INQUIRER Volume 3, Issue 12, December, 2000 A Thumbs Up Publication Editor: Gerald Dantone, Art Design: John R. Wilmarth Copyright LISH 2000 (All articles in this newsletter may be reprinted by organizations affiliated with the Council for Secular Humanism with a reciprocating reprinting agreement with LISH, so long as the article is used in full and with complete crediting. Edited versions can be used with written permission.)
Visit LISH on the web: http://www.homestead.com/lishweb and also at http://wwwhumanist.comLISH members, our monthly meetings (Calendar) are your chance not only to see and hear a stimulating discussion on an exciting subject, but also to meet with your fellow secular humanists on Long Island.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) The ethics of the election
2) Letters to the Editor
3) Making the rounds with Norm
4) #1 Hit Country Song promotes negative view of "non-believers"
5) The crisis in Israel
6) The agnostic Christmas
7) Quickies!
8) Book discussion club!
9) Humanist perspective
10) Help wanted!THE ETHICS OF THE ELECTION Gerry D
In a nutshell, what was wrong and what would have been right with the handling of the Florida presidential election problems?The fairest thing to do would have been to count the votes in a manner that would have included as many of the votes cast as possible, in time for the December 12 deadline for naming electors. It would have been most fair to recount the entire state by hand, and preferably by one uniform standard. Manufacturers of the punch-card machines used in many parts of Florida agree that a hand count would have been a more accurate measure of votes. As we have seen though, the state legislature was vague in writing guidelines for hand recounts.
Unfortunately one side opposed any recounts not required by law - they had the lead at the time. The other side sought selective recounts in their strongholds at first, though they later offered to support a full recount.
State law called for a certification of the vote by a date in November that could only be changed on the discretion of the Florida Secretary of State. The Secretary was a campaign director of one of the candidates and predictably chose to give more weight to honoring the date, helping her candidate, than in ensuring all votes were counted.
By the time all suits and counter suits were heard, precious little time was left for the one truly fair solution - counting all the votes as accurately as possible. Florida's State Supreme Court's decision of a hand recount of the "under-votes" only was a wise solution to the fairness and time problem. It was unclear however, as this was written, whether this solution would be successfully implemented and if it would be sustained by the Supreme Court.
It is part of the "game" to run out the clock when winning in football. One often sees players dribbling pointlessly at the end of basketball games when their team has the lead. It was argued that this election was not unlike such a game, where the rules are the rules and too bad for the loser.
Shouldn't democracy be more than a game played with arbitrary rules, or should it be a system with rules that serve a democratic purpose? Since discretion was part of the law, discretion should have been used at every turn to make sure that the voice of the people was heard most accurately. Instead, it was used to stop or run out the clock, and the losers are the American voters. Another loser will be the person who will have to sit in the Oval Office for the next four years with what much of the population considers a tainted victory.
It's a sad day in America when politicians, their lawyers and even judges claim it is unconstitutional for humans to hand count votes that an unthinking machine undoubtedly has missed (according to its manufacturers) - and have this claim possibly upheld by our highest court or sustained by a partisan state legislature. Was our vote a charade or not? [TOC]
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
11/10/00 The Inquirer is great; keep up the good work! Just one difference of opinion.
In responding to a letter about prisons and their occupants you went along with an argument that stigmatizes drug users who have been incarcerated. I differ with that approach. People who use drugs, whether hard or soft, legal or criminalized, prescribed or over-the-counter, have problems. Whether the problems that lead to drug use are medical or social the way decent human beings should respond is by offering help, not punishment. The application of draconian prison terms for victimless crimes is a manifestation of an insane society. If and when we go sane, we need to look at what we are doing wrong that causes our children to turn to the use of damaging substances. Bob G., Jericho, NY, via Internet
Response: Good points. Actually, I was not making a statement that it was good or bad to incarcerate drug users but just talking about some injustices involved in the criminal justice system, in this case involving drug infractions. Whether persons who possess certain drugs should be incarcerated at all is another important issue. G.D.
11/13/00 Re: College Prayer Wars: Nah. Nobody wins until someone is struck by lightning. That's how you can tell the losers.
I don't know if you've seen this before, but if you haven't... Jesus Dress Up! http://www.normalbobsmith.com/jesusdressup.html#
If you weren't going to hell before you start playing this, you certainly will AFTER you're done. Lynn via Internet
Response: Actually, a new look for Jesus might be a good marketing ploy. After all, Madonna never looks the same twice. G.D.
Re: Clinton Goes to Hell: 11/13/00 I also believe that if Jesus IS the communion wafer then claims of cannibalism are not far away. What do you think? Beverly via Internet
Response: Maybe it should be called Deiabalism. G.D.
11/17/00 Where does it say that one must believe that the communion wafer is literally the body of Christ or else one will go to hell? Bill M., Massapequa, NY
Response: Glad you asked. The Catholic Catechism states, on page 350: "St. Paul urges us to examine our conscience: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord." Also, the Catechism says that "Christ is present whole and entire in each of the (Eucharistic) species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ." Not believing that Christ is there in whole in each piece of the Eucharistic bread is, of course, heresy/blasphemy, according to the Catholic Church, and the penalty for this is mortal sin. The majority of those professing Catholicism may not agree with this, or not believe it, but it is the orthodoxy, nonetheless. Hey, I don't make the rules! G.D.
Re: Promoting humanism: 11/1/0 Another thing we can do is pool our readers for artists capable of creating a song that sings of the good and kind things secular humanists do, and of the rationalism and education of secular humanists (citing examples of historically great figures who were or are secular humanists and/or "non-believers.") and create a great song in the name of secular humanism. In fact, the Council for Secular Humanism, if I am not mistaken, has made a pledge to enter into other media (including radio, etc.) and perhaps would support such an undertaking on a national/international scale.
If we take this even further, I would suggest creating a whole album for secular humanists. (Perhaps we could also create a "funny" album filled with "religious bashing" songs singing of fairy-tales, fear, hatred, and in prejudices that abound among the "religious minded" with a couple of sad philosophical songs about real-life events that occurred as a consequence of religious fanatic groups.) I would be careful about this however, as it may make us open to further attacks, and if we make the songs too hard-hitting, we cannot use the "comic relief" excuse so many parables typically use to send their often controversial messages.
If we want to really make some money and gain social recognition, I would suggest doing what I have been dreaming of for some time now. That is, make a movie that celebrates reason, education, humanism, and the tremendous advances of humans acting in the here and now. Create a movie that depicts the hypocrisy in religious beliefs today in a manner that cannot be refuted as examples of religious fanatics but depicts the commonly occurring acts of many religious people. Show how those religious beliefs and actions lead to problems in our society in a manner that people can rally around and support an end of. Of course, the plot of the movie must be compelling and the movie has to be "award winning" quality so it really appeals to people not just as a philosophical treatise, but as good [drama/comedy/science fiction/etc....]. A real block-buster movie who's proceeds go towards supporting secular humanism. Thanks for your time, Lorne L, Long Island via Internet
Response: As a musician, I have approached Atlantic Records and other labels with what I consider very commercially viable music, to no avail. I have written a rock opera (on CD) very amenable to converting to the screen. I am working up a treatment and screenplay at present. The CDs are available for sale at www.UniversalDice.com. Readers are encouraged to critique and vouch for its quality or lack thereof. All profits would go to LISH. These days music that makes people think is verboten, unfortunately. G.D.
11/6/00 Re: "The Little Girl": Thank you for putting out the word about how this misguided trash incites people to hate what they do not know and do not understand. We have asked our members to write letters also. Keep up the good work! Deborah Boak, Director North Texas Church of Freethought, Dallas, TX, via Internet
Response: Sadly, it seems to offend us only and not other people's sense of right and wrong. G.D. [TOC]
MAKING THE ROUNDS WITH NORM Norm R
Jesus Seminar, Nov 3 and 4, Shelter Rock Unitarian Universalist Society in Manhasset: A rather interesting and diverse group of people gathered here to hear speakers relate to us their research efforts about Jesus and scripture. It is amazing how soft the knowledge is in this area as scholars, after studying various gospels including Thomas as well as the big four, still must vote with a colored bead method. Red means quite likely the passage might be genuine, pink maybe, gray maybe not and black almost definitely not. One finds these scholars might, on numerous quotes, find considerable agreement but on some the range is from red to black. How reliable is this type of conclusion?As our book discussion group embarks on the reading of Schweitzer's Quest for the Historical Jesus are we much further along on this perplexing question of Jesus? I am not too confident that much progress has been made even after some useful findings. There are only about maybe l5 to 20 passages that rate mostly red beads. So much is in the "grayer" areas.
What I found more definitive was the nature of the scholars who remain with the Westar Institute, the research institute related to this. There is an absence of fundamentalist participants. Our speakers indicate that they left when they found too much in question in the areas that they put their faith in. The main line folks and some more liberal wings of Christianity and Unitarian Universalism seem to have no difficulty questioning the scripture. We find that it is quite positive to see main line Christianity working in very similar areas as we more humanistic types.
These experience along with my Multi-Faith activities find the mainliners more issue-friendly than we might expect. At least we should see them as quite distinct from our fundamentalist folks further to the right.
A Jesus Seminar Scholar will be visiting us in December. His name is Robert M. Price.
Suffolk Ethical Culture, Nov. 11, 2000: I spoke to this small group about religious Diversity on Long Island. This was based on my experiences with the Multi-Faith Forum and as a Unitarian Universalist representative and the Humanist Perspective. There was some degree of surprise expressed regarding Long Island's religious diversity but also some fascinating questions about the nature of Long Island's fertility for such a range of faiths and philosophies here. We find Long Island is near New York City but less expensive to set up places of worship and meditation. Also, the Long Island Council of Churches has been quite broad in its acceptance of a various groups so that either within the LICC or in the related Multi-Faith Forum, these disparate groups felt more comfortable than in other areas.
Members from this small ethical Society found that many of these group possessed many of the values that Ethical Culturists believed. It was noted that like Christianity and Judaism, there were the fundamentalist wings of many faiths.
The interesting thing about this Ethical Society is that not all of its members call themselves Humanists. Some still value the philosophy of Felix Adler, the Transcendentalist founder of the movement. Notice the use of the name Ethical Culture by this group. This is a very small group and its survival may be an area of concern. We hope for their greater participation in our Humanist coalition efforts, and are pleased that some have attended LISH functions.
This was a weekend when liberal religionists and Humanists took a look at our attitudes towards racism. It seems that we are quite progressive in the area of race relations but nevertheless our society seems to support racial biases. Two leaders for this weekend led us in exercises showing racist tendencies even among well-meaning folks. There seems to be a need for continuous consciousness raising.
As we look around our Humanist groups the scarcity of memberships of people of color is quite evident. Even as we look at the more educated and professional ranks of persons of color, we find that they seem more at home with the Baha'i for example. Why? They say groups such as Humanists and Unitarian Universalists are too middle class and European.
It is important for us to attempt to be in better touch with all minorities. We hope that we can learn from the likes of Norm Allen, an African American leader from our Council for Secular Humanism headquarters in Amherst. We need to reach out to everyone.
AHA Affiliation: On Friday Nov. 17, we received word from Tony Hileman, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association that we are officially an affiliate of the AHA. This in no way affects our chapter status with the Council for Secular Humanism but only adds benefits of AHA affiliation such as access to speakers and materials and broader publicity. This will give The AHA a voice on Long Island and give us an additional voice nationally. We look forward to a very mutually beneficial union. [TOC]
#1 HIT COUNTRY SONG PROMOTES NEGATIVE VIEW OF "NON-BELIEVERS" Gerry D
One month it's an outcry by the religious against the late Madelyn Murray O'Haire somehow trying, from the grave, to kick "Touched by an Angel" off the airwaves. Then it's a national candidate or two proposing that morality must have a foundation from above, whatever that means. It's the Boy Scouts demanding that applicants demean the non-theist before being allowed to join. It's the general public stating in a national poll that most of them would not vote for a person who did not believe in God. What's next? Well, here it is!Imagine a song lyric that starts with the following:
"Her parents never took the young girl to church/Never spoke of His name/Never read her His word/Two (Choose one: Jews, Pagans, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Humanists etc.) walking lost in this world/Took their baby with them/What a sad little girl"
Then the song continues:
"And the drinking and the fighting just got worse every night/Behind their couch she'd be hiding…/Until her daddy in a drunk rage one night/Used a gun on her mom and then took his life"
The songs ends after the little girl is taken away to a new family and is taken to a Christian church as follows:
"She said I know that man up there on that cross/I don't know His name/But I know He got off/He was there in my old house and held me close to His side/As I hid there behind our couch/The night my parents died"
The above song is real. The actual lyrics do not really call for the listener to make a choice of types of non-Christians - the lyrics actually say "non-believer." As we have documented, clearly, the perspective is Christian, and most persons equate non-believer with atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, secular humanists and the non-religious.
Is it relevant, it must then be asked, that the parents were not Christians or in fact non-believers? Is their non-belief the cause of their being "lost"? Is their non-belief making the little girl sad? Is it the cause of drunkenness and drug abuse? Murder? Apparently the answer is in the affirmative for those who wrote and created this song which has reached Number 1 status on the Billboard Country singles chart as of the week of 10/29/00. Is it really "true" that the Jesus on the crucifix "saved" the little girl? Has this ever happened?
The song, "The Little Girl," sung by John Michael Montgomery and written by Harley Allen, on Atlantic Records, was inspired by an email Mr. Allen received that is no more than an "urban legend," most likely created to denigrate non-believers. No recorded case matching the story has been found according to those who created the music! However, there are many cases of religious persons involved in murder-suicides, including world famous examples such as the mass murder-suicide recently in Uganda, The Branch Davidians in Waco, and the case of the Jonestown massacre where religious belief was the direct cause of the killings. It must be true somewhere, sometime, that a non-believer was involved in a murder-suicide, but there is no evidence that lack of belief in Jesus or a god makes a person more prone to such crimes. Prison statistics regularly indicate that the religious are over-represented and atheists under-represented among the incarcerated. Secular humanists are almost entirely absent from the prison population. Atheists according to a recent poll, as a class, have the lowest divorce rate among the religious classes.
The author, Harley Allen, according to USA Today, has said "but if it ain't true, it ought to be." WHAT ought to be true? That little girls should suffer such trauma? I don't think so. What he meant was that it ought to be true that non-believers should be miserable and kill each other. What else could he have meant?
Are atheists better persons than others? No one makes that claim. Stalin, for example, may have been a non-believer, despite his religious upbringing, but he replaced his religious dogma with secular dogma with horrifying results. Secular humanists reject all types of dogmatic thinking and promote, contrarily to most religions, freedom of inquiry. It is readily admitted that secular dogmatism is as dangerous as religious dogmatism. But that has nothing to do with the song in question! The parents depicted were simply described as "non-believers," a description apparently sufficient, in the minds of the artist and writer, to motivate such abuse and evil.
What, then, is the point of this song? The answer is obvious - to spread fear, hate and mistrust of non-believers. It is a sad commentary on the state of Christianity in this country where it seems it is necessary to demonize those who do not believe, even to the point of inventing stories where non-belief is depicted as the cause of murder. And get a number one single and millions of dollars while doing it.
(For the lyrics go to: http://members.spree.com/qwho/links/TheLittleGirl
For background on the story go to: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000925/tn_atlanti.html
Go to the Snopes.com Urban Legends website: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/girl.htm)
Now, as a contrast in the way the media covers insults to non-believers as persons versus any criticism of anything religious, we have Cher with her new song "Sisters of Mercy." The song, written by Cher, relates the time her mother was forced by economic circumstances to place Cher in a Catholic orphanage. Cher stated that "When (her mother) went to get me back, the mother superior told her she should put me up for adoption. It took my mother six months to release me back to her… This is not a condemnation of the Catholic Church… I have known many wonderful and loving nuns in my life."
No matter, the Catholic League slammed her for lyrics calling the order of nuns "daughters of hell," "masters of pain," "mothers of shame," and "daughters of war."
These are indeed strong words and perhaps they should have been tempered when one was in a less emotional state. Obviously, not all nuns in this order are bad.
It may be valid, however, to criticize the practices of some nuns. For example in my personal experiences with nuns I could point out the anti-Semitism and anti-Protestantism some promoted, though I can report no personal abuse of any kind.
Sister D'Arienzo, president of the Brooklyn chapter of the Sisters of Mercy, admits, "if her charges are true, then there is no one of us who would not express sorrow."
But note the contrast on the part of the media: Outrage over Cher's song, based on her own true to life experiences (so she claims) is immediately publicized. Have we yet to hear a media peep over the invented denigration of non-believers in John Michael Montgomery's #1 hit tune, "The Little Girl"?
I'm not holding my breath. [TOC]
THE CRISIS IN ISRAEL Gerry D
Politicians will say that peace in the Middle East seems dependent on finding a solution to the issue of control of "Holy Lands." Both Muslims and Jews (and Christians) consider sites in Jerusalem among their most important holy sites, and compromise has been impossible thus far. Is this issue of control really the core problem?The Koran states in 9:5-6: "Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them." Also, 8.12: "I will instill terror into the hearts of the Infidels, strike off their heads and strike off from them every fingertip." Need more motivation to kill in the name of God? Try 4.74: "Let those fight in the cause of God who barter the life of this world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on God's path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome reward."
The Old Testament, in turn, claims that the Hebrew people are "chosen," a theology that simply cannot work to bring diverse peoples together. Exactly why were they chosen? What advantages or disadvantages does being chosen entail? Does their "covenant" with God really exist? Do they have real proof? Should anyone else care that they believe there is such a covenant?
What does the Old Testament say about the treatment of non-Jews? The OT does allow "foreigners" to be slaves, and to be treated less ethically than their "brothers," and so on. It matters, in the OT, whether one is Jewish or not. Should it matter in the real world? How do politicians, peacemakers, much less religious leaders, reconcile differing commands from differing gods that place neighbors of differing faiths at each other's throats?
The cruelty that each side has inflicted on the other has been amazing. Palestinian mobs, televised live on TV, gleefully tortured and killed two Jewish soldiers. In response to the riots, Israel has bombed Palestinian strongholds in Israel - in effect bombing their own citizens, guilty and/or innocent. Arafat has asked, ineffectively, to have the violence halted, but only in areas the Palestinians have police authority. Meanwhile, terrorist bombings harming Jewish Israeli civilians are occurring in Israeli controlled areas. Of course, the Israeli reaction is violent, but not directed carefully at the perpetrators, but instead seemingly directed without regard to the safety of innocent Palestinians, including children and other residents, in Palestinian neighborhoods. There is no end in sight in this cycle of violence.
Even the secular have been disillusioned. An Israeli atheist, Shai Gottesman, was quoted in Newsday as saying "In a burst of anger, I have said we should kill all the Muslims in the world." He was deeply affected by the televised spectacle of the torture murder of the two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob that seemed to enjoy their brutality. Of course he is simply caught in the middle of dueling theologies, and the people he is most familiar with are suffering - again. He concludes that perhaps only a wall between the Arabs and Jews will work for now. The wall already exists - it is called religion.
What do the Palestinians and/or Israelis want that they do not already have? What does any human aspire to, when unaffected by dogma? Don't we all want freedom of speech and of the mind, justice under the law, security, hope and the ability to pursue happiness? If a government, under its constitution, guarantees freedom for all its citizens, and proceeds to fairly carry out these principles in practice, is that not enough? Would the "nationality" of the government then matter?
Sadly, it does matter to those who place the Laws of God over the secular laws of man even if the secular laws are just and helpful to human wellbeing. There is no reconciling the differences. There is no solution except secularism, and perhaps in a practical sense then, since that is unlikely, there is no solution except for that wall suggested by the atheist. [TOC]
THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS Robert G. Ingersoll, 1833-1899
Again we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the God of day over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over Delilah, and Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris rises from the dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more. Again Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of light, destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival of Thor, of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus, and Chrishna eludes the tyrant.This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be universal.
This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all religions -- the worship of the sun.
Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful. The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying, the all-loving.
This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for revenge.
All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness, of shadow, of night. And so I say again, this is the festival of Light. This is the anniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the hosts of Darkness.
Let us all hope for the triumph of Light -- of Right and Reason -- for the victory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over Superstition. And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the Sun. (From, The Journal, New York, December 25, 1892.) [TOC]
QUICKIES! Gerry D
Item: Missouri is trying to ban the KKK from its Adopt-A Highway cleanup program.
Comment: What next - states banning non-believers from such programs as well? You bet! At least the KKKers are going to heaven if deeds do not justify us.
Item: A Texas Baptists group is withdrawing from the Southern Baptist Convention and taking their $5million with them. Rev. Wade told a meeting of the Texas Baptists that "Jesus took his stand against religious authoritarianism, moral judgementalism and dogmatic fundamentalism."
Comment: No wonder Jesus was crucified! But didn't Jesus threaten non-believers with a "lake of fire"? This stuff is just too complicated for me.
Item: The attorney for attempted murder suspect Aly Dominique, explained that his client believed the victim of the murder attempt had used voodoo to kill her husband, the suspect's brother.
Comment: Well, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, right? If they throw this defense out of court does it mean that witchcraft does not exist?
Item: Relations between Rwanda and the Vatican have improved since the acquittal of Rwandan Bishop Misago of charges of assisting genocide in that country. President Kagame has visited with the Pope though many Rwandans have accused the Catholic Church of either doing little to prevent the genocide or in some cases, providing assistance in the genocide. Some priests have, in fact, been convicted of complicity. Rwanda is primarily a Catholic country.
Comment: But at least they're not atheists - just Christians who have sinned!
Item: Clinton vetoes measure to punish those who disclose Government "secrets."
Comment: The outgoing President has made his mistakes - no, we're not just talking about Monica. His handling of certain foreign crises, such as Rwanda, the retaliatory bombing of Sudan, the NATO targeting of civilians in the Serbia-Kosovo conflict and other decisions that directly led to human tragedy are his worst moments that, oddly enough, he is not taken to task over. The primary reason is that the opposition party was on his side on all of these actions.
That is why President Clinton is so impossible to embrace in toto yet the alternatives are perhaps more painful.
But kudos for the President for his veto of this measure. Whistle blowers, investigative journalists and outright patriots may have been threatened with this law and Clinton vetoed it although many advised him to sign it. Clinton has his very good points, which have made his failings all the more tragic.
Item: A group of Catholic and Jewish scholars has asked the Vatican to open its archives to answer 47 specific questions relating to the role of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust.
Comment: A no-brainer. Pope Pius XII has alternately been vilified and beatified. What's the truth? Open the archives!
Item: According to the NY Post, a drug abusing ex-con is involved in the suspected embezzlement of up to $2,000,000 from a Queens Catholic Church parish by former Monsignor Thomas Gradilone.
Comment: I'm sure that demonic forces are at work here. Perhaps atheists are behind the missing money. Or perhaps religious institutions should not be exempt from the laws regarding disclosure to which all secular charities are subject.
Item: The Rev. Andrew Millar, a retired Catholic priest from Long Island, received a 1 to 3 year sentence for sexually abusing a minor. He asked the judge for no prison time, but was denied such leniency. According to the Daily News, the judge noted that he received a wealth of information on Millar including "information regarding past, inappropriate conduct."
Comment: Could this "information" have been in the hands of the Church? Could it be that they did not present this information to the police or the public out of a desire to maintain an image? Excuse me for the speculation, I'm only human.
Item: The National Conference of Catholics Bishops convened in Washington, D.C. in November and it is interesting to note the following as reported in Charles W. Bell's religion column in the Daily News. He tells about a bishop relating the US election deadlock to one in his own church: "… John Paul, ailing but as determined as ever to hold the doctrinal line, to the point of forbidding even talk about reforms that might end some of the turmoil and rebellion among Catholics. 'He won't listen,' the bishop said. 'But he's not alone,' he said. "Nobody is listening. All these things we said this week, zip, in one ear and out the other.'"
Comment: It is tragic that the bishops cannot admit the basic failing of religion, particularly organized religion: faith. They can't say it but they have lost faith in their Pope, and by extension their own religion, and if their religion is what it claims to be, God itself.
Item: 104 gay activists were arrested outside the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Despite the protests, the Bishops meeting there reaffirmed their position stating "Catholics who do not observe the church's teaching on homosexuality are not in accord with the mind and heart of the church." Dissenters call this a form of "spiritual violence" though the church denies this.
Comment: Of course this is not "spiritual violence." However, in my humble opinion, actually being condemned to hell for eternity would be.
Item: An Indiana church's assets were seized by the IRS for non-payment of withholding taxes for its' paid employees. Church officials believe that God's laws prevail over man-made laws and that paying the taxes would make the church an agent of the government. A Federal judge was not convinced.
Comment: How cool would it be to be exempt from all laws if your religion decided that you didn't have to obey? Actually, not too cool. It is interesting to note what could be justified and excused as long as one has the Word of God on one's side. Read on…
Item: The retired teacher who defaced the controversial painting of the Madonna (not Ciccone) at the Brooklyn Museum of Art received no jail time for his crime. His attorney argued that he had a First Amendment right to the vandalism.
Comment: Does this mean that someone else has a First Amendment right to vandalize the object of his or her choice as long as it's "religiously justified"? Read on…
Item: A "Missionary of Lucifer" was sentenced to 42 years in prison for 26 church burnings. The convict, Jay Scott Bellinger, faces more charges, including a case where a firefighter was killed.
Comment: Apparently his attorney couldn't get him out of jail time by pointing out he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights. Maybe he should have used the attorney for the guy who defaced the painting in Brooklyn! Maybe this only works for Catholics, I dunno.
Item: Christmas celebrations have been canceled in Bethlehem on what is supposedly the 2000th birthday of Christianity's savior, Jesus. The cancellation is due to the cycle of violent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis over control of the "holy" lands.
Comment: It would seem that of all the places on earth, the "holy" lands are the least peaceful and where the unity of humanity is least appreciated.
Item: The former husband of Mariah Carey, Tommy Mottola, intends to be married to a new Mrs. Mottola at St. Patrick's in NY even though there is no evidence of an annulment of their previous marriage which took place at an Episcopalian Church. A Church spokesperson said it would be necessary to demonstrate that the Carey-Mottola marriage either was not "valid" or that it had been annulled.
Comment: Uh-oh, if he does not have an annulment, he'll burn in hell forever, and if the marriage wasn't valid, he'll burn in hell for that too! Just for the sake of being with Mariah Carey! One wonders if it was worth it? One wonders if they wonder about such things? Nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! [TOC]
Book Discussion Club!
For all LISH members and others who can read, LISH board member Bill Wade has formed a book discussion club! To join, email us; it's free for LISH members!
The Friday, January 5th, 2001, meeting will in Commack, and will feature "The Origins of Virtue," by Matt Ridley.
The Friday, February 2 meeting will be in Huntington. The featured book will be "Discovery of Freedom," by Rose Wilder Lane.
The Friday, March 2 meeting will be in Amityville. The selection will be "Letters From the Earth" by Mark Twain, published by Harper & Row. It also available within a book called "The Bible According to Mark Twain" published by Simon & Schuster.
If you are interested Email LISecHum@aol.com. [TOC]
HUMANIST PERSPECTIVE
Be Sure to Watch "Humanist Perspective" hosted by Joe Beck, on Cablevision Public Access on channel 71 on the Woodbury system and channel 70 on the Hauppauge system every Wednesday @ 6:30 PM! [TOC]
HELP WANTED!
A volunteer to coordinate the copying of the "Humanist Perspective" cable access TV show and its delivery & pickup to Cablevision (Hicksville) is needed as soon as possible. This volunteer would also distribute copies to the volunteer for the Hauppauge-based portion of the cable system. Volunteers or those with suggestions please Email Gerry D @ LISecHum@aol.com [TOC]