

Take a candidate like the Green Party’s Jill Stein.  She will be on the ballot in 38 states on November 7th, which constitutes 85% of the potential ballots throughout the country.  A number that in theory, could win her enough votes to assume the Presidency.  The aforementioned CPD has designated certain criteria that a candidate must meet, in order to qualify for debate participation.  One of the main requirements is that the candidate must reach at least 15% in the polls in order to be included in the debate.  If one examines that number historically, they’ll find that it excludes all third-party candidates for the last 100 years.

What’s important to remember here is that the CPD is not the government.  It is not an authority that has an inherent right to construct and consequentially constrict, the debates in the exclusive manner in which it has.  It is a “non-profit” corporation that accepts donations from major corporate sponsors, many of whom have extremely vested interests in D.C. and would prefer to keep the debates narrow.  The CPD shapes the debates by having both candidates, and their parties, agree to what can and cannot be addressed, the manner in how issues are covered, what kind of format the debates will utilize, what kind of questions and follow ups are permitted, how lenient/stringent the moderator may be, all the way down to having the two candidates agree that they will not participate in any other discussions resembling a debate, in any other medium, under any other organization.  In other words, the CDP has completely monopolized one of the most crucial elements of the electoral process.  The idea being to create less lucidity and more control.

The far simpler (and democratic) way of determining who should be included in the debates, is by simply asking the American people who they’d like to hear from.  My suspicion is that hearing more perspectives and not less, would probably be quite popular, which is precisely why it’s not done.  Not to mention the obvious detriment (for the CDP and their constituents) that comes with having an adversarial candidate/party on stage to challenge the mainstream orthodoxies and dogmas that could illuminate just how similar the Republicans and Democrats are on a majority of the issues.  What’s accomplished by the CDP restricting these debates, is an exclusion of dissident interjection and an assurance of obfuscation.  Limiting the discourse pleases their corporate sponsors, as well as the political parties that wish to highlight minimal differences in a way that creates the illusion of some vast divide.  A third party candidate might actually prove these differences to be mythological.  In short, it’s about control, power, and a perpetuation of the status quo.

My argument- whether a third party candidate appeals to you or not- is that the system being represented here is not at all democratic.  The aforementioned Green Party candidate Jill Stein, was arrested outside of the second Presidential debate for “disorderly conduct”.  She was protesting her exclusion from the debate.  The conduct deemed disorderly, was the civil disobedient act of sitting in the walkway that led to the debate hall, which they were being prevented by policemen from traversing.

We live in the proclaimed bastion of democratic ideals, and we love to nationalistically claim that this is what makes America great.  That this is what makes us free.  And yet here is a candidate that will be on 85% of the ballots in November, being arrested for wanting to participate and be heard.  You may or may not like Stein’s politics.  You may not even know she exists, or that she is running for president.  But anyone that believes in free and transparent elections, and that the voices of potential candidates should not be silenced or suppressed- not matter what their politics may be- should be appalled at this mockery we call an election.

I cannot, in good conscience, vote for Romney or Obama.  Nothing significant is going to change with either of them in office.  As a matter of fact I’d go so far as to contend that no real change will occur as long as Democrats and Republicans, in their present form, continue to be elected.  Especially not if they continue to refuse to work together.  If I could quantify the conscious act of a no vote, in a way that would register my dissatisfaction with our system, then that’s what I’d do.  I do not recognize the legitimacy of our political process.  Since there is no way to distinguish between apathy and conscious abstention, I will vote for a third-party on November 7th.  At the very least, it’s a way to quantify my denunciation of the two main political conglomerates, and the corrupt system within which they maneuver.

Ultimately this won’t matter.  I’ll vote for a third-party, as will roughly 1 million other people, and the system will prevail.  The populace will succumb to the illusion of choice yet again, and we’ll be right back here in four years discussing how meaningless, corrupt, and nonsensical the two-party system is, and how dysfunctional the government continues to be.  Either way, it should be self-evident to us that as long as legitimate third-parties are blocked from participating in essential election events, there is no reason to trust that this commission cares about informing the American voter, or that the mainstream candidates are interested in anything more than getting and staying elected.

 

 

Believing Is Not the Same As Knowing

There is a fundamental distinction that needs to be made between knowing something, and believing something.  To know something implies that one possesses evidence supported by facts.  Facts that are composed of information that can be independently verified by impartial sources that range from expert to layman.  In other words, knowing something infers a certain universality.

To believe in something means that you have a strong opinion on a matter.  If there is particular depth in the meaningfulness of the subject, one can even go so far as to call this manner of belief, faith, but that, is nothing more than an extension of belief.

Faith is a byproduct of belief, and has unfortunately been hijacked in the debate over God’s existence, the use of which negates any attempt at intelligent discussion/debate.  The unctuous way we circumvent the faith question is evidence enough of how empty yet unchallengeable the idea is.  Why?  Because it involves nothing universal.  Only the strictly personal is represented, which by its very nature, is beyond dispute.  As I’ve said before, the appearance of the faith argument in the existential debate, is the theological equivalent of your parents saying not to do something because “they said so.”

As an atheist, a common retort I receive is that by saying there is no God, I too am claiming to “know” something.  But this is a common misunderstanding.  Like believers, atheists have different strands.  My atheism is not one that would be audacious enough to claim that which there can be no method of discerning.  The question of God’s existence is unknowable in my view.  My contention is that there is no evidence to support the assumption of God.  He/She/It has been rendered unnecessary because science can explain what used to be credited to supernatural occurrences.  (Evolutionary biology being the ultimate example of this.)  Admittedly the larger questions elude us still.  But isn’t it far more responsible (and honest) to simply say, when asked how the universe began, that I don’t know, rather than commit the intellectually lazy offense of inserting God into this ineffable gap in our knowledge?  I believe that science will one day fill that gap, but until it does, I must answer the question of life’s origin, by saying that I do not know.

The same goes for the question about what happens when we die.  All of these queries are unanswerable.  And as such, it is impossible to know, anything about them.  This distinction may seem self-evident, and it should, but it’s clear that on matters of metaphysics, the line is often obscured.  Listening to authority figures like your local clergy, your parents and grandparents, or anyone else that attempts to convey knowledge of the afterlife or “God’s Will”, it is important to realize that you are only listening to what these people believe.  It’s necessary to acknowledge however, that no matter how erudite the authority figure might be, he/she does not know anything about God or what happens when we die.  Once again, believing is not knowing.

Excepting the limits of one’s knowledge isn’t difficult.  It is one of the simplest admissions one can make.  For example:  I believe, that the world began 14 billion years ago, after a massive explosion brought the universe into existence, beginning the long and arduous process of evolution, as species evolved from species- byway of genetic drift and natural selection- leading us over billions of years on a slow crawl to the present.  Most scientists (across all disciplines) share this belief.  I believe it because it involves scientific principles, terms, and ideas, that my intellect can grasp.  But I fully admit that I don’t know this happened.  There certainly appears to be ample evidence to support this conclusion, but uncertainty looms and therefore, until there is concrete evidence proving this theory, a theory it must remain.

I do find this explanation far more satisfying than the notion that the world was created by an unintelligible being that- through inexplicable acts that defy anything in nature we can articulate- created the earth in six days;  a being that no one can elucidate, but yet we “know” somehow cares about who we sleep with, what we eat, what our thoughts are, or how we generally behave while briefly inhabiting this orb.  I find equally insoluble, if you’re a believer that accepts evolution, the notion that an omnipotent being created the onerous process of evolution so that a degenerate primate can exist in Its image, in order to fulfill some kind of cruel bargain involving voluntary mental (and in some cases physical) slavery, for the chance to achieve spiritual atonement.

(Also, just a note on people who claim that God has revealed “Itself” to them: Anyone saying that they’ve heard, or seen, or spoken with It is absolutely perfidious, mendacious, and/or delusional.  You can claim to believe you were shown a sign, or that you heard a voice (from within your head or without), or that something was revealed to you via life’s natural course, but believing something, no matter how badly you want it to be true, does not make it so.  Just know that if you try to convince me that you know something that it is impossible to know, thereby insinuating that you are endowed with a mental faculty that others do not also possess, the only word running through my mind while listening to you babble, is charlatan.  Actually that’s not entirely true.  As I wrote that last line I realized that perhaps I do believe that people who claim they’ve spoken to, or interacted with God, really do believe that they did so.  But that certainly doesn’t make it true.  It just means they are interpreting an event/occurrence in a way that corresponds with their faith/belief.)

This is what I want from those who say they know something there is no possible way to know.  I want them to be honest.  I want them to come to terms with the idea that they might be suppressing their innate uncertainty (a very human characteristic by the way) out of fear that their deity might disapprove and find them unworthy of salvation, in spite of the fact that He/She/It won’t reveal Itself to them.  I want them to be accountable, and to answer the question that if what I just wrote is true, then why on earth would anyone align themselves with something so malicious and cruel?

It’s like the baptism argument with small children.  I believe that the act should be postponed until the child is old enough to fully comprehend what exactly is transpiring.  It is, after all, his or her “soul”, whatever that means.  But the common superstition is that if a small child was to die, without being baptized, then their soul is “impure” and therefore subject to eternal damnation.  All over a bird bath.

What good and honest person would subscribe to such a foul notion?  If God is evil enough to punish a being that doesn’t possess the intellect to utter a human phrase, let alone have read the Bible or understand what is meant by a supreme being, the soul, or heaven and hell, then how can anyone claim that their God is inherently good?  Think about that level of barbarism?  To punish a being that hasn’t lived long enough to do much more than eat, cry, and relieve itself.  What sins could it have possibly committed?  And yet logic aside, this superstition abounds.  Not because there is any definitive knowledge proving that those who die without baptism are condemned to the inferno, but because of what they believe, or worse yet, what they’ve been taught to believe.

People are entitled to believe whatever inane concepts and philosophies they like.  (Although while I believe in absolute free speech, the more absurd the thought, the more the thinker should be prepared to face rational inquiry.  Facts exist, no matter how much you believe something to the contrary.  And while I defend your right to express yourself, that doesn’t exempt you from my right to scrutinize what it is that you say.  And vice versa.)  My argument is not that belief is wrong, but that it also isn’t intrinsically right either.  No matter how badly you believe in the subject of your conviction, it doesn’t mean that you know anything at all about it.

On the subject of God, I’m still waiting on a believer to give me an honest answer to the question, “What is God?”.  Most of them laugh at me when I ask that, because their dogmatic indoctrination presumes the question is derisory and farcical.  How to answer that question never enters their mind, and when pressed, they quickly find that the response isn’t quite that transparent.  An honest answer to that question is to say, “I don’t know, but I believe…”.  A truly honest answer is to leave it at “I don’t know.”  Nothing else is required after one concedes that point.  Anything that follows is at best creative speculation.  Search though you may, you’ll find no knowledge after those three words are uttered.  Only ideas.  This is the difference between knowing and believing and I believe, this distinction should extend to all consequential discourse.  In the end, acknowledging what we don’t know, is the first step in learning more about ourselves and the world in which we live.

My Last Drink: An Ode to Bourbon

My last drink was a delicious small batch bourbon called Jefferson’s, enjoyed with just a cube or two of ice.  This drink- not to be confused with the Jefferson’s Presidential that I’ve written about before that is, by all accounts, the nectar of ineffable sky deities- is light, spicy, and flavorful, and is much more affordable than its Presidential counterpart.  Jefferson’s is perfect for a day when you feel like altering your consciousness without the guilt of a rapidly disappearing bottle.

My Saturday night culminated with Jefferson’s in hand, enjoying the efforts, via television, of my favorite college football team, along with my father, mother, and wife.  I should say that the word “enjoying” is a bit understated.  Perhaps the more accurate depiction would be one of two perfectly sane adult males, screaming with wild hysteria at an inanimate object, as if our elated and sometimes querulous commentary was somehow influencing the outcome of a game being played over a hundred miles away.

It’s really an odd phenomenon.  Not that it’s unique;  I’m aware that similar displays of emotion are exhibited throughout America on Saturdays and Sundays during football season.  From pacific domiciles to crepuscular bars, observers of sports are irrationally zealous, and no better examples can be found than my father and I.  We are, under normal circumstances, docile creatures- who usually prefer insouciance to unbridled enthusiasm- but on game days we are transformed into something different altogether, the result of which is a temporary loss of mental acuity;  so much so that my wife has asked on a myriad of occasions, just who in the hell I am?

I often think of our poor cats in these moments of delirium.  The way they must interpret the sounds and behaviour coming from a being whose company they normally enjoy, is one that would be akin to a 1st century human’s impression of an airplane in flight.  The only remedy for them, it seems, is distance and caution, mixed with the occasional peering from around corners to see what strange ritual we primates are partaking in next.

Perhaps to an outsider who lacked the necessary context, the vision of my mother and wife casually making conversation at our living room table, while two hulking males flail about and give each other periodical chest bumps, would make the paradoxical scene all the more confusing.  This pageant of inebriated celebration no longer moves our wives in any way.  It simply is to them.  Like gravity or the inevitably of a zombie apocalypse, some things are quite simply a part of nature.  I must give them credit for understanding what all women invariably come to grasp: that men, generally speaking, never grow up.

A perfect example would be earlier that day, when my mother wanted to devour the shopping district in downtown Charleston.  Knowing full well that my father and I loathe shopping (so much so that I’ve even been known to have allergic reactions to the experience) she politely told us to fuck off, (my words not hers) and successfully manipulated the situation in a way that afforded us the opportunity to drink, while she shopped.  Her dexterity was genius.  Never has a shopping experience been more enjoyable.  Or successful I might add.  Each block that my mother shopped, my father and I would imbibe.  Bloody Mary’s followed beers as one scene evolved into the next.  We discussed politics and the debates, the merits of hard liquor compared to beer, and counted the seemingly ubiquitous number of tattooed individuals inhabiting the tenebrous establishments that entertained us.

Full disclosure, my father and I aren’t prejudiced against people who ink.  We were merely contrasting the differing taverns by observing the striking majority of tattoos in one, compared to the others.  A harmless superficial musing that I assume many who frequent city pubs come to notice in one form or another.  It certainly isn’t something that would cause us to shy away in the future.  Quite the contrary actually.  The Bloody Mary’s were excellent.

The point is my mother- since my wife had to work- wanted to enjoy an unrestricted shopping excursion without two men leering at her from outside each shop, wondering how much longer they had to endure the agony.  She, playing to the child-like need we men have of being distracted, manipulated us brilliantly, knowing that we couldn’t possibly object to alcohol and football.  Thus no one impeded her progress and delight.  The more we drank, the happier we were to oblige her indulgences.

And this is how it goes with all weekends that include life’s simple pleasures;  the satisfaction that comes with family, football, food, and drink.  As I’ve said countless times, brevity and discretion are not strengths I possess, and bourbon seems to bring out the, shall I say, conversationalist within.  I’ve learned that I come by this trait honestly.  The usual emollience that liquor induces in some, often has the opposite effect on me.  Not that I become impetuous.  It just seems to invigorate me. (A novel concession I know.  And admittedly relative to those enduring the vigor.)  Something like Jefferson’s fuels the desire for debate and storytelling (to the chagrin of my wife) suffered by those I’m fortunate enough to be surrounded by.  Sometimes that energy is spent passionately screaming at a television.  Other times it causes me to languidly slip into the abundantly puerile sense of humor I seem to possess.  And yet on other occasions still, it can be the fire that loosens my mind just enough, so that poignant discussions and arguments about an array of subjects that interest me, and those around me, filter through the haze of drivel that my brain usually produces.  I was fortunate enough this past weekend to encounter all of these “side-effects” of a good bourbon.  Jefferson’s is just that.  But perhaps I was even luckier to be amongst people who embrace my inanity because they genuinely love me, and I them.  Either way it isn’t the alcohol that matters most, but the experience.  Nothing is better than laughter.  And laugh is something I never fail to do, when I’m with those I care for most.

Terrorism Is A Meaningless Word

The word terrorism is meaningless.  It has an official definition, but the way in which it is used today, obscures what it’s meant to convey.  Nothing underscores this better than how the U.S. government utilizes the term.  The latest proof?  The Obama administration’s willingness to remove the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or “MeK” from our designated list of terrorist organizations.  For decades we’ve been selective in who we call terrorists.  It seems the term is relative to the interests being served.  If a group of individuals organize an attack on the U.S., then they are undoubtedly terrorists.  If we fund a similar group of individuals, who carry out coups, assassinate leaders that aren’t pro-American, or kill large swaths of foreigners, then they’re called freedom fighters.  Do you see how easy that is?

But isn’t terrorism a concept that can’t be manufactured in this way?  The definition is the following:

Terrorism:  the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

If we’re honest about this definition, and about the actions of our state, then we are just as responsible for terrorism around the world, if not more so, than any other nation.  Both directly and indirectly, we engage in activities that other countries would not hesitate to call terrorism.  It’s only our nationalistic hubris, and the propaganda machine that is our media, that keep us from acknowledging this.

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Who are the MeK?  Amongst other things they are a cult-like organization of Iranian dissidents that claim their primary objective is the removal of the current regime in Iran.  President Clinton placed the MeK on our designated terrorist list in 1997, primarily because of the murder of six American’s in Iran in the 1970′s, and since that time members of the MeK’s political arm have endeavored to remove themselves from this list, offering lavish gifts to those that might take up their cause.  Lately, the organization insists that it has abandoned all violent practices, and has taken to strictly political forms of protest and action.  But this doesn’t jive with Seymour Hersh’s story wrote in April, that reveals how members of the MeK have been receiving training at a secret U.S. facility in Nevada, on matters of sabotage, espionage, assassination, explosives, etc.  To claim that violence is no longer a part of their agenda, would be wildly disingenuous.

There have been multifarious attempts to link the MeK to the assassinations of various Iranian nuclear scientists over the last several years.  Myriad individuals and governments believe that the MeK, supported by Israeli and U.S. intelligence, arms, training, and money, have been assassinating Iranian civilian scientists working on nuclear their nation’s nuclear program, with the stated intent of utilizing nuclear energy.  (A form of energy the international community has granted Iran the legal right to pursue.)  The assumption is that Iran is constructing a nuclear weapon.  I use the word assumption here, because it’s not clear that they are developing nuclear arms.  In fact, the intelligence communities in both Israel and the U.S., keep insisting that there is no concrete evidence of this.  The fact is, at this time, false pretenses and half-truths are being manufactured by warmongering government officials, and regurgitated by subservient media stenographers, in an effort to breed an atmosphere of fear by dictating a narrative that suits their interests;  a narrative that would create the public consent necessary, to support military aggression against Iran.

I’m not insinuating that a nuclear Iran is an ideal scenario in the Middle East.  (Although, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that a majority of the Arab world believes a nuclear Iran would actually create more stability in the region, and not detract from it.  Why?  Because it would make Israel, backed by the U.S., less of an aggressor and hegemonic bully.  Most people in that part of the world believe the primary threats to stability are Israel and the U.S.  A cynical counter-argument would be noting the obvious slant this statement, and any corresponding data would reflect, given the obvious distaste much of the Middle East harbors for us and our Jewish friends.  But my response to that would be that while there is obvious racial and religious tension in that part of the world, action continues to speak loudest, and Israel has a license to do what it likes, because the entire world knows we have their back.)  What I am suggesting is that it is unwise to promote war without conclusive evidence for that which we claim to be going to war for.  Right now, there is no such clarity.

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We claim to deplore terrorism.  We have instigated a global war, literally without borders, against it;  a perpetual conflict that shows no sign of abating.  Yet we unabashedly create a blatant double standard by doing things like, removing the MeK from our terrorist list.  They have repeatedly used violence against civilian populations to achieve their ends, and there is much evidence that they continue to do so today.

So what’s the difference between then and now?  Why were they once unflinchingly labeled terrorists, but suddenly looked at as a friend?  It’s because now, the focus of their terror, fits our agenda.  Today they are an asset against Iran.  We can utilize their talents and fanaticism to thwart Iran’s nuclear program, which makes them a necessary ally.  But perception is a concern.  In order for the message to be construed correctly, removing the MeK from the terror list was essential.

It’s just that easy you might ask?  It certainly is.  And it isn’t uncommon.  The most famous example in recent history is Saddam Hussein.  We repeatedly added and removed him from the terror list during his reign in Iraq.  When he was fighting against the Iranians- after our puppet Iranian dictator that we placed at the helm was ousted- we supplied him with money, weapons, and aid, and called him an ally.  When his war with Iran ended, and he decided he no longer wanted American oil companies having access to Iraqi oil, he was deemed an enemy, and consequently placed back on the terrorist list.  It was at that time too, that we suddenly became appalled at how brutal he was to his own people, including the killing of tens of thousands of his own Kurdish population.  (Side note: he had been killing those people for years, even when he was our “friend”.)

How did the MeK come to be removed from the terror list?  Money is the short answer.  The MeK’s political arm began lobbying to ex-government officials, pleading their case and appealing to a common goal of regime change in Iran.  Being well-funded, the MeK offered lucrative speaking fees to a plethora of ex-government officials- including Democrats Howard Dean, Ed Rendall, Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, and Lee Hamilton, and Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Fran Townsend, Tom Ridge, and Andrew Card-all of whom began a vociferous campaign to clear the MeK’s name, and establish them as an ally in the fight against global terrorism.  If these advocates had been ordinary citizens, they would have been arrested and accused of providing material support to terrorists.  But because there is a legal double standard in this country- one for those who have power, and one for those that do not- these public officials were not only not investigated, but they further enriched themselves in the process.

(As Glenn Greenwald notes, the influence of the MeK has extensively breached our media as well. He says:

Money has also been paid to journalists such as The Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein and the Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page. Townsend is a CNN contributor and Rendell is an MSNBC contributor, yet those MEK payments are rarely, if ever, disclosed by those media outlets when featuring those contributors (indeed, Townsend can go on CNN to opine on Iran, even urging that its alleged conduct be viewed as “an act for war”, with no disclosure whatsoever during the segment of her MEK payments).)

Consider the case of someone like Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old legal resident from Pakistan, that lives in Virginia.  Ahmad, last September, took to the internet to express, via his Constitutionally protected right of free speech, the disgust he felt regarding US foreign policy as it relates to the killing of innocent Muslims.  He was then accused of providing material support to a terrorist group known as the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, or (LeT).  What he did was the following:

He produced and uploaded a 5-minute video to YouTube featuring photographs of U.S. abuses in Abu Ghraib, video of armored trucks exploding after being hit by IEDs, prayer messages about ‘jihad’ from LeT’s leader, and – according to the FBI’s Affidavit – ‘a number of terrorist logos.’ That, in turn, led the FBI agent who signed the affidavit to assert that ‘based on [his] training and experience, it is evident that the video … is designed as propaganda to develop support for LeT and to recruit jihadists to LeT.’ The FBI also claims Ahmad spoke with the son of an LeT leader about the contents of the video and had attended an LeT camp when he was a teenager in Pakistan. For the act of uploading that single YouTube video (and for denying that he did so when asked by the FBI agents who came to his home to interrogate him), he faces 23 years in prison.

(This of course, is where the argument regarding the limitations of speech comes into play.  Should speech advocating violence, be Constitutionally protected?  That’s the question.  I believe this speech should be permitted.  If it’s not, then we would need to reevaluate much of what our founders said in their day, particularly someone as incendiary as Thomas Paine.  We’d also have to take a hard look at those that, throughout our history, have called for violence and war preemptively.  If a Muslim American, expressing that other Muslims should take up arms against the US, is not protected speech, then how can we protect any of the daily pundits that take to cable news shows and clamor on about preemptively bombing Iran?  If one is protected, the other must be.  It cannot suffer bias based upon the subgroup the advocate in question represents and supports.)

And so on one side you have situations like a Pakistani man in New York sentenced to almost six years in prison for the crime of including a Hezbollah news channel in a cable TV package he offered to viewers in Brooklyn, while, on the other side you have someone like former US Homeland Security Chief, Tom Ridge, earning exorbitant fees for speaking on behalf of a group that up until this week was acknowledged as a terrorist organization.  Two separate legal systems for two distinct groups of people.  Which one applies depends on one’s interpretation of terrorism, what the phrase “material support” actually means, and who the target being terrorized happens to be.

If we want to make an argument for the MeK being a necessary ally, then we should have that right.  But we should offer full disclosure into what we get when we promote their agenda and sing their praises.  We should also perpetuate no double standard in terms of what material support means.  If these government officials and journalists are getting paid on behalf of a designated terrorist group, then that qualifies under the very broad judgment of the law, as material support.  It’s also a contradiction in basic terms considering how rampant our condemnation of terrorism is in this country.  To have such high-profile opponents of international terrorism take to the podium to clear a terrorist organization’s name, is in and of itself, a bizarre twist of fate and in my opinion, a deceitful paradox drenched in dichotomized self-interest.

This is why terrorism is a useless term and is completely devoid of meaning.  It simply cannot be treated fairly in our present dialogue.  If it could, then we’d be taught that we aren’t exempt from committing acts of terror.  Examples include, Chile in ’73; Guatemala in ’54; Nicaragua in the 80′s; Haiti and the Dominican Republic; Iraq in the early 90′s; Iran in ’53; Cambodia in the 70′s; Drones in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia; the Cuban blockade that still exists today; Iranian economic sanctions today; support for the Israeli blockade of Palestine; any number of the dictators we support in the Middle East, including Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain; the backing of Saddam Hussein in the 80′s; and the list goes on and on.  If we could honestly admit to ourselves, and to the world, that these events, and many more like them, constitute terrorism, and are no different from events like 9/11, the bombing of the USS Cole, the Marine barracks in Lebanon, etc., perhaps then we can engage in a discussion where what we say is taken seriously.  Perhaps then we can participate in a conversation where we discern how to unify and expunge terrorism all together.  Before that can happen, we have to be able to acknowledge terrorism for what it is.  There is no middle ground in determining what is, and is not, terrorism.  There is only interpretation and the manipulation of one’s agenda, for the benefit of one’s own national consciousness.  Anything short of accepting this is dishonest, delusional, and counterproductive.