God, Religion and All That

Which is more important, that you believe in God or that God believes in you?  Excluding atheists and most agnostics, I believe most people would say that the latter is more important.  I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic, but my concept of God, cultivated through years of, well, OK, I have no special credentials, is reasonably unconventional.  I'll lay it out for you, and you can tell me if it's unconventional or not.

I don't believe in the anthropomorphized God with the six-pack abs on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  I don't believe that God is a third party.  I do believe that God is the massive chaos that is our existence.  Note that I did't say that God created the massive chaos, but rather that God is the massive chaos.  Within that maelstrom of randomness lie possibilities.  Given the random chance that a vast array of possibilities interact at the right random moment, our universe might form.  Further, that haphazard occurrence might set in motion a series of seemingly disconnected stray events that lead to us.  That it took such an huge span of time and a complex evolutionary process speaks to the very randomness of it all.


As I see it, the magnificence of God is that within the swirling maelstrom of existence there are seemingly endless possibilities that, given the right combination of circumstances, could lead to virtually anything.  Of course my concept means that God can't and doesn't answer prayers or "care" about us or, really, anything else.  Thus we come to religion.


For as  long as higher functioning mammals have roamed the earth, they have been curious as to how they got here, why things happen and what can they do to control their destinies.  Early religions developed because they seemed to provide some answers.  Over time, tribal or family or clan leaders used religion as a tool to create civil societies and use the supposed power of deities for a wide variety of social purposes from creating health rules to establishing the dominance of some over others.  The more humans learned, the more complex and sophisticated their religious and societal structures became.


Modern religions are very regimented and organized indeed.  And yet a common refrain of religious leaders and adherents when something happens that seems to be inexplicable within their frameworks, is to say something to the effect of "We cannot know God's mind." Of course, they are right because God doesn't have a mind.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  Because they can.  It's not very soothing to the troubled hearts and minds of those afflicted, but it's true.  Heaven and hell?  Ridiculous.  God has nothing to do with religion.


So let's get to marriage.  Marriage is one of those societal institutions created to provide communal structure.  It have been pretty effective in doing that.  When religion was the pre-eminent vehicle of social organization, mating came under its purview and marriage was the result.  It was done in the context of religion because everything was done in the context of religion.  Civil governments merely recognized the supremacy of the religious order rather than create a parallel system.  It's worked pretty well for a long time, sort of.  The only problem was that in those early and, frankly, not so early societies, women were seen as chattel property of their families and could be bartered or sold into marriage.  Biblical marriage included polygamy and a whole bunch of other seemingly bizarre  arrangements.  Love was just not a factor.


In recent centuries, the concept of romantic love has entered the picture and screwed things up.  Some cultures, and you know who you are, still treat women as chattel.  I can't speak for other countries, but the United States has embraced the notion of romantic love.  In addition, the Constitutional prohibition of government establishment of religion has required the creation of a civil marriage system parallel to the religious system.  That civil alternative grants the right to religious authorities to act as agents of the state performing marriage rights in the religious system.


One of the effects of the civil marriage system has been the facilitation of marriage between partners of different religions.  There's been a lot of consternation over this among religious leaders and devout adherents.  We Jews, being a minority religion, have been slammed pretty hard.


In my salad days, I was dating a really terrific Catholic woman.  She had it all.  But I couldn't bring myself to marry  someone who wasn't Jewish.  She felt the same way, so we broke it off.  Fortunately, I met a terrific Jewish woman who had it all and then some, and we've been married for over thirty years.  My former girlfriend hasn't been so fortunate.  While I haven't actually spoken to her, a common friend has, and she never married.  When it comes to kids, I've found that the desire to have them date within the culture is trumped by getting to know the people they are dating and seeing how happy they make my progeny.  Still, given the fact that I am a secular Jew, entirely non-religious, I find it curious that this carries any weight in my consideration at all.  Turns out, it's not the religion, but the cultural roots, principles and ideals surrounding it that are important.


When it comes to same sex marriages, I have to say I don't care who marries who.  It's none of my business, and it's none of any government's business.  No one is telling any religious institution that it has to perform same sex marriage rituals.  In fact, one of the nice things about having a civil marriage path is that marriage can be religion free.  Those who oppose same sex marriage on religious grounds are intent on imposing their beliefs on others, and that is just un-American.  Of course there is Robin Williams' rationale for supporting same sex marriage.  He famously asked why gay people shouldn't be as miserable as the rest of us.


There is one question raised by a former student of mine on Facebook.  He asked if we should be free to marry whomever we want, what about polygamy?  I'm not talking about compelling twelve year olds to marry, but just in principle, why should we care?  If you are OK with same sex marriage, are you OK with polygamy?

The Failure of the American Experiment

Everyone is talking about the massive flow of anonymously donated money into the Presidential campaign, and with good cause.  Hundreds of millions of dollars will be used to try to sway the electorate to support principally Mitt Romney, that's where the money is, by attacking Barack Obama.  But this is just one part of the overall scenario being plotted by the right wing.  There's more, much more.

The right is hedging its bets.  Mitt Romney has proven to be a less than inspiring figure.  The religious right doesn't trust his Mormon faith.  The political right is wary of his willingness to change positions whenever it seems to suit him politically, and they properly see Obamacare as merely a national application of the Romneycare that Romney sponsored in Massachusetts.  So while they want a Republican in the White House, they aren't resting there.  Tens of millions of dollars have already been spent against Democratic incumbents and candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives, and they are prepared to spend tens of millions more to keep the House and take over the Senate.

Here's what's going on as I see it, and this is my blog, so, you know...  These folks have learned that divided government doesn't work.  This is a lesson that monopolists during the industrial revolution learned.  Being in complete control makes life really easy.  Teddy Roosevelt broke up those business monopolies, but only American voters can keep a check on government.  So the strategy is to control all three branches of government and then pass the laws they believe will make it very hard for the opposition to take it back.

State governments have been playing their parts already.  The voter fraud laws that Republican states have been passing are thinly veiled attempts to suppress turnout among the elderly, poor and young voting blocks that generally vote Democrat.  These laws are no more than modern versions of the poll tax of yore.  There is no voter fraud in the United States to speak of.  The old party machines that registered dead people have all been demolished.

The GOP members of Congress have focused on pushing right wing social issues, and those who tell us to shrug it off as mere campaign rhetoric are being disingenuous because if the Republicans get control of the Senate and White House and continue to control the House, they have promised to enact these laws.

Unlike too many liberals, the Republicans understand that the key issue in this and any other election is who will be appointing the judges, not just to the Supreme Court, but to the lower courts too.  They have failed to fill judgeships under the Obama Administration because their agenda demands that they hold off until they take the Presidency so those appointments will be of ultra right wing jurists and overturning decades of settled law can accelerate even more than it has under the Roberts Court.

What I'm saying here is that there is a right wing agenda that has been developing over the years since the ascendance of Ronald Reagan, who couldn't win a primary in today's GOP by the way.  Their patience is paying off.  The press has been cowed into timidity, except for Fox News the aggressive coordinating mouthpiece for the radical right.  The American public has been pushed to the right by the inability of a gutless, spineless Democratic leadership to press the cause of liberalism.

Only concerted efforts to inform and convince American voters that their interests are and have always been best advanced by liberals.  Not only will it take money to help neutralize the plutocrats that dominate the political process but it will also take organizing and hitting the streets.  We need to pitch in if we want to protect our rights.

The End of the American Century

When last we met, I talked about the failure of the United States to preserve its manufacturing base and called for a national manufacturing policy.  Today I want to address some of the reactions I received.   So get a beverage and/or a snack and let's get to it.

You may recall that I think the concept of the level playing field to be a fiction.  The first step to prosperity is to re-tilt the playing field toward us.  This sounds simple but it isn't.  The World Trade Organization erects many barriers to fair trade.  Tariffs and quotas are largely off the table unless we can make an effective case for dumping by our competitors.  Please remember that we don't have trading partners, only competitors.  Of greater difficulty is overcoming the opposition of those who are benefitting from the current situation.

My earlier comments resulted in my getting a few emails lauding "free trade."  (n.b. Why do people send me emails instead of just posting in that comment box under the blog post itself?)  They rehashed the usual arguments about the supposed benefits.  They also rely on the belief that there is such a thing as free trade.  Hey folks, there is no free trade.  Manipulating currency and using banking rules to help your homeland companies is not free trade.  Establishing quality criteria that only your homeland companies can meet without expensive testing that must be conducted in your homeland labs and takes weeks to complete is not free trade.  Looking aside as your homeland companies violate intellectual property laws while rigorously enforcing them against foreign companies, including the actual IP holders, is not free trade.

Wake up and smell the melamine laced coffee!  Until the United States gets the spine to address these issues, we will continue to suffer from repeated economic rape by off shore competitors.  Until the United States stops using the tax code to reward companies for exporting American jobs, we will continue to be pistol whipped by foreign competitors.  The Federal government is so incapacitated by partisan conflict that it can't decide anything.  That is our fault.  We voters need to clear out the inflexible ideologues who are allowing our nation to suffer continued body blows.  This group is made up of right wing radicals and cowardly Democrats.  Our votes matter.  The future of the country depends on the use of our power to make our government do what must be done.  If we don't act, the era of American ascendancy will end, and we will only be able to look back on the American Century and weep what we have given up.

Please share your views.  Guess what? You can use that box right under this post!  Nifty, huh?