Godheval.net

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For those of us who grow up in religious households, we are taught our parents’ beliefs, go to their church, temple, or mosque if they have one, and are saddled with our parents morals, ethics, and any baggage that might come with it.  We take what we are given at face value, accept it as truth, due to the trust we place in those that have proven themselves by caring for us.  But unlike our natural inevitable journey into adolescence, many people never push beyond the beliefs instilled in them during childhood, they do not dare to venture out on their own, to establish their own personal religious identity.

More often than not, those who do not “progress” beyond this stage are the fundamentalists of any given theology, the hardliners, the literalists.  These are people who retain their childhood stories but never learned to look at it with grown-up eyes, to appreciate things like subtlety, nuance, multiple interpretations – like only appreciating poetry where it rhymes, rather than being able to read between the lines.

For those that do move to the next phase, however,  some rebel violently against their former beliefs and institutions – or at least the most vile version or perception of those institutions.  Perhaps they rebel due to a falling out with a parent or preacher or other authority figure.  Perhaps because of some major discrepancy between what we’ve been told to think and what we’ve reasoned for ourselves or even directly experienced.  This discrepancy usually has some noteworthy psychological impact, forcing a person not just to let go of their beliefs, but to run away from them screaming and yelling.

These are people like the militant atheists and agnostics – those for whom it is not enough to simply disbelieve, but who feel compelled to attack those who do believe. Not all atheists fit this description as I’ll explain in the third phase below. Far from simply establishing themselves as individuals “free” of religion, they feel some pressing need to return to their old beliefs and institutions with venom and fire, to criticize and belittle them.  In this way they are just as tethered to those old institutions as they always were, their identities as atheists dependent upon there being a religion against which to rebel.

Just as angry teenagers do not listen to their parents’ reasoning, their attempts to defend their choices, militant atheists do not listen to the more rational believers, the liberal theologians.  They are too busy screaming and yelling.  They need to cast religion and religious people as villains against whom they must stand in opposition.  The ironic thing is that they become the very thing that they are trying to rebel against, like the worst nightmare of any rebellious teenager – to become just like their parents.

The new atheists, who attack a repugnant version of religion, use it to condemn all religion. They use it to deny the reality and importance of the religious impulse. They are curiously unable to comprehend those who found through their religious convictions the strength to stand up against injustice…The new atheists, like all fundamentalists, flee from complexity. They can cope with religion in its most primitive and abusive form. They are helpless when confronted by a faith that challenges their caricatures.

America’s New Fundamentalists pp. 33-34

My experience with this involved some evangelicals and their implication that my mother, for her experimenting with Buddhism and other religions, would be condemned to Hell.  Another example can be seen in the movie The God Who Wasn’t There, which presented itself as a critique of religion and the Jesus myth, but by the end revealed itself to be one man’s personal vendetta against his religious upbringing and parochial school.  Much like a teenager finally getting to tell her parents all the things they did wrong in raising her.

Finally, though, the incendiary passions of militant atheism, like adolescence, are tempered through a sort of rational – rather than physical – maturity.  We learn to read religion like poetry – to understand subtlety, nuance, interpretation.  We learn that no one interpretation is necessarily right or wrong, but that they simply are.  This is not to say that we become believers again, but we no longer categorically deny the possibility – or legitimacy – of believing again.  And should we choose not to believe, we are able to make peace with religion, to reconcile our disbelief with others’ belief, to accept that disbelief is merely another interpretation of our experience.

To clarify, I do not mean to imply any qualitative difference between people at the different stages of belief or disbelief.  I do not think that people at any given stage are better than any other, no more than adults are better people than teenagers, or teenagers better people than young children.  They all simply have different ways of viewing and interpreting the world and their experiences within it.  I do contend, however, that just as adults tend to be better educated, better adjusted, and to possess greater wisdom for their length of experience, those who have progressed to the “third phase” are also wiser and better adjusted.  They are more capable of higher order thinking, more rational, more objective, and more established and comfortable within their identities.

They are independent enough to think for themselves, to make their own choices, and wise enough to look deeper into things rather than taking them at face value.  They are secure enough that they no longer need to prove themselves against the standards or norms of another.  They are grounded enough to no longer need to fly to the attack on others’ beliefs, or the defense of their own.

In short, they have grown up.

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In fact, not too long ago, I trivialized the issue of gays’ right to marry, not because I would deny them anything, but because I also trivialized marriage.  I also dismissed the issue under the pretext that there were “more important” things to talk about.  But in truth, it is not my place to say what should and shouldn’t be important to other people, especially when I do not even have the ability to relate to their experiences.  It was not until very recently that I recognized my privilege as a straight person to even be able to take marriage for granted.

What we must remember in dismissing or downplaying the significance of marriage is that we – as straight people – will presumably always have the option of marrying or not. We can turn our noses up at the institution now, only to change our minds as we get older and – perhaps inevitably – become more conservative in our thinking.

Same-sex couples do not have this luxury. So I think, while we should continue making arguments for universal civil unions as the truly legally-recognizable social contract between partners, we should maintain some sensitivity to the privileges we have as straight people, and not begrudge anyone the desire to form that contract in the way of their choosing – be it “marriage” in some official ceremony, or civil union before a judge.

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President Shimon Peres of Israel

What he said:

“I think the Iranian nation will topple these leaders – leaders that do not serve the people. In the end, people will understand this.”

and:

“To our dismay, our diplomatic relations are at a low point flowing from the desires leading the current leaders of your land to act in every way possible against the state of Israel and its people, but I am confident that the day we are hoping for is not far, when the good neighborly relations and the cooperation will flourish in all fields for the welfare of our nations and for the betterment of our common future.”

Why he should shut up:

Today President Obama released a video calling for a new relationship between the United States and Iran, a symbolic gesture given that it came on Nowruz, the start of the Iranian new year.  Obama, as usual, was savvy and tactical in giving his speech, even going as far as to refer to Iran by its official name – the Islamic Republic of Iran, something which shows recognition of its current leadership.  It is under this current leadership – following in the wake of the revolution of 1979 – under which Iran-U.S. relations deteriorated, beginning with the hostage crisis that same year, and perhaps culminating in George W. Bush naming Iran a member of the “Axis of Evil”.  Obama’s gesture throws such combative rhetoric out the window by accepting and acknowledging the current leadership in a proactive way.

Unfortunately, Peres timed his comments to coincide with those of Obama, as if he were joining in this venture towards peaceful collaboration.  The trouble is that while Obama’s words were friendly and optimistic, those of Peres were critical and condescending.  Not only does he take legitimacy away from the Iranian leadership by suggesting that the people will overthrow them, but he places the blame for poor relations between Iran and Israel solely and squarely on their shoulders.

One would think by listening to Peres that Israel was a country singlemindedly dedicated to Middle East peace, while the Iranian leadership are merely the antagonists standing in the way of that goal.  It would seem to imply that Israel’s own actions played no role in its adversarial relationship with Iran or other Arab nations, which is not only ridiculous but offensive.

Furthermore, Peres seems to be suggesting that at least since 1979 the people of Iran have been misguided in their acceptance of the current leadership, and that is only a matter of time before they become “enlightened” and see things the right way (i.e. the Israeli way), and overthrow those leaders.  Such an implication undermines the overwhelming public support that came behind the 1979 revolution, and the judgment of the Iranian people in selecting their Presidents since then.  Oh, poor misguided Iranians, one day you will see the truth!

At a time when any peace in the Middle East is tenuous, the next phase of war only an impulse away, the country at the center of the tensions might not want to get on the high horse when speaking to those who view it as the antagonist.

So President Peres, with all due respect, please shut the hell up.

Pope Benedict XVI

Ever since taking over the papacy in April 2005, the new Pope has become notorious for making controversial statements.  In October 2006, he quoted a 14th century emperor – who at the time was at war with the Muslim Ottoman Empire – saying:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Within the context of the intensely adversarial relationship between that Christianity and Islam through the proxy of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, the quote’s obvious bias can be understood.  In 2006, without any pretext, Benedict’s use of the quote was irresponsible and offensive.

Most recently, during a trip to Cameroon, he said:

“HIV/Aids is a tragedy that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem.”

These comments, which fly in the face of every scientific conclusion with regards to condoms and HIV prevention, place ideology above practicality. Such comments, made by a figure of immense visibility and influence, to the people of a region where millions are infected with HIV/AIDS, are outright dangerous.  They undermine the efforts of health workers and global initiatives to combat the deadly disease.

All for the sake of pushing for abstinence, a position the Pope also says should be taken by homosexuals indefinitely in order to uphold the mandate of the creation, but on which, hypocritically, he was more lenient when it came to the moral weaknesses – i.e. pedophilia – of his fellow clergymen.

As his tour of Africa continued, the Pope offered some additional words of wisdom, this time drawing upon the church’s pro-life ideology:

“Today it is high time to place greater emphasis on this: every human being, every tiny human person, however weak, is created in the image and likeness of God.  [...] Every person must live. Death must not prevail over life. Death will never have the last word.”

Actually, sir, death by its very definition does have the last word.  Now while I recognize that he is invoking the Christian ideal of an afterlife, a person so focused on the afterlife might not be the best one to talk to those who are struggling to survive in this life.  In talking about earthly issues such as abortion and the AIDS epidemic, it might be prudent to limit the discussion to this realm.

And so, your Holiness, with all due respect, just shut the hell up.

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Have you ever heard about Juiced with O.J. Simpson, the ill-fated television show where he played pranks on people?  Even if the show itself had any merits whatsoever – which it did not – there’s something cavalier about a man who most people think committed a most heinous crime engaging in buffoonery.  It probably would’ve been prudent for Simpson to keep a low profile – maybe for the rest of his life.

There was also his unbelievably audacious, insensitive, and downright unethical writing of “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer”, a book in which Simpson explains in detail how he would’ve committed the murders, but maintaining of course, that he didn’t.  The mere premise of this book is offensive enough, but one look at the cover plumbs the depths of the asshole that is O.J. Simpson.

I know very little about the Las Vegas case, but again we have a situation where a man who, thoroughly vilified by society – deserved or not – should probably be nowhere near a hotel where he has at least some knowledge of a pending robbery.  His inability to keep a low profile, and his obvious penchant for making the worst conceivable decisions, is what makes him an asshole, and what more or less ensures that he will receive no sympathy from most people.  While I admire SALI’s devotion to righting injustice, they are probably alone on this one.

In other news about assholes, the rage in government over the AIG bonuses has led to one senator – Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa – suggesting that the corrupt executives end it all.  He was quoted as saying:

“I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little better toward them is if they follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, ‘I am sorry,’ and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide. And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide.”

Ouch.  I wonder if AIG life insurance policies cover suicide…

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