Religion

Gratitude

by

Looking at Christmas cards. Seeing pictures of Mary and Joseph on the road, or in the stable with the baby. They did not get into the inn. They had to make the most of very rough conditions. Some thoughts occurred to me so I decided to share.

Even if they had gotten into Herod’s palace, or even somehow became the guests of Caesar himself, what I have here is unimaginably superior. In my modest house (it’s old, and it’s drafty, and it’s not that big) I have: insulation and central heating, hot and cold running water, flush toilets, electric power, telephone, internet, cooking gas, refrigerated and frozen food, medicine as needed in the cabinet, more than sufficient clothing, a piano, and 5,000 or so books. I can communicate with anyone I want to anywhere in the world instantly. I am within walking distance of two pharmacies where I can get antibiotics if needed. I and my children are a short drive away from emergency medical care. Dentists and physicians know about germs, and soap, and can give me anesthesia. If I had to, I could get in my car and drive anywhere in North America in a matter of hours or days. If I absolutely had to, I could get on a plane and go almost anywhere in the world within hours or at most days. This is wealth beyond the wildest dreams of Caesar, or Herod, or Charlemagne, or Louis XIV, or Queen Victoria.

There is no immediate prospect of a hostile group or gang, or my own rulers, driving me out of my home, taking my stuff by force, or murdering me or my family. If I have a dispute, I have enforceable rights, though the system is far from perfect. I am in no immediate danger of attack for practicing my religion. I can possess lethal force to defend myself and my family. I can vote, speak, publish, protest, petition, assemble, meet and organize to have an impact on the government I live under, without much likelihood of personal danger. Political disagreements, even over matters of great consequence, rarely lead to blows. This is a level of freedom and security which has been known to a tiny fraction of one percent of the people who have ever lived.

I have gratitude to all who came before us and gave this to us. And there are many defects and failures and challenges ahead for us, and much of what we have could be lost, and some of it is in the process of being lost. But we have it good, and even better things are within our grasp. Let’s keep it going.

Taxes and Tithes

by

My husband and I both feel ill at ease in the churches we have been attending. His has become more evangelical, more charismatic. That is the wave of the present and it is likely to evoke in congregants a more passionate belief. But it is not his way. Even less is it mine. Mine is bloodless in its Christianity, dismissive of the church’s role in shaping values we hold dear. And politicized. My husband and I like and respect the people in the congregations. And we have a loyalty – his people were around in the Battle of White Mountain and my people arrived in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century from Wales and Scotland, Protestants to the core. He’s related by blood to many in his small congregation; I’m related in spirit the church is like the church of my youth.

Read more

Yearly Religious Memory Dump

by

Warning – long, rambling personal narrative follows.

Last night I went to the Christmas program at the school that my kids attend. They attend a Catholic school. My family is not Catholic.

The kids, especially my older one, have been asking if they can turn Catholic. This is natural, being immersed in that environment and it is fine with me. My wife may turn Catholic as well. I told her I was good with it as long as they don’t mind that she is married to a non Catholic person – I have no intention to ever be Catholic.

Read more

Israeli fires: the blame game

by

[ cross-posted from Zenpundit ]

QUOIsraelFires

If it were me, I’d pray for rain.

A draft of what’s on my mind lately

by

I’ve been thinking…

*

Reports, overstatements and underestimates

There are factual reports of violence and threats of violence, which are within the proper province of journalism and intelligence gathering.

There are also overstatements of such reports, generally resulting from paranoia, hatred, recruitment, or the desire to increase sales of advertising or munitions.

And there are understatements of such reports, generally resulting from sheer ignorance or a desire to be diplomatic.

*

Religious sanctions for violence

Similarly, there are factual reports of sanctions for violence in the scriptures, hagiographies and histories of various religions.

There are also overstatements of such reports, attributing to entire religions the beliefs and or activities of a significant subsection or outlier group of that religion

And there are understatements of such reports, avoiding the attribution of violence to religious beliefs regardless of whether the religious correlation is a “cover” for other motives or a sanction powerfully affecting the actions of those who respond to it.

*

Proportional and disproportionate responses

There are actions which represent a balanced and proportional response to threats or acts of violence, whether they be made at home or abroad, by the military or law enforcement, for reasons of just war or of security.

There are actions which present an unbalanced and disproportionate heightened response to acts of violence, into which category I would place both over-reactive military responses and over-reactive domestic security measures.

And there are inactions which are no less unbalanced as responses to acts or threats of violence, as with political wool-gathering or appeasement, bureaucratic failures to implement realistic information sharing and dot-connection within the IC, or public aversion to factual news or intelligent, nuanced analysis.

*

Ideals, kumbaya and skepticism

There are honest statements of aspiration for peaceable outcomes to current and future conflicts.

There are versions of such aspirations which naively overlook the very real correlations between religious sanctions and violence.

And there are skeptical aversions to such aspirations, which no less naively overlook the very real differences which are present between the most angry, the most terrified, the most politically driven, the most financially interested and the most generous members of any and every religious and irreligious viewpoint.

*

Let’s talk…

It is useful to bear these distinctions of category in mind, and to make accurate appraisals of one’s information inputs in terms of which categories they fall under, and how much trust one should therefore place in them.

There: it was on my mind and I have said it.

This is, as my title indicates, a first draft. I hope it will spark some interesting conversations, and lead to further insight and refinement…