Tom's Views

Consider the TV ministries; the   PTL Ministries   organization specifically; the one with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker  at the helm. Now the general church-going population believes that preachers should live modestly, owning only what’s necessary to live and serve the Lord. But  Jim Bakker   and his wife  Tammy Faye Bakker Messner   exceeded this minimal-living expectation by far and brought  folly  not only to themselves, but to PTL Ministries as well. Clearly, based on their obviously conspicuous consumption,  the Bakkers  weren’t fulfilled solely within the confines of upstanding minister practices. Tammy Faye Bakker with her lavish jewels and clothes, and Jim Bakker in his expensive suits and cars so obviously displayed. They worshiped the material trappings of PTL Ministries more than God himself.

While Jim Bakker may have been maximally fulfilled as a preacher, the fact remains that he cheated! He by no means did without.  Many more preachers cheat too, that we don’t hear about.  They lead the public to believe that they’ve risen above the carnal trappings of humanity when in fact they’re secretly indulging in them.  But  Bakker was simply of high enough profile that he eventually could not keep this secret and evade getting caught.

Only the extreme upper crust of the entire sect of preachers could be truly virtuous, achieving maximal fulfillment exclusively through their unselfish and relentless dedication to God and service. But PTL Ministries though they appeared to be one such virtuous outlet, turned out to be anything but. 

Mother Teresa though, was apparently one such person (of a very small few). Certainly, she surpassed   the Bakkers   and maybe even  Christ  himself in this regard. It’s hard to find media reports that diminish her, but very easy to find them against  Christ  as well as   Jim Bakker  and his wife Tammy Faye Bakker Messner.

Word-of-mouth has high data distortion rates as the facts are passed from one person to the next. Thus, the information we have concerning these so-called heroes like Jim Bakker was probably exaggerated, downplayed, and anything else that happens to it when one person relates it to another, who then passes it to another, who then passes it to yet another.  Thus, we probably do not know the whole story on these dubious leaders.  As I understand human propensity, I believe that accounts of   the Bakkers’  lives were likely white-washed, to bolster their effectiveness as spiritual icons, with most of their shortcomings omitted from the record.  Certainly, this occurred with PTL Ministries in its heyday. 

But my, it’s amazing how the mighty have fallen.  Jim Bakker was eventually jailed for accounting fraud and   Tammy Faye Bakker   lived out the rest of her life in virtual disgrace.  This is proof positive that even a most polished-looking preacher such as evangelist  Jim Bakker is little less subject to the temptations afforded power and money, than any of the rest of us.  Preachers aren’t so much better than the rest of us after all, no matter what they or their supporters tell you.

Tom Hesley

References

• Jesus Christ   on Wikipedia
• Jim Bakker   on Wikipedia
• Mother Teresa   on Wikipedia
• Tammy Faye Bakker Messner   on Wikipedia

Some people can indeed live as happily as can be without love relationships; if that’s what they truly wish to do. But that’s not the case for most of us, and apparently neither for many   celibate priests   either.  It appears that scores of celibate priests and nuns alike are not completely fulfilled sexually while maintaining their celibacy. Consider the years of sexual misconduct in the Catholic Church that is now being uncovered around the country, and who knows what goes on in the convents and parsonages after hours? I think these people are generally less devout than appearances imply. So even the most devout and practiced Christians have trouble   living happily without love.

Not that I’m faulting the celibate priests for failing to live happily without love. After all, I’d expect to see many break their vows (sexual and otherwise) because in making those vows, they’ve pitted themselves squarely against primal human urges by ignoring   Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. While we cannot know for sure if someone is truly happy, their actions provide potent clues as to their state of mind. The actions of celibate priests up to now suggest that they’re wanting sexually and   dangerously lusting for love;   particularly since they seek innocently trusting children for sinful fun in the confessional.

I’d argue that this rampant child abuse stems from neglected level three needs as described in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and suggests that celibate priests do not really live happily without love at all. After so much denying of the basic carnal needs, something’s got to give. And it often does in the form of deviant sexual behaviors by these celibate but human priests, nuns, and clergy.  Ignoring or vilifying our sexual urges, as the Christian faith seems to do, has created predator-like and thus, dangerous and sexually deviant behaviors in the church.  Perhaps it’s not wise to ignore the human need for love and affection therefore, and even more foolhardy to trust that a celibate priest has.

The great spiritual leaders on the whole, were probably less honorable than as portrayed in today’s romanticized books, simply because the temptations of the flesh are just too strong for all but the very few to overcome, without gratifying them. The thirst they produce is quite powerful and so fundamental to human proliferation that it gets incorporated into nearly every well-functioning human. So I’m skeptical of those celibate priests who claim to have never succumbed to the mating instinct, who carry the burdens of such denial, yet who boast that they’re maximally fulfilled and indeed live happily without love. It happens, yes. But truly happy and fulfilled lives without love are extremely rare.

Besides, in the days of the Buddha and Christ, in those times devoid of mass media, keeping secrets was much easier, with far fewer reporters and paparazzi flitting around. Even if one discovered incriminating information, exposing and substantiating it proved challenging. No film, no Internet, no radio, no television, no telephone, no fingerprints, no DNA. Back then, you only had word-of-mouth to inform the masses.  So it was much easier then to hide one’s sexual activities.  It was much easier to fool the public into thinking that you had managed to live happily without love when in fact, you were getting lots of hidden love. 

Did you ever wonder why monks and celibate priests spend so much time meditating, praying, and tending to the church? True, there’s much to do and learn for the aspiring virtuous priest. But all these devotional hours also serve to quell the lust for love by keeping the priest from books, movies, and other influences that might inspire more fantasies or leave him more wanting. While he may remain abstinent however, he apparently does not completely banish the lust from his heart. 

The priest, as evidenced by how many of them just can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves, cannot be maximally fulfilled with such questions outstanding. As the courageous man contends effectively with fear, so too does the esteemed priest contend with temptation. It’s the celibate priest’s contention with temptation that makes him great, not his ability to eliminate that temptation, though I would trust very few to fully live up to the ideal of celibacy. Living happily without love is virtually impossible.  So I doubt anyone who claims to be doing it.  The church needs to recognize just how powerful the need for carnal love is, and abolish the vows of celibacy to reduce the danger of child abuse coming upon thos innocent, church-going children. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Can Mindfulness Meditation Therapy Cure Love Lust?
• Church Ignores Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs
• Effects Of Unrequited Love Needs
• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs
• More Than Just God To Live For
• Only True Love Truly Cures True Love Desire
• We Don’t Live Happily Without Love
• Why Doubt Religious Faith?

References

• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs   definition on Wikipedia

It takes more than just effort to outperform our parents, though many compliment themselves for their sheer effort and tenacity that they say was solely responsible for their higher success.  Then, they blame those who do not outperform their parents for being too lazy and not putting forth enough effort.  However, while many achieve in life roughly what their parents did, this does not necessarily mean that they’re lazy.  Now it’s clear that in recent generations especially, more children than not manage to achieve higher living standards than did their parents; greater education, more wealth, better health care, safer neighborhoods, more opportunities, and so on.  So an expectation has grown up that anyone who does not outperform his parents by improving upon their lifestyles, is simply lazy and thus, flawed.

Certainly, a willingness to try is needed to outperform our parents. But like the flour in a chocolate cake (which is not the only ingredient necessary for creating a great-tasting cake by the way), voluntary effort is not the only component in the cake of success. We must also consider those inborn and nurtured traits like talent, ambition, aptitude, nutrition, and so many other qualities that impact the amount of effort required to succeed.  What we are born with and born into greatly impacts the amount of effort we must exert subsequently in order to outperform our parents economically and socially. 

Thus, we should be careful when judging people stuck in their traditional castes, because they’re likely fighting and succumbing to forces that we can not see. People all-too-quickly dismiss a person’s fatalism or resignation to his current life standard, as a simple unwillingness to pull himself up by his bootstraps and work hard to outperform his parents. True, some types would benefit from some good old fashioned tough love and forced discipline. But others have good reasons for their resignation and “laziness,” such as the profoundly disabled or the neglected.  We could enhance our own compassion for them by remembering that willful sloth (a voluntary choice to be lazy) is but a small part of all the apathy out there. Some people because of how they were raised, are just not cut out to achieve more greatness than their parents did.  The forces that converged upon them in their lives do not allow it. 

Finally, why are so many so opposed to acquiescing to more powerful forces than their own wills? I suppose that the succumbing to tradition indeed sounds a lot like God’s followers yielding their destinies to Him and his plan without question. I agree that this superstition is not healthy for a society. A truly enlightened culture would have no need to do it, and I regret that I won’t live long enough to see our society reach a total freedom from religion.  Yet many strong religious believers refuse to acknowledge the deep impact of child rearing in how much a child is able to outperform his parents.  They believe in an unseen God, yet downplay these objectively measurable forces.  Though the existence of God in my view has not been proven, there earthly forces have been.  In fact, these can be just as godly in power and scope, in determining how far we can outperform our parents.

Our challenge as humans is to discern which success limiters out of the complete set of forces, are mere phantoms, which are truly formidable yet beatable, and finally, which ones are simply too strong to overcome at all. A philosopher from antiquity – I don’t remember his name – said, essentially, that we need a healthy supply of   resignation   during life’s journey. Otherwise, we overestimate our capabilities, struggle to achieve excessively lofty goals, and therefore spend too much time disappointed. People need to know when it’s time to give up, and in order to know that, they must realize that, contrary to the moral of that   Little Engine That Could   story, quitting a particular pursuit is very often the best course of action.  For more discussion on this point, please see my   We Cannot Achieve Just Anything We Want   post.

Back to the original discussion about people outperforming their parents: Some folks fail to outperform those from previous generations because of factors beyond their control.  Thus, acrimoniously judging them is certainly not good, as it blames them for that which they cannot have power over, and wrongfully assumes that they can be in charge of things that they really cannot.  The blame in this case is therefore misplaced.  We need to stop this sort of misdirected blaming to improve our abilities at getting along with and accepting each other. 

Tom Hesley

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• Book Of Job Lesson: Accept Your Plight
• Case For Tradition
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• Free Will, Yes, But Determinism Too!
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• If You Think You Can
• On Our Parents Defining Our Destiny
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Many religion advocates say that I either must believe fully in the   word of God   as portrayed in   The Bible, or I do not believe at all (dichotomous). Not believing at all, the believers consider a mortal sin, such that if I do not believe at all, then I’m condemned to an eternal   Hell’s afterlife. So I must believe fully, without question, in order to reach   Heaven.

My response: But there is a third valid choice too, that rests between believing fully and believing not at all. That is, not knowing for sure either way, or agnosticism for short. Many people worthy of Heaven, good people who make living here on Earth pleasant, remain unconvinced that the word of God in The Bible tells the complete story of the afterlife. Decent people still question, and questioning does not (or at least, should not) make them unworthy to live a nice afterlife in Heaven.

One can seek and study for a lifetime to comprehend the afterlife as the word of God describes it.  Yet he still may remain   ignorant; neither knowing it all nor fully understanding the word. Indeed, the renowned sages say, they do not know, way more often than they boast of their shrewdness. Indeed, part of true wisdom is an ability to recognize our personal limits of knowledge, at least as readily as we realize how much we do know. Indeed, while for some, The Bible brings clarity to their purpose and understanding of the afterlife, for most others, reading it creates more questions and doubt. These questions often persist even after years of Bible study. My impression is that the word of God confuses more than it enlightens, through no fault of its readers. So it’s hard to accept that God would interpret this confusion as sinful enough to bar someone from Heaven forever and condemn them to a Hell’s afterlife.

The word of God may indeed be His gift to humanity; a path if you will that tells us how to reach Heaven. But if one does not see the gift (and it’s fallacious to assume that all who are exposed to it actually get it), then one cannot very well be faulted for not picking up on this gift and understanding the depths of its magnitude. You would not put an important gift for a blind man a hundred yards away, fail to tell him that it’s there, expect him to know that it’s there, and then assume that he’s rejected the gift just because he never retrieved it. Would such a person as this be deserving of your wrath?  I don’t think so.  That would be penalizing the blind man for being blind essentially. So it makes no sense to treat ignorance as a mortal sin, as God would in fact be doing, if was to refuse to consider ignorance as a valid reason for questioning or doubting His word. Simply not knowing the word of God is by no means a flat-out rejection of His word. People have different abilities and backgrounds that make them see things in different ways. Rarely do two people get the same meaning from The Bible. So it’s difficult to build consensus on what precisely the word of God actually means.  Each person (even among the strong believers) gets her own meaning from it.

Choosing to fully believe in The Bible, or to not believe in The Bible at all, are quite different things from simply not making a choice about it either way. It’s best to avoid this sort of all-or-nothing binary thinking (except when dealing with computers of course). There are many more possibilities than just the two discussed above, that agnostics recognize, but that the atheists and strong believers do not.  In addition to The-Bible way and the No way, there’s also the I’m-not-sure  way. Deferring a strong belief because one simply does not have enough information about it to form an imformed opinion, is far less extreme than refuting the belief completely. Thus, do you honestly think that God would condemn the doubting believers with the same wrath as he would those who actively campaign against Him? I doubt that he would; especially if he’s as compassionate as the New Testament documents.

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s say that God indeed provided the way to Heaven via his word.  But his word is quite subject to differing interpretations. So it’s good to recognize that it’s not our place to judge others based on our individual interpretations of this word of God. But it would be an even truer blessing if we also realized that there are many equally-valid ways of interpreting The Bible. Just think of all the fighting we’d spare ourselves.  If we did that, we might also grasp that it’s possible that God, in His infinite wisdom, will know full well on judgment day, that He only granted us humans limited powers of understanding. Further, each person has different powers at that.  Therefore, he might not hold us to account for our ignorance due to these limitations. It seems that we were fashioned to think critically. So why would God short-circuit that gift by insisting that we not view The Bible with critical eyes rather than just blindly accept The Bible’s account? Again, I don’t believe he would. Even the most upstanding people would not necessarily be the most informed on the word of God. Yet, they’re still good people, and worthy of consideration for admittance into Heaven.

So it’s plausible that even the most well-intentioned people of good conscience might not possess the deep level of understanding that would enable them to become deeply devoted to Him via the word of God. Thus, many people are not religious per se. Yet they’re still worthwhile people and worthy of redemption. Afte all, when they see God, if it turns out that God actually reveals himself to them, many would accept him instantly and eternally.  In light of this, God could have a last-minute change-of-heart and in fact, take pity on the doubters and save them too. He’s done it before. So it may turn out that no one is left behind.

Why must we know for sure anyhow whether or not God exists and that the afterlife is as it’s depicted in The Bible? I freely admit my ignorance. In fact, I am content not knowing, because it’s still possible to live a good and fulfillilng life without knnowing for sure about Him.  Indeed, I’d rather not know until the day the Grim Reaper comes to escort me to whatever destination awaits me in the afterlife.  Hopefully, this will not be a Hell’s afterlife.  But I’ll go to my grave, certain that I did everything I could to understand these issues as fully as possible for me. Hopefully, that’s good enough for Hm if he’s out there. 

Tom Hesley

References

• Agnosticism   definition on Wikipedia

I doubt the whole   religious faith   thing, where faith is believing strongly in an ideal or assertion or an entity without prior proof of its existence. Many a violent crime in the name of religion has been committed throughout human history because people believed in an ideal and then acted according to such beliefs (E.g. the radicals who knocked down the World Trade Center buildings, the Jews who killed Christ, the crusades, and so on). A belief that is not subjected to critical thought and externally measurable evidence to support it is dangerous. I don’t think I’d want “faithers” on my jury deciding my fate; especially if the evidence favored my innocence.  They might say, never mind what our eyes, ears and other senses tell us.  We have faith in the prosecutor, who knows what he’s doing.  So Tom must be guilty.  Nope.  No faith in religion for me.  It’s difficult enough to believe in things that are immediately verifiable.  So it’s nearly impossible for me to believe in anything that cannot be examined firsthand.

Besides, for an objective observer watching all these different faithers, how would he get a real sense which faith is the right faith without any externally measurable and debatable facts to either refute or back it up? Without additional validation through one’s own senses, one person’s faith is just as valid or invalid as anyone else’s.  Thus, the choice of which religious faith to follow becomes strictly arbitrary. That’s the big problem with believing in things just because you want to believe in them. Without more substantial reasoning, anyone can believe in anything if they want; and strongly believe in it too. Thus, the religious wars.  I blame the teaching of religious faith as a valid reason for adopting a belief for triggering many of those wars.

Here’s how the mechanism of conflict derived from faith works:  One set of people form  faithful beliefs that they cannot prove but through faith, accept. Then, another group does the same, with beliefs that contradict what the first group believes in. Then, the two persecute each other and eventually, fight it out. It’s the same story over and over, and this sad tale will continue repeating itself until people get past the implied arrogance of this faith thing.  They need to begin demanding objective data upon which to base their beliefs, and stop relying on conjecture, whimsy, or fantasy. We could head off many world conflicts if people would stop believing so much what they’re told to believe. 

I’ve read numerous religious books about religious faith through the years, and have spent hundreds of hours with my six or seven different bibles.  So do you really think that reading yet another book that makes the case for faith would further validate the case for it in my mind?  I doubt it.  I’ve perused numerous incantations of this faith idea before.  Every one of them is built on the notion, without objective proof mind you, that God exists exactly as is laid out in the Bible.  But a book cannot make a good case for what it is arguing, when its arguments are built on the premise that the thing that it’s trying to prove has already been proven.  It seems then that reading such material would probably be a waste of time.  In fact, God is not provable in a rational sense, which is why there’s this strong insistence on faith throughout religion in the first place.  You have to have religious faith and accept a whole bunch of wild stuff as fact, in order to genuinely participate in and highly enjoy religious services.  But I do not subscribe to the whole concept of faith.  So it’s unlikely that I’ll ever believe in God the way the strong faithers do.

Follow God through religious faith? You don’t need religious faith in a god to justify adherence to good (godly) moral principles.  I mean, the Bible teaches many ethics that I hold dear myself.  Many folks besides, uphold these in their lives, though they might not necessarily believe in God. On the other hand, there are those who trumpet their faith in religiou with such loudness and high frequency that it hurts the ears if you listen long enough. Yet, these vocal faithers do not uphold said moral values. Who among either these genuinely good and boastful good will be left behind and who will go? That answer is not so clear-cut. That is to say that there are those who question God’s existence, yet are still good, and there are those who claim that they’re quite certain, yet are quite bad. So as I see it, there will be those who remain here after the rapture that you would not expect, and those who will go to heaven that again, you would not expect; assuming that God and heaven exist in the first place.

No, I’m not bound and determined to reject the ideas in the Bible per se.  In fact, I admit that they could be true.  There are indeed many things in this universe that even to this day, remain beyond human sight, much less their comprehension.  I merely point out that this whole faith basis for knowing that the stories of God and Christ in the Bible are in fact true, is rickety at best, and fantasy at worst.  No, I’ll probably never agree with the faithers that the Bible was inspired by God, nor that it represents the absolute truth.  Still though, I’ve learned many good things from the Bible.  It is one of several potent guides for generations of humanity to follow, so that they might survive together and happily at that. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

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• More Than Just God To Live For
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‎70% of Americans oppose the Muslim mosque near ground zero.  That’s a mandate majority.  That’s indeed strange, because   our constitution   was structured to protect entities from the whimsy and blind passion of the majority (mob rule). Is our constitution sacred enough to us to protect   Muslim   interests this time around?  Hopefully, the constitution will continue to safeguard freedom of religious expression for both Muslim and Christian Americans. 

But I also hope that we will not change our constitution or write new laws that curtail religious freedoms for specific faiths.  Punishing the whole Muslim following for the actions of less than a tenth of one percent of them, is unjust and so, further deepens the divide between Muslims and Christians. Consider that men commit violence against women. But in general, we don’t punish the entire male population for the crimes of a few. Christians in general?  Heck, Jesus followers are always getting into trouble.  Yet no one denies Christians their freedom to lawfully erect churches anywhere they please.  It should be the same for Muslims, as only a small handful of people calling themselves Muslim executed the 911 attacks. That’s just.

Lots of Jews commit bad crimes too. But do you see restrictions being imposed on Jews as a whole group as result? Nope. Not to this degree.  Why are we so much harder on Muslims?  No, the fact that Muslim extremists perpetrated the 9/11 attacks is not a valid answer. 

Deny any man or group anything based on their religious leanings, and you’ve violated their civil rights. You’re forcing them to endure segregation and other hardships simply because of their faiths. In this (the Muslim) case, popular opinion seeks to cut back freedoms based solely on the fact that the 9/11 hijackers claimed to be Muslim. It denies other Muslims rights that they would have without question, if they were not Muslim. In effect, the public is blaming the Muslim religion for the acts of a very small handful of its members. This is like the parent who can’t figure out which of his children spilled the milk on the kitchen floor. So he sends them all to bed early. Thus, denying this mosque is indeed punishing innocent Muslims wrongfully, just as sending all the kids to bed early is wrong to atone for the acts of just one of them.

Because a few extremists call themselves Muslims (those that committed the 911 attacks) we’re potentially subjecting all Muslims in the area of the proposed mosque to restrictions on how and where they practice their religion. Why should the wanton acts of a few bring condemnation to the whole?

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Support Muslim Mosques Anywhere In America
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

One concern that people opposing the   mosque at ground zero   cite is that the   funding   for this mosque is coming from terrorist organizations.  But this dispute appears premature, for they don’t yet know precisely who will fund the mosque. They’re still assembling a portfolio now.

Is there direct evidence that the funding for the mosque at ground zero is being raised in shady ways and from shady groups? If so, let’s hear it. I’d be happy to entertain the data. But without direct evidence, then this claim is probably just hot air.  Might these people accuse that the funding is illegitimate because they think it may come from Muslim sources?  Have they implicitly equated Muslim with terrorist, and is this why they’re raising the funding issue? 

If not that the sponsors of the ground zero mosque are Muslim, there’d be no issue with the funding of this establishment. The funding issue is just one more vane attempt by opponents of the mosque to further their hate-filled, oppressive agendas.  Yes, people accept a church (non Muslim) but not a Muslim mosque so it seems.  But how much more clear-cut does this sort of discrimination need to be before people realize that it’s far less about funding specifically, and really about denying religious freedoms?

I support most any nativity display so long as it’s done on private property. But when such scenes show up on publicly-paid-for land?  Then I object, because public lands are compulsorily paid for by people from ALL religions. That is, we don’t get to choose which public properties our tax dollars support. So, it would be unfair to expect the Christian Americans for example, to pay for land on which a Muslim display is housed. Likewise, it would be likewise unjust for Muslims, Jews, atheists, et al to pay to maintain Christian scenes on publicly-paid-for lands. So, to make sure no one religion has to pay to promote another, our laws forbid religious displays in publicly funded schools, government buildings, or any other location that obtains its operating capital from the tax payers at large. This is as it should be, since America is comprised of much more than a single religion or faith.

I’d make a similar argument for prayer in public schools. Said schools these days serve not just Christians, but many other religions as well. So why should the Jews for example, be made to sit through Christian prayers? Why should the Christians be made to observe Muslim rituals? No one should be forced to participate in religious practices not their own, and especially not in schools that they contribute tax dollars to operate (public schools). Since most public schools in America are integrated, it is likely that people of many different and conflicting faiths attend them; they are open to all. So to avoid trying to fairly host prayer in these situations, the best solution was (and still is) to not allow said prayer, by any religion, in these schools. Now if you want your kid to partake in prayer, then pay the extra money and send him / her to a privately-funded religious school. But if you want to take advantage of the cheaper costs of publicly-funded education, then the sacrifice you make is that prayer, in the name of fairness. Yes, I support the no-prayers policy in public schools.

One more thing: People object to the mosque at ground zero for far different reasons than they object to religious displays on public land.  The objections in the public land case make good social sense.  But similar objections against the mosque do not.  Why?  Because the mosque is to be privately funded as I understand it, and it’s to be built on private property and in compliance with local laws.  But when churches want to put a cross or picture of Jesus in a court house, on a downtown street corner, or on some other publicly-funded and maintained property, this is a horse of a different color. Such placements do break laws in fact. 

I’m agnostic, and so, prefer that my tax dollars fund no religious stuff on public property.  Likewise, if I was Christian, I would not want my money funding Jewish or Muslim displays, publications, or other promotional activities.   Why should I be forced to fund religions in which I do not believe?  Surely you can see that with so many religions out there, that allowing any of them to post material on public lands is unfair to the rest.  Further, you couldn’t just allow all of them to put up scenes; lest you completely destroy the aesthetic appeal of landmark spots like court houses, congressional buildings, and so forth. Again, I maintain that the best solution, the one that serves everyone the best overall, is to disallow religious displays on ANY public property.  Indeed, you can get enough display by visiting the numerous private religious establishments around the country.  We don’t need that stuff on public lands.  Just like other churches (ones the people object to far less), this mosque is to be place on private property.  So from a funding standpoint, I fully support  building the mosque at ground zero, or anywhere else in America where it’s legal to do so, as defined by local regulations.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

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Dear [Brandon],

Many views I struggle to tolerate, though I actually wish not to put up with them at all.  But I stomach them to preserve peace with others and avoid the heated arguments that face-to-face discussions of them can produce. 

One common opinion I strongly oppose is the wide-spread opposition to building   mosques   at   ground zero   or   anywhere else   throughout America.  I find this hostile view toward Muslims offensive because such unfriendliness promotes inequality and perpetuates discord and hatred among religions.  When one religion (Christian) denies another (Muslim) the freedom to build a church (mosque), then much anger occurs as seen in the near-hysterical demonstrations against building the mosque at ground zero.  Curiously though, the Muslims supporting the mosque were virtually invisible and quiet, while it was their rivals (the Christian-American majority) who were doing most of the yelling, taunting, vandalizing the construction equipment, and so on.  Those acting the most righteous in this conflict were typically the most violent and hateful in the whole mosque-at-ground-zero affair. 

It’s infuriating that the Christian-American majority is so uninformed and intolerant about how benevolent and peaceful non radical Muslims are. Ask Christian Americans why they oppose mosque building at most any location, and most are hard-pressed to answer.  Of course, because prejudice can rarely answer the tough questions like this without lots of stammer and uncertainty.  But when they do respond, their rationale seems woefully inadequate to justify the sorts of restrictions on an entire religion that opposing Muslim mosques in America embodies.

The Majority   is a great place to be as long as it never turns against you, as it apparently has against the religious freedoms of American Muslims. People hide their flawed thinking behind the banner of preponderance (behind each other), and so, never really have to justify their misguided positions on their own; without backup from others like them. It’s the old “safety in numbers” phenomenon. That is: Subscribing to majority rule makes it much easier to persecute a person, as many others are doing the same.  Majority rule (or better yet, mob rule) is  also very dangerous for those in the minority. Certainly, majority might makes not majority right. Yet Christian Americans continue to relentlessly fight Muslims who wish to build mosques. 

You and I have lived in the minority throughout our lives.  Your sexual orientation makes you a minor (so to speak), as does my visual impairment make me a minor. So perhaps this has given us a keener appreciation and thus sensitivity about the sort mob oppression that happened surrounding the building of the Muslin mosque at ground zero. Nowadays though unlike yesteryear, I’m happy with my dealt hand of vision impairment, because it has made me a more tolerant and compassionate person toward those who are different.  I’m different myself, and I believe that that has enabled me to better appreciate and more fully accept others’ differences.  I understand the supreme benefits of a diversity-appreciating society, and the need to promote such a collective yet diverse existence.  Thus, I have no problem with Muslims building mosques anywhere they wish so long as the adhere to local ordinances.

Christians may dominate the American political landscape currently. But America is by no means an exclusively Christian nation.  We’re not supposed to be of one faith here; but a diverse and numerous set of faiths.  Both Christians and non Christians alike should keep reminding the population at large of that.  We need to replace this Christian righteousness regarding the mosques with a healthy dose of good old fashioned humility.

Many Christian American newspaper columnists I’ve read seem to just want to fight with all Muslims; particularly when they argue that the connection between Islam and terrorism is immutable — like Islam is a single person, and when a small few of them commit a violent crime, then the Christians fault all of Islam.

Finally, liberalism is sometimes discredited in America these days because it supports Muslim mosques. Well, liberalism has prevailed in most of the election cycles in the past century due to the high regard it places on the ideal of total equality. But while liberalism proved to be out of vogue in 2010 elections, many folks nonetheless espouse the liberal agenda. Numerous conservative columnists are dreaming if they think that liberal ideals carry no weight with folks.  When people are hard pressed, their conscience punishes them when they show too little compassion.  Many folks today are feeling ashamed that at one time, they opposed Muslim freedom, gay rights, enfranchisement of all races, and so on.  So too will it be the case with the Muslim mosque at ground zero. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Majority Oppose Muslim Mosque Near Ground Zero
• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Muslim Americans’ Rights
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

I’ve read the Book of Job several times now, searching for ways to alleviate the feelings of despair that life’s many hurdles can trigger, such as impediments that we generally cannot control such as how smart we are, who really loves us, and so on.  I’ve head that the example of Job teaches a poignant lesson of patience as one learns about Job and the sufferings that Satan forced on him when God agreed with Satan to stop helping Job temporarily. 

Yet at my current level of understanding of Job, while the Book of Job itself may teach some of the value of patience, I found Job himself to be a very impatient man.  Perhaps the authors characterized Job this way to illustrate how not to be if you really want to be patient with your situation. Job himself did not show patience to me, since throughout most of the book, he seemed patently impatient and frustrated with God for allowing him to be ill with his newfound hardships.    Details  here.  The lesson of patience was taught well by Job, due to (or in spite of) the very fact that Job was impatient. 

The Book of Job impressed me more as a demonstration of how much harder one’s plight can be if he fails to fully accept it.  Attempting to fighting fate (the devil’s will in this case), Job never did fully accept the fateful plight to which God and Satan subjected him.  Thus, he really never went on to bear well that plight.  He did not wish to accept what God wanted of him, and his relentless whining and complaining throughout the story attest to that. 

Accepting his plight as allowed by God (or any other force over which we lack control) would have made Job’s time of endurance through all that bad stuff easier for him to bear.  He would have been much happier with his situation had he not griped so much with his wow-is-me attitudes and laments to his friends.  He might have even learned to fully accept his rough circumstances and perhaps even to embrace then if he’d only stopped complaining about them long enough to really think about them. 

But while reading the Book of Job this time through, I did not sense a “coming around” in him.  That is: Job little more accepted his situation as the end of his smite neared, than he did at its start.  But in learning to cope with today’s real-world problems, the ability to accept one’s hardships would seem to be necessary in developing the sort of patience that people often wrongly attribute to Job.  So while the ultimate outcome of the lessons taught in Job would probably be patience, Job himself was a poor example of it, and illustrated how miserable one can make himself as Job did, but griping about things he cannot change. 

I appreciate the Bible as a wonderful collection of tales that, generally speaking, teach good morals and life lessons.  Though I’m squarely agnostic, I nonetheless embrace the wisdom contained in the Bible’s pages; it’s profound.  But so far, I’ve gained little insight from the Book of Job about how to fully accept and embrace things in life about which we clearly can do nothing, except that we’d do well to learn to carry these burdens well.  The Book of Job teaches how to eloquently complain about hardship.  But the story does not offer much wisdom in the ways of profound resignation to his fate as doled out by God, which Job seemed to lack. 

We might say that Job persistently endured the hardships placed upon him by God.  But only because he HAD to.  Job had no choice due to the limitlessly imposing nature of Satan’s power.  I never felt that Job actually WANTED to learn to endure; just that he HAD to endure, and he griped all the way through.  His complaints suggested that he continuously looked to his plight to end rather than resign himself to the good chance that this particularly bad plight might be with him forever.  So again, any lessons about the virtues of patience in Job himself were lost on me through this read.  But I’ll try it again sometime and see what new insights come. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Against NFB’s Self Sufficiency Philosophy
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References

• Book Of Job   definition on Wikipedia
• Who is Job?   Explanation on Wikipedia
• Who is Satan?   Explanation on Wikipedia

The debate over   which religion is right   rages on to this day in 2011.  Among the issues in that conversation is whether or not we can have high moral standards and live a happy, purposeful life   without   religion of any kind to guide us.   Dr. Laura Schlessinger used to argue on her radio show that, as I understood her, God supplies the only valid reason for adhering to moral principles.  I heard her to say that without the fear of God and religion in general, society would destroy itself, because there would be no absolute retribution for doing wrong.  That is, without the fear of God to disuade us from doing wrong she implied, there would be no reason to do right.  But there’s more than just God to live for.

Indeed I completely disagree with Schlessinger, because   more than God, there is additionally, the sheer sense of happiness and harmony that most experience when they behave in ways that please (or does not hurt) others.  That’s the “brotherhood of man” that John Lennon sang of in his song, Imagine.  There’s also more than God, the guilt and shame that again, most folks also perceive, when they intentionally hurt another, that keeps most sane people on the right moral track. 

The Golden Rule, more than God himself, keeps us morally straight.  We need not instill religious doctrine in someone to observe these naturally-occurring phenomena.  Toddlers cry when they at first pull a dog’s ears hard, not realizing that this would cause her pain.  While they know nothing of God, they certainly realize that they’ve done wrong by hurting the animal.  When they actually see and hear the pet’s anguish from what they did, most children become sad and ashamed. 

Now I’ll concede that religion, properly taught and limited in scope, can have a beneficial effect on society’s morality.  But at the same time though, people put too much “faith” in God, and not enough in themselves.  So they typically do not put forth as much effort as they could to reaolve or cope with their troubles. More than God, there’s the human desire to live in harmony just becaue it feels wonderful to do so. 

I think we could get along quite well without the numbing effects that religion has on critical thinking abilities of the masses.  Then, we would not have to debate about  which religion is right, and people would look to themselves and their immediate surroundings here on Earth and realize that yes, there’s more about life to strive for than simply the oneness with God. We could instead, strive to please ourselves, and each other. We don’t need religion for that.  We don’t need God either because there’s way more than just God to live for.  My answer to the question of which religion is right is, as you’ve probably guessed, no religion at all. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Which Religion is Right?
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