this special day

Today we celebrate the birth of one of the greatest persons to have ever lived – indeed, one of the architect’s of the modern world: Isaac Newton.

Among his accomplishments, Newton helped establish a mechanistic foundation for the universe, by providing mathematical descriptions of motion. His ideas helped push back the darkness of pre-Enlightenment thought, and are still very much applicable today. Even if they had been fully surpassed by the theories of later physicists like Einstein, however, that is just further evidence of the strength of the scientific method that Newton helped exemplify, for science does not hold onto ancient ideas just because they are tradition and make one feel good about oneself.

So today, we celebrate by finding something that is staying at rest, as objects that are at rest tend to stay, and, by applying an external force and witnessing the equal and opposite reaction of the object, we observe that that the force of its new momentum is equal to the external force applied.

And then we eat an apple. (That part may be myth, but at least we will acknowledge that fact.)

prtb - catching up

I know I never write these things even after I make an effort to do so. You want to know why? Because reading the Bible is bad enough; writing about it is even worse.

Much of the Bible seems like housekeeping, in which details are included just because they are part of the chronology. Thus, we spent entire chapters learning why some obscure mountain or cave bears a particular name, when that location will never be mentioned again. This is not just housekeeping, but pointless housekeeping – like tidying up a building that’s about to be bulldozed.

There is no moral message contained in these passages. These passages do not serve as prologue to a moral message. They are “history”, except that they are mostly a-historical, made-up fantasy.

So we come to Genesis 23, in which Sarah finally dies. The trailer-trash Sarah has exemplified some of the most immoral behavior you might ever come across, and she will not be missed. Sarah’s death is dispensed with in two verses; the remaining 18 are devoted to Abraham negotiating for the purchase of a cave in which to bury her, and a discussion of why that cave is called what it is called.

Housekeeping.

Genesis 24 picks up a bit, but not in a good way (unless you enjoy unintentional laughter). Abraham is now worried about his son Isaac not having a wife. Since this is the Bronze Age, Isaac cannot be expected to go off and find his own wife, so Abraham sends his slave out to find one for him.

You really need to read this chapter just to enjoy its repetitiveness. It tells the same story, in almost precisely the same words, three times – and almost tells it once more! In the end, the slave winds up finding Rebekah, who agrees to become Isaac’s wife.

We can finally say good riddance to the abominable Abraham in Genesis 25. I guess he won’t be pulling that “she’s my sister” bullshit on anybody else now. The chapter then proceeds to discuss the birth of Isaac’s two sons, Esau and Jacob.

Jacob will be one of the ancestors of Judaism and later Christianity and Islam. Like his forebears, he is a shining example of how not to treat other people. His brother Esau comes to him one day dying of hunger and begs for sustenance. Jacob agrees to give it to him, but only if Esau sells him his birthright. Thus, for the price of a bowl of beans and a piece of bread, Esau’s descendants are robbed of their rightful inheritance and must become Jacob’s servants.

Oh, what a glorious history the Jews/Christians/Muslims share!

At least we’re half done with Genesis now. It’s all (further) downhill from here.

a good point

On the heels of my last post, John Avarosis has a great point. If Obama considers holding anti-gay views to be mere “disagreement”, then where are the racists? Where are the anti-Semites? Will he be having a Klan rally at the inauguration? Will the skinheads put on their own parade?

The parallel between being black and being gay is not perfect. Slavery in America was based on skin color, not sexual orientation. The double-standards gay people face today parallel the abuses of American apartheid in only the vaguest fashion. Moreover, gay people can always “pass”, whereas that option was never available to the majority of blacks.

Yet we are a people who deserve to be recognized as people, not as a sexual preference. Is that not the same thing that motivated the Civil Rights Movement: the desire to be judged, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., not by the color of one’s skin, but by the content of his character?

So, if hating us and denying us equality under the law is a valid “point of view”, then what about all the other points of view? The Obama team can troll the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center; I’m sure they can flesh out the post-partisan makeup of the inauguration with a few of the groups listed there.

It’s all up for debate, right?

fisa to warren (and beyond)

It is pretty amazing that the Obama team would select Rick Warren to deliver the “invocation” at the inauguration in January. The gay community in particular is aghast, given Warren’s outspoken anti-gay views, as well as his vocal support for Proposition 8.

Obama’s supporters seem to have short memories. I don’t, unfortunately. Yeah, I did vote for Obama in November, but I’m not sure if I did it out of support, or just to piss off the right-wingers. Obama’s mantra of “Change” was revealed to be nothing but a cheap catchphrase way back in June.

That’s when Obama endorsed the FISA Expansion Bill, which retroactively legalized BushCo’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment. When pressed on the issue, his defense used the same fear-mongering language of the Republicans. It was that moment when the tone of his presidency was set for me.

It was just a couple of weeks ago when everyone was up in arms over Obama’s protection of Joseph Lieberman. The Democrats were so eager to achieve that 60-seat majority in the Senate that they simply forgave Lieberman all his sins, despite knowing full well that he would side with his true Republican allies when the pressure was on. Also, the Democrats – like the Republicans – also believe that they are above the law and the people they purportedly represent; Lieberman had committed no crime, because there was no one (important enough) to commit a crime against.

One might be tempted to ask why, in the 21^st century, it is necessary to include an “invocation” to the imaginary Great Sky Fairy when inaugurating a new president. If anybody bothered to read the Constitution – besides us radical leftists, that is – then they’d realize that the president serves the people, not “God”.

Furthermore, one might be surprised that even Obama and his progressives feel that they must kowtow to the demands of the Religious Right. They have fallen for the myth that fundamentalist Christianity represents a valid theological position, instead of being a reactionary social movement wrapped in a corrupt heresy.

Or maybe Obama feels that this gesture will placate the rabid denizens of the far right that he is not, in fact, the “Antichrist”. If so, then he is obviously willing to cast aside the support of his own people for a group that will never, ever, ever support him. This shows once again the absurdity of American politics, in which the majority can repudiate the proto-fascist ideas of the fringe, and yet, when all things are said and done, our leaders still embrace that fringe.

FISA. Lieberman. Warren. Who wants to bet that the next betrayals will be named after torture, Guantanamo, and Iraq?

womb control

A couple of days ago, I commented that fundamentalist Christians – they of the anti-abortion, “pro-life” movement – don’t really give a damn about babies. It is obvious that they don’t much care for children after they are born either. Now they are cheering the impending passage of an executive order that would strip an untold number of American women of their reproductive rights in the guise of “conscience rights”. But don’t be fooled: fundamentalist Christians have been waging a culture war since the inception of their heresy in the late 19^th century, and babies – unborn or otherwise – are merely a prop in it.

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world. The US spends more than any other country on health care. Yet, according to the results of a 2007 study by Save the Children, the US ranks 36^th in terms of infant mortality. That is behind virtually all of “socialist” Western Europe (including the European Union as a whole), and even Cuba.

It is revealing that, the last time this study was conducted in 1997, the US ranked 28^th. In other words, since the “pro-life” George W. Bush came to power, the US has actually declined in this ranking! But that should not surprise us.

Looking at the United States itself, we see another revealing trend. Of the 15 states with the worst infant mortality rates, twelve of them are located in the so-called “Bible Belt” – i.e., those states with the highest percentage of fundamentalist Christians. For the record, the District of Columbia is unranked, since it is not a state; however, DC has the highest rate of infant mortality in the country. Still, is having eleven states in the top 15 any better than having twelve?

Well, not really. Of those states that voted for the “pro-life” John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, eleven of them – you guessed it – are among those 15 with the worst infant mortality rates. Conversely, of the 15 states with the lowest infant mortality rates, eleven voted for the pro-choice Barack Obama. (Again, to be fair, DC voted for Obama, but has the worst infant mortality rate. Meanwhile, Utah has the best infant mortality rate in the country, but voted for McCain.)

Those exceptions don’t change the big picture, though. If fundamentalist Christians and Republicans really cared about the health of children, they would be working on improving the infant mortality rate in the United States as a whole and in those particular states where they have the most power.

This same hypocrisy is revealed by how the Republicans deal with evidence that pollution results in higher levels of infant mortality. This article from the Kalamazoo Gazette from April of this year details how Republican congressmen are blocked the release of just such a report. If the health of the “unborn” were so important to them as they claim, they would have taken this report and run with it, whether the study was complete or not. After all, a lack of evidence did not stop them from doing that very thing with the false hypothesis of “post-abortion syndrome”, even though no legitimate study has shown a link between having an abortion and experiencing depression afterwards.

We all remember the debacle of S-CHIP, in which Bush vetoed a bill expanding health care to underprivileged children for the most dubious of political reasons. They spare no time in providing tax cuts to the wealthy, but the health of children who cannot afford treatment in America’s broken medical system means nothing to them. It is that which captures the true meaning of children to this inhuman mob.

Children – babies – are unwilling pawns in the right-wing’s quest to roll back the clock on women’s rights. They do not want to “save babies”, but control wombs. They remember when women were solely the possessions of men, and they will not stop until they have regained their tarnished golden age.

ponzo reads the bible - genesis 21-22

I’m trying to make Ponzo Reads the Bible a regular feature, and Sunday seems like the most appropriate day for it. Unfortunately, the first entry happens to concern Genesis 21, which is mostly boring as shit, so we’re going to skip much of it. The first half does deserve mention, though, because it not only introduces a major character, but reveals what kind of a person Sarah is.

Sarah gives birth to Isaac. Sarah, of course, is not only Abraham’s wife, but his sister, so we are already in weird ass territory here. Sarah is also over 90 years old at this point, so it’s even weirder. Fortunately, Sarah has been receiving fertility treatments from God: therefore, Isaac.

Of course, a 90-year-old woman giving birth is biologically dubious, but we do not question the pumpkin carriage or the ruby slippers; all fairy tales need their supernatural elements. Thus, we will take it in stride and move ahead.

Earlier we felt some sympathy for Sarah, but, if that hasn’t already evaporated, it will now. Since Sarah has her own kid now, she gets jealous of Hagar and her son Ishmael. You may remember Hagar: when Sarah was still infertile, she forced her slave girl Hagar to bear Abraham a son, Ishmael. Well, now Sarah wants them out of the house, because they offend her.

I’m no fan of Abraham or God, but I am willing to cut them a break here. God promises that Hagar and Ishmael will be taken care of, and that is indeed the case. Sarah, on the other hand, couldn’t care less whether Hagar and Ishmael live or die. So fuck her.

This chapter now goes off on one of those odd Biblical non-sequiturs and discusses the origins of a well, so this is where we’ll skip ahead to Genesis 22. I was willing to cut God and Abraham some slack a moment ago, but this is the chapter that makes me want to take both of them out back and ensure that no one ever finds the bodies.

This is the part where Abraham almost murders his own son at God’s request.

God decides to “tempt” Abraham, but God is really testing his loyalty. He demands that Abraham offer Isaac as a sacrifice. What is remarkable here is that Abraham does not suffer any moral qualms about this. He does not question why God would make such a demand. He does not resist in the slightest. He merely packs up his ass (the other kind), selects his best sacrificin’ knife, and sets off to the altar.

Of course, we know that God relents at the very end, with Isaac bound on the altar and the knife in Abraham’s hand. What does this say about God, though? He demands loyalty to him over familial relationships, regardless of the damage it does. What did Isaac think about his father after this? What was their relationship like? Is this the kind of human society that God expects his followers to create: one in which no one can trust anyone else? Even worse, this passage has served as the template for subsequent Christian families rejecting their children when they didn’t turn out the way that they wanted.

In other words, these are the “family values” that fundamentalists truly have.

Any God that would demand that its servant demonstrate his loyalty by killing his own son is simply evil. And any father that would blindly and robotically follow such a command is more than a “bad father”, but a sociopath.

There is more to consider here, though, because there are two versions of this story. As we’ve discussed previously, the Pentateuch is comprised of at least four different source documents. Well, the Isaac sacrifice story appears in two of them. The one people are familiar with is the one in which God relents at the very end; this is basically the Disney version of an older, original tale. You see, in that source document, Isaac never appears again after this. In other words, originally, God let Abraham go through with the sacrifice.

There is evidence that human sacrifice was practiced by the forerunners of the Israelites. By the time the Bible was compiled, the practice had mostly shifted to animal proxies. There are still passages in the Bible that reflect the earlier practice, though; most of them were edited out, but reconstructing the source documents reveals them. This is one such example.

Genesis 22 ends with – what else? – a boring genealogy. Hopefully things will pick up next time. (Actually, they don’t.)

who's distorting what now?

Via Right Wing Watch, we learn that the fundies are upset about something (as usual). In the words of one of their spokesbigots:

Appearing as a sarcastic, rotund Christ, Black distorts the Bible and condones shameful, homosexual acts. Associating Christ with perverse activity is an affront to all people of faith, especially Christians. Apparently Black and company find it hilarious to falsely accuse Christians while they intentionally distort the Bible. Black ought to apologize.

That’s in reference to the Prop 8 Musical, in which Black appears as Jesus. As usual, though, it is the Christians who do the distorting. At no point does Black’s Jesus distort the Bible; he merely points out some other things that the Bible condemns (or advocates) as strongly as homosexuality, and that fundamentalist Christians pick and choose the rules they want to follow.

This is in the same vein as those creationists who maintain that Christianity was against slavery in the 19^th century. It is hard to believe that even they are so ignorant of history (of biology, sure), so one can only conclude that they are being willfully mendacious: their particular brand of religious heresy arose out of their support of slavery.

Once again, we see that the “values” people wouldn't know a value if it snuck up behind them and…well, you get the idea.