Calhouns Can(n)ons

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Write up!

In yesterday's Tribune, Tad Weber, the managing editor, is asking folks to send in requests for Obama, what readers would like to see the President Elect accomplish in the next four years. You can email your suggestions to: letters@thtribunenews.com or fax them to 781-7905 or snail mail them to The Tribune, PO Box 112, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406.

Here's my suggestion:

Right now the VA has the legal right to negotiate with drug companies to get better prices on drugs that are available to the vets they serve. In crafting the Medicare Part D drug program, as a huge favor to Big Pharma (in the back room with Billy Tauzin leading the charge), Medicare was forbidden by law from negotiating any price breaks (like the VA can). That could easily and quickly be changed. Because of the high volumne involved (with more Medicare Boomers coming along), the savings realized through such negotiations would still mean a healthy profit for the drug companies (and healthy competition among drug companies during the negotiations) and would also mean an immediate price drop for most people on the Part D program, thereby saving taxpayers and seniors a bundle.

What's your suggestion?

Doooo-Deee-Dooo-Dooo

This morning at nine a.m. in the SLO BOS chambers, the suspense continues to climb. Will the BOS vote to delay the Santa Margarita Ranch project until for the new BOS to tangle with? Will the planning dept. somehow magically figure out a way to reconcile the major conflicts so the supervisors can vote and make everyone happy? Will more shoes be thrown? Lawsuits to follow? Stay tuned. This one will be an interesting Christmas present, all wrapped up for the good people of this county. A present that (depending on what happens) will last for a long, long, long, long time.

And Finally, Why Are These People Surprised?

There's been a lot of huffing and puffing in the media about how gazillions of dollars of bailout taxpayer money was shoveled out the door with no accountability, with banks now being asked, in an AP questionaire, "How'd ya spend the first gazillion?" and answering, "We don't have to tell you zip!" or "Dunno, we're not required to keep track of the money." And now everyone's all wrinkle-browed and concerned that this administration has F*&^%%^ed up ANOTHER fine mess, to which I can only ask, "What did you expect? Competence at this late date???? It's a duck! What were you thinking?"

Sigh.

26 comments:

franc4 said...: Bailout blues....
Isn't it odd that along with no accountability of the big "hand out" GIVEN to AIG (for one), that big bonuses are still being handed out? The reason given is that they must, in order to attract "top notch" execs. How "top notch" are the folks responsible for all this mess?
Seems that failure brings big bucks in the eyes of large corps...but what do I know about responsible management. I was just a poor working slob that produced (did what was EXPECTED OF ME,diligently) the reason these "top notchers" "deserved" big bonuses.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!Jesus is the reason for the Season.....No matter how politically incorrect.; 10:08 AM, December 23, 2008
Churadogs said...: Actually, Jesus was added onto the season along about the 3rd century, so he's a latecomer to far older winter solstice celebrations, -- a sort of uninvited johnny come lately whose followers have forgotten their place in the religious celebrations line-up and have gotten pushy and rude, claiming primacy, when time-wise, there pikers and latecomers.

The REAL reason for the season is the innate fear/hope hard wired into the human brain that responds at a very deep level to the shortening of the days, the going away of the sun, the (very real) fear of death in a very real world of snow, no food, no game, famine and the association of dark/cold/death and the contrast of sun/warmth/food/life &etc. Not for nothing is the Sun/Son connection made. Indeed, in some ancient Roman catecombs where early christians hid out, there's a fresco of Christ as Apollo -- sun god -- (remember, Luke was a Greek)

As for working slobs, here's the amazing thing that went on for the last 20++ years: working people allowed themselves to be sold down the river in order to reqard the wealthy -- they forgot that THEY are the real wealth of this country and that THEY had the power to give themselves pudding. Instead they bought into the Reageanonmics that started shoveling wealth from their pockets UPLINE (not trickle down) to the wealthy. (The latest OBM (I think) report points to Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy as a key player in this latest financial meltdown.

Maybe now, working people will begin to wake up and ask, Hey, where's mine? (As just one example, compare the rates of overall taxes witheld from paychecks, FICA, SOC SEc, etc, etc. with the rates for capital gains, money earning money, rather than people earning money. That's telling as to what we value in this country, and it isn't working people, that's for sure.); 8:30 AM, December 24, 2008
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

Do you think we would be celebrating a solstice these days if Christians hadn't ... um ... taken over?

I rather doubt it myself because of the heavy handed style of the church before the 1700s.; 9:56 AM, December 24, 2008
Watershed Mark said...: Ann wrote: And now everyone's all wrinkle-browed and concerned that this administration has F*&^%%^ed up ANOTHER fine mess, to which I can only ask, "What did you expect?

To which I answer "change(/) from the office of the President Elect": http://news.aol.com/article/obama-review-set-for-tuesday-release/272711?cid=9

The comments at the bottom of this “article” are worth reviewing.

I look forward to Ann's comments regarding the "change admin" in the years ahead. Don't cha just love it.; 11:05 AM, December 24, 2008
Watershed Mark said...: Ann wtites: Maybe now, working people will begin to wake up...

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yea right.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!; 11:07 AM, December 24, 2008
Watershed Mark said...: Steve: You might want to rethink the dead language "Latin" thing.
Think about Chinese instead, for your children's sake. They are buying up “wealth” while loaning us money to pay for poor government activity with working people's efforts, both here and in their country.

Can you say "WALMART" in Chinese?; 11:12 AM, December 24, 2008
Aaron Ochs - Managing Editor of The ROCK said...: Christmas has been something has really changed significantly over the past centuries. It used to be a secular holiday that corresponded with the winter solstice, but now Christmas has become more of a Hallmark holiday for retailers.

There is more of an emphasis on gift-buying than gift-giving. With our economy in a recession, it gets harder to buy and consequentially, it's harder to give. Retailers like to chant, "Buy! Buy! Buy!" during the holidays, but that increases pressure on people to deliver on Christmas without being a Scrooge.; 2:01 PM, December 24, 2008
Shark Inlet said...: Mark,

Learning Latin and becoming truly aware of the richness and fullness of Western Civilization does not preclude learning Chinese and embracing the richness of their culture as well.

"Happy Christmas to all ..."; 3:34 PM, December 24, 2008
Watershed Mark said...: The earlier in one's life one learnd Chinese the easier and more fully that language is learned.

Although struggling may well become the new American way...

May Peace be with you and yours.; 7:58 PM, December 24, 2008
Watershed Mark said...: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/7-o'clock-News-Silent-Night-lyrics-Simon-and-Garfunkel/113341CC7162CD5F48256896000EE44A

This is the early evening edition of the news.
The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing
section of the Civil Rights Bill.
Brought traditional enemies together but it left the defenders of the
measure without the votes of their strongest supporters.
President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination
by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start
and everyone in Congress knew it.
A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee.
In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an
overdoes of narcotics.
Bruce was 42 years old.
Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open
housing march Sunday into the Chicago suburb of Cicero.
Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the
police in Cicero said they would ask the National Guard to be called out
if it is held.
King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.
In Chicago Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought
before a grand jury today for indictment.
The nurses were found stabbed an strangled in their Chicago apartment.
In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the
House Committee on Un-American activities continued its probe into anti-
Viet nam war protests.
Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting
anti-war slogans.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial
increase in the present war effort in Viet nam, the U.S. should look forward
to five more years of war.
In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York,
Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single
weapon working against the U.S.
That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news,
Goodnight.

Silent night
Holy night
All is calm
All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

Amazing Grace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMVxzEueJ6A; 9:43 PM, December 24, 2008
Churadogs said...: Inlet sez:"Do you think we would be celebrating a solstice these days if Christians hadn't ... um ... taken over?"

Why not? It's likely we'd be melding whatever religion du jour had risen with more ancient traditions. Heck, as noted above, the modern day Muslim Iranians celebrate the ancient Zoarastrian mid-winter festival even though they're Muslim. So we're always mixing ancient rituals with newer traditions.

As for "christianity" surviving, If it hadn't been for Emperor Justinian making "christianity" the official religion of the STATE/Empire, (and like all religions that are married to the power of the STATE, ensured it would spread along with the Armies of empire & etc.) it likely it would have remained just another religion among many others. And in certain parts of the globe, it was overtaken a few hundred years later by Islam, also spread by the power of the sword and spread of Empire & etc.

Religions come and go. Our egotistical hubris fools us into thinking that WE alone have The Answer! Naw. It's all part of the ongoing human saga. But so long as the earth tilts on its axis, winter solstice will continue to be felt in our bones, (ditto spring equinox) no matter what the "religious" overlay du jour is. (Irony here: The Christmas tree and holly and yule log are all pagan overlays -- it's sorta a great two-for-one holy day.Ditto spring/resurrection/eggs/rebirth/Persephone etc.)We humans are hard wired to seek and/or find/see the unseen -- the old Virgin Mary In A Tortilla phenomenon, which is likely part of our "pattern seeing" abilities, which in turn is a useful survival mechanism.; 5:19 AM, December 25, 2008
Watershed Mark said...: Celtic Woman: O'Holy Night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMVxzEueJ6A

Beautiful, Simple and Pure.; 8:31 AM, December 26, 2008
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

I rather think that Justinian making Christianity "official" harmed the faith rather than helped it. Whenever politics and force are used to spread beliefs (by the sword or any coercive means) the faith seems to be damaged. Whenever people think of things US or things Western when hearing the name "Christian" they are missing the key point of the faith. No only was Jesus rejected and outcast by both the religious authorities and political powers, he was also someone who ate with outcasts and met people where they are at. This is not to say that Jesus doesn't ask something of us, however.; 2:41 PM, December 26, 2008
Churadogs said...: Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus of medieval Rome and Jesus of the present day West would doubtlessly not recognize one another. I suspect the original Jesus would be shocked -- SHOCKED -- by his incarnations. The Monty Python's movie "Life of Brian" comically points out some of the pitfalls that occurr as a person is transformed into a legend then into a God. Much evil then ensures in his/her name. That's the problem with "religion." The basic ideas re all the same: Do unto Others, but by the time the details get fleshed out, there's the Devil, hard at work. The Devil and the human ego. Not a good mix except for awful mischief.; 8:13 AM, December 27, 2008
Watershed Mark said...: A wise man wrote:
"There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who divide the world up into two kinds of people, and those who don’t… Jesus looks at others with equanimity. He is about breaking down the separations that we seem so intent on emphasizing. To name a few ways that we divide people… we see male and female, slave and free, Jew and Greek, insiders and outsiders, rich and poor, saint and sinner, in a word - us and them. Jesus sees all as God’s children. We also mistakenly divide creation into the sacred and the profane. Jesus has come to bring creation to completion and reconciliation.

We see this in the way he sought out and treated with love those who were the unclean, the sinner, the child, the tax collector and the prostitute. Where did he learn this? I believe that he learned this where we all learn the most important lessons – at home. His family was poor and so he understands what it means to be poor. His father was a temperate man who chose not to expose his pregnant fiancée to the law and so when Jesus was presented with a woman to expose her to the law that prescribed stoning for her misdeed, he chose to defuse the situation forgive her and send her on her way. When God invited his mother to fulfill her life’s purpose she chose to say yes – even in the face of uncertainty and danger – and so her son chose to fulfill his purpose by speaking the truth of God to those who had the power to kill him.

-Yes, by the accounts of Luke, Jesus’ family was a holy family. …and yes, they followed the precepts of the law, but their holiness went far beyond the prescriptions of Jewish law. Their holiness was an active faith of what is at the heart of the law – Love of God and love of neighbor. This is always more than being a “goodie two-shoes”, keeping your nose clean and staying out of trouble. This is more holiness than can be depicted in any sappy picture of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Jesus didn’t only uphold the law but he regularly laid aside the law, if that is what it took to obey the great commandment of love. When he was eating with tax collectors and sinners, touching a leper, or talking to a woman as an equal – he was breaking the laws that did not place love first. He broke laws like these when the law was more about separating people and creating outsiders and insiders. I suspected that he learned this at home in what we call the “holy family”. I say he learned this because he evidently did not come with all this at birth. As it is written at the end of our Gospel passage today, “The child grew in size and strength, filled with wisdom.” We too are called to growth."; 1:19 PM, December 27, 2008
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

You seem to be suggesting that what is written in the Bible about Jesus is not an account of the real person's life.

Certainly the person in the only version of the story we have today is someone who seems to break the pattern people would expect from a "god" or "messiah" or even a "good teacher". The Jesus represented in the Scriptures cannot be easily put in a box ... either a box to back up your preconceived ideas or a box that can be reasonable ignored.; 7:35 PM, December 28, 2008
Churadogs said...: Inlet sez:"You seem to be suggesting that what is written in the Bible about Jesus is not an account of the real person's life."

There's been some splendid books written about the formation of the gospels (about the whole "bible," as well)(none of the Gospels were written during Jesus' lifetime) and there's Dead Sea scrolls being uncovered and translated that begin to inform us better about various Jewish sects during the time Jesus was presumed to have been alive, and a lot of archeology being done that fills in the huge gaps in our history. BUT, to my knowledge, there is no hard evidence that the Jesus that we know (the one portrayed by the changing gospels, dogmatic additions to the narrative, religious dogma formed over the centuries) existed. According to the book, "The Gospel of Q," I think, various Biblical scholars tried to separate out things they agreed were likely to have been actual statements from this figure. The number of statements is sparse indeed. All the rest are add-ons filling in the narrative by writers who came long hundreds of years later.(Not to mention translations that were poorly translated, copies badly copied, whole gospels that were deleted/destroyed/tossed out, because they didn't fit with the then-forming "church's" notions of what they wished to portray as "true," & etc. (There's some great books and recent TV programs on how Christianity became "Christian" and how the bible came to be the "Bible.")

So, no, there is very little evidence that Jesus even existed, and certainly NO evidence that what's in the Gospels as we know them today were actually said or done by this person. Did somebody preach to the multitudes and was his message a threat to the establishment that triggered the power establishment (Rome as uber-rulers over the Jewish puppet-kings and the religious elite) to get rid of the guy? Likely. And from the fragments of the gospels of Q, has come this amazing, ever expanding narrative upon which was built a church/state powerhouse that spread throughout the globe . . . on rivers of blood, to be sure . . . but it was also a powerful narrative of salvation/redemption that appeals to the deepest hard-wired human insincts, and so its hold on the human psyche is powerful indeed.

But is the "Bible" (what we refer to as the bible -- which is a far cry from what has constituted the "bible" over the years) factually true? Not often or at least there's very little evidence of that, though recent archeology is finding and dating many likely events better (while failing to find and confirm others.) Is The Bible a work of "history?" A little bit. Is the Bible a work of "faith." Yes. Has the Bible changed enormously over the centuries. Indeed, yes. But it's impossible to claim the Bible is "factually" correct since nobody can actually agree what is meant by "the Bible," since the book as we know it is the equivalent to the "Readers Digest Condensed Version." Nobody would claim, with a straight face, that a Readers Digest Condensed Version of Proust's 17 volume "Rememberences of Things Past" is THE Book. It's just a reduced, condensed version, the Classic Comic Book version -- with all the boring parts left out --, if you will, of a HUGE original. And if you added in Proust's notes and managed to find and add his discarded notes and early drafts, you might begin to get an idea of what faces scholars when they approach "The Bible." Not to mention, WHICH "bible," since there's been so many of them.

There's a wonderful magazine, Biblical Archeology, or some such, one that concentrates on Archeology in the middle east and what made it so funny to me was to read the letters to the editors from these very, very serious, scholarly type (the equivalent of Monks ernestly debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin) hurling insults at each other over things that simply could NOT be proven one way or another -- a delightful muddlement of faith and fact. Wonderful stuff!; 8:52 AM, December 30, 2008
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

It looks like you are saying that because there is some doubt about whether the Bible is factual that you don't feel like addressing the question of whether Jesus, as presented in the Bible, is a very unusual individual and completely unlike the sort of "God" any group of people with any power would have invented back in the 0-400 time period.

In short, most parts of the scriptures would have been inconvenient or downright offensive to someone with the power to censor those portions. That this did not happen is curious.

As for the person with the greatest influence on what Christianity is today, I would argue for the apostle Paul. His writings have shaped how Christians have interpreted most every other portion of what is called the Bible thesedays.; 12:19 PM, December 30, 2008
Churadogs said...: Inlet sez:"don't feel like addressing the question of whether Jesus, as presented in the Bible, is a very unusual individual and completely unlike the sort of "God" any group of people with any power would have invented back in the 0-400 time period. "

Actually, according to recent scrolls unearthed, there were several radical sects broken off from the more traditional official religion that wrote of concepts ow associated with some of the ideas mentioned in the gospels as coming from Jesus, which causes scholars to wonder if Jesus (if he actually existed) was part of this new sect. In short, recent Biblical scholarship indicates a variety of beliefs during this period of time, a time of revolt, sects breaking off, religious turmoil, etc. Our Sunday School Version has it that things were placid (official, settled, orthodox Judiasm) until along came this totally New Guy with New Ideas. Not so, as more recent archeology and uncovered scrolls etc.show.

"Inlet sez:" In short, most parts of the scriptures would have been inconvenient or downright offensive to someone with the power to censor those portions. That this did not happen is curious."

Actually, you have it backwards. This DID happen. Whole gospels were thrown out. There's some really interesting books written on how the "bible" came to be. There's also books and even a TV series (PBS?) on how Jesus became the Christ. The creation of The Christ and the creation of The Bible has been a deliberate, centuries-long process (thousands of years if you toss in the Old Testament portion) with many hands involved. Not to mention power struggles between Contstaninope vs Rome, various "heresies" that were violently stamped out (The Albegensian being the only "crusade" on European soil against Europeans and fellow "christians.") The formation of what we now call "christianity" has been a long, slow, often bloody process, with many, many hands deliberately shaping, editing, cutting, violently altering whatever forms survived as the first "gospels."

Inlet sez:"As for the person with the greatest influence on what Christianity is today, I would argue for the apostle Paul. His writings have shaped how Christians have interpreted most every other portion of what is called the Bible thesedays."

I'd have to disagree, there were several early popes who quite literally set the dogma and what would be allowed and not. Thge Nicene Creed, for example, was hammered out and set in stone, for example. Paul did not create the Nicene Creed, nor create the Countil of Trent nor any of the "official" dogmatic rulings as to what was to be believed by the faithful. And don't forget, St. Augistine. his writings had a powerful influence on Church thinking (not to mention the Renaissance and the reconcilation of "science" and faith that helped usher in the modern ear.

And as for "Jesus" being real or not. I would strongly suggest you read Joseph Campbell's "Hero With A Thousand Faces." and I bet if that TV special on how Jesus became The Christ was on PBS, the'll have a companion book (or can even get the DVD?)The process of "deification" of "historical" figures all follow the same paths -- King Arthur, Appollo, Jesus, Moses, Luke Skywalker -- all "heroes/Gods/" with a thousand faces. And do get some books on how the Bible came into being. Absolutely fascinating, especially to find out that so much of what we thought was true turns out not to be. The "real" story is even more fascinating than the Sunday School version.

And as for "gospels" being "true,"a whole lot of people think that the story about George Washington and the apple tree is "true." Not a lot of people know it was a made up story, written about 100 years later by Parson Weems and was intended as a "parable" to illustrate an aspect of Washington character (honesty, integrity) and, by the way, would also serve as a lesson to the kids. . What's that line in The Man who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes a fact, print the legend."

Jesus of the gospels is like George Washington of Parson Weems -- part of a didactic, coherent narrative. And later gospel writers came along to expand that bare-bones original narrative, adding on interesting touches not found in the original, all serving to flesh out the narrative into a didactic, coherent whole -- which is how "religions" get invented and then grow and evolve over time. Sorta like barnacles on a ship's hull, accretions on accretions until often the entire ship becomes unrecognizable beneath all the add-ons.

I bet Jesus, if he came back today (provided he existed at all) would take a look at both "The Bible" and various church doctrines -- all solidly claimed to be "truth" and "in his name" and scratch his head. Ditto Mohammed gazing at the Hadith, added to and expanded on since his original writings, and scratch his head. Thus is it ever.; 8:09 AM, December 31, 2008
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

You write as if I would be surprised by your bringing up Campbell's book or the various political factions back in the year zero or that I somehow think that there hasn't been quite a few splits, breaks and various uglinesses over the last two thousand years.

In any case, you seem to be saying that you don't feel the need to consider what the Bible has written about Jesus because you don't believe the Bible is a historically accurate version of what Jesus might have said and Paul might have written.

That is fine, but in Los Osos terms, it is sort of like saying "I trust the Solutions Group because I don't like what the County has proposed" or like saying "I trust Julie and Lisa" because I don't like the TriW site. I would suggest that getting the details before forming an opinion would make more sense.

That being said, the statements made by Jesus did not back up the political viewpoints of any of the political groups at the time and he clearly wasn't trying to start his own political movement. Heck, hid own words were inconvenient for his followers (witness the disagreements between Peter and Paul). You suggest that the Bible was constructed for the convenience and benefit of the Church. I disagree. The Bible is chock-full-o-inconvenience for the established church.

You are very right about one thing ... humans have a really good ability to read what they want into a text or a situation and they are even better at avoiding thinking about inconvenient things. However, as we all now know based on our experience in Los Osos, inconvenient factors are often important and worth thinking about even if uncomfortable.; 12:04 PM, December 31, 2008
Churadogs said...: Inlet sez:"In any case, you seem to be saying that you don't feel the need to consider what the Bible has written about Jesus because you don't believe the Bible is a historically accurate version of what Jesus might have said and Paul might have written."

Might have said? If the Bible, as we now know it, is historically inaccurate, and by that, I mean we really have absolutely NO WAY of telling just what Jesus said or didn't say, we only have a sort of consensus by one group of Biblical scholars as to fragments of sayings that are likely (maybe) to have come from one person who may or may not be the person known as Jesus, then how can we claim that the Bible is the word of God or whatever narrative that's in the Bible is an accurate account of a particular person, when it's clear that huge swaths of the gospels, for example, were made up by other men, often hundreds of years later. And the gospels vary as to content. I use the Parson Weems analogy because it's apt.Nobody in their right mind really believes the cherry tree story to be factually, historically "true,"and if it isn't factually, historically "true," it's fiction, made up about 100 years later by Mr. Weems. In the same way, the gospel writers made up stuff 100 years later and made it part of THEIR narrative in order to embellish or elaborate on the chaning belief system being formed and added to.

"That is fine, but in Los Osos terms, it is sort of like saying "I trust the Solutions Group because I don't like what the County has proposed" or like saying "I trust Julie and Lisa" because I don't like the TriW site. I would suggest that getting the details before forming an opinion would make more sense."

Wrong analogy. It would be like me writing a narrative of The Solutions Group 40 years from now, having not met a single one of 'em, never having attended a single CSD meeting, having, at abest, only fragments of some meeting notes, and having listened to a handful of old people who might have attended a meeting 40 years before, who are sharing their memories with me, then writing that down and trying to create a coherent narrative of what happened. How "historically" accurate do you think that would be? Then, one hundred years later, somebody else took my account and re-wrote it, adding all kinds of different things in, making it more interesting or literary or symbolic and etc. Would you say you were now getting an even more accurate account of what actually happened at the CSD meetings and who said what, or is the narrative now completely moved into the realm of fiction and symbol?

"That being said, the statements made by Jesus did not back up the political viewpoints of any of the political groups at the time and he clearly wasn't trying to start his own political movement. Heck, hid own words were inconvenient for his followers (witness the disagreements between Peter and Paul). You suggest that the Bible was constructed for the convenience and benefit of the Church. I disagree. The Bible is chock-full-o-inconvenience for the established church."

The bible WAS constructed for the convenience and benefit of the evolving church. Church fathers, hundreds of years after Jesus death, tossed out whole books that were part of the loosely cohered writings that made up what passed for the codified belief system being formed. There were sects and scrolls and various writings that were considered heresy by church fathers that were old, old texts and they were tossed out. Some, like the gnostic gospels were violently removed, along with their followers -- only one of several "inquisitions" used by The Church (as it was consolidating it's doctrine and power). So, no, when the church found "gospels" inconvenient, they were dumped, not the other way around.

"You are very right about one thing ... humans have a really good ability to read what they want into a text or a situation and they are even better at avoiding thinking about inconvenient things. However, as we all now know based on our experience in Los Osos, inconvenient factors are often important and worth thinking about even if uncomfortable."

The problem with The Bible is that we actually know so little, factually, upon which to make any rational decision. Recent archeology has supported some historical references and debunked others. Furthermore, religion is a matter of faith so it doesn't really matter if the "facts" are wrong. Faith and facts are often incompatible. Ironically, faith and facts often arrive at a "truth" but take different paths to get there.

As for my assuming you are unfamiliar with Campbell or recent biblical scholarship, I assumed that from your comments. You seem to accept Jesus as a real, historical person and seem to imply that what's claimed he said in the Bible is real and actually what he said. Except for the Q gospels, (which can be argued either way) we have no evidence of that. Your comments about the Bible being inconvenient for the Church led me to believe that you're unfamiliar with early Church history and its (apalling? "convenient?" always, uh, interesting?) habit of cuttting the holy cloth to suit The Church's temporal shape, not the other way around.

As for "inconvenience," that's standard operating proceedure for humans and their belief systems. We all certainly saw that in the foo-feraw over Prop 8: Adamant Yes on 8 Christians claiming The Bible as the absolute, inerrant Word of God, who, when reminded that as true believers, when their brother dies they need to marry his widow, or that witches and adulterers need to be stoned in the streets, suddenly hemed and hawed and equivocated, then ignored those "inconvenient" inerrent Words of God, heh-heh.

As it ever is with humans; we invent religions, lay down religious laws, then search like hell for loopholes for ourselves, while denying the same escape clauses for others. After all, because WE are soooooo special, God loves US . . . but not The Other Guy!; 8:11 AM, January 01, 2009
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

Your last paragraph gets me thinking that you misunderstand the writings of Paul and the teachings of Jesus as written. While we often do try to search for loopholes for ourselves and we often do try to deny the same escape clause for others, the teachings of Jesus and Paul are essentially that everyone is special and no one is special. We are all equally loved by God and there is nothing that others can do which prevents them from being loved by God either. The only hook is that people have to be willing to accept that love, to accept that they cannot ever, on their own merits, achieve goodness. Evidence of this abounds ... even "good" people do silly and rude things. The key to the faith is that while not a single one of us is deserving of God's grace, he still chooses to provide it to us.

As for your discussions of the historic nature of Jesus, you are essentially right. I choose to believe that Jesus, as portrayed by the Bible, is a real person and that his teachings are accurately portrayed in the Scriptures. You would suggest otherwise, but I don't really buy it. Just because there are some teachings which were suppressed doesn't mean that what we do have today is inaccurate. While you raise these issues as if they are damning of Christianity, there is no evidence ... at all ... that these other teachings (for example gnosticism) even matches up with what Jesus preached.

Now, rest assured that I don't believe that there is solid historical evidence that the Bible is word-for-word what Jesus said either. That's the rub with faith. It is ... um ... faith afterall.

While have faith that the Bible is essentially accurate, you have put your faith in something else.

I believe my faith to be reasonable and while I cannot convince anyone else that I am right, I can explain why I find it to be reasonable if you would like.; 11:39 AM, January 01, 2009
Churadogs said...: Inlet sez:"Just because there are some teachings which were suppressed doesn't mean that what we do have today is inaccurate. While you raise these issues as if they are damning of Christianity, there is no evidence ... at all ... that these other teachings (for example gnosticism) even matches up with what Jesus preached."

I do not raise issues of inaccuracy as "damning," merely that "Christians" should better understand the history of their faith before claiming its "truthiness," with a nod to Stephen Colbert.

For example, there's an interesting program now on History Channel on the Seven Deadly Sins, and one of the more striking leitmotifs is the comparison from comments the Jewish Rabbi/scholar "talking head" makes versus the various Christian/scholar "talking heads" make between traditional Jewish law/reason/worldview and how that original Jesus as Jewish rabbi/teacher's view was deiberately morphed over the centuries as Christianity continued to deliberately separate itself FROM Jewish law/reason/worldview. By the time you get to the early medieval period, the worldview of "christians" was astonishingly different from the Jewish worldview. Almost all of this change was deliberate and was done (and continued to be done) a thousand years after Jesus' death, all thought up by other people. (I have no doubt, for example, that the medieval Cult of Mary would have profoundly shocked the Jewish Jesus to the core. Ditto the profoundly anti-human later "christian" doctrines splitting spirit from body -- one good, one baaaadddd. Yet another way Christians deliberately diverged from Jesus' culture and basic religious beliefs. This was all a process -- deliberate, created by OTHER people, not Jesus -- designed to put as much distance between Jesus and his Jewish roots, which is what you have to do if you're starting a new religion -- make sure you're NOT that Other Guy. All of which is why "christians" really should read some of those excellent books on how Jesus became The Christ before they make claims about "accuracy" or "truth."

Inlet sez:"While have faith that the Bible is essentially accurate, you have put your faith in something else."

That's the problem. You have faith that the Bible is "accurate," whatever that means. (that's the other problem -- define "accurate." The best that can be said about "the Bible" (again, whatever that is since there have been so many "bibles") is that is has an interesting, vaguely coherent narrative and a core spiritual "truth" for people who believe that core spiritutal "truth." But having faith in something does not make it so. Doesn't even make it "accurate."

Inlet also sez:"I believe my faith to be reasonable and while I cannot convince anyone else that I am right, I can explain why I find it to be reasonable if you would like."

Not necessary. ALL people believe their faith to be "right" and "reasonable," even as they're torturing their neighbor on the rack -- to "save his soul," of course -- or tying hand grenades to young boys before setting then off on a suicide run -- because Allah wills it. It's all "reasonable," and "right" and "accurate," and "true" and justified to the faithful. That's the nature of faith and the nature of human nature.

Alas.; 6:58 AM, January 02, 2009
Shark Inlet said...: So Ann,

What do you put your faith in?; 1:42 PM, January 02, 2009
Churadogs said...: Inlet sez:"So Ann,

What do you put your faith in?"

1. Some wise wag likened humankind's extremely limited senses and ability to perceive and understand the universe to a little near-sighted frog way, waaay down in the bottom of a deep well at night, peering up the well at a blurred bit of stars, who then loudly proclaims that he knows and understands the "TRUTH" of the Universe. Pretty funny.

2. J.B.S. Haldane: "Now, my suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we CAN suppose. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in ANY philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming."

3.I beleive that humans are story-telling, pattern-making animals, hard wired to create coherent narratives, to seek the ineffable and to see Virgin Marys in tortillas. It's what we do. It's the way our brains work. Which is why all human religions across time and around the world all share basic qualities built around The Golden Rule, an attempt to 'splain the great mysteries of birth and death, and the sensed unknown, and in 'splaining, they all share the myth narrative form, with their "god/prophets" fitting the universal "Heroes with a Thousand Faces." (And the "God/Hero's" mythic journey, which mimics our individual human journey from birth to death, is also a universal form, something I find totally touching and totally human.)

4.The older I get, the less I seek "answers," the less I trust "answers," and the more interested I am in questions, and when no "answers" are forthcoming, the more content I am with the bemused concludion: "Maybe," or "Could be," or "Beats me." Or one of my favorite snarkey lines in "The Lion in Winter:" "Lamb, in a world where carpenters get resurrected, anything is possible."

5. I do not have the deluded ego to think that I have The Truth to 'splain the Universe, let alone whether or not there is a God and if so what's on his/her mind. And I find people who make such claims a)silly, b) deluded, and c) likely dangerous, especially when they decide that their God has determined that they will use the power of the state to compel my going along with their delusion and if I don't, God has said it's o.k. to kill me, for my own good.(Hilarious quote supposedly from Ghengis Kahn, "I am the Flail of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you." Hahahahah)

All of which is why I'll stick with Mark Twain, I think, who said tht if he knew somebody was coming to his house from thousands of miles away with the express purpose of saving his soul, he'd run out the back door as fast as possible and keep heading in the opposite direction.

Or, as Monty Python's Holy Grail had it, "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!"; 8:00 AM, January 03, 2009
Shark Inlet said...: Here's the funny thing, Ann ...

I agree with your beliefs wholeheartedly (well, at least 1-4 had half of 5). However, I also recognize that essentially any set of morals and/or beliefs which I use to guide my life are a faith which I cannot justify to others who wanna be doubters. (I can only explain myself why I have chosen these particular elements of faith.) That being said, every human has a faith which guides their lives. We all have a set of morals which guide our lives ... so why not pick a set of moral guidelines which matches up with what we perceive to be "objective" reality?

For me, Christianity makes more sense to me than any other traditional belief system or the "new age" popular in the last 20 years.

Twain was wise ... but not too logical. Far too often, people have used "faith in Jesus" as a way of trying to control the thoughts of others. The problem is this ... Twain cannot logically simply reject every belief system just because someone once misused it.

Ann, you seem to have a good set of historical reasons why organized religion (and in particular, Christianity) isn't for you. The question is this ... do you really understand the Christian faith which you have rejected?; 2:04 PM, January 03, 2009

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