Using the Pain of Other People

I've noticed that there is something rather disturbing that people do when they hear about the pain in other people's lives. Many times, they seem to use these stories of real pain and suffering to justify their own faith. This is just plain wrong.

I'm not talking about the stock answer of "Well, God has a plan." That's just stupid and silly, and is really about as close a reaction to blinding stories of pain as a deer getting caught in the headlights of an oncoming freight truck.

I'm talking about responses like this: "Yeah, I thank God every night that my kids are healthy." How insensitive to real pain and suffering! You immediately turn the story inward and use it to be thankful to God that your own kids are healthy and alive, or are not disabled or don't have some strange disease. Do people who respond like this have any idea of how that makes the other person feel? So, you thank God for protecting your loved ones - what am I supposed to do with that? So God isn't protecting my loved ones that are going through pain and suffering?

Don't use other people's pain to justify your own faith. It's incredibly selfish and insensitive.

Another less egregious example is when someone is going through real pain and suffering, and fighting to survive through medical procedures or whatever, and something actually goes right - they make progress, the surgery is successful, whatever - and someone responds by saying, "Well, I've been praying every day for you, and it looks like prayer works!" What about all the times that something goes wrong - does that mean that God wasn't listening or chose not to help? Please, keep your religious, supernatural nonsense to yourselves - if you want to pray and want to feel like you are doing something about a situation you have no control over, that's all well and good - but DO NOT use the painful situations others are going through to justify your own actions, your own faith, and your own God.

Jesus said to pray in your closets. Keep it there, please. You are not helping people going through real pain and suffering by justifying your own personal faith right in front of their weeping eyes.

Losing a Dog and Deism

My little family had to put down our little dog, Clark. Clark was a good dog. He was a Scottish Terrier that wasn't the stereotypical Scottish "Terror." We had to leave him behind with family when we lived two years in New Zealand, and when we came back it was like we had never left. He was great with the babies, and he protected our home.

He had health problems from the start. He couldn't shake the mites, and came close to becoming a full-on mangy-mutt. Genetics were likely the cause. Earlier this summer, it seemed like the mites were coming back with a vengeance, and when we took him to the vet we found out he had the Big C - Lymphoma. After six short years of life, only four of which we enjoyed with him, he would be gone in a month.

We treated him to a trip "up north" for the Fourth of July, where he could explore and play without a leash. We fed him treats continually, and even the occasional tasty piece of steak or chicken from the table. We said goodbye to him every night and closed his kennel door wondering if he would be dead in the morning. We made damn sure the little guy knew he was loved.

His energy and condition deteriorated. He wasn't eating. When we pet him, we could feel his bones more and more. It was time.

We took him to the vet, and were with him when he died. We looked into his eyes, and told him we loved him, and saw those brown eyes go blank. We wrapped him up in his sleeping blanket and took him home. We buried him in the backyard with some of his favorite toys. We said goodbye on our terms and in our own way, and it was special.

After I filled in the hole, I told my wife, "This is easier now that I'm not a Christian."

One of our pastors, some time ago, gave a sermon about when his dog died, and in his garage he cried out, up into the trusses: "WHY GOD?!? WHY?!?" It became a continuing joke with us - we often thought, "Wow, you must have a blessed life if the passing of a dog makes you shout at God." It seemed to us a little insensitive and disrespectful to people going through real pain - losing children to disease, or parents.

As a Deist, I was able to deal with Clark's passing much easier than I have dealt with pain in the past. A faith in an all-powerful God that controls all things, directs all actions, or even just occasionally interferes in the affairs of men raises inevitable questions.

Knowing our little family's history and the real problems and pain we have encountered over the last few years, as a Christian it would've been really easy to say: "Jesus Christ, God, couldn't you have thrown us at least one little bone and allowed our dog to live out his full life, and not take him from us prematurely? With all that we've been through, could you at least have done that?!"

It would've been easy to get discouraged again and think: "We are cursed. Nothing ever goes our way. Not even our little dog."

Or think: "Maybe I'm being punished for my sins."

Or think: "Maybe I'm not a good enough Christian, and that's why I am not receiving His blessings."

Or think: "Fuck you, God. You're a prick."

As a Deist, none of these thoughts occurred to me. Sure, it was unfair that our little dog had the genetic defect that caused his mange, and caused his lymphoma - but if anything that was the breeder's fault, not God's. And even if we had known from the start that Clark was defective, would it have been better to have just put him down when he was a puppy? That may have been better for us - selfishly, we wouldn't have fallen in love with a pet that was doomed from the start and spent money treating his problems - but it certainly wouldn't have been better for Clark! He had a good life with us. He had a fenced-in yard to play and run and chase squirrels and bark at people walking by on the sidewalk. He wasn't cooped up inside all day. And we loved him.

In the end, everyone - everything - dies. If we guarded ourselves against pain - if we said "No, he's defective and isn't going to last very long, he isn't worth our investment in money and love..." - we wouldn't love anyone.

We're all going to die. It's a fact.

And he was just a dog. He was an animal. He had no concept of time or tomorrow. He lived in the moment, and while he was here he lived in those moments with us. And we'll remember him.

Even now, just a short time later, when I'm mowing the lawn and walk by his little concrete tombstone I made, with his name written in little rocks sunk into the concrete, I say: "Good boy, Clark."

But I don't feel guilty. And I don't feel angry. If anything, I feel that he's trotting at my side through the grass.

Do I know that I will see him again? No. Can I hope to see him again? Sure. Why not? The Creator who designed the Universe and all its systems and wonders is worthy of my trust. I trust that whatever comes next is good and just. So, I can hope.

Good boy, Clark.

The Foundations of Religion

I've been struggling lately with trying to define exactly what religion is; what are the foundational elements of a belief system that make it a religion? Now, I am using the term religion in a negative manner - I am using the term religion as a result of faith, which I (among others) define as belief without evidence. I also make the claim that many of the world's problems are the result of faith - or in other words the result of religion as I define it. But religion is too broad and too diverse to use it to assign blame - it must be defined first.

I believe there is something larger and more foundational at work. What are the foundational philosophies and aspects of much of what I would define as religion?

Belief in a Deity or Non-Deity

Right off the start, there is the idea of a Deity or deities - a God or gods. If religion stopped there, I don't believe there would be a problem. "There is a God." I personally believe that this is a logical conclusion based on the evidence of a Creator we have discovered in the Creation - the order, the universal principles, the universal language of mathematics, and the logical proof of a First Cause. Something had to start it all, and I just call that something God - maybe its real name is Ted, who knows? The first principle of all religion is the belief in a God, whatever that God is. Atheism has its own God - Nothing, an Absence, Chance, Chaos.

Beyond the foundational belief in a Deity or Non-Deity, religion goes completely off the rails in most instances because of the additional foundational human-philosophies that are introduced.

Narcissism

Religion then immediately turns inward-looking, and is at its basest and most foundational narcissistic. This may even be more foundational that the belief in a Deity.

At its most basic, narcissism is self-worship. It is "It feels good." It is self-glorification. It is self-deification.

It is about "I." I am in God and God is in me. I have attained special knowledge from God. I am doing God's Will. I ask this of God. This is how God made a difference in my life. God has a plan for me. I have made these sacrifices for God. I do these things in the name of God. I am making a difference in the larger scheme of things. I am a witness to the glory of God. I really felt good after church today. I got something out of the sermon this morning.

I don't think you can get around the idea that just below God in most religions, is Self. Most religion attempts to define the relationship between the Deity and the Self, and because the true Deity is unknowable, religion focuses on Self, which is knowable.

This is very dangerous. Once the focus is on the Self, which is foundational to all religion, the Ego is soon to follow. A narcissist justified by his understanding of God is one of the most dangerous combinations found all too often throughout human history.

Tribalism

Humans are tribalistic. In the past, we divided ourselves based on skin color as a result of regional evolution, language, and geography. Differing religions arose out of these tribal differences, and of course, all the different tribes believed that they were superior and worshipped the most powerful god, or the "one true god," and all the other tribes were inferior and led by lesser or even evil gods.

To survive, we needed to be a part of a group or tribe. The tribe provided protection from other tribes or from predators, social interactions, the ability to work together to work the soil and hunt and build, and a sense of belonging. Tribalism was necessary for survival.

Each tribe had their own god, their own customs, their own rituals, history and beliefs. Each tribe tried to make sense out of the world as they knew it, and passed this knowledge down through the generations through "holy texts" or oral tradition.

Religion arose out of this tribalism. It is no different today. It just so happens that most people around the world today have adopted the religions of the tribes found in the Middle East - the nomadic tribes of Judaism, with splinter tribes of Christian Jews and Muhammadian Jews. These three major world religions - the Abrahamaic Religions, arising out of the "tribe of Abraham" - have conquered the rest through force, coercion, or assimilation.

But the tribalistic foundation of religion is not found in going-to-church-on-Sunday religions alone. It is to be found in most "special interest" groups and causes that require a specific list of beliefs, dogma or confessions of faith.

People want to be a part of a group. They want to be a part of the trend. There is safety in numbers, and a comfort in the "us versus them" mentality. There is a self-righteousness to believing that "I have it all figured out, and everyone else is corrupted or just plain wrong." There is also a loyalty that comes with tribalism that is hard to break. When people are a part of a group, they tend to defend each other even when faced with facts that prove otherwise.

It comes down to safety, security, comfort, and a sense of belonging in tribalism, a foundation to all religion.

Need for Control

We all want to feel like we are in control of our own lives. However, it is a fact that we live in a chaotic system where Nature can wipe us out through disease, starvation, natural disasters, accidents, violence, and any number of things at any one moment. Religion provides us with a sense that things are under control in one way or another.

In some religions, people make sacrifices to appease the gods. Some dance to bring rain. Others pray and lay on hands to cure disease. Some tithe, sacrificing money at the altar to appease God and garner His favor and blessings. These are all superstitious attempts to control the uncontrollable - to control chaos.

In the "religions" of today, we exercise to prevent disease, or eat food fertilized with poop rather than chemicals to somehow attain a more natural, healthy existence. We believe that if we sacrifice at the altar of the Earth and drive hybrid cars, we can somehow prevent natural disasters and control the weather. We protect animals and endangered species, to the point of favoring them over our fellow human beings, hoping to appease "The Great Spirit" or "Gaia" or "Mother Nature." Or we Recycle. It is all really about controlling the uncontrollable - in believing that our tiny insignificant little actions can have an impact on this huge, complex system of chaos we call reality.

There is a need to feel like we are in control - and ultimately that a higher power is in control and can be coerced or manipulated through prayer, offerings and sacrifice - and this is a foundational belief of all religions.

Solving the Mystery

There are many mysteries in life. Without science and the powers of observation, people throughout time have attempted to explain what was unexplainable at the time. Even simple "mysteries," like why does childbirth hurt, why do snakes have no legs, and why are there rainbows have supernatural answers found in the Holy Bible.

While science has solved many of the mysteries over the years, some mysteries still remain. Why are we here? What is beyond this life, if anything? Why do people do bad things? If there is a God, what is he/she/it like?

Theoretical Physics is in many ways just as much a religion as most god-worshipping religions. Is it any more unbelievable to believe in a God that controls all things and exists in all times and all places, than the theory of the Big Bang, or Wormholes, or Black Holes, or the malleability of Time, or the theory of other dimensions outside our fabric of Space-Time? Of course, scientists can perform experiments to test their mind-boggling theories, parsing them down into smaller pieces that we can understand. But many people test their own religious theories every day through their own individual experiences, and are just as convinced by experience as by mountains of data.

At its core, there is a fundamental need to understand the Mystery - to figure it all out. Some people do so through religion and are satisfied with the answers they find. Some do so through science, and in the end they are always left with more questions than answers. The quest never ends.

The only thing that is really known is this: Anyone who claims to have everything figured out is wrong. They make this claim for their own peace of mind and security, and that is why they will likely lash out at anything that challenges their own version of the truth.

Good Versus Evil Conspiracy Theory

Chaos and Order. God and the Devil. Yin and Yang. Light and Dark. Negative and Positive Energies. Natural and Unnatural. All religions contain some aspect of two opposing forces combatting each other, in a spiritual realm, in our mind, in our bodies, in the world itself. It is a foundational belief that explains why Paradise has become Corrupt, and has its Heroes and Villians.

Some religions claim that bad things happen not because the world is complex and chaotic and violent - but because the "Devil made it happen." This logic even spills over into our own choices and actions - the "Devil made me do it" defense, "I was tempted," etc. There is a certain comfort in believing that all bad things are caused by some malevolent force, and not ourselves and our own choices, or even just the plain fact of the matter that bad things just happen sometimes. Chaos and disorder are frightening.

All religions contain some aspect of Conspiracy Theory. People just cannot accept the fact that bad things just happen sometimes - there must be some evil force at work behind the scenes, conspiring against us. The idea of Satan is the Ultimate Conspiracy Theory - the idea that some all-powerful malevolent being is responsible for all the evil things that happen every day everywhere on the planet.

Conspiracy theories spill over into all kinds of religious causes and groups, and most often is materialized in the form of the "Evil White CEO of a Giant Corporation." It is this malevolent force that conspires to destroy the planet, or rape and plunder, or get us to eat trans-fats, all to satiate their own greed and to make money.

So people pray for protection, or wear amulets, or fast, or speak in tongues, or use the power of Jesus' name, or cast out demons with holy water, or purify themselves with bottled water and organic foods, or wear pink and protest the evil war machine, or give Unhappy Meals splattered with gore and blood to children, or play chicken with whaling boats, or believe in UFOs and a government cover-up - people believe and do all sorts of things to combat Evil and promote Good, all in an attempt to make sense of the chaotic world we live in, where bad things just happen sometimes.

We don't want bad things to happen to ourselves, and so we do all we can to stave off the Satan Conspiracy for our own protection and in the hopes of someday attaining uncorrupted Paradise.

Guilt and Indulgences

We do not always succeed in denying Satan and accepting the Good, and so we feel guilty. We sin. We get drunk. We eat too many french fries. We like to drive SUVs. We throw perfectly good things away. We enjoy comforts when other people are starving. We have a good job when others do not. We are blessed by chance with intelligence and talents when other people are stupid and unskilled. And we feel guilty about it, as if it is somehow our own fault that evil exists in the world.

So we make sacrifices to make ourselves feel better. The Catholic Church sold indulgences to raise funds in the Dark Ages - that is, living relatives could give the church money to offset time for departed loved ones suffering in Purgatory. Is this any different than the current trend of buying "Carbon Credits?" People feel guilty about driving their cars, or heating their homes, or even creating websites, and so they buy indulgences to offset their sins of emitting CO2 pollution (which is natural and neccessary for life by the way). Or they give money to their cause of choice to alleviate their guilt of not doing enough to combat evil and attain paradise. Or they buy "free trade" coffee, so that some dirt-poor farmer can make a good enough living and not be tempted to use modern farming techniques - like evil pesticides and fertilizers - to increase their production and earnings.

"Original Sin" also creates guilt and the need to alleviate that guilt through purchasing indulgences. The original sin of Adam was eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The original sin of the USA is slavery. I would imagine the original sin of the UK is the British Empire. This original sin is transferred supernaturally through the generations, and remains with us today, and people believe that they need to alleviate this guilt and remove the stain of sin through purchasing indulgences, either by "giving ourselves" over to Christ, or making "slavery reparations" to all African Americans, or make contributions to the IMF and UN to help third world countries struggling with the ravages of war and poverty.

It is all about alleviating guilt, and the comforting idea that somehow everything is within our control. In most religions, we are somehow not good enough and that is why the world is the way it is.

Priests and Witch Doctors

All religions have their Priests. Holy men. Saviors. Messiahs. Prophets. Seers. Medicine Men. Witches and Warlocks. Fortune Tellers. Scientists. Modelers. Experts. PhDs. These people are more than mere mortals - they have attained special standing in some way, either through the blessings of a deity or through study, practice and research. They do all the work so that we do not have to, and they tell us what we need to do, or what the future will bring.

We invest ourselves in these people because they answer the questions that we cannot. They tell us our future. They give us comfort and security in knowing.

Christians have Jesus, and their priests and pastors and ministers. Muslims have their Muhammad and Mullahs. Jews have their Rabbis. Those who believe in natural healing and medicine have their Chiropractors and Accupuncturists, or their Hypnotists. Environmentalists have Al Gore, and Climate Modelers and Consensus of Scientists. Health Nuts have their Personal Trainers and Nutritionists. Communists have their Stalins and Lenins and Hugo Chavezs.

They are all priests and witch doctors, and they are only fallible humans like the rest of us.

Seeking Perfection

In an imperfect world, people seek perfection. They believe it is attainable. They believe if they pray enough, or give enough money, or eat the right foods, or create the right government, or recycle, somehow Heaven on Earth can become reality.

They believe that somehow it is our very existence - the existence of humans - that screwed things up in the first place, and somehow we can return to a pristine state if we just do the right things.

And so we kill each other to try to attain our own individual ideas of Paradise. We convert the heathen at the edge of a sword. We remove the heads of the infidel. We create concentration camps and gulags to house the political dissidents that are preventing the utopian society from coming into being. We grow corn to burn fuel our cars and cause starvation elsewhere. We ban DDT and malaria kills millions of children and elderly. We elect rulers that force their visions of paradise on the ignorant masses.

Religion is dangerous, and it is because of the foundational beliefs of all Religion.

I believe in a God - a Creator - and that he created me, and you, and everyone else. We are Individual Creations, with our own bodies and thoughts, talents and dreams. And I stop there. The rights of the Individual must be respected and maintained and protected, and the rights of the Individual are trampled by Religion in all its forms.

When Did I Become Me?

I've been thinking lately about the idea of the soul.

In the abortion debate, it is an important point: "When does the soul enter the body?" The Bible talks about how God breathes the Breath of Life into the body of Adam - many believe that this is a reference to the Soul - that our souls are the Breath of God. And so, in the abortion debate it is important to determine when the soul is present.

The Bible also talks about how God knew us before we were born, implying that our souls existed before our bodies here on earth, and that they were "sent down" when we came to be, here in the physical world.

Many of the difficult questions arise from this idea - namely, "Why did God send us down to this 'fallen world' full of pain and evil? What kind of God would do this? Why? What is the purpose?"

Religion has basically answered this question: "Life is a test. If we pass the test, we get to go back to Heaven." All this is really based on the foundational idea that our souls existed before, and are sent to this testing ground, refined by the refiner's fire, and allowed to come back home.

But what if that assumption is wrong? What if we did not exist before we were born? What if it is Life itself that creates the Soul?

As a Deist, to understand the idea - or theory, really - of a soul, we need to look to the Creation to understand the "plan" of the Creator. What does Natural Law tell us?

The current theory of Creation is the Big Bang. Basically, matter and dark matter were in a state of equilibrium until something caused matter to "outweigh" dark matter and BOOM! The Universe was born.

One of the theories of what happened during the time period of the Big Bang is that all matter was Helium. Then as matter cooled, Hydrogen formed - then all the other elements as the Universe spread and cooled. Natural Law states that the First Creation begets the Next, and on and on...

The same can be said for Evolution. The First Creation begets the Next.

As we search the heavens for Life, we find that there are limitless possibilities - and if we do indeed find evidence for Life on Mars, all of a sudden Life itself may not be an Accident, but be Natural Law itself. That Life is not rare, but common - that it is inevitable. That the elements of Creation are destined to bring forth Life.

If the First Creation - the "stuff" of Creation formed at the Big Bang - begets the Next Creation - Life itself - what does Life beget?

Perhaps, Life begets the Soul - perhaps, as Life has evolved over the millennia, Creation has created the Next Creation: the Soul. Perhaps God did not "send" us here to be tested, to endure pain and suffering - perhaps we are here, because here is where we are created. That Life brings our souls into being, and when that Life dies, our Souls move on to whatever is Next.

This notion, when considered, is a beautiful thing. It is consistent with what we know of our Creator through the study of His Creation and understanding of Natural Law. It unburdens us from struggling with the idea of a loving, good, and just God sending innocent souls to the earth to suffer and die. No! We are created here. Without it, we would not exist, and not be refined and shaped in this Life to move on to whatever is Next.

Why I am no longer a Christian

Top 5 reasons I am no longer a Christian are:

1. Personal Experience - What has befallen me and my family - most notably my daughter Cecilia - over the last two to three years does not match up, in any conceivable way, with the promises laid forth in the "Holy Bible."
2. Jesus Himself - This guy, if he was indeed God incarnate and living today, is the greatest underachiever of all time. "Ask for it in my name and it shall be given?" In contract-lingo, shall is a word that denotes 100%, no gray area, it shall be done - Jesus, if he does end up to be God, has about a billion lawsuits on his hands for violating this contract again and again when we all meet him in Heaven.
3. The Christian Church - Have you ever seen a more screwed-up and self-serving organization? They think today that they are so much more enlightened than the churches of the Dark Ages - sure, they don't burn people at the stake anymore, or go on Crusades, or persecute non-Christians, or torture people until they confess their Satan worshipping ways, or put down people who discover scientific truths that conflict with the "Holy Bible" - but they split the "Body if Christ" asunder if they don't agree on every small detail with countless denominations, they seek to bring people to Christ through the lies of the environmentalist movement, they spout the evil philosophy of socialism and communism from the pulpit under the authority of Jesus, or pick on gays and lesbians while ignoring child-molesters amongst them, blindly accept the "Word of God" when we learn so much more about science and God's Creation, go on "mission trips" that really are vacations to make them feel good about themselves (these poor people sure would rather have the money spent on airfare than have some people who've never used a hammer before build them an orphanage!), they donate their hard earned money to build buildings rivaling sports arenas, and all manner of facilities to entertain themselves. And I'm to believe that God is intimately involved in governing his Church? Please. It's insulting to God to believe so.
4. The "Holy Bible" - The only authority and source evidence for Christianity itself, and if it was used in a court trial it would easily be blown out of the water. There are too many contradictions to list, too many inconsistencies, too many flights of fancy and fantasy, and too many problems with its creation and transmission through time to list here. In very simplistic terms, you can find anything you want in this leather-bound dream journal to justify whatever beliefs you may have about anything. It has been used to treat women like crap, enslave people, kill people, torture people (including Jesus Himself). Sure, there are profound truths in there, but for every good in the Bible, there is something that is just evil and wrong and insulting to God.
5. Christians - I know some really good Christians. Really loving, compassionate, wonderful people who seek to honor God. But there are many self-serving jerks out there who do things in the name of God, or make decisions and choices after prayer and being "shown what to do" that make me sick. The percentage distribution of good versus bad people outside the Christian Community is probably about the same. There is no way that Jesus is involved in these people's decisions. There are good people, and bad people - but I can't stand self-righteous people that claim the authority of God and Jesus to do and say the things they do. And all too often, Christianity is a very self-centered philosohy and belief - this is what God is doing in MY life, here's how I am serving God, Jesus is in ME, praise God for all the good things in MY life, praying for the things I want - all the while dismissing or ignoring all the pain and suffering in the world other people experience.

I worship the one true God, Nature's God, the God of Creation, whose existence and character are found everywhere in his marvelous Creation. It is an insult to God to believe in such superstituous and self-serving nonsense.

Making Dumb Deals

Here's a story I caught while checking e-mail this morning:

Jenny McCarthy is speaking out about her son's battle with autism and what she did to make him better. The actress has received criticism for her views from the American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, and believes a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination was to blame for her son Evan's condition. Jenny says Evan was eventually cured after adhering to a strict no wheat and dairy-free diet. She tells US WEEKLY, "Before the vaccination, he was huggy, lovey, snuggly. Then it was like someone came down and stole him." Jenny says Evan began to come out of his shell while watching a SPONGEBOB episode, explaining, "I heard Evan laugh...I jumped on the bed and started screaming." McCarthy has become an outspoken advocate for autism awareness, but critics say she has created fear of necessary vaccines. Jenny says she is just sharing what worked for her adding, "I made a deal with God. I said, 'You fix my boy, you show me the way and I'll teach the world how I did it.'"

By coincidence, the previous day I saw this story about comedian Denis Leary's new book:

He's chosen to write a book, Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Lazy, and Stupid. And in this book, Leary writes "There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks…to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a s--- what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you—yer kid is not autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."

Denis Leary is now being demonized and denigrated for his views on autism, and rightly so. I don't know enough about the condition, but I know that my preemie daughter was at a higher risk of developing autism. It is a very real condition, but I do sympathize with Leary's views regarding the explosion of autism diagnoses of late - I do not believe that doctors and institutions are immune to the temptation to make knee-jerk diagnoses when they are rewarded with more funding and money.

But, since this blog is about religion and spirituality and how we get it all backwards, I find the story about the blonde ditz today much more troubling.

Reading between the lines, Jenny McCarthy bargained with God to help save her son from his supposed autism. I don't know if her son actually has autism or not - it seems as though her only evidence of autism is that he was snuggly and huggy before the immunization shot, and then grew distant. Some babies are affectionate and want comfort, and some are distant and tough! All babies are different, and sometimes in the same day! But I won't question whether he has autism or not.

Her side of her bargain with God was to "tell the world" what worked for her in "curing" her son's autism. Firstly, can autism be cured? I believe it is a condition that can only be managed. Secondly, now that her son is better, she feels herself obligated to encourage parents of autistic children to not have them given a much needed MMR immunization, not eat wheat or dairy, and watch Spongebob Squarepants? Whaaaaaaat?!

Bargains and Covenants with God in return for some revelation and special favors is what got the human race into trouble in the first place. The idiocy of believing that rejecting immunizations, certain healthy foods, and watching a funny cartoon character cures a very real mental condition is the same as believing that following a certain set of rules, making certain sacrifices, or going through certain sacraments and rituals will appease God and result in everything from rain to the salvation of your immortal soul. And Jenny McCarthy will be full of righteous fire in spreading her own autistic "gospel" as all those throughout history that made similar bargains with God.

God does not want you to avoid needed immunizations for your child. It is our god-given reason that allowed us to figure out how these terrible diseases worked and how we could protect ourselves against them. God does not want you to avoid eating wheat and dairy - over the millennia, we as humans evolved alongside the evolution of these plants and animals - we humans selected these grains and domesticated animals to best feed ourselves. Wheat and dairy are essentially made for us, and us alone.

But, God may want you to watch Spongebob with your child, because it is pretty funny.

Denis Leary's comments are much less damaging than Jenny McCarthy's - it is much better to have a healthy skepticism towards a diagnosis of autism, than to refuse to give your child immunizations and certain healthy foods.

Broken Hiatus

I'm getting my cast off my broken left hand today, so maybe I'll start pontificating again sometime soon.

Lots of things have happened in the last two months to piss me off, even when I'm on Zoloft now, so I'm sure I'll write something.

To give you something to chew on and smile at (who chews on something and then smiles at it? maybe it's gold): no matter who wins the democrat primary, this November the presidential election will be historic - the American people will choose between a Democrat and a Socialist.

Have a brew! Cheers!