Death by hilarity

This site, which is now on my awesome list, pointed me here.

1: NSFW
2: Not to be read with a full bladder.

You have been warned.

In other news - seminary looks to be an impending disaster - the theological sword of Damocles. If any of the two people who read this have any advice on ille, I would appreciate hearing it. The good news is that the theological bent of this thing won't be going anywhere. Politics, academics, yes - theology until my dying breath.

Today

Today I won life. Like all good games, you want to keep playing after you "win," and so the game becomes a series of victories, but today was clearly game point to the Good guys in the old tennis match of Humanism versus Christianity. The score stands, as it has for some time, at Humanism - 1,343,789,021, Christianity - ∞ .

I've been working for about a month on energy and economics. It seemed to me that there the problem lies, and that if we could solve the problems of energy and economics - the gathering of energy and the distribution of energy benefits - we could cinch the whole thing up tight! No one is hungry - no one wants - all is available - all is well.

Of course, to put that together, every human being would have to contribute to energy gathering and energy distribution - a sort of communism, if you will. Which happens to require universal participation.

This typically initiates my "gnash" reflex, but for some reason today...I just realized that it isn't going to work. All the effort and expense and Brownian motion of mankind - it's not efficient enough. The goal of humanism, futurism, communism, etc., is a closed system. The perpetual motion machine, perfectly efficient. And all these little "ism"s claim to be a path to a Perpetual Motion Mankind, provided everyone pulls together and puts their back into it.

Ben Bova, in his book Mars, talks about thermodynamics in a lovely homespun way. "You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game." And where two or three humans are gathered for any reason, there is disagreement. Which then magnifies into dischord and strife. War. So, all the isms are fundamentally flawed - too much grit in the works, too much friction in the universe.

What we need, then, I reasoned, is something to believe in, a solution, which doesn't require universal human participation. Something that get us through the grinding ill, but doesn't need everyone's signature.

I started off pointing to religions in general - the Barkeep most rightly pointed out that Judaism and Islam may be exempted, the one promising reward only to a chosen people, the other's utopia requiring the religious conquest of the world. But, of the big five, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism all have that vast uncaring about what others do.

In essence, as I told the Barkeep, I needed to remind myself that I was a Christian first and a humanist second. I have a lot of good humanist stuff - I like what we're about. But Christ is the centre. There can be no other path.

So, Sugarbutt! That for your futurism! Let's watch, and see who wins.

We live in a phenomenal world...

Yeah we do. Yeah we do.

I've been developing the language and the thought about this, ably assisted by the Barkeep and Sugarbutt (my shoulder angel and atheist, respectively), and it's time to take another stab at a theology of the phenomenal.

We live in a physical world. If you fail existentialism and accept some of the more obvious assumptions that we can make about living on earth (everyone else exists, everything we can experience with the senses is, to a greater or lesser extent, real, etc.), then you've got a nice duality of choices about the rest. Deity or not? Created or cosmic accident? Spiritual, inexplicable, mysterious, or methodical, predictable, Newtonian? Chaos and determinism on both sides of the crater, lava below, survival above.

But on either side of that question, and in every flavor of the middle, the world is standing there, staring you in the face, trying to get your attention. Every time I try to come up with an example of this, it sounds so banal, but think for a minute about trees. What? Why on God's/chaos'/Darwin's blue earth should there be life at all? Why should some of it grow tall, and somewhat hard? Leaves, bark, what's that all about? Burn it or build a bungalow, wood is bizarre.

And it's all like that! Bugs, electricity, humans (especially humans), we're all wired to simultaneously accept all this stuff that's in our faces on a daily basis, because it's always been there, but it's weird! It's weird just by being there, and whether it was adapted to fit us, or we to fit it, we live in a world to which we're ideally suited. The phenomena of our material universe, of which we are admittedly one of the strangest instances of the class, cry out to be acknowledged. This is smelling the roses on speed - take a moment and wonder that there are roses at all!

This is just a part of a larger idea - I'm still working on the unifying theme, but trust me when I say that levelling the accusation at the universe that it should be other than it is isn't helpful - the universe we have is a wonder, full of tragedy, triumph, and beauty. And it will be so, whatever the fate of mankind may be.

Only So Much Foucault

I want to talk to you today about torture.

There's quite a bit of hullabaloo regarding torture in the news today, and there has been for some time. Any reasonable, liberally-minded individual living in America must be disgusted by images such as those out of Abu Ghraib, or any other vision of torment and inflicted pain.

And I am.

Why, then, can an evangelical, an avowed Christian, and this nation's spiritual and moral leader condone the torture, interrogation, and the privation of human rights that "enemy combatants" endure in our present conflict?

And I think I understand.

It is not the role of the President to be nice. It was not Secretary Rumsfeld's job to be popular. In both cases, the job is to protect and pursue American interests at home and abroad. I say that, knowing full well that right now, not so very far from where I am sitting, individuals could be tortured for information in pursuit of this war.

The problem is that that information may be vital to the national security. And Messrs. Bush, Cheney, et al., and Mme. Rice, believe it to be true.

And I don't have a problem with that.

Al Qaeda will have (has had) no objections, on a moral level, to torturing, maiming, and beheading innocents and journalists, as well as our combatants. It is asked, why should we treat them any better, and as an American citizen, my answer must be, we can't. This isn't that kind of war. For the safety of our children, we must take radical, unprecedented, unfortunate steps.

And I don't have a (big) problem with that.

Are you ready for the turn? Because here it is. The current administration is doing what they think is right and necessary, and they will continue to do so, and it is right that they do.

But I will call, after the end of the administration, for an investigation into the acts of the administration. At the end of the war, I want to know what happened during the war. And those who committed crimes should be brought to justice for them.

As he's walking out of the White House, take all of President Bush's files, and find out who did what. Take them to trial. Let them be held accountable by US law.

Because that's the thing that must make us different from Islamic extremists. And from Communist guerillas. And from every other force for murder and torture in this world. We live under the rule of law - it is for that we fight. I can allow for the use of extreme force in the face of extremism. But I cannot condone its going unpunished.

I see a human intelligence operative in the streets of Moscow. He has a job, and he does it cleanly, and effectively. There's a silencer, a dark alley, an unfound murder, unanswered questions, and American lives are saved. It's vile and reprehensible, but for the state, it must be done.

And on the day that the USSR fell, I see him going to his local police department, or that of the Soviet Union, and turning himself in. I see this in my mind, and I cannot smile. It isn't a good. But it is there, and it is better than the alternative.

This has happened but two times that I know of, that a man guilty of crimes undertaken on behalf of his own nation was willingly and legally punished. Both were honest men; both did what they thought was right; both paid for it with their lives.

But even having escaped judgment in this life, I know that President Bush, in his own heart and mind, will have to square every act of torture, every death he undertook, with his own God. And that may be the greatest punishment that could be devised for a man of conscience.

And that I can ride with.

Erro, errare, erravi, erratus

This will not be the best-connected post in the history of blog.

I have an awful lot of tags. I felt bad about this until I realized that I had an awful lot of things I talked about. I consider eclecticism no more a sin then asceticism, and so, will carry on ballooning the wealth of tags at my disposal.

At some point I would like to re-do the style sheet for this page, and that may well be today. I like this initial style, but everyone does have it, and over-familiarity (as well you all know) breeds despite.

I understand more fully now than ever before in my life the scourge of poverty. It's not bad because some people have plenty and some live in want. That's a good objective measure for poverty, but I think JK Rowling says it best.

Probably the very best thing my earnings have given me, though, is absence of worry. I have not forgotten what it feels like to worry whether you'll have enough money to pay the bills. Not to have to think about that any more is the biggest luxury in the world.

I think one could extend that even further for true poverty. If you want to talk about the great tragedy of being poor (whose depths I have not nearly plumbed, and hope to avoid), I suspect that it is, above all, that of wasted potential. Surviving does not permit for thought beyond oneself and loved ones. Living lets you think about the plight of the world. When I worry about my job in a few weeks, and about what I shall eat and where I shall sleep (and yes, I am trying to keep Christ's words in front of me. What I wear is a matter of some indifference to me - food is rather a more important consideration), I cannot divide myself away from my immediate circle. Me, Penelope, the Barkeep, Sugarbutt, the Alchemist, the Hero and a few others I can consider and work with/for...everyone else seems to fall by the wayside. I wonder if, in Africa and Southeast Asia, in South America, if the social problems stem from that narrowness of circle, the refusal to open up to those outside, because of the need to survive.

It's not fully developed, I know, and me talking about poverty is Solomon bemoaning penury to a Nigerian slum-dweller. I will not swear, but I would that I could, if not redress the balance, than at least find a method for every person to live, truly live, rather than just survive. I think that life in Christ must be a part of that, but even Christ fed his people. When did Christ take an offering? Christ gave an offering, was an offering.

Now I have visions of being a pastor, of distributing bread, and meat, and water to all who come and ask, every Sunday, before worship. A glorious hope.

So. I have wandered a bit, as well I should from time to time. I'll be in touch.

Peace.

Unsettled

We should all be unsettled every once in a while. We should read something that throws us for a loop. If not, why bother? Why assault the world?
And I quote:

The most that religion can accomplish is to provide a crutch for the weak or lazy-minded to absolve guilt or to negate inquiry, and to serve as justification for the exercise of baser instincts like aggression, territoriality, ethnic cleansing, bigotry, or sociopathic perversions.

I think that of the many flaws here, the one that jumps out most is the complete misunderstanding of a) absolution and b) Christ. Has our author (about whose anonymity I should be angrier, I think), ever read a gospel? Any gospel, I don't care which. I do not find my Christian walk a justification for the exercise of ANY of those things - in fact, I find in the words of the Savior condemnation for them all.
And further:

Christians absolve themselves of guilt by proclaiming that their God was a man in mortal form who died for the "sins of humanity." This is all well and good, but what exactly are the sins of humanity?

Christianity does not examine what the sins are, choosing to ignore them. But having had Christ die to have these vaguely defined sins forgiven, Christians have continued to wage war on both humanity and nature for two thousand years. Christianity brilliantly fabricated a belief system to forgive all transgressions thereby absolving the human conscience of blame for tribalistic expansion. The genocide of the American Indian was justified and rationalized because these were unbelievers who had sinned by not believing in a Middle Eastern thunder god.

Our author has clearly never met a Catholic. Yes. Absolutely. I find myself examining (and confessing) my own sins on a daily basis, including and especially my sins against my planet, and my fellow Earthlings. I bring me to mind an episode of South Park when everyone claims responsibility for the actions of a few.
My real problem: I am a Christian humanist. I believe in the positive power of mankind. I believe that we can make a difference, to one another and to the world. We can only do that, however, when we recognize our hunger for the infinite. The author accuses religion of failure, because we try to describe the infinite in terms of the finite. Yet, she/he/it hopes that we will tap into that very same infinite for a religion of peace and harmony with life. We cannot escape the infinite - it will hunt us down. Better to claim the infinite as what it truly is - a Creator and giver of love, as unlike a man as can be while still being the font of love, than think of life, the tiniest mass of the tiniest mass of a single planet, as the be-all and end-all of the universe.
So, dear readers; love your planet - love your God. Love each other. The hour is coming when we will need each other as we need to breathe.

Cloudborn

Driving yesterday, I saw a cloud in the shape of the figure of an eighteenth century man - think the fim version of the Scarlet Pimpernel, or any French Revolution film, holding out his hand to a lady while dancing. The image was more vivid and lovely than I can describe to you.

Now, I've gone to school long enough to tell you that that's not really what was there. There was a nebula of water vapor attached to dust which was being struck by sunlight in a random pattern which happened to resemble this French fop to me. And, once more, I was made aware that this debate has gone on forever, between the phenomenal and the noumenal - in other words, that the scientific reality and the mental imagery are two different things. Of course, I favor the latter, being a poet and theologian. I want to say, and to believe, that I saw a man there because God wanted me to.

I think what struck me most particularly in this case was that from that angle, at that time, that shape existed. Just as, at this moment, from this angle, whatever the arrangement of atoms and particles on the screen, I am reading words. The underlying chaos of the universe doesn't, in my mind, preclude the reality of the either the phenomenal or the noumenal.

I regret that this point doesn't have as much point as some prior ones. It was tighter when I first saw it. I suppose I'll close with this: Next time you see a whale in the sky, or a star destroyer, or just a plain ol' Cowboy, let it make you feel. That, at least in part, is what life is about.

Oh, and a shout out to Penelope. Welcome to the blog. =)

mood: ring
album: WoW soundtrack