Is theism on the rise in America?

Today over on Ayloo, a new social site that encourages conversations centered on specific topics raised by its members, I was asked if I thought theism was on the rise in America, on the decline or unchanged from years past. Here's the reply I posted there.

I perceive theism as being on the rise here in the U.S., but not a compassionate theism or even a primarily religious theism. By that I mean that the theism that I see becoming more popular these days is more political than spiritual. Theists are embracing conservative political values and infusing them with their theological beliefs, creating a conservative movement that unashamedly defers to the Bible as the basis for deciding national and foreign policy. It's ironic that George Bush was lambasted for saying that part of the reason he went to war in the Middle East was because he thought god told him to and now we have candidates openly calling for prayer to end the drought in Texas and the teaching of creationism in schools as an "alternative" to evolution, and the press and public seem unconcerned.

It's been said for years that an atheist would have no chance to be elected to the presidency, or any public office for that matter, but now we have evangelical Christians running for office that don't accept or endorse the notion first put forth by Thomas Jefferson that there ought to be a wall of separation between religion and the government. I'm amazed that Perry, Bachmann and their fellow conservative Christians have convinced their followers that the economy and crime will both be straightened out if only America becomes a more Christian nation in light of the fact that America has always been a primarily Christian nation. Considering their percentage of the population it's reasonable to conclude that the economy was wrecked by people who call themselves Christians and most crime is committed by people who would describe themselves as Christians. Bars and sex shops would have gone bankrupt long ago if their only patrons were non-believers. The state that consumes the largest amount of Internet porn is Utah, home to some of the most conservative Christians there are, many of whom must have had to dip into their porn allowance to send money to their church in opposition of California's Proposition 8. It appears this massive hypocrisy not only doesn't bother American Christians but is completely ignored by them. Despite all evidence to the contrary they think that if only they can get a conservative Christian candidate elected president the nation will somehow be blessed by god and everything will get better.

The theism I see on the rise is a form of fundamental Biblicalism combined with a devotion to profit and a deference to the wealthy. This is understandable in the case of politicians, they follow the money. But it would be hard to explain in the case of the average citizen. I think this is why religious belief is being emphasized so much. Religious citizens naturally follow strong religious leaders. It's a part of their training. Perry and Bachmann, even Palin, are attempting to portray themselves as religious leaders as much as political leaders.

The primarily religious theism that is increasing is in reaction to the perception that civilization is going to hell at an increasing rate and that end-time predictions are coming true. People unfamiliar with history can easily be fooled into thinking that times like these have never occurred before. Plato credited Socrates with complaining "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." Nothing we see today is new or unique to our age. But once again, as they have many times before, Christians have decided that these must be the end times and many quasi-religious people, worried that they may be among the "left behind", are becoming more committed to the claim that they are religious. Not that they are attending church any more often or have increased their caring for the poor among us. They are less interested in following the dictates of Jesus than they are interested in avoiding hell. It's a convenient Christianity, and in my opinion a useless one. Another minor factor in the increase of theism is as a reaction to the perceived increase in the number of Muslims in the U.S. The "Us or Them" mentality of the Middle East has waded ashore here.

9/11/01 - 9/11/11 Lessons learned

So what have we as a nation learned in the ten years since 9/11/01?

I submit the primary lessons have focused on fear and hate.

Had we been attacked by radical Christian fundamentalists, like those who kill doctors who perform abortions or encourage the suicides of their followers, we would have been assured that these killers did not represent the goals and attitudes of the vast majority of Christians. We wouldn't have protested the building of Christian churches in this country, we wouldn't look nervously at everyone who wears a crucifix or worships the Christian god. We would not have been tempted to consider every Christian a potential mass murderer.

But those who flew the planes on 9/11 were Muslims, and Americans don't understand Islam or Muslims. We fear what we don't understand, especially when we believe it can hurt us. That's human nature. Fear, in some cases, can preserve our lives. And fear, nurtured over time, becomes hate. We hate that which makes us afraid.

Those who attacked us ten years ago hated us then and hate us now. They hate us because they fear us. They fear our religious beliefs, they fear our Western attitudes, they fear our motivations for being in their countries.

There's a solution to the cycle of fear and hate; knowledge. The more we understand something the less reason we have to fear it. The less we fear it the less reason we have to hate it.

It should be obvious by now that terrorism will never be defeated with guns and bombs. A militaristic approach simply provides more fuel to the fire of fear and hatred. We need to fight fear and hate with education and enlightenment. We need to encourage people to learn about each other, to meet and exchange their thoughts and opinions. They may never agree on much of what they believe, but in gaining understanding they will be less likely to fear and hate each other.

Besides coming to fear and hate Muslims, what did the events of 9/11/01 teach us?

It's Friday!

The power has been restored here in San Diego and I'm off for my last day of work at Cartridge World.

In 3 weeks Cleo, Liz-Beth, Sara and I will be headed for Virginia.

What will you do to remember 9/11?

Here are some ideas.

Please join the 9/11 Tribute Movement by briefly describing what you will do this year, a good deed, charitable activity, or other plans, to honor the 9/11 victims, survivors and those that rose in service in response to the attacks.

I will, will you?

911day.org 

The "smaller government" argument deconstructed

One of the most popular catch-phrases in politics these days is "smaller government". People from every party acknowledge the expensive and often useless bloat in the American government. The fix appears to be simple, reduce the size of government which will in turn reduce spending and, as many predict, lead to a stronger economy.


However, like in the case of most political catch-phrases, looking at the details behind the simple idea exposes the difficulty of implementing this apparently simple plan.


"Government" is people, folks like you and me, sitting at desks, at their computers, doing basic office work. Reducing the size of government inevitably means closing departments and agencies and turning their employees into more unemployed workers. 


According to the July employment report from the Department of Labor, "The number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.1 percent) changed little in July. Since April, the unemployment rate has shown little definitive movement. The labor force, at 153.2 million, was little changed in July. Job gains occurred in health care, retail trade, manufacturing, and mining. [B]Government employment continued to trend down[/B]." (emphasis added)


We already have at least 13.9 million people without a job, and government employment is already slowing. Admittedly many of those government job reductions are taking place at the local and state level. "Government employment continued to trend down over the month (-37,000). Employment in state government decreased by 23,000, almost entirely due to a partial shutdown of the Minnesota state government. Employment in local government continued to wane over the month."


Evidently the "job creators", those who have benefited most from tax exemptions and bail-outs, are failing to fulfill their roles as providers of increased employment. New industries are not being established, new opportunities are not being provided for the unemployed. What we have seen is an increase in profits to shareholders, money which could theoretically benefit the economy if it was spent on commodities produced in the U.S. or paid to employees. Looking at our economic state it appears neither of these are occurring. Instead big oil subsidies (amounting to about $4.4 billion), for example, produced first-quarter profits totaling more than $35 billion on the back of sky-high crude prices. How and where is this money finding its way back into the economy?


So it seems the country wants to eliminate jobs and at the same time not require those who have benefited most from low taxation and subsidies to create new jobs or industries. This lack of accountability coupled with a lack of foresight bodes ill for the future of our country. I have yet to hear any politician present a plan that acknowledges the fact that decreasing the size of government will result in higher unemployment and provide a means to deal with that.

Scientists don't understand everything

Lately I've been encountering a number of posts by theists claiming that evolution and cosmology are seriously flawed but that scientists will never concede that fact.

The theists claim that this is because those researching and experimenting physics and biology all toe the scientific line, that dissent and disagreement are not allowed. They claim that funding would be withheld from any scientist who presented conclusions or interpretations that differed from the mainstream dogma.

In other words theists want us to believe that scientists are just as "religious" in their adherence to doctrine as any god-believer.

To those theists I offer this in rebuttal.

Newly released observations of the top quark — the heaviest of all known fundamental particles — could topple the standard model of particle physics. Data from collisions at the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, hint that some of the top quark's interactions are governed by an as-yet unknown force, communicated by a hypothetical particle called the top gluon. The standard model does not allow for such a force or particle.

The results, presented¹ today at the Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics in Grenoble, France, could help researchers to understand the origins of mass. According to one theoretical interpretation, a top quark bound by to its anti-matter partner, the antitop, would act as a version of the elusive Higgs boson, conferring mass on other particles.

Regina Demina, a physicist at the University of Rochester in New York, and her colleagues sifted through eight years' worth of particle-collision data recorded by one of the Tevatron's two detectors, known as DZero. Top quarks produced during collisions can fly off in the direction of the accelerator's proton beam or its antiproton beam; Demina and her team discovered that more travel towards the proton beam than is predicted in the standard model of physics. A different model would seem to be needed to explain the discrepancy. 

Dan Hooper, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab, notes that the top-quark asymmetry is just one of many cracks in the standard model of particle physics. And although Schwartz agrees that it is unlikely that any one theory will explain all the defects, he says that accounting for the odd behaviour of the top quark would be a promising start. (Source)

Join me on Google+

If reading this blog has piqued your interest in Google+, I have quite a few invitations to share with you.

Click on the "Email Me" link in the sidebar and send me the email address you'd like the invitation sent to. I will not retain your address or use it for any other purpose than to send you the invitation.

As you may have read, Google+ isn't like Facebook or Twitter. I would compare it more with Friendfeed, if you're familiar with that site.

Once you've joined Google+, you might want to read this link. It's a "how-to" guide for the site.

Would you like an even easier alternative? The first 150 people clicking this link can get an invitation.
https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3Fgpinv%3DJif0A0QlOy4%3AI7jqa81J-fc

Will liberals support Obama in 2012?

If Obama fails to secure a second term as president, and I think it's quite likely he will be a one-term president, it will be largely because he's lost the support of his liberal base.

He's not likely to win over any Republicans, conservatives or members of the tea party. They despise him as a person and president; that has been evident since he was sworn in. So extreme is their disdain that they have not even attempted to disguise their hostile rhetoric in the cloak of patriotism.

And he can't rely on support from progressives. They don't even have a party to represent their opinions. They are dedicated more to an ideology than any particular candidate. If the Republican candidate offers a more progressive agenda than Obama they'll back him/her over the Democratic incumbent.

Obama has lost the good faith and trust of the American liberal. His campaign promises appealed to the goals of the liberals. He envisioned an America where everyone would be welcome to share in our prosperity and freedom. He promised greater governmental transparency. He pledged to undo most of the damage done to our image and economy during the Bush years.

Once elected, he failed to follow through on those promises and pledges. He didn't close Gitmo, he didn't immediately end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", he didn't put an end to tax loopholes enjoyed by the wealthiest of our citizens. Transparency in government never saw the light of day. Federal powers to snoop and spy on American citizens weren't curtailed, they were expanded. In many ways he became more "Bush" than Bush himself had been.

If Obama can't win back the hearts, and more importantly the minds, of liberals before the campaign gets well underway, where are liberals to turn? Certainly not to any Republican, conservative or tea party candidate.

The Republican party and their followers in the conservative and tea party clans have shown that they don't share the same vision for America that liberals do. They are beholden to and do the bidding of corporations and the wealthiest among us. They support big business because big business supports them. When was the last time a middle-class person dropped a check for a million dollars into a Republican's campaign chest?

It most likely won't be another Democratic candidate. Who else besides Obama can the Democrats hope to put into place before the 2012 election season kicks off? Not to mention how much credibility the Democratic party has lost in the recent debt debates. The only way they could have capitulated even more would have been to offer Obama's resignation on the spot. The Democratic party has been effectively neutered, primarily by their own inaction and inability to stand up to the opposition.

We could be seeing the end of a liberal perspective in American politics. In the near future we may no longer have a counter opinion to those voiced by the more conservative elements in our government. We may well be witnessing the end of governmental checks-and-balances. And where there is but a single party, a single ideology, a single candidate with any real hope of being elected, we no longer have a representative democracy.

I'm not saying liberal ideals are always the most beneficial for our country. The liberal ideals of caring for even the most destitute citizen and trying to ensure that no one goes unfed, unclothed and uncared for have to be paid for, and yet Democrats are loath to suggest an increase in taxes even for the wealthiest among us. The Democrats are as afraid of pissing off the money merchants as the Republicans are, and for many of the same reasons. Yet taxes are how we Americans pay for the services we receive from the government, from the local level to the federal. To suggest that we can receive benefits without having to pay for them is the height of folly.

So where do liberals turn for a champion for their liberal ideals and goals? I honestly don't know. But I do know this country needs at least two parties in power. We need opposing opinions and debates over proposed spending. We cannot afford to become a one-party country, not unless we're willing to scrap the Constitution and invent a new corporate-sponsored image for the nation.