Posts
Is it possible to expand the definition of phoniness past where the Republican party is leading?
Take border security, for example. They cry about lacking a secure border, but, they're only concerned about one border -- the Mexican border, the one over which those "brown people" are coming with ebola that jihadists are cooking up in the middle east. Let's forget the absurdity of that claim, though, and ask why they are not concerned with any other borders. Why, if they're really serious about making our borders iron-clad, impenetrable, aren't they talking about putting an electrified double fence sixteen feet high with razor wire on top around the entire nation, including the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts? Because the real truth is they're totally UNconcerned about border security. What their real concern is about is people who may eventually become citizens and vote against the conservative party. Period. It isn't about jobs, or security, or terrorism threats. It's about the threat to their power base.
How about abortion? Think they're serious about about overturning Roe? Nope. They had a Republican White House, Senate and House during the Bush administration. Did they try to accomplish the goal of eliminating abortion? No. They pushed an "abstinence only" policy. Why wouldn't they do what they say they want to do when they had the best chance they're going to have for decades to come? Because if anyone is truly serious about their Christian beliefs, when abortion is overturned and gay rights rolled back, the conservative base would have nothing to use to get Christian votes. You can't say you're truly a Christian and continue to vote for politicians whose sole existence is geared toward pummeling poor people for being poor and cutting every program designed to give them a hand up toward rising out of abject poverty. The Republicans' interest is only piqued by money that can be used for campaign contributions. They talk religion only to court votes of those to whom such a thing is important.
Lately, they've talked a lot about job creation. What have they proposed in terms of accomplishing new jobs? The Keystone XL pipeline. Nothing else. And that project will create less permanent jobs than a busy convenience store does. Sure it will create short-term employment and they'll be decent-paying jobs, but those are all a finger in the dike and will fall apart after the construction is complete. Do we want to face rising unemployment again once those thirty-five to forty thousand jobs expire in a few years? No. But, the conservatives know their base doesn't have the longer vision required to understand their proposal is only a band-aid. It is nothing more than pandering to the energy industry (read "Koch brothers") that heavily fund their campaigns.
They talk about public safety, too. But, are they willing to touch the new third rail -- the second amendment -- to secure that safety? Not a chance. There are no easy answers to curbing gun violence in this country, but at least agreeing to a three-day waiting period and universal background checks, both reasonable proposals, can't hurt. And have any Republicans come out strongly to condemn all the recent police shootings of unarmed citizens? No. Why not? Is there really any intelligent reason to question why they're not howling over excessive force usage by police? No one can really be that dense that they need the reason spelled out for them. I'll only go so far as to say look who the targets of that insanely trigger-happy force are.
The Republicans cry government overreach when the Democrats want everyone to have access to healthcare at a reasonable cost. President Obama reached out to the Republicans to get bi-partisan support for the Affordable Care Act and dismissed calls by progressive Democrats for a single-payor initiative, one that would have precluded cases like Hobby Lobby. But, because of a pledge taken by the Caucus Room 9, the Republicans only seemed to play along. The Nine pledged they would do everything in their power to ensure there was no Obama legacy, to ensure total failure for everything he wanted to do as President. That pledge was made as President Obama was taking the oath of office for his first term. But, I think there's a more nefarious reason for opposing universal healthcare. Those who would benefit most from such a plan would be the poorest among us, since expansion of Medicaid was an integral part of the plan. Who do the poor vote for more often than not? It isn't the party of the wealthy. Fewer poor people alive to vote means their base gains more voting power.
They talk about the Constitution all the time, but want to curtail the right to vote rather than expand that right because they know there aren't as many of them as there are of us. They can't produce a single bit of evidence to support their claim of widespread voter fraud, but that doesn't stop them from convincing their base that elections are being stolen by illegal voting.
This is the last point I will make about Republican hypocrisy. Spending. The Republicans voted to slash the IRS' budget more than a billion dollars. As a result, the government has been less able to collect what taxes are owed to it -- eight billion dollars less, actually. So, the Republican claim of having too little money to spend on programs we want? Well, the budget cut made that claim self-fulfilling. As long as we have fewer people to audit tax returns and fewer agents to enforce existing tax laws, the less we will have to spend on education, security, job creation, and smarter governance.
Smart voters are anathema to the conservative platform because their motives are so transparent, except to their base, of course. Anyone who can't intelligently analyze how it is that all of us are not Jewish should be banned from voting and gerrymandering should be abolished, regardless what party might benefit. Gerrymandering disenfranchises all voters, regardless of party. Make the House representatives answerable to their entire state and give them one rep per each 750,000 population. Then, the majority party of every state will be represented fairly and even the minority would be represented by at least a few candidates.
The bottom line is the Republican party has only one tactic to fall back on regarding every issue we face as a nation: FEAR.
We need to stand up and say enough is enough.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
The single word that changes everything
There is some question as to who is being referred to when Exodus 21:22 speaks of "further harm". Whether the one pointed to as being further harmed is the fetus or the woman changes the entire concept of when life begins. After researching this subject, I found the controversy stems from a difference in the Greek and Hebrew texts. I should say here, also, that there seems to be controversy over how to phrase the verse in English, as well, in the Torah versions that can be found online.
In the Greek text, the word used to translate the Hebrew term carried with it the connotation of the fetus experiencing a live birth. In most of the available Hebrew texts, however, no such baggage is carried, specifying "miscarry", which means the fetus was dead before birth.
This one mistranslated word into the Greek texts means all the difference in the world. You can see the modern effect by examining the various Bible translations available on the market today. Some used the original Hebrew text, others used the later Greek. Some used, for a time, the Hebrew text and then shifted to the Greek. Such a shift could have been made for many reasons, pushing a pro-life agenda chief among them.
Since 'further harm' refers to the woman according to the Hebrew text and Talmud discussions, it is fairly clear that God never intended for man to think life begins at conception. Nor is abortion considered a sin by God, since there is not yet a Life inside that husk. A perfect analogy for a fetus is a car whose motor is running, but there's no driver -- yet. (Apologies for not knowing the speaker's name but that analogy came from a guest on "Make It Plain" with Mark Thompson (XM/Sirius Progress channel).) This usage also gives continuity to all the Old Testament examples of how God sees the value of human life. The same cannot be said for the notion that one's life would be forfeit for the termination of a fetus. There is no biblical support at all beyond a single mistranslated word in Exodus.
In the Greek text, the word used to translate the Hebrew term carried with it the connotation of the fetus experiencing a live birth. In most of the available Hebrew texts, however, no such baggage is carried, specifying "miscarry", which means the fetus was dead before birth.
This one mistranslated word into the Greek texts means all the difference in the world. You can see the modern effect by examining the various Bible translations available on the market today. Some used the original Hebrew text, others used the later Greek. Some used, for a time, the Hebrew text and then shifted to the Greek. Such a shift could have been made for many reasons, pushing a pro-life agenda chief among them.
Since 'further harm' refers to the woman according to the Hebrew text and Talmud discussions, it is fairly clear that God never intended for man to think life begins at conception. Nor is abortion considered a sin by God, since there is not yet a Life inside that husk. A perfect analogy for a fetus is a car whose motor is running, but there's no driver -- yet. (Apologies for not knowing the speaker's name but that analogy came from a guest on "Make It Plain" with Mark Thompson (XM/Sirius Progress channel).) This usage also gives continuity to all the Old Testament examples of how God sees the value of human life. The same cannot be said for the notion that one's life would be forfeit for the termination of a fetus. There is no biblical support at all beyond a single mistranslated word in Exodus.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Legislating morality
There are a number of folks on the evangelistic right that want to see legislation that will declare a fertilized egg as having all the rights of already-born adults. Such a proposal begs the question: is there a verse in the Bible, or perhaps some secret handshake, that requires the total suspension of a.) the ability to read, and b.) the ability to use critical thinking where religion is concerned once you choose a faith in which to believe and practice those beliefs? Does belief in God or the Bible require that dogma replace the substance of the Bible, which is supposed to be God's true word to us all?
Upon what passage of scripture does the notion that life begins at conception rest? Not a single person who believes this is so can give a verse that tells him or her that it is so. Frequently, I am told to refer to Jeremiah 1:5 ["Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;"]. However, this verse cannot be fully understood unless it is taken in context, and that context cannot be understood without the examination of two other verses.
In Ephesians 1:4, we are told God chose us from before the foundations of the world, before there was a world, a man, a woman, a womb, or an egg. You cannot choose someone you don't know, so we are told God knew us even before He created the universe. So, how does that square with Jeremiah 1:5? The answer lies in Exodus 3:13 when Moses asked God who he should tell them has sent him. ["The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?"]
God spake unto Moses saying "I AM has sent thee." What kind of name is "I AM"? The creator of the entire universe says His name is "I AM"? Why would He choose such a name? Is it simply because He never dies? Can He see us in our mother's womb simply because He sees everything? Or is it something deeper? He isn't some super-gypsy with a crystal ball.
If we take a string and stretch it tight, extending out of sight as far to the left and right as we can imagine, we can allow that string to represent time, from our perspective. It exists as one thing, its existence in its entirety existing all at the same moment. Mentally segment that string into pieces as tiny as you want, even down to the width of a single atom, and still, in every single segment, God is I AM. And, just as the string exists as one thing, all at one time, God exists as I AM in all of those segments at the very same instant. God said He is I AM, not I HAVE BEEN, or I WILL BE. The future and past don't exist for God. To Him, it is all the present because He sees it all, the entire string, at once. So, yes, He can see, in this very instant, the formation of the universe at the same time as Armageddon occurring, and yes, He would see, in that same instant, us as we were being formed in our mother's belly because time applies only to the creation, not the Creator. THAT is what He was trying to convey to us in Jeremiah and Ephesians and in His choice of name, not to say when life begins.
God often gives us clues to greater truths and when life begins is no exception. But, He does require us to use our brains for something more than taking up space in our skulls and filling it with dogma that bears no resemblance to truth.
He reached down and scooped up the dust of the earth and formed Adam's body. However, Adam's spirit was not in that dust. When God deemed that body complete, ready to house the spirit of Adam, only then did He breathe the breath of life into it. At that point, Adam's spirit entered the body, bringing it Life as we know life.
Using a bit of real-life logic on this issue is also applicable. We see a body lying on the ground, its heart not beating and not breathing. We say it's dead, or to put it another way, it is not alive. It is not alive not simply because of the lack of heartbeat or breathing, but because the spirit is no longer present in the body. By the same token, a body that is still being formed does not have a spirit yet and, therefore, is not yet alive, regardless that it has a heartbeat.
But, doesn't God consider an embryo to be life? In a word: No. What proof is there in His word that this is so?
In Exodus, God is instructing Moses and Aaron in governing the people. In chapter 21, in particular, He is instructing them on how to resolve conflicts. In verse 22, depending on which translation you read, we are told that two men are fighting and one has a wife that is pregnant. She gets into the middle of the fight and the second man hits her causing her to either miscarry, or in some translations, "eject early the fruit of her womb", which is to say give premature birth. In those days, unless the birth came within a couple of weeks prior to when it would normally have been born, being premature would mean death in a very short while. So, in essence, the second man has killed the fetus. In such a case, God says, the man must pay a fine (reparations) to the woman's husband, when no other harm is caused, which since the fetus is dead, no harm can be caused, therefore the harm must be meant to apply to the woman. If the fine is too high, the man can appeal to the elders, or judges, and they may lessen the amount. However, if the man has harmed the woman also, he must pay in kind: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. This point is particularly salient in determining the answer to our question as to when life begins.
The man must give his life if he has killed the woman, but only pay a fine if he killed the fetus. Why? God has told us not to murder and that the penalty for taking a life is to forfeit our own life. Why would the man not be required to die for killing the fetus? There is only ONE answer: God does not consider the fetus to be alive, not yet a LIFE.
This position is strengthened when we see Moses being instructed by God to take a census of the tribe of Levi. In Numbers 3:14-17, God said to count only the males, and of those, even only those over 1 month old. In other words, those under one month don't even count - LITERALLY.
Evidently, none of these so-called Christians today can read or they can't understand what they have read. But, let's say, for argument's sake, that they do actually know what I am saying is true. What can be their motive for pushing an agenda to recognize a fertilized egg as a human, other than the obvious backdoor for overturning Roe?
My conclusion may be different from someone else's, but I think they're trying to force people to marry before having sex, to literally control women's bodies. Is it right to force one's religious beliefs onto someone else? Is that going to win their souls to Christ? Not likely. And, what is being totally ignored by these zealots is the fact that married women, too, use birth control, some for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy prevention.
What would be the impact of their efforts should they succeed? Overturning Roe would be the first and most obvious result. Elimination of birth control methods they deem abortifacient would come right after. Unwanted population growth would certainly result, bringing about further strain on demands for education, food, and jobs, as well as increasing the strain on the foster parent system and orphanages. (By the way, one argument the pro-life crowd uses to try and guilt people into not having abortions is that there are so many couples waiting to adopt children. They ignore the existence of orphanages bursting at the seams as well as the fact that many who want to adopt can't qualify, and of those who can, few will take babies of mixed race or one that isn't of their own race, and all want newborns.) Significant impact would also result regarding further use of fossil fuels, making our planet uninhabitable sooner than we can likely handle, if we're not past that point already. Last, and certainly not least, it would force women, young and old, to go to what I would very loosely term "doctors" in what would very likely be less than sanitary conditions. Women are going to die. That's the bottom line.
About a hundred years ago, the people of this country decided to give a controversial program a try, and it failed miserably. That failure was predictable. The program, prohibition, only made the liquor trade go underground and its quality controls became non-existent. The less scrupulous among us were made fabulously wealthy and, eventually, turned into mob kingpins. Morality cannot be legislated. No matter how you try to hide your intentions, or whether those intentions are out in the open, eventually the people are going to recognize they've been manipulated and they will show their resentment quite visibly.
Politically, I am not in the least worried that Roe will go by the wayside. It's the main tool the Republican party uses, their carrot to dangle in front of the pro-life crowd to keep them voting for conservatives. Without that carrot, they would have nothing left to campaign on that people who truly believe in Jesus and His ministry can support.
Jesus told us all, "Go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel in My Name." Every time The Church opens its collective mouth these days, it's to pound on the poor and to attack those to whom we were sent. They put one more brick in the wall that separates them from those who need His love. In the eyes of the average man, determining the size of his family, how many kids he and his wife can afford to feed, clothe, educate and house... that is perhaps the most fundamental right of all. Trying to use government to force him to have more than he can bear breeds more than just children. It breeds contempt for all those who are attacking his rights and what they stand for. The Bible tells us that a seed sown on stony ground will not take root. The Church is, in effect, creating the stony ground by turning the hearts and ears of those who need the Word to stone.
Jesus told us a few other things that those who consider themselves Christians should consider, too. "Whatsoever you do unto one of these the least of My brethren, so have you done it unto Me." His ministry was entirely about the poor - feeding them, healing them, sheltering them. Some would say He was talking about charity and that government forcing people to support social programs that help the poor is not being charitable at all, simply because it is not voluntary. So, what is the alternative? We let churches, charities, and food banks handle it all? Do you really believe those organizations can handle even a tenth of the need? If so, you're totally delusional.
We cannot personally care for every need the less fortunate have. We can't be there in all the places the need exists. Our responsibility does not stop, however, simply because we can't be in all those places in person to meet the need. It goes beyond your neighbor's yard, the end of your street, your city limits, county and state lines. The only way we can meet that need is through our taxes. And, if you will read those passages in the gospels, it most surely does not mention charity nor any exemption if the needy are beyond your reach. Voting for a Republican means you are endorsing their despicable strategy of demonizing the poor and doing everything they can, every second they're in office, to destroy what little the poor can qualify for to make their lives and the future of their children better. Their sole purpose is to ensure the wealthy maintain the ever-increasing gap between themselves and the ones whose labor produced those riches. Do you really want to stand in front of the white throne of judgment and use the excuse that you did not personally enact the laws that made so many remain in poverty?
If so, I can guarantee you will be among those the Bible speaks of when it mentions "much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth", because when you cry "Lord, Lord", with tears in His eyes, His reply to you will be
"I never knew you."
Upon what passage of scripture does the notion that life begins at conception rest? Not a single person who believes this is so can give a verse that tells him or her that it is so. Frequently, I am told to refer to Jeremiah 1:5 ["Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;"]. However, this verse cannot be fully understood unless it is taken in context, and that context cannot be understood without the examination of two other verses.
In Ephesians 1:4, we are told God chose us from before the foundations of the world, before there was a world, a man, a woman, a womb, or an egg. You cannot choose someone you don't know, so we are told God knew us even before He created the universe. So, how does that square with Jeremiah 1:5? The answer lies in Exodus 3:13 when Moses asked God who he should tell them has sent him. ["The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?"]
God spake unto Moses saying "I AM has sent thee." What kind of name is "I AM"? The creator of the entire universe says His name is "I AM"? Why would He choose such a name? Is it simply because He never dies? Can He see us in our mother's womb simply because He sees everything? Or is it something deeper? He isn't some super-gypsy with a crystal ball.
If we take a string and stretch it tight, extending out of sight as far to the left and right as we can imagine, we can allow that string to represent time, from our perspective. It exists as one thing, its existence in its entirety existing all at the same moment. Mentally segment that string into pieces as tiny as you want, even down to the width of a single atom, and still, in every single segment, God is I AM. And, just as the string exists as one thing, all at one time, God exists as I AM in all of those segments at the very same instant. God said He is I AM, not I HAVE BEEN, or I WILL BE. The future and past don't exist for God. To Him, it is all the present because He sees it all, the entire string, at once. So, yes, He can see, in this very instant, the formation of the universe at the same time as Armageddon occurring, and yes, He would see, in that same instant, us as we were being formed in our mother's belly because time applies only to the creation, not the Creator. THAT is what He was trying to convey to us in Jeremiah and Ephesians and in His choice of name, not to say when life begins.
God often gives us clues to greater truths and when life begins is no exception. But, He does require us to use our brains for something more than taking up space in our skulls and filling it with dogma that bears no resemblance to truth.
He reached down and scooped up the dust of the earth and formed Adam's body. However, Adam's spirit was not in that dust. When God deemed that body complete, ready to house the spirit of Adam, only then did He breathe the breath of life into it. At that point, Adam's spirit entered the body, bringing it Life as we know life.
Using a bit of real-life logic on this issue is also applicable. We see a body lying on the ground, its heart not beating and not breathing. We say it's dead, or to put it another way, it is not alive. It is not alive not simply because of the lack of heartbeat or breathing, but because the spirit is no longer present in the body. By the same token, a body that is still being formed does not have a spirit yet and, therefore, is not yet alive, regardless that it has a heartbeat.
But, doesn't God consider an embryo to be life? In a word: No. What proof is there in His word that this is so?
In Exodus, God is instructing Moses and Aaron in governing the people. In chapter 21, in particular, He is instructing them on how to resolve conflicts. In verse 22, depending on which translation you read, we are told that two men are fighting and one has a wife that is pregnant. She gets into the middle of the fight and the second man hits her causing her to either miscarry, or in some translations, "eject early the fruit of her womb", which is to say give premature birth. In those days, unless the birth came within a couple of weeks prior to when it would normally have been born, being premature would mean death in a very short while. So, in essence, the second man has killed the fetus. In such a case, God says, the man must pay a fine (reparations) to the woman's husband, when no other harm is caused, which since the fetus is dead, no harm can be caused, therefore the harm must be meant to apply to the woman. If the fine is too high, the man can appeal to the elders, or judges, and they may lessen the amount. However, if the man has harmed the woman also, he must pay in kind: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. This point is particularly salient in determining the answer to our question as to when life begins.
The man must give his life if he has killed the woman, but only pay a fine if he killed the fetus. Why? God has told us not to murder and that the penalty for taking a life is to forfeit our own life. Why would the man not be required to die for killing the fetus? There is only ONE answer: God does not consider the fetus to be alive, not yet a LIFE.
This position is strengthened when we see Moses being instructed by God to take a census of the tribe of Levi. In Numbers 3:14-17, God said to count only the males, and of those, even only those over 1 month old. In other words, those under one month don't even count - LITERALLY.
Evidently, none of these so-called Christians today can read or they can't understand what they have read. But, let's say, for argument's sake, that they do actually know what I am saying is true. What can be their motive for pushing an agenda to recognize a fertilized egg as a human, other than the obvious backdoor for overturning Roe?
My conclusion may be different from someone else's, but I think they're trying to force people to marry before having sex, to literally control women's bodies. Is it right to force one's religious beliefs onto someone else? Is that going to win their souls to Christ? Not likely. And, what is being totally ignored by these zealots is the fact that married women, too, use birth control, some for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy prevention.
What would be the impact of their efforts should they succeed? Overturning Roe would be the first and most obvious result. Elimination of birth control methods they deem abortifacient would come right after. Unwanted population growth would certainly result, bringing about further strain on demands for education, food, and jobs, as well as increasing the strain on the foster parent system and orphanages. (By the way, one argument the pro-life crowd uses to try and guilt people into not having abortions is that there are so many couples waiting to adopt children. They ignore the existence of orphanages bursting at the seams as well as the fact that many who want to adopt can't qualify, and of those who can, few will take babies of mixed race or one that isn't of their own race, and all want newborns.) Significant impact would also result regarding further use of fossil fuels, making our planet uninhabitable sooner than we can likely handle, if we're not past that point already. Last, and certainly not least, it would force women, young and old, to go to what I would very loosely term "doctors" in what would very likely be less than sanitary conditions. Women are going to die. That's the bottom line.
About a hundred years ago, the people of this country decided to give a controversial program a try, and it failed miserably. That failure was predictable. The program, prohibition, only made the liquor trade go underground and its quality controls became non-existent. The less scrupulous among us were made fabulously wealthy and, eventually, turned into mob kingpins. Morality cannot be legislated. No matter how you try to hide your intentions, or whether those intentions are out in the open, eventually the people are going to recognize they've been manipulated and they will show their resentment quite visibly.
Politically, I am not in the least worried that Roe will go by the wayside. It's the main tool the Republican party uses, their carrot to dangle in front of the pro-life crowd to keep them voting for conservatives. Without that carrot, they would have nothing left to campaign on that people who truly believe in Jesus and His ministry can support.
Jesus told us all, "Go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel in My Name." Every time The Church opens its collective mouth these days, it's to pound on the poor and to attack those to whom we were sent. They put one more brick in the wall that separates them from those who need His love. In the eyes of the average man, determining the size of his family, how many kids he and his wife can afford to feed, clothe, educate and house... that is perhaps the most fundamental right of all. Trying to use government to force him to have more than he can bear breeds more than just children. It breeds contempt for all those who are attacking his rights and what they stand for. The Bible tells us that a seed sown on stony ground will not take root. The Church is, in effect, creating the stony ground by turning the hearts and ears of those who need the Word to stone.
Jesus told us a few other things that those who consider themselves Christians should consider, too. "Whatsoever you do unto one of these the least of My brethren, so have you done it unto Me." His ministry was entirely about the poor - feeding them, healing them, sheltering them. Some would say He was talking about charity and that government forcing people to support social programs that help the poor is not being charitable at all, simply because it is not voluntary. So, what is the alternative? We let churches, charities, and food banks handle it all? Do you really believe those organizations can handle even a tenth of the need? If so, you're totally delusional.
We cannot personally care for every need the less fortunate have. We can't be there in all the places the need exists. Our responsibility does not stop, however, simply because we can't be in all those places in person to meet the need. It goes beyond your neighbor's yard, the end of your street, your city limits, county and state lines. The only way we can meet that need is through our taxes. And, if you will read those passages in the gospels, it most surely does not mention charity nor any exemption if the needy are beyond your reach. Voting for a Republican means you are endorsing their despicable strategy of demonizing the poor and doing everything they can, every second they're in office, to destroy what little the poor can qualify for to make their lives and the future of their children better. Their sole purpose is to ensure the wealthy maintain the ever-increasing gap between themselves and the ones whose labor produced those riches. Do you really want to stand in front of the white throne of judgment and use the excuse that you did not personally enact the laws that made so many remain in poverty?
If so, I can guarantee you will be among those the Bible speaks of when it mentions "much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth", because when you cry "Lord, Lord", with tears in His eyes, His reply to you will be
"I never knew you."
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