Don’t Run! It’s Me!

Tags

Autobiography, Blog, life in the foothills, truth

Every so often I feel the need to change things up a bit. I don’t do this to my other blogs by and large, but this one seems to change with time.

Mostly my interests are so diverse that occasionally I discover that I’ve struck a new course in a meandering sort of way, and now find myself quite unlike where I expected to be.

I am as they say,  a woman for all seasons, a renaissance gal, an eclectic, a head in the stars sort of lady.  I’m a foul-mouthed sailor on occasion if that can any more be said to exist apart from the general population’s proclivities toward sewer mouth. I’m a sexual tease, a damned old lady, eccentric in my heart (although my husband says a true eccentric must be rich and I’m not sleeping in a bed of hundred-dollar bills, though I do account myself quite wealthy by some standard I set for myself anyway), and an intellectual maven in my own mind at least. I’m so housewifey it makes me sick at times with another recipe always tempting and another craft to be mastered. I watch too much television, don’t read enough books, think too much of things I cannot know, believe in stuff that would stun a logical person, question almost everything, argue because it’s Tuesday, (or any other day of the week), and love fiercely, passionately, compassionately, empathetically, and with a child-like innocence.

I love any animal with fur, and dislike most anything without it.

I have a good grasp on what I don’t know.

I have a passion to know, and when I realized long ago that I could not possibly keep up with all the books I wanted to read, I felt like I should have a funeral. There was once a time when the average person could do so, albeit she would require a certain wealth to obtain the books.

I took forever to find women roll models but I have them, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Catherine of Siena,  and Hypatia of Alexandria, the latter being my most noteworthy mentor. She was at one time the librarian at the great library of Alexandria, and yes I mourn the loss of that institution still, along with Freddy Mercury from Queen. Go figure.

I think of libraries as sacred places.

As I enter the small city of Las Cruces many mornings and come over the last hill down into the town, the hillside to my left reminds me of the houses perched down the sides of the cliffs of the Aegean although there is no sea below. It’s the white/pink colors that remind me. I revere Athens and Plato and Socrates unlike hardly any other beings from the past, along with a string of Romans such as Livy and Cicero. Let us not forget Aristophanes, Ovid and Virgil either.

These people and places are my center.

I like old coke, potato chips and chocolate ice cream. I secretly play a few games of bingo every day. You wanna talk eclectic?

I am a good person, at times an awful one. I am selfish, and then extravagant in my giving. I love beautiful jewels and hate the diamond mines and the toll of human life they take. I hate that we are so rich and yet so poor in spirit and common decency that we are willing to allow cruel poverty to consume all too many in exchange for retaining a few hundred extra dollars a year in taxes.

I hate stupid. I hate ignorance, and I hate most of all people who are content to be both because it’s easier to believe the lie that brings comfort to their otherwise miserable lives. I hate people who cannot face themselves or their shortcomings. I hate people who blame others instead of themselves.

I love truth.

I love it because it is all that we have in the end. Without it, we live lives of delusion and cling to what cannot endure. Truth is enduring though it may well change as we learn more. Truth in reality never changes, but our understanding of it does. But seek it we must, for all solid ground is ultimately based upon it.

You can believe the earth is 6,000 years old and God will somehow never let earth fail, but it won’t stop the truth. Believe what you may, true will have its way. Better to accept truth and perhaps then the light can shine on how we have misidentified God. Is it not better to know God for what God is rather than as we desire God to be?

The logic seems irrefutable to me.

So here we concentrate on truth.

We always have, but it bears stating it out, and naming it as our goal.

We welcome discussion, we welcome dispute, but we will never sacrifice truth for what feels good here.

I expose my underbelly with no small reluctance, but still I do it because truth is the only thing that in the end will help another to cope with their own demons and despair. You are not alone, we are all in this together.

So nothing is changed much, except that we have prettied our self up in a new dress  and new name. And hopefully we will use truth as our walking stick, always aware in whatever we say and do, that we cannot hide it, deny it, or pretend it is not. It walks beside us, is firmly gripped by us, and seeks the firm ground as we walk forward into this and every day.

 

 

 

We Educate Rats Too!

Tags

critical thinking, editorial, education, truth

Sometimes it takes a long time for the coffee to work its way through the grounds.

Or if you will, one day you open your eyes like any normal day, and see something that was there all the time.

The point is, I’ve always known this in one manner or another.

What you ask?

That our education system just sucks.

I knew it in undergraduate school. It was obvious, but I of course was way into my, “damn I’m smart” phase so I figured that the awful truths I was learning about Merika, and Western Civilized?zation, and all that was just cuz, only smart folks like me were capable of internalizing this shit and not declaring open war against the government. I was “big enough to take it.” The big secret of what a dirty little nation we really were was given to me, one of the small legion of people who would smile at the masses, all the while becoming part of  the new engine of democracy. Or some such blather. It was never spelled out, nor was it ever thought out.

We regaled our friends and family at “home” in middle or as we were wont to say, the middles who were really the worker class, with tales of elite power holders mostly unknown to the masses of semi-literate drones like themselves. They of course sucked air and murmured to themselves the question, “what is going on in our colleges to produce such talk?”

It all got confounded in our hippie/anti-war/feminist/ rhetoric and colleges mostly dodged the bullet in terms of responsibility. Drugs would do ever so much better as causation to our nasty smart-ass talk.

I maintained that I was still of that elite I-know-better group even when I was shocked to learn that my decision to enter law school with the professed desire to “work in Washington for some committee or other” was never gonna happen. I learned that there were lawyers and then there were lawyers. I was not one of the latter. Those lawyers, were graduating from Princeton and Harvard and Yale and Stanford and had parents who were RICH, as in Freakin’ Rich. I was a lawyer meant for county prosecuting/defense, and handling peoples wills and small claims. That’s what people who went to your average state law schools got.

I started to get it. A little.

Since I had no desire to be “rich” or any of that rot anyway, I went my way, did my time, and emerged with a decent life style, and time to pursue hobbies of an intellectual nature.

Sure from time to time, I wished I had had it to do all over again. Paleontology was more my style. Theology and biblical studies later. I grumped as to why some people got exposed to that and others didn’t until it was “too late”. Did some schools give it’s kids a heads up on subjects like anthropology, archaeology, cosmology? I suppose they do if you are in Groton, Cranbrook or other prep type schools. maybe?

In the back of my head I realized that most of us are steered elsewhere. For our “own good” as it were. Not too many good jobs revolving around archaeology. Or philosophy. Gosh I loved that, but what to do with it? So I moved to a “practical” discipline. Law. It could have easily have been medicine I suppose. Neither requires more than an average head upon one’s shoulders.

The point is, I vaguely saw that most of us were ushered “elsewhere”, to those places where “we” were needed.

This is no indictment per se on education as we know it, nor upon teachers, most of whom are or were nearly as clueless as I. A few were frankly well above smart and did that one thing that makes them ripe for pedestal worship–they inspired a kid to follow a dream.

When I located old classmates a few years ago, I was admittedly quite shocked at what I found. I guess I wasn’t so surprised that most had not gone on to college. Pretty much I figured that a few would start and then bail when they found that they were no longer the center of attention. Jocks and cheerleaders often find their celebrity status missing in undergrad and because they never were students in high school anyway, they bore quickly in academia, leave and get cheap white-collar jobs and get on with life.

What surprised me were the number who lauded (to some old teachers who also joined the group) those teachers for being so “good” and teaching them so much. Seriously?

Let’s get real.

Basic education in this country for the vast majority, consists in learning to read at a basic level (8th grade), write a simple sentence that can be understood, and to behave. Behaving consists of learning that it’s good to be lawful, bad to be a crook, and that citizenship consists of paying your taxes and voting every four years. You learn a small amount of “correct” American history such that you are reasonably patriotic, i.e., willing to go to war and die for rich men’s greed.

That’s about it.

That gets you workers who sew the clothes, build the cars and planes, man the office machines, put out the fires, work the fields, nurse the sick, teach the next generation, and settle petty disputes over property rights. A few split off to hear your confessions and bury your dead.

The rich white dudes send their kids elsewhere where they learn to run armies, run industries, and run governments.

I do not need to know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, nor do I need to know that Hawaii was the last state admitted to the union. I don’t need to know that Moby Dick is a classic about man’s struggle over the existence of God, and good and evil. What do I learn from dissecting a frog for god’s sake? What did I learn from all that Civil War crap? To be holier than thou regarding the South, while Southern kids were learning the opposite?

All that crap is available to be found by anyone who can use a card catalog back “in the day” or a computer today. That is simply factual DATA.

WHAT I NEEDED TO LEARN WAS HOW TO THINK.

What constitutes a rational, well supported argument? What code words suggest fluff rather than substance? What sources are reliable, and how do I discern that? What does it mean that every writer comes with a set of biases, known or otherwise? What is logic? What is charismatic bullshit and how do I tell the difference? What is just well written but basically crap? What is poorly written but true?

How do all those “things” that happened since the dawn of the written word and before, stack up into patterns that tell me something about who I am, who WE are? What can we be? What can we never be? What did WWII have to do with megalomaniacal men, and what had it to do with greed, industrialization, resources, and democracy?

We are not taught this stuff. And I’m very sure it’s intentional. They simply can’t have too many out there who are on to them. Oh, no, I’m not getting all conspiratorial here. But extremely rich people do exist. They live in a world that is divorced from us. They think they are the natural “kind” to decide things. And they do. They decide almost all the important things.

We think we matter, with our democracy and our voting. There are differences between Republicans and Democrats. The GOP figures that things were going pretty nicely when most people were poor, busy just scratching out a living, consumed by putting food on the table. The Democrats are just Republicans with a heart–let them have a life that is decent enough to enjoy a bit. They will still not interfere with us as long as they have a few toys and a couple of weeks vacation at their cabin and some fishing.  But on the big stuff, both parties are agreed–they will decide what’s best. Our kids will do the dying.

Almost all our high school educational system are designed to produce law-abiding workers who don’t raise a ruckus. Most of our colleges simply prepare MOST for those slightly more complicated necessary service professions.

Only a teacher or professor here or there, has a glimmer of truth, and imparts it. Suggests that the mind is meant for so much more. It’s meant to see the big picture, and once it has, it knows that solutions are so much beyond that of a  farm bill, or a fair trade treaty, or some utility regulation.

It’s about how we see each other as a species. How we view other species. How we see the universe.

Truth is a powerful thing. And almost nobody knows it.

I’m just starting to see.

 

 

What a Difference a Mind Makes

Tags

absolutes, education, learning, Matters of faith, psychology, science, sociology, surety, truth

You know it’s really funny. Prepare you face for it. To laugh that is.

When I talk about faith or religion here, it brings out the new atheists and their smarmy yak-yak about believing in fairy tales. When I talk about faith or religion on my actual religion blog, Walking in the Shadows, I sometimes get folks who deign to explain to me that I’m not practicing the right kind of Christianity from their point of view.

Yesterday, I was asked, after making a number of statements regarding various fairly technical aspects of Christian theology (atonement theory, faith/works), the sort of things that some of us love to discuss, whether I was a “follower” of Jesus.

I guess it caught me oddly since I can’t imagine why anyone would spend all that much time on a subject of which they had no interest. But then I thought of a few rather well-known scholars who had started their studies in faith, and then lost it, and remained in the discipline. So I guess it wasn’t so odd.

Which brought me to the well-known principle that on just about every subject known to man and woman, people see things very differently. To this person’s mind at least, because I didn’t believe as she did, I must not be a follower of Jesus as she was. There was one way to follow Jesus, and I wasn’t doing it.

Similarly, whether it be economics or climate change, or any of a host of human and worldly problems, you discover that people have views that seem idiotic to you. Yet, when you talk to them, they have the same passion as you do. They are just as sure. Well, I guess that’s not totally true. I always figure that I’m never totally sure about much of anything. Doubt to me is part of the package. Those who are diametrically opposed to what I think, they seem to be very sure.

Therein lies the rub as Shakespeare was wont to say. The “follower of Jesus” if asked, would assure me that her belief is absolute, without question. That seems to me to be the total opposite of faith. For to me, faith is such in the face of doubt. It’s a choosing to believe even when there is no proof that you are right, just no proof that you are wrong.

It led me to conclude that that is probably true about most people who are given to being “absolutely sure”.  I’m also engaged with a very reactionary type who is “very sure” there is no such thing as global warming. Even though logically he can’t be, since he has no training in any science even remotely related to the subject. He is adamant that he is right, because the people he aligns himself with say what he wants to be true.

A scientist will tell you that you can’t be absolutely sure that the sun will rise tomorrow. Something catastrophic could always happen. Is it true that only the reactionary right are “sure” about things? I wonder.

I’m not completely sure where this comes from. One can refer to the fundamentalist mind. People think it refers to super conservative church people, but it actually is a mindset. It refers to a person who likes things in neat little boxes, all tidy and a whole world gets constructed of rights and wrongs. Once they have established this nice world, they can finally relax, they have all the answers. Nobody is allowed to jeopardize that with actual facts to the contrary. They must be defeated, and they are, by naming them as suspect. They are “purveyors of lies”, they are “Marxists” or “socialists” or “one-world government” nuts. They are hucksters conspiring  to obtain grants based on known falsehoods, for the “money”. (of course nobody explains how tens of thousands are all in on this conspiracy and waste their careers getting grants to do things they know already are false). Nobody explains the lack of logic of it all.

One can refer to self-interest, and that explains a lot too. When you poke at the angry all too sure person, they generally erupt in a retort of “we’re going to be taxed to death, and all for nothing!” That is the crux of the issue when you puncture the pus-filled wound they carry around with them. They hate taxes, hate everything they perceive is keeping them from retaining every dime they make.

That is why the GOP mantra is so attractive. They not only support the angry right and it’s desire to pay less taxes, they give them all the reasoning as to why they need not feel guilty about it either. If you show them statistics that prove that raising the minimum wages doesn’t result in an uptick in the unemployment numbers and that it results in raising up the wages of all workers, they retort with a firm “no it doesn’t, all it does it deny poor black kids a chance at a job, and perpetuate poverty, which is all Democrats want because then they have a ready-made electorate who want those handouts.”

It’s so nice when people tell you aren’t racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or wrong period. It’s nice to be told that you are right in denying full rights to gay couples because “God wants it that way.” Nice to deny SNAP to women and children because it just “encourages laziness and relying on the government”. It’s nice to  leave the planet in a mess to the next generation because a few opportunists are willing to assure you that it’s really okay and you shouldn’t be scammed by and forced to pay more taxes to encourage green technology.

So, add another point to how to determine when you are hearing the truth, or when you are hearing what somebody wants you to believe for their own purposes. Are they sure? If they are, and they don’t have the background to make that determination, look for something else at play, and tread carefully when you make your decision of what you believe.

Belief and surety are not the same.

When Truth Becomes Truthiness and Worse

Tags

abortion rights, editorial, Election 2012, Romney, truth, truthiness

I’m not sure I know what truth is any more.

Truth: the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality.

Fact: a piece of information presented as having objective reality.

Reality: the quality or state of being real.

Real: having objective independent existence.

Got all that? Know what it means now?

Nah, neither to do I.

Worse yet, fully 50% of all that is TRUE NOW, won’t be true in the future. Just think of that. fifty percent of what you believe to be true today will be proven to actually be false sooner or later.

We are awash in a political election cycle that is mired in falsity. Each side claims the other is fraudulently stating the “facts” about X, Y and Z. “Independent” think tanks of various persuasions either corroborate A’s version as portraying reality accurately or expose it as a lie. A growing number of fact-checkers can’t seem to agree and admit that their subjective beliefs interfere with their conclusions.

Truth becomes what is believable because it “sounds” good. A potential voter who has admittedly paid zero attention to the political scene and thus is tabula rasa, claims that she will probably vote for Romney because “he seemed to sound like he knew what he was talking about.”

Truth becomes what is recalled from months and months of repetition heard as one prepared the dinner, sorted the laundry, gathered the trash to put out for pick up. “They keep saying that Obama wants to tax me to pay for deadbeats.”

Truth becomes what we synthesize from our years of social interaction, what seems logical, what jives with our worldview, what agrees with that which would subjectively make our lives better. It is fed by our prejudices, known and hidden behind years of denial. Convenience is the mother of truth. It is more convenient to believe what I think will give me a leg up. It’s easier to disbelieve that which pokes me in my conscience, telling me that I have failed to take care of those less fortunate.

Truth is what absolves me of responsibility for all the things I don’t have time to be responsible for. I have enough trouble being responsible for paying the bills and feeding the dog. I don’t want to have to worry about your health care. That’s your problem.

See how easy it is?

Truth is damn relevant. It’s damn relevant to whatever I need it to be.

But I hold onto it. I caress it, and polish it, and put it up on a pedestal and claim for all the world to know that I support the TRUTH. And if you have a different one on your pedestal then, well by damn and damnation, yours is false and you know it is. You’re mendacious, I’m just a good citizen with patriotism oozing from my pores.

Now I’m not really being relative. Truth is objective to a big extent, and if EVERYONE PAID ATTENTION TO THE SAME DEGREE, AND LISTENED WITH AN OPEN MIND, MOST OF US WOULD AGREE ON WHAT WAS TRUTH. Most of us. But most of us aren’t paying attention.

It is scary as all heck that Willard M. Romney, lied through his teeth (objectively speaking) and won a debate because he “sounded” good. Worse, a bunch of these “sound” good people will probably decide this election, and it depends on what that last impression is before they wander to the polling booth. Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. It will just be the last “sounding good” thing they remember.

And I know what Churchill meant when he said that Democracy was the worst form of government except for all the rest. And I know what Plato meant when he said that One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

And it makes me feel depressed.

By the by, William Saletan has a very complete and comprehensive article on the devolution evolution of Willard’s stance on abortion and women’s health issues. Every woman should be fully aware of exactly what they can expect from him. He sure won’t tell you the truth. You have to figure it out.

And by the by, I ran into a great little site with some fun and enjoyable poetry that you might take a look at. It’s called:Poems and Ponderings.

Have a good one, and keep your head down.

Related articles

• Cognitive researchers find truth in Colbert’s ‘truthiness’ (rawstory.com)
• Sophia A. McClennen: Truthiness Is Not a Joke: Lying and Loving It at the NRC (huffingtonpost.com)

 

Fundamentally Futile

Tags

fundamentalism, psychology, truth

I’ve often concluded that I’ve said everything I have to say about fundamentalism. I end up being wrong. I find something new to add.

When I speak of it, I just don’t mean the fundogelicals, the religiously obtuse. I also refer to all those folks who operate in the same fashion, taking as truth that which they desire to be true. That’s the working definition we’ll be using.

I kind of came to this after reading an extraordinarily good article in Esquire yesterday, Greetings from Idiot America. For, in fact, the same mindset is at work in both groups. That is why to some degree I think that the wacko religious right and the wacko political right will  find each other understandable.

Note I said understandability. That is the problem. To most of us, hereafter called the rational world, such people are plainly not understandable. It seems impossible for such moronic people to hold down jobs and, well actually walk and chew gum at the same time. It would be easy to just assume that these folks are all of sub-intelligence, for indeed they talk that way sometimes.

“We’ve been attacked,” he says, “by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.” (this uttered by Pastor Ray Mummert during the Dover, PA “intelligent design controversy)

Indeed! For in a real sense, it is education that is under attack in America as the Esquire article points out so well. But it is far more than that.

Alan Bloom suggested it in his classic, The Closing of the American Mind. Paraphrasing, Bloom suggested that the fundamentalist mind is amazing. It has the ability to erect a wall that allows contradictory beliefs to be held at the same time, all the while, never allowing them to meet and thus cause a conflict.

I think it does even more than that. The wall is not just an internal one that keeps geology as it relates to finding fossil fuels a good thing from intersecting with  geology  that makes claims about the ancient age of the earth evil . No the wall is external as well.

The wall is a decision to believe that something is true, and then believing it in the face of any and all evidence to the contrary, no matter what, forever. Everything then coming from the outside world meets this wall and must pass inspection. When no conflict is seen, it can be accepted, if it fails, it is simply rejected.

This is what Pierce means in the Esquire piece when he says:

 Never has a nation so dedicated itself to the proposition that not only should its people hold nutty ideas but they should cultivate them, treasure them, shine them up, and put them right there on the mantelpiece.

What this means is that you can spend a lifetime trying to explain truth to these people and never gain so much as a centimeter of progress. It is akin to trying to teach particle physics to a four-year old. Their brains are not functioning in a mode that makes them able to comprehend what you are talking about.

The trouble is, they think everybody thinks this way, backwards. And they don’t realize that on the day-to-day activities of life, they don’t either. We could accomplish nothing if we did. Yet, they honestly believe that those who oppose them, who don’t believe the bible is literally true as historical fact, and  that trickle down economics won’t  secure them a financially secure future at the car wash if only we will let business be; they honestly believe that we make the opposite assumptions about the world and then go in search of backup “facts” to support our preconceived beliefs.

They really do believe this. That is why they can so easily ignore all that we bring them. They assume our facts are simply created to win the battle and control their lives.

What they do not get is that one doesn’t come to such a bizarre mindset as a matter of course. It is the result of a deep-seeded fear. Of course they don’t feel fearful at all, and will laugh if you tell them this. But their mindset was developed precisely to eliminate the fear. It is fear of the unknown, and fear that the future, the world is ultimately unknowable. It is fear of non-existence. It is a fear of insecurity.

When this fear becomes so great that living becomes difficult, the mind searches for security. Anything that will make life livable without the constant nagging fear that it all means nothing. Religion is not in and of itself a bad thing, nor is food, or alcohol, or even perhaps recreational drugs. All become bad however, when they are used to force down the fear of the unknown future.

The fundamentalist mind finds relief in answers, answers in the bible or from Fox Noise, it matters little which one. They offer relief from uncertainty, from guilt, and from not knowing. They offer people and things to blame other than oneself. They allow one to be selfish and not feel any remorse.

The fear must be intense, because the solution is so absolute. Absolute fidelity to the “belief” is essential. No crack can be allowed. Any and all contrary evidence is misguided, or intentional to gain the upper hand for the other side, or the work of Satan.

This is exactly what the GOP and the Neo-Cons have learned to exploit. Pray on fear, ease guilt about being selfish, and point the finger somewhere else.

The nutty right can hear and see that there is another side, but they cannot allow even a tiny seed of doubt to enter into their minds. If they do, all is lost, God will forsake them, or the security they have so assiduously constructed will tumble into dust.

That’s my take anyhow.

***

For a response to the biblical belief that God will never allow the earth to be destroyed, and thus we have no such thing as “climate change” read James McGrath’s post.

And for a sort of related post by OKJimm on Veterans Day and the futility of arguing with the right-wing nuttery see this post. 

Related Articles

• Arguing With Liberals: An Exercise in Futility (dakotavoice.com)

Is Anyone the Wiser?

Tags

bible, Corinthians, God, Jesus, Matthew, parables, Paul, Talents, truth, wisdom

I’m often befuddled by why the certain scriptures are joined together in the daily and Sunday readings. I often do not see the fit.

Today, for better or worse, I do. Beware: I know not what this may mean. Either I’ve been enlightened, or what passes next will be worthless.

In the first reading, Paul speaks to the Corinthians: “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; . . .” 1Cor.1:27.

There are many other instances where Paul, the psalmists, and others enjoin us to set aside our worldly wisdom and pride and listen to the Lord. Jesus himself did as well.

Now the fundogelicals (coined by Grumpy Lion), would have us believe that higher education and all that “fancy” learnin’ is being condemned here, and God is really telling us that the common average person need only read the actual words of his book, and receive the perfect truth unto all things.

But I don’t think that is what Paul or any of the others is really saying. And I believe the attached Gospel reading informs us as to the true meaning.

In Matthew 25: 14-30, Jesus tells the parable of the Talents. In the story, the Master, going on a trip, parcels out his wealth among his servants to care for. He gives no instructions, but gives the largest amount to the most competent, giving only one talent to the third, and apparently, least competent of his servants.

The first two servants take the Talents given them and invest them, by trading. The third, fearful of losing the Master’s money buries his Talent for safekeeping. We don’t know what kind of speculation and risk the first two ran, only that they were successful in doubling what had been given them. But the risk appears to have been certain.

The Master receives his servants and is pleased with the first two, and outraged at the third who exclaims that knowing the Master to be harsh and one who by apparent quick wits is able to make money without any work, has thus hid his one  Talent without risking anything.

I have often been puzzled by this parable. Certainly I see that Jesus is saying that God is sending out servants to do the work of conversion and bringing the people to God. The third, fearful of God’s wrath, doesn’t “preach” to anyone, but only remains “secure” in his own salvation. This I get.

But the story seems not the way of the world, not how we would expect the Master to respond. Why does he congratulate those who took his money and risked losing it, and condemn the one who protected his funds?

This is what Paul is referring to. Jesus upsets our standard thinking. The way of the wise, in the world, would praise the third servant for protecting the assets of his Master. But God wants us to risk ourselves because only in doing so do we really gain our salvation. It is by risking ourselves for the sake of others that pleases God.

We are taught that the lessons of God are not the lessons of the world, and are framed in ways that jar and upset us. They make us think!

This is no denigration of learning or conventional wisdom. God has no desire that we remain in caves living simple hunter-gatherer lives. He gave us marvelous minds and he wishes us to use them. We are to discover electricity, the uses of the atom, the live-saving properties of plants. We are to learn the methodology of how live evolved upon this planet.

All this is good and proper. All this can enrich life and make it better for all.

But, only if, IF we remember that God’s wisdom is quite another thing. God has no need of wisdom about thermodynamics or string theory. He knows the ways of His universe all too well. His wisdom is “other” and is at odds with our world of logic and induction and deduction.

This is why Jesus’ parables are always difficult. They cut across the grain of our sensibilities and alert us that important stuff is about to come. We cannot dismiss the seeming illogic of the parable of the talents because it was told by our Lord, and thus we must ponder and think it out, and realize the hidden truth.

The truth is not made obvious, because superficial acknowledgement is not true faith. Faith requires time and attention. If we seriously love, we seriously spend time thinking about God and what he would have us do.

If we seriously love God, then we seriously love each other, and we seriously do our important brainy things with the good of all in mind. We turn our considerable mind talents to increase the betterment of life for all God’s creatures, the good, the bad, the gifted, the simple, the eager, the lazy, the old and the young. For great and small, we prepare and risk ourselves in doing our best to express our love through our works.

And thus, we are able to proclaim as Paul does “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

I Never Lie. I’m Lying.

Tags

beliefs, bible, critical thinking, dispensationalism, facts, fundamentalism, GOP, Politics, psychology, rapture, the big lie, truth

I don’t know what your experience with lying is, but I recall a few things that I’ve learned.

1. Parents tend to look with disfavor at lying and punish accordingly. It is seldom a rewarding experience to be caught in deliberate falsehood.

2. It is exceedingly difficult to never get caught lying. There are simply too many factors to be controlled, and some of them aren’t within your sphere. Again, consequences can be most distasteful.

3. Nowhere is it worse to lie and get caught than as a lawyer. Deliberately ignoring the case that destroys yours in the hopes that neither the opposing counsel nor the judge will come across it is risky. If they do, you have lost all credibility for mostly forever. You may face disciplinary action as well if your actions are deemed egregious.

4. Friends tend to disappear when you are caught lying to them. Honesty is a hallmark of friendship, along  with loyalty, and dependability.

5. Jesus and God seemed mostly opposed to the idea. Enough said.

Therefore, I have continually scratched my head in wonder as I have watched for the past several years as the GOP and its members have lied in the most bold manner imaginable. And have gotten caught at it, and basically haven’t paid a penalty.

A few days ago, I linked you to an article on facts and how they are seemingly unimportant to some folks.  If you didn’t get a chance to read it, or to refresh your memory, studies (many in fact) prove that even when people are presented with incontrovertible facts, they tend to believe what they did before. They in essence, ignore truth.

Sadly the more passionate one is, the more one is inclined to do this. This explains of course quite well such people as teabaggers and the whole Foxy Faux News thing. Conservatives oddly or not so oddly, ignore the facts when presented and apparently truth doesn’t even register. Liberals recognize the facts as such, but apparently argue around them to maintain their original belief.

The GOP, perhaps by hiring some “message” guys and gals learned that they could lie with impunity and still get their point adopted by those who were predisposed to believe their message. I recall a guy, whose name eludes me (he’s been interviewed and participated in public opinion discussions many times), talking about how he helped craft the GOP message. Word choice was critical. Certain words were deliberately chosen to evoke knee jerk responses and favorable images to the listener. This was coupled by having the party in general repeat the key words every chance they could. So there was a blitzkrieg of the phrase. It was eventually picked up by the faithful as truth regardless of the actual facts. (See death panels.)

Now, we have discussed many times what it is about some people that make them susceptible to messages that are illogical and ultimately harm their own economic position and even more so, cut across their supposed “Christianity.” The GOP has been able to delve into that deep place of anxiety, worry, and uncertainty, and present a message, much like biblical fundamentalism, that is simple, complete and “patriotic.”

Marrying fundamentalist notions of biblical literalcy, with patriotism, and with Founding Fathers revisionist history, has proved fruitful for some years now. Positions that seem racist, class oriented, misogynist, and otherwise unjust to the rest of us, are somehow transformed into Constitutionally mandated recipes for being a true Christian and a real citizen.

This is heady stuff, and as the study shows, most hard to combat. No mere presentation of truth will suffice here to dissuade such fervent belief. In fact, the “truth” is really just seen as falsehood and expected from the powers of evil sent by secular devils.

I think that from my reading and experience such types cannot be changed. I recently read a short paper on dispensationalism and the Left Behind series. The author showed, easily of course, the insane and silly biblical analysis that results in this kind of thinking. The very idea of being raptured into the clouds is a simple exegetical misunderstanding of the word apantesis, found in Thess. 4:17.

The author of the Boston Globe article finds that there may be only one effective solution. When the lies are stated, they must be immediately called out. This of course is what Media Matters and various fact checker sites attempt to do, but of course, you wouldn’t know that unless you follow those websites.

Joe Keohane, writing the “facts backfire” article, points to the moderators and interviewers as the place to start. Journalists used to, as a matter of course, know their subject, ask piercing questions, and point out weak arguments. They don’t any more. They appear to think their purpose is to give the interviewee time to make his case without comment.

The author argues that their feet must be put to the fire. There need to be consequences to what one says. Embarrassment on national television is a fine way to start. At least, it will impact the vast middle, who are not either rabidly left or right. They will register the correction, and be wary of such purveyors of untruth in the future.

One thing that was not stated in the article by Mr. Keohane, is that we can insist that our primary educational institutions do a much better job of teaching critical thinking and listening. That cuts neither for or against liberalism or conservatism. It makes everyone better at understanding truth. It helps to mold belief that is based on objective facts rather than “gut” reactions, and perhaps unknown personal bigotries that help support a comfortable worldview.

As to parents perhaps they need spend a bit more time trying to help their children develop such abilities while we await our schools to do their jobs. We need to start somewhere. We must start now. Unless you enjoy living in a nation that gets more and more schizophrenic with each passing year. Your choice.