McCain's Sister Souljah Moment

On Tuesday, McCain was forced to apologize for comments made by conservative talk radio host Bill Cunningham at a campaign event in Cincinnati. Cunningham referred to the Democratic presidential hopeful as Barack Hussein Obama and said the Illinois senator as "a hack, a Chicago-style" politician.

This incident is reminiscent of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, in which he rebuked political activist and hip-hop musician Sister Souljah. She was quoted in The Washington Post as saying "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?".

Clinton and McCain are both making the same play for the vital center by rebuking the extremes of their party. The talk show nuts who won't endorse McCain will turn out to be a net gain for the senator, who again reinforced his long-standing reputation for both principle and ethics. With the ascendency of both of Obama and McCain, by now it must have dawned on the likes of Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Cunningham that their influence on the direction of national elections is nil. Those who listen to or read these rants may be less ditto heads than folks that like to slow down for a car wreck.

In the same week that Cunningham babbled his babble, the erudite William F. Buckley, Jr. died. It's a rare week when I don't read his journal The National Review. He exemplified the best in conservatism, with his broad friendships, relentless curiosity and rationality, engaging wit, and Christian spirit. It's ironic and perhaps fitting that we may be seeing the death of the conservative movement as well this year. In a perverse kind of Gresham's law, bad conservatives are not only driving out good conservatives from the marketplace of ideas. They are also turning those conservatives into liberals.

James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge Ends

The shamens cheer.

http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/145/1/#i5

The Iseman Cometh

Squeals of outrage greeted the news of possible trafficking between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain and a shadowy, Stepfordesque lobbyist Vicki Iseman. It says much for our current state of journalism that whether or not it is true or relevant is beside the point for many people. It's truth is beside the point because of the long history of Republican politicans have have bedded and lied their way to power. It's relevancy is beside the point because these kind of scandals are old news and have so eroded the credability of politicans generally that it is impossible to take their denials seriously.

Only today, the FBI announced a 35 count indictment against Republican Congressman Rick Renzi, the co-chair of the McCain Arizona presidential campaign. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire. And so it's hard to take McCain's protestations of innocence seriously under the circumstances. That said, as a tactical and as an ethical matter, while this is a legitimate news investiation, Democratic candidates should ignore this and stick to expounding on policy differences. Going to the dark side is always tempting, but it only distracts from what drives voter loyalty, which is confidence in their candidate's character.




Influence Peddler

Sweet Barking Cheese

Sweet Barking Cheese.

That's the name for our cat that I'm trying to sell to my family, but I'm facing some resistence.







It reminds me of that wonderful poem by T.S. Eliot on this particular challenge.

The Naming Of Cats

by T. S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first
I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular
Name.

A Sacrament-free Faith

Catholics recognize confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction as sacraments, in addition to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Many Protestant churches recognize only baptism and the Lord’s Supper (or what my boy calls “that thing you do at church with the blood and flesh”). Some apostolic churches have a third sacraments—holy sealing-- the passing of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands by church elders. But on what authority are there any ordinances? Doesn’t Jesus command us to do much more than just these acts? Because sacraments are done without exception within the context of the institutional church, I believe that the observance of any sacraments is a form of sacerdotalism—an attempt by the clergy to mediate between me and God by imposing on me requirements that have nothing to do with my faith in God. I think we can affirm our faith with baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be an obligation.

Baptism and church membership are the external criteria of faith, and a true follower of Jesus is one who keeps his beliefs free from heresy and tries to live a moral life. But these seem to be minimal and possibly even irrelevant criteria. Faith is not an intellectual assent to dogmatic propositions but a commitment of one’s entire being, directed not just to myself, but also to my neighbor and the world. Christian ethics provides us with the tools to deal with the world with all its challenges. The only law for a Christian is to be a fully-devoted follower of Christ who, in the words of Micah 6:8, will "do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with God." Thus, to the question: how many sacraments are we obliged to follow? I would answer: none.

Even a cursory glance at church history will show the many schisms and sometimes violent wars between nations that were created in arguments over sacraments and succession. Is it relevant if someone is baptized with a drop of water or with a dunking, or if you believe that the wine (or grape juice for us Baptists) at the Lord’s Supper is Jesus’ blood or represents Jesus’ blood (the transubstantiation versus consubstantiation debate)? I think what really matters is that we try to follow Jesus by rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.

If I’m right on this point, it would also follow that the doctrine of apostolic succession is not true or necessary. The Catholics believe God’s authority passes from generation to generation starting from Peter, through Linus, Cletus, and Clement to the present day Pope. The Mormons and some other churches believe that succession was broken through apostasy and has since been restored through their church and scriptures. Ephesians 4: 11-14 are verses used to justify the succession, where God gives to different people different abilities “for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.” But no where in these verses or any else does the Bible suggest that man can confer God’s grace or authority to other men. The transmission of these gifts is not through the church or the apostles or their delegates. Since our relation is to God not through the church, such a succession was never needed.

World Atheism in Retreat

I recently browsed through two books recently: David Martin's Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America and David Aikman's Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power.

The facts are both amazing and counter-intuitive. A few decades ago, for example, there were hardly any evangelical Christians in Brazil. Now there are 50 million. In 1950, Brazil had 50 million Catholics. Now it has 120 million Catholics. According to Aikman, in a few decades, China will become the largest Christian country in the world. Currently, an estimated 100 million Christians in China workship in underground evangelical and Catholic churches. In Korea, there are numerous mega-churches with more than 10,000 members and is the world's second largest source of Christian missionaries, with 12,000 preaching the faith abroad. The Catholic church in the Philippines reports 60 million members and is projected to have 120 million by mid-century.

Atheism is still strong in Cuba, but with today's news of Castro's resignation, even that may change within a generation.

Men and women of faith are on the march all over the world.

A Good Cleaning

http://www.chunkysalsa.net/screenclean.swf

Juno

Reluctantly, I went with my wife to see the movie Juno. I was reluctant to see this movie because what little I knew about it involved a unplanned pregnancy. I usually don't like to see chick-flicks with a message. But I'm glad I went, and I recommend it.

The jist is that Juno MacGruff, a 16 year old, discovers she is pregnant by her friend Paulie Bleeker. She decides to have the baby and puts the child up for adoption with an affluent
couple. However, Mac, the father, decides to divorce Vanessa, who wants to adopt the child. Vanessa ends up keeping the baby boy and Juno and Paulie struggle to return to a normal, caring relationship.

It could have easily turned into a pro-choice or pro-life tract. To the contrary, it put both extremes in a poor light. Little of the movie dwealt on what led to the pregnancy. It seemed to be a combination of boredom and soft music. Neverthless, the consequences of keeping the child was portrayed in such a way as to make any teenager think twice about becoming pregnant. The movie all of the cross currents that attend such pregnancies-- the struggle to maintain respect from parents and peers, combined with fear, doubt, sickness, hopelessness, and hope.

I thought Ellen Page who played Juno was especially good. It wouldn't surprise me if this movie won an Academy Award or two.

Fire Museum Director Jeff Hunt

The Arizona Republic reported today that the director of a Texas museum destroyed a diorama that was donated by high school students because it was "historically inaccurate." Jeff Hunt, executive director of the Texas Military Forces Museum, demolished the ten by five foot diorama of the Battle of Palmetto Ranch. Gilbert Highland students invested about $23,000 and hundreds of hours of effort to create the representation of the last land battle of the Civil War.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0214gr-diorama0214-ON.html#comments

Here is a picture of the Stalinoid Mr. Hunt.

http://www.texasmilitaryforcesmuseum.org/musnews.htm

And here is what he did:







I cannot imagine that any school would ever want to have their student's contribute to this museum. And nor can I imagine anyone wanting to donate a penny or even visit this museum under these circumstances.

If I was a volunteer to this museum, I would quit. If I was a paid employee, I would resign. If I lived in Texas, I would shun this outpost of ignorance. If I was a legislator, I would cut all funding to this institution. And if I was on the board of directors of this museum, I would immediately fire Jeff Hunt and compensate Gilbert High.

So many students look at history as something that is irrelevant, detached from their lives, and boring. Nothing can be further from the truth. History is as relevant as the shows we watch and inseparable from our lives and our future. I am reminded of the words of philosopher George Santayana: "Thosewho cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Hunt's impetuous, vainglorious actions, so remininscent of another alumni of the Texas military, can only deter students from showing any interest in remembering the past to avoid future mistakes.

Here is how to make your voice heard if you are disturbed by Hunt's actions:

Office: (512) 782-5659
Museum: (512) 782-6967
Email: museum@tx.ngb.army.mil
Executive Director: Jeff Hunt
Texas Military Forces Museum
P.O. Box 5218
Austin, Texas
78763-5218

Texas Military Forces. http://www.agd.state.tx.us/

Governor Rick Perry Information and Referral: 1-800-843-5789
Citizen's Opinion Hotline: 1-800-252-9600
Office of the Governor, P.O. Box 12428, Austin, Texas 78711
Phone: (512) 463-2000
Information and Referral: 1-800-843-5789

Salieri Rodham Clinton

There is a scene in the 1984 Academy Award winning movie Amadeus that remind me of Hillary's current predicament. The film is loosely based on the lives of Austrian composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. In the movie, the irreverant yet immensely talented Mozart humilates Salieri. At an audience with the emperor, Mozart transforms Salieri's "March of Welcome" intothe "Non più andrai" march from his opera, The Marriage of Figaro.






In sports, there are people that make what they do best look easy. In academics, we have all encountered that quick study who spends the quarter shooting hoops and hanging out and then aces the course. Most of us are plodders. We sweat through life and nothing comes especially easy. Such is also true with Hillary. It cannot be a happy time in Hillaryland with money and polls ebbing and prospects of her nomination lookign increasingly distant.

Some of where Hillary is today has to do with bad political choices, her assumption that this was her time, and that she had to position herself for the general election by pre-pandering to conservatives. But it also has to do with character in contrast to Obama's character. While she sweats through her positions paper, he invokes hope, change, and the future. While she defines herself in terms of combat and conquest, he looks for concilation and compromise. The paradox is that Clinton if she is nominated would in many respects be an echo of McCain, ideologically siblings. By contrast, the temperamentally moderate Obama has staked out a far more contrasting position ideologically, while framing his approach in terms of national solidarity.

Hillary, the Salieri of American politics, may well have the resume and the policies, but she cannot compete against the effortless grace and vision of Obama, the Mozart of American politics.

Diary of a Cat

Excerpts from a Dog's Diary:

8:00 a.m. - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 a.m. - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 a.m. - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 a.m. - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 p.m. - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 p.m. - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 p.m. - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 p.m. - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00 p.m. - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 p.m. - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 p.m. - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat's Diary:

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the ration s perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eatsomething in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on thecarpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearlydemonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what that means, and how to use it to my advantage. Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released -- andseems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe....

For now......

The Rhinoceros in the Room

Russell on Wittgenstein.

"My German engineer, I think, is a fool. He thinks nothing empirical is knowable - I asked him to admit that there was not a rhinoceros in the room, but he wouldn't."

McCain and the Queen of Diamonds

Now that McCain is effectively the Republican nominee, the question now is how to defeat him. At first blush, he seems like a fat, aging target. McCain knows nothing about the economy, flip flops on immigration, wishes we had invested another 50,000 American lives to save Viet Nam, and wants American troops in Iraq to the year 2108. That a member of the Keating Five is the pilot of the Straight Talking Express testifies to our Alice in Wonderland that is GOP politics. But it would be a mistake to underestimate him and the foxy ruthlessness of the Republican smear machine. And so perhaps the best antidote to that is to attack him not at his weakest but at his strength, most particulary, his so-called heroism as a POW.

One way to do that is to frame McCain as fiction come to life, the Machurian Candidate. In the 1962 film, the Soviets brainwash the son of a prominant political family into becoming an unwilling assasin for the Communtist Party. During the Korean War, the Russians kidnap an American infantry patrol and take them to Manchuria, where they implant false memories and to provide a subconscious trigger in their minds-- the Queen of Diamonds playing card. The movie, with Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, is a gripping portrayal of the dark nexus between psychological and politics.





Is McCain the Manchurian Candidate? Perhaps we can use John Kerry's swiftboat to flush out some long-overdue answers. In the same spirit that allowed neocons, many of whom never served a day under fire, to tarnish Kerry's medals and service, a review of McCain's heroism might now be in order.

The following article was published in 1992 by a POW/MIA activist.

http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm

Education Tests For Voting

I remember a book I read a long time ago (must have been about 40 years) by Neville Shute - I think it was called "Beyond the Black Stump".In it there is a voting system where everybody over the age of majority has 1 vote. You then become entitled to more votes depending on various factors (which I cannot remember in detail) something allong the lines of :-Universtiy Degree - 1 voteIn full time employment (unless medically incapable) - 1 voteetc .etc.Votes can be removed as well as added, except you will never have less than 1. (e.g. votes can be removed for a criminal conviction - indeed this forms part of the "punishment")Thus you get more votes the more you can show you contribute to society and/or show a good education.The seventh vote was an "honour" bestowed on those who had contributed "over the odds" by dedicating their life to a charitable cause etc.Thus you can have anything between 1 and 7 votes.Seemed like a good idea when I read it and I still think it has quite a lot of merit, but would be difficult to administer.

I think it was William Buckley who said he would rather be ruled by the first 100 people in the Boston telephone directory than the first 100 people in the Harvard alumni directory. (That's the gist-- not an exact quote.) I consider this idea to be off the page bad. Elitism has its place in sports and science, but not in public affairs where there is a public interest in expanding the electoral franchise since public servants will make decisions that have deep and lasting effects. The reason why the US has prohibited restrictions such as property ownership and reading tests is because the courts recognize there is no relationship between judgment and intellect, and in some cases the relationship is inverse. Consider for example the Nobel Prize winners who are bigots and folks at Mensa who are infatuated with astrology.

Solipsism

"You can search the skeptical literature all you want. You will never find anyone who has ever argued, for any X, "I haven't seen X, thus X cannot exist."

Go ahead and prove me wrong. Find a quotation that says anything like that, and post it here."

I dislike the word "prove" out of context with logic, science, or law almost as much as I dislike verbal absolutisms such as "never". But to answer you question, this view has a pedigree going back to the Greek presocratic sophist Gorgias (c. 483-375 BC) who is quoted as stated:

Nothing exists;
Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and
Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.

Thus, he might say, Churchill doesn't exist, but if he does exist, his existence cannot be communicated. This relates to epistemological solipsism, in which "only the directly accessible mental contents of the solipsistic philosopher can be known." I don't know how deep an answer you want from me. The tone of your post suggests that you don't want me to get into Humean causality or Kantian idealism but were trying to score a late night point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_solipsism

Holy Joe is a No Go

While McCain was urging "our party to unite behind us", there was the Benedict Arnold of the Democratic Party nodding in raptuous agreement. The members of CPAC who jeered him this week must have looked at that scene with scorn, and the prospect of their nominee as a Lieberman Republican must have unsettled them. Here is the record of McCain's favorite Democrat, all red meat for true blue conservatives.





Lieberman is Kerry green. He co-sponsored the 1990 Clean Air Act, introduced legislation in 1991 to give consumers more information about the dangers of pesticides, and wants tolimit global warming.

In 2004, Lieberman scored a rating of 88 out of 100 by the Human Right Campaign, one of the largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality." He voted no on a constitutional ban on gay marriages.

Lieberman received an "F" rating from the NRA and a 90% from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

No one likes a traitor. The beneficiaries of treason distrust traitors no less than than those who once provided a home for them. In Liberman's case, it looks like the chickens have come roost with the Democratic Party deciding this week to strip Lieberman of his superdelegate credentials. He was disqualified under the Zell Miller rule, who attacked Kerry in a speech at the Republican National Convention. The DNC “responded with a rule disqualifying any Democrat who crosses the aisle from being a super delegate.”

C'est la guerre.

Hillary's Five Million and Romney's 35 Million

Should Hillary and Mitt take up stamp collecting?




Hillary Clinton today said that she dipped into her personal fortune to lend the campaign $5 million of her money. Since runs for political office don't involve the retailing of widgets, the only way she will recover her money is if people in the future pays her off. As to what exactly those services will be remains for yet another scandal to unfold. But as a self-professed public servant for the last 35 years, what is the source of her millions? Simon & Shuster gifted her with $8 million for her tome Living History and Bill Clinton got another $10 million for his autobiography My Life. The horse trading, back room deals, and Whitewater and commodity bonanzas are sources of subterranean streams of lucre that is so much a part of the swampland politics of Arkansas and the White House. Money, of course, is the mother's milk of politics, and that the Clinton campaign is scrambling for dollars cannot be a good sign. This is especially true as Obama is outraising the Clinton campaign by a factor of three to one.

Of course, she is following in the footsteps of Romney, who loaned his campaign $35 million dollars from his quarter billion dollar family fortune. Perhaps Mitt can look back on his 1975 classnotes from Harvard Business School to consider his return on investment-- about $1.1 million dollars per delegate.

Could it be that there are cheaper hobbies out there for bored litigators and tycoons?

An Evening With Your Dad

Wow dude, I'm reading your manifesto here, and it's pretty heavy stuff.

An Evening With Your Dad

Well done!

** I want to add to this two words: Brilliant & Beautiful.

(I wish my father had spared the time to impart the bulk of his knowledge on to me like this.)

TV When I Was A Kid

I went through grade school without an official television set in our home. My brother, who liked to tinker and had electrical aptitude, got a black and white TV in the basement to work. It lacked a back, had only three channels, and fuzzy reception, but we relished the illicit pleasure of this one eyed monster. And so, on occasion, he and I would watch some shows-- not many-- but enough to have somehow etched some fondly permanent memories. Here are a few shows that I remember from that time, roughly between 1966 and 1968.
Adam-12

Lost in Space

Sea Hunt

Sally Starr Show

Batman



I got my first TV set when I was in my early 20s and living in an apartment. One day, the tube burned out. As I was on the fourth floor, and not wanting to take it into to the dumpster below on a snowy day, I put it outside my apartment with a sign on it-- "For Sale $50." And, sure enough, someone stole it.

Historical Truth

How do we know Winston Churchill lived?

Because we've got living people who remember Churchill (including me), photos and films of him, autographs of books and papers written by him, thousands of newspaper reports of his activiites, etc. etc.

But there is a current of radical skepticism today that voids all of that to the point of solipsism, and I've seen that on this forum. Thus, the argument might go, I haven't seen Churchill, thus Churchill cannot exist. Further, even if I had seen Churchill, how can I be sure it wasn't a delusion? And certainly physical evidence can be fabricated. Reality and indeed truth as an idea has become completely subjectivized. Nothing is real except that which we convince ourselves is real, and then it is only real to us.

The broader question to me is whether there is merit in that current of historical or scientific agnosticism that claims that we cannot be sure of anything. I consider that to be an epistomological error. There is no margin of doubt that Churchill lived, and those that claim that there is a .000000 . X 10 thousandth .01 possibility that he didn't are merely being willfully ignorent. They might claim you cannot be sure as an absolute fact that you saw Churchill and they cannot be sure as an absolute fact that Churchill ever lived. They might even claim they cannot be sure that you exist or they exist! This has its roots in Karl Popper, who says you cannot prove a theory or know it is true, but you can disprove theories by proving facts that are incomaptiable with them. Thus, you cannot induct a universal truth claim, which would include the claim that Churchill lived. As applied to laboratory testing, Popperism makes scientific sense. As applied to history and philosophy generally, it defies common sense. Is there any doubt that table salt is sodium choloride, that we need oxygen to live, that professional wrestling is fake and the moon landing is real? But why is that the case? It is because in the realm of our existence, there is indeed uncertainty, and perhaps much of life is uncertain. But it does not follow that all of life is uncertain. Science and history build on a continuum from claims that are possibly certain-- "there is life on Mars"-- to those that are absolutely certain-- "Winston Churchill lived" and "some atoms are radioactive" -- from "we know that X is true" to "it is impossible to conceive that X is false".

Why I Don't Tithe

I had a student in my bible study that challenged me and some others on tithing. The guy doesn't believe in the tithing as a New Testament practice. I was searching the net for perspectives on tithing and most of the links I googled, I discovered didn't support tithing. I found this very surprising considering I've never attended a church that didn't tithe. I admit also the arguments that come which are against tithing are very persuasive (but that's doesn't mean they are true). So does anybody care to share whether they tithe or not and state their reasons?

Last year, I gave more that $12,000 to charity, but I do not tithe and nor will I tithe. I consider this to be yet one more perversion of Biblical teaching, a disconnect between what the Bible says and what preacher's preach. If you have the choice between being generous and being stingy, you must always chose generosity. Be generous with your emotions, your time, and your money. But experience has taught me two principles. First, avoid cash charity gifts to individuals, as those gifts seldom address the underlying reason for the problem and can sometimes make the problem worse. People are eager to take your money but not so keen on taking the effort to master the principles that made that money possible.

My second principle is to tithe with caution. My parents and members of my family are aggressive tithers, and it isn’t for me to question their motivations. Dad’s goal for 1991, for example, was “to contribute no less than 15 percent of income to the work of the Lord.” Perhaps the genesis of my views toward tithing came out of those tough years in and immediately after college when I was financially strapped while my parents were supporting other ministries. Whatever is the case, my view today is that I should support the church in proportion to the value that it gives my family. When I pay $1.99 for one gallon of milk, I expect one gallon of milk in return of $1.99. Value has been exchanged for value. The same is true at church. Don’t pay too much or don’t pay if the value doesn’t exist. If you believe that the value you receive from your church amounts to one or ten or fifty percent of your income, then by all means give the church the one or ten or fifty percent, but don’t write the church a check just because a man of cloth quotes Malachi 3:8 (“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But, ye say, How have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.”). No such commandment for tithing exists in the New Testament, and in fact the early church “had all things common” (Acts 2:44 ), a disquieting model for us capitalists. I sometimes ask myself when the collection plate nears: To whom goes this money? Sometimes, but certainly not always, it is a few greedy folks who live far more lavishly than anything I can imagine. Giving is a virtue, except when it is done without discernment and accountability.

There are many ways to give. And you can sometimes give most effectively by getting involved. To paraphrase President John Kennedy, don’t ask what the church can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for the church community. Authoritarian churches often make it difficult to get involved, and for such churches, I would let the plate go by with nary a cent and no regrets. A minister’s teaching on giving and the structures in place to ensure financial accountability can give you insight into the ethics of that church and whether or not you should even attend that church. I would look for another church if the preacher claimed that tithing was a moral law, or claimed that writing a check to them was identical to writing a check to God, or claimed that the financial needs of your church takes precedence over the financial needs of your family.

Is it really true no commandment for tithing exists in the New Testament? Would you be willing to demonstrate that from the Bible?

You are asking me to prove the lack of something, which is illogical. It is like asking you to prove that a commandment against biking don't exist. It cannot be done. All that you can do is prove a commandment for biking does exist.

There is a backward-looking reference to tithes in Hebrews 6:5 "the sons of Levi...take tithes of the people according to the law" but that falls far short of a principle of action for Christians.

I often hear we do not tithe anymore because Jesus or the disciples didn’t explicitly teach tithing in the New Testament. Suppose this was the case...

It either is the case or it is not the case. Which is it?

So with anything in the Law, we cannot be so quick to think that the things in the OT serve no purpose anymore just because Jesus is here. All things in the Law of Moses had purpose and I believe only when we can identify and understand their purpose can we adequately understand how that purpose applies to believer today, such as with the sacrifices. Otherwise, we're just picking and choosing what applies and what does not and bound to not divide the Word of Truth correctly.

All things had their purpose at one time. But the question is: what is culturally bound and what are transcending principles of Christianity. As I mentioned earlier, the early church held all their possessions in common, perhaps because they expected the immanent return of Christ. Are you a communist? If not, by your own logic, how can you call yourself a Christian? In terms of the levitical law, would you say a cafeteria Christian is one who does shave their head and trim their beard (Leviticus 19:27)?

So I perhaps ask a detailed and complicated question, but from my experience, many of the people who are against tithing don't understand how tithing fitted in with the Law and what the implications are now that Jesus is here. So that's why I asked what proofs could you give for tithing not being applicable anymore? It's insufficient I think to say it doesn't apply anymore because Jesus is here.

What I believe is there is no scriptural evidence at all that the New Testment teaches tithing either as a specific commandment or as an ethical principle.

My sister and I have an agreement -- to wit, if either of us wins the lottery, 10% goes off the top to educational and health-related philanthropies. That's the minimum. We even have a list.
I have been donating to Doctors Without Borders for years before they won the Nobel. I have been impressed by the willingness they have to treat both sides in any conflict situation and their work on starvation in the world. I don't give to religious organizations -- I leave that to others -- but I do believe, as a humanist, that starvation and unjust distribution of resources to be a sin.

I think playing the lottery is a sin albeit a minor one, but perhaps that's a discussion for another thread.

I think at the end of the day, motivations of giving to the church or elsewhere are not so much doctrinally based or rationally motivated than a reflection of subconscious feelings and emotions. Much of my life has consisted of an extended, heated argument with God, which, at least I see and I believe God sees as a kind of a faith and love. When some mentions the word "church" however, if was to free associate, for me the following words would pop to the surface of my mind unbidden: loneliness, cruelty, ignorance, wealth, domination. It is only when I struggle to think about it that I modify these feelings but what I know to be the deeper truth with words like this: accountability, community, adventure, wisdom, hope. Perhaps for many people on this forum, these sentiments would appear: love, home, freedom, assuredness, faith. And for those people I can see why tithing could be not just an obligation but a pleasure. I wish my sentiments were in the latter camp, but my biography is such that I it is not.

C'est la vie.

Vote For Change

Vote for Obama!

Vote for McCain!

Moderation and Nonconformity

How would you reconcile these two ideas, in personal terms?

Philippians 4:5: "Let your moderation be know to all men..."
Romans 12:2 "And be not conformed to this world..."

Doesn't prudence require that you conform to the folkways of tradition? The problem with a theory of moderation is that by definition, you allow the extremes to define what is immoderate and thereby you choose to go between those extremes. But could it be that the moderate path is the unethical path whereas the extreme path-- the path of non-prudence and non-conformity-- is the ethical path? Thus, a moderate in Bull Connor's Alabama during the Selma march would neither condone police brutality nor efforts to introduce civil rights to (as they were called back then) negroes. Does moderation ever effectuate change?

Prudence may mean going along with one's traditions or it might not.
It would not have been prudent to join King's march on Selma but it was the right thing to do. It had advantages to the whole of civilization but not to one's own best interests. Prudence is not only appreciation of the situation at hand and doing what is appropriate to that situation but it also involves doing what is appropriate to the advancement of the society as a whole. That is where arete fits in with the notion of prudence. Perhaps a prudent person would have stayed home that day but would have applied himself or herself to advancing the causes that the marchers were advocating. I don't know.

My view is that non-conformity is a a spiritual and intellectual ideal-- to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God." I understand moderation however to mean temperament-- the shape of one's mind-- in trying to communicate truth effectively but amiably.

There is a strain in Christianity that is dangerously immoderate. I have noted in my lifetime the prevalence of Christian apocalyptic death cults. In the case of Jim Jones who poisoned almost 1,000 of his followers in in 1978, he started in a mainline liberal denomination, but during his years in the jungle became an atheist. However, on the other side of the political spectrum, as right wing as Jones was left wing, you have the cultist David Koresh who immolated 84 of his followers at Waco, Texas at the time of our honeymoon. Koresh preached pre-millennialism and saw his prophecies realized when the government overreacted. And then you have in 1997, 39 members of Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate cult who killed themselves. Jones, Koresh, and Applewhite called themselves Christians, although obviously they were not. These false prophets tricked simple, trusting people and those people who died did so because they acted on an excess of blind faith and in the absence of constructive doubt and critical thought. Religious zealots truly scare me, and that motivates me to give my boys the mental tools to deal with such folk. The most dangerous people are those who take the words of Our Savior and dangerously twist them. In the 10th chapter of Matthew, Jesus says: "Think not that I come to send peace on the earth: I come not to send peace but a sword. For I come to set man at variance against his father …He that loveth his father or mother more than me; and he that loveth his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." And, on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus says "If you right eye offend thee, pluck it out…And if your right hand offend thee, cut it off." While I don't think these challenging words are words of a fanatic, they surely have fueled fanaticism, causing some unstable minds to abandon their families or harm themselves.

I'm not sure that the answer is the pursue moderation for its own sake. This basically means that we let others decide the extremes of opinions while we walk down the middle of the road where the dead skunks lie. Philosophers going back to the Greeks of the Golden Mean have recommended a life of moderation. Our hero in Daniel Defoe’s 17th century novel Robinson Crusoe had his father cast pearls of wisdom before the swine: “He bid me observe it, and I should always find, that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had fewer disasters and was not expos’d to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind.” But moderation is not always right. “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” said Arizona’s most famous liberal Barry Goldwater in a speech that was much criticized. “And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” That this was said at the high noon of the Cold War set off four-station alarm bells. But I think the basic proposition is beyond reproach. There are times when moderation is immoral and unethical.

Britney on Sunset Boulevard

They have committed the girl next door.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=511440&in_page_id=1773





Bipolar Pop Princess



Strung Out On Crystal Meth, She Screams Through the Night

A Methodist Horse Thief

Here is the president's favorite painting.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2250558,00.html






Bush has a great passion for a 1916 cowboy scene by WHD Koerner that hangs in his office. He told staff that the painting was called A Charge To Keep, a quote from his favourite Methodist hymn by Charles Wesley. He urged them to absorb the moral lesson of this "beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us," he said. But the picture originally portrayed a bad man, not a good man. It was first used in the Saturday Evening Post in 1916 to illustrate a story about a horse thief, and was captioned as a picture of his flight from the law.

Pickled Mouse Feet

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2681358.html?menu=news.quirkies

"A Slovenian woman who found a mouse foot in a jar of pickles was shocked to be told it was "completely normal".







"I was on an old boat going down the Irawaddy River in Burma and got a bowl of soup from the boat's kitchen, not really a restaurant but just cooked food being sold on the boat. Just me and a bunch of Burmese. There was a whole chicken's foot in the soup. I didn't know if they were honoring me or screwing with me, or maybe I just got lucky. So I just ate around it and tried not to think about the barnyards where it had last strutted."

The Morality of Retarded Suicide Bombers

Two mentally retarded women were fitted with bomb vests and sent to a crowded pet market milling with families and children. The bombs were remotely triggered.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22945797/

I wonder if there is a bottom somewhere that we can all agree on, an absolute of sorts. I was totally nauseated by the use of these women, who could not consent. I was nauseated at the place of the attack. After a while, you want the world to scream in outrage and I hear too few of those screams.

I would be happy to agree that one's free consent is foundational to morality. Unfortunately, this is very much a minority view it would seem, with most claiming that consent is objectively a fiction as is morality. Even people of faith use expresssions that subjectivize their moral code-- "it is true to me" or "Jesus is in my heart". The free will presumption clarifies what is moral and immoral. Consider for example your most cherished conviction, perhaps your faith in God. Let us say that someone abducted the person who you most love, say a child or parent, and said that they would murder that person unless you renounced your faith. Would you do so? The Kantian moralist would say: no, you are obligated to always tell the truth irrespective of consequences. As much as I admire the categorical imperative, here Kant is wrong in my view. Why? Kant is wrong because the predicate to morality has been violated, namely one's unconstrained capacity to be immoral or moral. In the absence of freedom of choice or consent, there is a state of amorality. Given that, you are obligated in this case to lie to achieve a higher moral good, namely, the life of your loved one.