Fat Middle-Aged Wannabe

Pastor sees the light

2006-07-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

Halleluja! For those of you who can't access the NYT, a conservative minister has decided to try and stop talking about politics and endorsing candidates from the pulpit. Of course it's costing him dearly, since Jesus said to render unto God what is Caesar's, or something like that....

A little joke

2006-07-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a joke that somebody sent me. I don't normally go in for such things, but this one is funny. Also, it was clearly written by somebody from Texas, which makes it even better. Is it highly partisan? You bet. But hey, as my buddy Guillermo says, funny's funny.

Heaven or Hell

Walking down the street one day, George Dubya Bush is shot by a disgruntled NRA member. His soul arrives in Heaven and he is met by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. "Welcome to Heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem: We seldom see a Republican around these parts, so we're not sure what to do with you." "No problem, just let me in; I'm a believer," says Dubya. "I'd like to, but I have orders from the Man Himself," says St. Peter. "He says you have to spend one day in Hell and one day in Heaven. Then you must choose where you'll live for eternity." "But, I've already made up my mind; I want to be in Heaven," Dubya answers. St. Peter shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to an elevator and Dubya goes down, down, down, all the way to Hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a lush golf course; the sun is shining in a cloudless sky, the temperature a perfect 72 degrees. In the distance is a beautiful clubhouse. Standing in front of it his dad and thousands of other Republicans who had helped him out over the years: Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Jerry Falwell. The whole of the "Right" is here, everyone laughing, happy; casually but expensively dressed. They run to greet him, hug him, and reminisce about the good times they had getting rich at expense of the "suckers and peasants." They play a friendly game of golf, then dine on lobster and caviar.
The Devil himself comes up to Dubya with a frosty drink. "Have a margarita and relax, Dubya!" he grins. "Uh, I can't drink no more, I took a pledge," says Dubya dejectedly. "Aw, this is Hell, son! You can drink and eat all you want and not worry," says the Devil. "It just gets better from here!" Dubya takes the drink and finds himself liking the Devil, who is a very friendly guy who tells funny jokes and pulls hilarious nasty pranks, kind of like a Yale Skull and Bones brother with real horns. They are having such a great time that, before he realizes it, it's time to go. Everyone gives him a big hug and waves as Dubya steps on the elevator and heads upward.

The elevator door reopens on Heaven and St. Peter is waiting for him. "Now it's time to visit Heaven," the old man says, opening the gate. So for 24 hours Dubya is made to hang out with a bunch of honest, good-natured people who enjoy each other's company, talk about things other than money, and treat each other decently. Not a nasty prank or frat-boy joke among them; no fancy country clubs and, while the food tastes great, it's not caviar or lobster. And these people are all poor; he doesn't see anybody he knows, and he isn't even treated like someone special! Worst of all, to Dubya, Jesus turns out to be some kind of Jewish hippie with his endless 'peace' and 'do unto others' jive. "Whoa," he says uncomfortably to himself, "Pat Robertson never prepared me for this!"

The day done, St. Peter returns. "Well, then," he says, "you've spent a day in Hell and a day in Heaven. Now choose where you want to live for eternity." With the 'Jeopardy' theme playing softly in the background, Dubya reflects for a minute, then answers, "Well, I would never have thought I'd say this -- I mean, Heaven has been delightful and all -- but I really think I belong in Hell with my friends."

So Saint Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down, all the way to Hell. The doors of the elevator open, and Dubya finds himself in the middle of barren, scorched earth covered with garbage and toxic industrial waste...kind of like Houston. He is horrified to see all of his friends dressed in rags and chained together, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags. They are groaning and moaning in pain, faces and hands black with grime. The Devil comes over to Dubya and puts an arm around his shoulder. "I don't understand," stammers a shocked Dubya. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a clubhouse and we ate lobster and caviar and drank booze. We screwed around and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and everybody looks miserable!"
The Devil looks at him and smiles slyly. "Yesterday we were campaigning," he purrs, "Today you voted for us."

2006-07-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

I found this article in the NYT pretty interesting. For those of you that can't log in, it's about a megachurch in Memphis that built a replica of the statue of liberty. The replica (including pedastal) is 72 feet tall (compared to 305 feet for the original). There are a few other modifications:

1. In place of torch, she holds a cross
2. In place of a tablet inscribed with "July IV, MDCCLXXVI," she holds the ten commandments

I think that it is a pretty succinct statement about the vision that many "Christians" have for the United States. In case you don't get it, the article contains the following quotes from the pastor of the church:

The statue, inspired by a Memphis church that has three giant crosses, strikes him as "a creative means of just really letting people know that God is the foundation of our nation," he said.

In "The Meaning of the Statue of Liberation Through Christ: Reconnecting Patriotism With Christianity," he explains that the teardrop on his Lady is God's response to what he calls the nation's ills, including legalized abortion, a lack of prayer in schools and the country's "promotion of expressions of New Age, Wicca, secularism and humanism."

"I decree the spirit of conviction on this intersection," Mr. Williams boomed from a podium decorated with red, white and blue bunting. "This statue proves that Jesus Christ is Lord over America, he is Lord over Tennessee, he is Lord over Memphis."

I kind of like this. First, it is such a beautiful illustration of the way in which many Americans merge nationalism with religion. They invest religious symbols with nationalist meaning and nationalist symbols with religious meaning. For these folks, God is definitely on our side and not on those other people's side.

Second, I admire Mr. Williams honesty. To heck with the founding fathers, to heck with the constitution - what he wants is a theocracy that makes his particular picture of God the official picture for the nation. I wonder what it's like to be that sure of one's picture of God?

Third, I just love that last quote: "This statue proves that Jesus Christ is Lord over America."
How is that, exactly?

It's the end of the world as we know it....

2006-07-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

This article set me off this morning. The good news is that eschatological idiocy is not limited to Christianity. The bad news is that eschatological idiocy is not limited to Christianity. I view virtually all eschatology as yet another way in which we humans attempt to impose our smallness and limitedness on God's very large creation. Basically, eschatology is the belief that God operates on a human time scale. That all of history will occur in a few hundred generations of mankind. Thankfully, it is becomming ever more apparent to those who care to look that God operates on a very different time scale, like billions of years (at least). But I suppose that's kind of scary to people who like to feel that they are nearly as big and important as God, so they choose to ignore the evidence that God has so liberally sprinkled about the creation. They rely instead of the world/God view of a small tribe living in and around Israel 2000-3000 years ago (the Christians and Jews, anyway). Stikes me as an odd position to fall back to, but I suppose that's just me.

But let me critique this from closer to home. When God finished the creation (including people), Genisis 1:31 tells us God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good. Got that boys? God likes God's creation, and is probably not in any great hurry to get rid of it. The fact that many of us find it so terrible is our problem, not God's. And in any event, God has given us the tools that we need to make things better for ourselves. The fact that we generally fail to take advantage of these tools is again our problem and not God's.

It is certainly nice for us to think that rather than requiring us to toil away for a few billion years, working towards the realization of the kingdom of God, that God will just step in, snap God's fingers, and take care of the whole thing for us. (Well, to be fair, these end-of-the-world types don't think that God will do everything. God will, you know, requires us to send out a few emails with our favorite scripture verses enclosed. That God, what a taskmaster!). But isn't it maybe time, a million or so years into our history as sentient creatures, to accept as quite probable the notion that that's just not how God works?

Funny, but sad

2006-07-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

Wow. While reading this article on CNN I saw this and had to laugh:

"What would cause a godly woman to do such a thing?" asked neighbor Sharon Everitt, echoing the question that has hung over the rural town since late March. "Christians don't shoot Christians."

Excuse me? I think that quite a number of them shot each other during WWII. And then of course there is the unspoken part of that statement: No problem christians shooting non-christians.

Not to bash christians! I am a christian. But I believe we were instructed to know thyself, and we are all of us potential murderers.

BWCA

2005-07-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't posted in forever, so I probably should. I spent two weeks on a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in northern Minnesota with our church's youth group. It was six days driving and six days canoing with six teenagers (including my number one daughter). Just a coincidence that that is "666"? Hmmm.

Actually, the trip was a lot of fun. I don't normally interact much with the kids at church, and this trip turned out to be a very nice way to get to know some of them better. I have enormous respect for those kids after this trip - they worked hard, pitched in, and stayed cheerful under some pretty trying circumstances (principally 4 days of rain).

The drive up and back was greatly enhanced by the fact that we spent the nights both on the way up and on the way back at host churches. Two of our church's previous vicars are now pastors at churches strategically placed on the route from Texas to Minnesota, and they were kind enough to let us sleep in their churches. We enjoyed visiting and sharing fellowship with them, and we got a wonderful home-cooked meal on the way back - just the thing after all of the dehydrated trail food. It's suprising sometimes to discover connections where you didn't really know that they existed.

The time on the water was challenging, but we learned fast. My crowning triumph was the recollection that birch bark is very good for starting fires. I learned this as a child growing up in Wisconsin - probably in my fourth grade Wisconsin history lessons. Who would have thought it would ever be so useful? But after spending about 45 minutes trying to light a fire using wood that had been rained on for two days, it turned out that birch bark was just the thing. We learned how to set up camp in the rain. We learned how to manuver our canoes in strong winds and driving rain. We learned how to get everything dry whenever the sun came out. We learned how to efficiently portage our canoes and gear. We learned how to rely on each other, and to appreciate each other's talents. We learned that black flies can bite through two layers of clothing.

I stayed up late one night and saw the milky way for the first time in probably 20 or 30 years. I saw three bald eagles, up close and personal. I saw beavers and beaver dams for the first time in my life. I spent one glorious morning, from about 4:30 AM until about 6:30 AM, completely alone watching the wildlife on the lake where we were camped go about their morning business. When I first got up, there was not hint of a breeze, and not a ripple on the lake. The trees around the shore of the lake and the clouds above were perfectly mirrored in the lake, and there was mist rising from the water. The sun, shining between an island in the lake and the near shore, illuminated one long, narrow strip of the water, as though someone had opened a door at one end of the lake and the light was streaming in.

Oddly, we never really did any "church" stuff while we were out on the water, although we had planned to. There was just too much going on, too much to do. The one "religious" moment for us adults was when we noticed on the fifth day that the kids, who had started out in two very distinct groups, were all together talking and playing around in one big group. We (the adults) cooked and cleaned up that night, and let the kids be.

It was a blast, and I am thankful thankful thankful that we made the trip with no car trouble, no wrong turns, and no broken bones. Sometimes things work out, and that is a wonderful thing.

Don't talk to strangers - NOT

2005-06-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

I found this lovely quote on CNN today, concerning the 11-year-old cub scout who was lost in the woods of Utah for 4 days: "...Brennan was taught ... not to talk to strangers, so "when an ATV or horse came by [searching for him] he got off the trail ... when they left, he got back on the trail."

When I was a kid, I was taught that people are good. If you are lost, go up to the nearest adult and tell them you are lost. If you need help, ask an adult. It really didn't matter which adult - it was simply assumed by my parents that most people were good, and that we were all part and parcel of a larger society with which we interacted.

That view seems so out of vogue these days. As the father of two daughters, I am accutely away of how over-protective most parents have become of their children. When I was a child I was walking to and from school on my own for sure by third grade, and probably earlier. When as parents we (my wife and I) began letting our daughters find their own way home from school in fourth grade (about 6 blocks through a residential neighborhood) virtually all of the other parents with whom we interacted thought we were crazy. "What if somebody snatches them?" they would ask. Well, here's the deal. I would rather run the risk of my daughter being snatched than raise a daughter who is inherently fearful of her fellow human beings. Life is full of risk. My daughters are far more likely to die in an auto accident with me driving than to be murdered by a kidnapper, but I'm not going to stop driving them around, either. And while most people recognize the problem with not driving because of the risk, few seem to recognize the problem with teaching there children that "strangers" are fundamentally bad. Well, here's an obvious drawback: it just might get your kid killed, as it very nearly did with Brennen. More fundamentally (for me) Christ taught us to love others. That's hard to do when you are busy teaching your children to fear them.

Days Abroad

2005-06-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

Here's something you don't see every Day. Some friends of ours (the Days) have decided to sell all of their possessions and spend a year travelling around the world with their 4 children. Crazy? I think so. But what a way to spend your life!

How God "Found" Me

2005-06-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

I just love the Holy Spirit! Not 12 hours after I finished a post called "How I "Found" God," God got in touch with me to remind me that in fact is was the other way around - God found me. The three readings today (Exodus, Romans, and Matthew) each dealt with how the Israelites (and the early Christians and the Apostles) did not choose God, God choose them. My pastor preached on this topic to great effect - being a Lutheran pastor this is a subject which is very near and dear to his heart. So as I sat in church today listening to the sermon, I reflected on all the ways that God reached out to me.

There is my wife. After 18 years of marriage I still can't believe my amazing good luck that she chose me. There are the friends that I have made who modelled just the sort of Christian life that made sense to me. There were the books by liberal theologians that my parents kept giving to me - eventually I started reading them. The was the growing feeling which I could not discount that my religion needed to move beyond my own head, that I needed to become involved more with others. There are the flashes of joy that I receive some days in church when I feel like I belong. There are all the ways in which all of the members of my church have reached out to me and pulled me into their community. When I am brutally honest with myself, I have to admit that I am one of the most selfish people that I know, but somehow the Holy Spirit just keeps reaching out to me and forcing me to go beyond myself. Of course I resist - too frequently and too successfully - but nonetheless I believe that I am not a total loss, and for this I thank Holy Spirit. I suppose that the proper way to think about this is not that "God found me." I am pretty sure that God always new where I was, and was calling out to me. It's just that somehow as I get older, through no effort of my own, I seem to be able to hear God a little more clearly.

How I "found" God

2005-06-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting because I haven't felt like I had the time. However, I find that I post long responses on other peoples blogs that probably best belong here (athough here they will probably never be read. Oh well). This topic was inspired by the Progressive Protestant. I have been reading Gordan Kaufman's "In Face of Mystery" and have been finding some amazing things, like this (in Chapter 3): Speaking of the origin of religions, Kaufman writes "No one understood herself or himself to be creating or constructing a (religion), it is only from our modern vantage point, looking back (...) at the many great and diverse cultural and religious traditions which have appeared in the course of human history, that we can see how much of this must have been a product of human imaginitive creativity in the face of the great mysteries of life" (italics mine). Given the title of the book, this must be one of the more important observations in the book. I am still kind of reeling from the impact of this.

This is a major "Aha!" for me. It is something I have known for decades, but have never precisely put my finger on. I remember sitting in Easter service at a (Catholic) church in El Paso, TX when I was 16 years old, watching the mass and thinking to myself "If some alien were to come down and see this, they would be amazed at the bizarre superstitions and rituals that play such a prominent role in the life of this species." What dawned on me that day was nothing other than the fact that we had "made all this up," although I have never expressed it in those words until now. That mass was the last time I set foot in a church for many years. My problem was not really with the notion of "God" (in a very general sense); it was with the notion that some people thought (and most of them were to be found in churches) that we could somehow pin down God; that we could get our arms around God; describe what God wanted and didn't want; what God was and God wasn't. For many years I thought that this was what church was all about, and I wanted no part of it.

Over the years, some things began to change my mind. I married a woman who was the daughter of a Lutheran Pastor. She seemed normal enough.

In my first year of graduate school (in physics) I had an acquintance over to our house (on Easter - is that weird or what?) to watch "Jesus Christ, Superstar." That was his idea. Somehow that movie reached me, especially the character of Judas Iscariot. Of course, I was vulnerable - I had had the album when I was young (right after it came out), and I knew all the words to the songs, as did he, so we were singing along at the top of our lungs. Also, we consumed a substantial quantity of beer. Still, certain things made sense to me watching that movie that have continued to make sense to me ever since. The problem with Judas in JCS is that he thinks that he really understands what is going on. He believes that he sees the big picture; that he is capable of seeing the big picture. Mary Magdeline, on the other hand, is absolutely clear on the fact that she does not understand. That she cannot understand. Even Jesus' character in that movie can't see all that there is to see, or understand all that there is to understand. It is precisely this uncertainty that gives them access to God. It is the understanding that at the core of human existance lies a mystery that we cannot penetrate. This was a revelation to me, and from that time I have prayed on a regular basis (like talking to God all the time in my head) and thought quite a bit about God. (That acquaintance has been since that night one of my best friends - we are meeting his family in New Mexico for a week at the end of July. I can't wait!)

Still, I wanted nothing to do with church. Around the time that our children were born my wife began going to church. She of course wanted me to join her but I was adamant: I had no problem with God, but organized religion was still something that I wanted nothing to do with. However, over the years, watching her and (eventually) my children's lives in the church, I began to realize that church was not all about defining God. What it was all about was community. About the fact that whatever God is, it is more accessible in the interaction between people than in almost any other way. There is a beautiful line in Richard Linklater's film "Before Sunrise" where Julie Delpy's character says something like "I don't know what God is, or if there is a God, but if there is, he is not in you or in me but in this space here between us." I joined my wife's church about a year ago, and I thank God every single day that I lived long enough to get to this point, and to enjoy this blessing.

Still, there were questions. When I recite the creed, I have to admit to myself that I believe very little of it. Or, more precisely, that I have defined most of it to mean something quite different than what the Council of Nicea probably had in mind. I admitted this to the pastor of my church before becoming a member, and to his eternal credit he was totally cool about it. He told me that we are all at different points on our faith journey, and that anyone who was seeking God in good faith was welcome in his church. There's God. Right there. Still, how is one to reconcile the fact that one is basically twisting and bending the received understanding of God to fit ones own requirements? What kind of religion is that?

Enter certain theologians like Teihard de Chardin, John Shelby Spong (maybe not exactly a theologian...), Michael Morwood, and now Gordan Kaufman. In particular (today) Gordan Kaufman. What kind of religion that is is the same as every other kind of religion. The process that I go through in trying to understand God is no different than what everyone has done basically since the dawn of time. My understanding of God is the "product of human imaginitive creativity in the face of the great mysteries of life" just like everybody elses, whether or not they acknowledge it.

To all the fundamentalists out there: no, this does NOT mean that I get to just make up God. The explanation of this I leave to others - read the books. To the rest of you, you know what I mean. I find this incredibly liberating; from the guilt of not being able to swallow the "received revelation;" from the perceived need to love God or love knowledge, but not both. Still, this is a scary revelation. More on that when I find some more time.

Epiphany

2005-04-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

I had an epiphany the other day. It all started innocently enough with an argument about abortion that I was having with a (very conservative) office-mate of mine. I made my usual argument ("What is it EXACTLY that distinguishes a human fetus from an adult cow?"), and he made the usual conservative Christian argument ("If you're not sure that it's not a sacred life, how can you make the decision to kill it?") The guy with whom I was arguing is very conservative - into the whole patriarchal interpretation of the universe, if you know what I mean. So I popped off with the comment "If you were a woman, you'd be a huge supporter of abortion rights. If it was YOUR freedom we were talking about!" Ouch. Really dumb move. My opponent said very quietly "I don't think that you should be telling me what I would or would not do." And of course he was right.

No one is less amazed than I that I actually learned something from this argument. C'mon - we've all gotten in a thousand arguments about abortion, and nobody's mind is ever changed one iota by any of it. The point is never to convince our opponent that we are right - the point is to convince ourselves that we are right. In this case, I actually managed to become convinced that my opponent was NOT wrong. Which isn't to say that I decided that I was wrong - I don't think that I am wrong. I just no longer thing that my opponent is wrong either. "But wait! He says that abortion is murder, and you say that abortion is acceptable under certain (admittedly arbitrary) circumstances. How can you both be right?"

Well, I have been pondering Isiah 55:8 - "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD" for a couple of weeks now, and it sort of laid the groundwork for my epiphany. There are a number of issues in this world - war, the death penalty, abortion, end-of-life issues, stem cell research, etc. on which I believe it safe to say that the right answer is not known by anyone. There may be "a" right answer out there, or there may be a host of right answers, but in any event we as humans are not able to discern the right, which is to say that we are not able to make rational arguments for why any particular answer is the right answer. We are forced to resort to irrational arguments or beliefs to support our position. On these issues, agreement is almost impossible. So what is the right thing to do on these issues? Apparently, each of us has to call at as we see it, and stick to our guns. Time and God will eventually resolve the issue.

This is one hell of a solution, but I see no alternatives. It is an odd solution, in that it doesn't really require me to change my position. It just requires me to keep in mind at all times that my opponents are not stupid or ignorant or being manipulated by the media - they are simply calling it as they see it, choosing to be irrational in a different manner than myself, and sticking to their guns. It also requires me to keep in mind that "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD" - i.e., I am no more right than my opponent. A guy like David Brooks at the NYT would characterize this epiphany as typical liberal wishy-washy crap; he likes for people to take a stand, to proclaim an absolute moral position. But I don't think that the world is so simple. I believe that yes, people should tackle moral issues and come to some position on them, but that they can NEVER be sure that they have the right answer. The best that one can hope for is that over (a lot of) time, a general concensus will emerge, and that that concensus will be closer to the will of God than the concensus that existed before the issue in question became an issue.

Take the example of slavery. Up until maybe a thousand year ago (and in particular in biblical times) a concensus existed that slavery was OK. Not a particularly nice thing, but a fact of life - certainly NOT an abomination in the eyes of God. At some point, however, people began to question this concensus and eventually the concensus swung in the other direction: Nowadays virtually no christian would defend slavery. I know of no good, rational argument against slavery; nonetheless, most people now have the conviction that slavery IS an abomination. Why did the concensus move in this (rather than the opposite) direction? I don't know. And how do I know that the concensus won't swing back the other way? I don't. I have FAITH that universe is fundamentally good, and that in the end things will move in the "right" direction; i.e., towards the good or the will of God. To me this is what faith is all about. I don't believe in a theistic God that loves all his little children and intervenes in the affairs of the world for them if they just pray hard enough. But I do believe in the fundamental goodness of the universe. And I admit that my belief is just as irrational as the "little children/God the father and creator" view which is more common. Why does this state of affairs make no sense to me? Because "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD".

Some Historical Background

2005-03-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

Here is a little bit of historical background on the "life" issue. I found the article superficial, but perhaps a good starting point for some research....

More Thoughts on Terri Shiavo

2005-03-26T13:50:00.000-08:00

I thought that this post by David Brooks in the New York Times was interesting. As always, I believe that he misstates the liberal case, but in this instance not by a whole lot. Trying to define who should be allowed to die seems like trying to define pornography: we know it when we see it, but we can't define it. And that puts those who believe that not all cells with human DNA in them constitute "sacred" life at a BIG disadvantage. The nice thing about being a conservative on this issue is that you can just say "life begins at conception, and after that if it looks like a human it is," and be done with it. It's pretty obvious to everyone who thinks about it that this position errs on the side of life, and of course that's the point.

The question is, what does that error cost us? In the case of Terri Shiavo, one can only speculate. If she actually is concious in a way that any of us would recognize, I can't imagine a worse fate for any human: she is locked in a solitary confinement more complete and final than anything to be found in the worst prison on earth. Forcing a "real" human to suffer such punishment would be considered cruel and unusual punishment by most everybody, and yet we have forced Terri Shiavo to suffer it for fifteen years. About 5000 days. A very long time. Why do we allow this? Because the only way that anyone knows to free her is to allow her to die and we have not, as a species, come to a concensus of when that is OK. Why do we consider it "inhumane" to allow a dog, or a cat, or a horse to undergo this kind of suffering, but positively necessary to force humans to undergo it? And remember, we have been forcing Terri Shiavo to go through this - she has had no means by which to stop us. If you're wondering what this might be like, you could try reading "Johnny got his Gun," by Dalton Trumbo. There are some excerpts here.

What if Terri Shiavo is not conscious in a recongnizably human way? I.e., what if we could all agree that she was aware, but that her level of self-awareness was at or below that of a dog or a cow? Then would it be OK to let her die? Would it be OK to euthanize her, as most people would do without hesitation for a dog or a cow? The thought of that makes even liberals wince (yes, it's true, all you conservatives out there). But would it be OK to force her to live? Even dogs feel pain, and most people I know would consider it inhumane to force a dog to live under the conditions that Terri Shiavo is living under.

Finally, what if Terri Shiavo really is brain dead, and feels nothing at all? In this case I think that we can all agree that there is no moral reason not to keep her alive - it costs us nothing but money. But of course in this case we can probably all agree that there is also no reason not to let her body die.

For sure there are no "good" options here. There is only the least bad option. This is a basic fact about the "right to life" debate that most "right-to-lifers" seem to ignore. They pretend that choosing life is always a good choice. It may always be the right choice, but it is certainly not always a good choice.

Good Friday

2005-03-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

What did Christ do for us on the cross? The standard answer is that he "atoned" for our sins, in particular for the original sin with which we all are born. I sort of believe that, but with a twist. It seems to me that what people 3000 years ago thought of as "original sin", I think of as "animal nature" or "survival instinct." Because of the evolutionary process by which we were created, we developed certain instincts - we learned to value our lives above the lives of others, we learned to value the members of our tribe above the members of another tribe, and we learned to assert our own selfish interest in our struggle to survive. Eventually, we developed to a point where our survival was no longer is danger from other competing species, but began to be most threatened by the very instincts that had served us so well for hundreds of thousands of years.

And then along came Christ. He showed us how to move to the next step on our evolution toward God. He taught us to love ALL people; not just members of our tribe, not just the strong who could give us the most obvious advantage. And ultimately, he taught us that there is something greater than simple survival of the body. That the love that each of us shows towards others through the Holy Spirit is more important even than the life of our own body. I suppose it's not surprising, given the pace of evolution, that even after 2000 years we have barely begun to understand what Christ was teaching us, and have even less been able to apply the lessons that he taught. But what an AMAZING gift! This truly is GOOD Friday.

What is "Life"?

2005-03-25T15:22:00.000-08:00

This Terri Shiavo thing has affected me pretty deeply. I have lots of questions, like:

Which people/creatures is it OK to kill, and which is it not OK to kill?
Which people/creatures MUST be killed, and which is it OK to allow to live?
Which people/creatures is it OK to keep from dying, and which MUST be allowed to die?
Which people/creatures MUST be kept from dying, and which is it OK to allow to die?
Is a human life intrinsically more valuable than the life of other animals? If so why, exactly?
If human life is intrinsically special, what constitutes "human life" in this sense (i.e., "intrinsically valuable")?

You may ask, "Greg, how in the world did you get so wrapped around the axle?" A fair question. In responding to a post on dry_bones_dance, I made the following comment:

Well, it appears that everyone values the "sanctity of life," or they say they do anyway. But isn't the Shiavo case about the definition of "life"?

"Abortion stops a beating heart!". You've all seen the bumper sticker. But so does slaughtering a cow to turn it into hamburgers. What exactly is the difference between a human fetus and a healthy adult cow, or between Ms. Shiavo in her current state and a healthy adult cow, besides the obvious things like the exact sequence of their DNA and their outward appearance? This is a repugnant example, I'll admit, but think about it. It is equivalent to answering the question "What is it about humans that separates them from other animals in an essential way - that makes their lives intrinsically more valuable than the lives of other animals." My answer to this question is based on the notion that mankind is created in the image of God in some essential way that the rest of creation is not. And based on that answer I would argue that the essentially god-like portion of Terri Shiavo is already dead. So I think that what really bothers some people about the "right to life" movement, in addition to the obvious hypocracy noted above, is the very technical way in which they define "life". Namely, anything with human DNA, more than one cell, and alive in the biological sense. It is not in the least bit clear to me that every object meeting this definition should be treated equally when defining "life"

Christy, a sensible blogger, made the following reply:

I'm with you on the part where people are created in the image of God in a way that the rest of creation is not. As for the definition of "life", when it comes to Terri Schiavo, I go with the obvious - as she is not brain dead, she is alive. I am uncomfortable with making a decision about whether or not the godlike portion of her is dead - that raises a whole host of questions for me. What about developmentally disabled people or those who are severely disabled and unable to communicate? Are we saying that their lives do not have value? What constitutes the godlike portion of a person? What does it mean that we are created in the image of God - is it the ability to reason or something else? I'd be interested in hearing your take on all that.

To which I replied, among other things:

Just because I think that Terri Shiavo's body should be allowed to die doesn't mean that I think that allowing it to die is a good thing, or even an OK thing. I think that the entire situation is tragic. It does mean that I think it is a better option than forcing her body to remain alive, given that a good portion of her brain, including her ability to interact with the physical world, is already dead. Maybe her spirit has already returned to God, or maybe it is locked in her body waiting for release. In either case I think that allowing her body to finish dying is the best of some very bad choices.

The reason that I didn't actually answer her question is that after about an hour of typing I realized that this was a little more involved than I thought. Answering her question is what I expect this blog to be about for a while.

For starters, note that in the original post I said "the essentially god-like portion of Terri Shiavo is already dead", while in my second post I said "Maybe her spirit has already returned to God, or maybe it is locked in her body waiting for release" But isn't Terri's spirit that part of her which is most "godlike?" If so, then which part of Terri is it that I think has died, and why does the death of that part make it OK to let the rest of her body die?

I find that I am suddenly confused about the meaning of lots of words that I thought I understood, like "life," "death," and "human." And suddenly that are a whole host of ways to pass from "life" to "death" (whatever that means): One can die, one can be allowed to die, one can be forced to die, and one can be killed. Similarly, one can live, one can be allowed to live, one can be forced to live, and one can be created (in the sense of procreation). One can choose to procreate, one can be forced to procreate, one can be allowed to procreate, one can be prevented from procreating, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum. Then, for each one of these actions, there are a host of possible moral judgements. Say, for example, that a certain person is "allowed to live". It may be "essential" that they be allowed to live. It may be merely "good" that they are allowed to live. It may be "tolerable" that they are allowed to live. It may be a "crime" that they are allowed to live.

No wonder, then, that I am so ambivalent about things like:

abortion
physician-assisted suicide
suicide in the case of terminal illness
euthanasia
war
the exploitation of poor nations by rich nations
the death penalty

To say nothing of eating meat (the rest of my family are vegetarians).

It really doesn't look like I'll make it through this in one post.