Another example to help analysis/clear thinking

What can you tell about the type of book a person owns? Here is another quick lesson in faith and reason and ability to think through a problem or question accurately. The answer to this question is not as easy and obvious as it seems. Again, I present this example in good faith open dialogue, not as hidden message/anagram or words that perverts who have porn, for example, can derive comfort from. The reason I am raising this as our next intellectual and reasoning skills question is that the shooter in the UU church had certain conservative books that made the headlines as people looked for reasons as to why he committed his horrible acts. I realized right away this is a great case study topic in general, and from this point on I am no longer referring to the UU church shooter and his books. I just got the idea for this topic from that subject. OK? OK.

Let’s start by understanding that there is never an obvious reason why someone has a book because by definition there are two equally plausible totally opposite scenarios. One is that a person owns a book because they want to learn about the topic and they know nothing about it. The opposite equally plausible explanation is that the person is an expert in that subject and collects books on that subject.

Think about it. Use even the example of the Bible. A person visits another person’s home and notices a Bible. They immediately jump to a conclusion based on their own narrow mindedness and prejudices. They assume the person is a “Bible thumper.” But what if the person grew up with no religion at all, and in some forum, such as an AA meeting, decided to get one and see what it is all about, in case it helps them with recovery? So there are two equally plausible opposite end of the spectrum reasons about why someone might have a Bible. And if those are the two ends of the spectrum (expert on book subject and wants more vs. knows nothing about the subject and may be having first look which may or may not develop into liking it at all), obviously logical indicates there are a multitude of reasons in between. What if the person is a rare book collector, but not a believer? What if the person is a believer and does collect various editions? What if one denomination is checking out the Bible of another denomination? What if it is just a sentimental family artifact, inherited from the grandparents, for example. What if it doesn’t belong to the person but was left there by someone else? What if the child in the family is going through religious instructions but the parents are not? What if someone is taking a literature course and the Bible is being studied as originator of much of Western literature during certain eras? What if the person is an artist and wanted the art work in the Bible for aesthetic reasons? What if the person is an editor, scholar or book reviewer, and planning to do a review of that Bible edition? What if it was a gift and an opinion has not yet been formed? What if it is going to be a gift to someone, or a donation? What if the person had it because they stole it from a hotel because they are anti-Christian, and they had not yet disposed of it yet? What if the person had bought a garage sale grab bag and the Bible was in it? What if, what if, what if? How do you ever know the answer?

Well, duh, jumping to an unspoken conclusion based on a negative agenda is never enlightening. So the first way to find out is to ask the person about the Bible. Nothing like opening one’s mouth to actually ask a question rather than jump to a conclusion. So never jump to a conclusion about why someone has a book, especially before you even have a dialogue.

The second consideration is the age and stage of life of a person. Do you buy or read the same types of books that you did ten years ago or twenty years ago? Usually the answer to that is yes and no. For example, a person may be a lifelong fan of certain types of fiction, such as fantasy, science fiction, westerns, murder mysteries, romance novels etc. So while not always true, since tastes change, it is not unusual that a person who is a steady reader of books will have a certain type of literature or “escapist” novels that they will gravitate toward for long periods in their life. But often people change their taste as they just become sick of a type of book, the quality goes down, or a more interesting alternative arises. Self help books are an example of a genre of “nonfiction” (though most of them are fiction if people were being honest and ethical about it) that people tend to read during a phase in their life. An obvious example is that contently retired people tend not to read self help books, while younger people who are churning in some part of life tend to read self help books.

But when it comes to nonfiction books, tastes really do change with age. First of all, there are fads, such as the ever popular cookbooks, where a personality stimulates an interest in some topic, or new interest in food, or a type of nutrition or diet plan, develops. Second, though, there is a shift that takes place in many people as they age, though much less than it used to be (since so much of the population tries to stay juvenile in their self interest). But a very common phenomenon used to be that young people would be very interested in adventurous, counter cultural topics, only to find as they aged, had families, and were further in their careers, they did a flip and started exploring more conservative topics. The psychoanalyst Jung wrote quite a bit about that, likening it to developing an interest in the parts of your life you had to suppress before, so it's kind of your "B side," to use a record term (since I don't want to get into a whole psych discussion here). People who are counter cultural as young people often become interested in more conservative topics later in life, while the reverse is also true (though less so if conservative activities, such as raising a family, predominate). Again, this is not a value judgment, but explaining that all humans tend to have one or more shifts in interest conforming to their stages and circumstances in their life's cycle.

And here is the other problem with jumping to a conclusion. What if the person is reading those books not for their own needs or benefits, but to learn what works and does not work in helping others? Ah ha. Is the person who reads a book about a particular political stance, religious belief, or self help technique reading it because they are “searching” (yuck to that term, but that’s how the bloated new age squishy mindset views any intellectual or social query) or is the person reading that book because they have to relate to and get along with people who have those beliefs? Much of the library I used to have belonged to that category. I owned MANY books that had nothing to do with my personal beliefs, but were informative in understanding people who had those beliefs. I often had to hold my nose and I rarely actually read those books; they usually occupied space as reference. For example, I had a collection of books about ancient Egypt. Why? Not because I considered the belief of the pharaohs to be anything other than a steaming pile of crap. But one reason I had them is because there’s such a manic interest in pharaoh occult as part of the New Age disease. Even that would not have been enough of a reason for me to actually buy the books (and for many years I had only one book about Egypt in my collection at all) but I had second aesthetic reasons. I was very interested in their art color palette (especially for certain images such as the lotus, palm and so forth) and I also was going through a phase of being very interested in linguistics, and they plugged a gap in my survey of that topic. So the cultists morons who snooped in my house regularly jumped to an orgasm of conclusions about my having a lot of Egyptology books, without once ever asking me a single question about a single book.

So remember, it’s not like I’m really more mysterious and complicated than other folks. If I have a book for a reason that has to do with others rather than myself, then many other people have nuanced reasons for having certain reading books too, and they deserve to be understood honestly and openly.

Here is another thing that is kind of an old fashioned era thing that many cultists did not understand. I grew up poor and only had a few hardcover books as a teenager. The wealthy and elite belonged to “book clubs.” So when I earned a good salary I really enjoyed being able to buy hardcover books and build a library. I enjoyed belonging to book clubs. And more important, I liked patronizing certain book dealers, especially if they were individuals trying to stay in business. I bought from one of the finest traditional shops of antiquarian books in London, but I also bought from struggling artist sorts who sold books on the side and hand produced their catalogues. I deliberately placed regular orders with them in order to provide my support for their business, making myself choose from the books they had. Sometimes the books were “my cup of tea” and sometimes they weren’t. I often bought books just because I liked the cover, or enjoyed the illustrations, especially if it were wood block engravings of some skill. I cannot tell you how much it has hurt that I spent my money on people I thought were amiable colleagues who shared an interest in books (often spending way too much and going into debt) only to find out that they were part of the cultist spying and demonizing me based on “what books I selected.” I will never regain the trust that has been destroyed.

So this is an example of how one must be especially careful about drawing conclusions about another person’s mindset and stance based on very thin evidence such as taste in reading books. Of course that’s not so much a problem when one is going along with the crowd on pure mass media entertainment, such as reading the “Harry Potter” books. No one would jump to a conclusion that the person believed in magic just because he, she or their children were reading the Harry Potter books. The same with the phenomenal sales some years ago of the inspirational nonfiction book “The Purpose Driven Life.” That is an example where you will find the entire spectrum of readers and cannot jump to conclusions based on if, for example, you saw that book in a person’s home. The person may or may not be Christian, or active or believing in any way. They may or may not be looking for a “self help inspirational book,” or they may or may not want to read it so they can help others, or understand what others who struggle are saying or experiencing. They may read it for any of the reasons I listed above about the Bible (except I guess the grandparents would not have an antique edition, it’s too new for that!) It’s ironic that in an age when everyone is “seeking,” the owning of a book is immediately seen as “agreement with the topic of that book.” I mean, if a person already feels that way, do they need to read the book? One of the big conflicts in logic of modern thinking is to assume that everyone is 1) looking for “the answer” while at the same time believing the opposite which is 2) the person “agrees with” whatever they are reading at the time and must have a sympathy for the stance of the author, because otherwise, why buy the book? That’s an example of an inherent conflict in logic.

That’s all I really want to say for now on this topic. I hope you found this helpful, especially you young people who are reading (and who worry more about the cost of textbooks than some of these topics, but I use the topics as way to help you preserve and develop your best reasoning facilities!)

Read about this standoff in Wisconsin

Fortunately it did not go the way the Knoxville attack did, and this guy seems more disturbed and less violent. Yet, if this summary is to be believed, he thought that angelic beings were telling him to kill congress people on behalf of humanitarian, liberal and constitutional values?

All I can say is that insanity and mental defect has become a very complex and shady situation in this modern society. I hope the "angelic beings" aren't samples of the "aliens" that a former astronaut is jabbering about. That ain't so helpful if so, no?

http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=7/29/2008&id=44008

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UPDATE: 'Angelic beings' drove standoff

The man who claimed to have a bomb inside a public restroom in the City of Pewaukee Police Department told police that "angelic beings" told him to start a war against his own government.

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Richards, whose standoff with police Monday lasted 2 1/2 hours, is accused of demanding a squad car and a gun so he could go to Madison and then Washington D.C. to shoot congressmen and senators, according to the criminal complaint.

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According to the criminal complaint, at 9:20 a.m. City of Pewaukee Police Officer Kristen Bast found a piece of paper on the floor outside the unisex restroom door. The computer-generated note stated he had a bomb strapped to him, he demanded a weapon, a police vehicle and to be brought to the vehicle. The note states that he did not want to hurt police officers but his intent was to arrest the government for failing to protect children, war vets, the helpless, for failing to fight greed and corruption, and for violating all constitutional amendments.

The man had been in the bathroom for five hours before the note was discovered, the complaint says. Police checked a video surveillance camera in the lobby and saw a man dressed in camouflage enter the bathroom at 4:15 a.m. While officers were investigating the first note, a second note, identical to the first was slipped out from under the door, the complaint says.

Spiritual direction: Catholics and birth control

This subject always comes up as probably the most difficult of the Catholic Church's teachings to accept. I've mentioned this before, but since there's a lot of blogging of the anniversary of Pope Paul VI's HV, here is a quick reminder.

If you read and study either the Bible or the Qur'an, you will not find any orientation toward individual salvation. That's right... salvation is always described on a societal and community basis. SIN most certainly is discussed on an individual basis, as are the Gospels that relate the events and teachings in Jesus' life. Just to be clear, I am not saying that souls are not saved one at a time. But God's laws are not written with individual salvation in mind. God's laws are written so that the human species can survive and thrive as his children.

Therefore, God's "bar is raised higher" than the individual salvation, or sin, of any one person. God did not sit down and go, "Hmm, what is the list of things that all good individuals must do to be saved." God gave prohibitions and teachings to the "community of the faithful," starting with the chosen people, the Israelites. God's first words to Adam and Eve after they sinned regarded how humans as a whole would live, not just the sinners, or the obedient.

Birth control and homosexual behavior therefore fall under the category of God's admonitions for the survival and thriving as people as a whole. I described in a previous post that Biblical "gays" would never have dreamed of wanting a "gay lifestyle," for the most part, because individual sex acts and desires were by choice subordinated by the predominant desire of all men to have a wife and children. That's why there is condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible, but not a lot of stories or parables about individual sexual acts. God's not as concerned about individual sexual preferences but God is very concerned about how humanity and its society as a whole will, and there's no nice way to put it, will be allowed to continue.

So the Catholic Church continues to uphold the standard that God himself established for the community of the faithful (and humanity as a whole) to continue its well being. Those dogmas are the hardest to follow and God knows that, obviously. Therefore the Church cannot and should not "soften" or "modernize" its interpretation of the expectations by God of humans. However, when giving spiritual direction I advise that on an individual basis, these are the areas where one is most likely to be able to "take one's chances" with God.

God certainly understands family planning and spacing of births. Also, society has changed so that people are irresponsible toward supporting babies and single parents. So it is understandable, but not allowable dogma, that individuals make decisions about birth control and sex acts that are prohibited by God and his Church. If a person is leading a modest and virtuous life, but makes individual choices about birth control or individual sex acts, "I like your odds," if you know what I mean. Someone who "takes a chance" and is otherwise very pious and observant but practices artificial birth control in a family setting sure has "better odds" of being forgiven than someone who repeatedly aborts in order to be sexually promiscuous.

I have a headache from the terrible mood and violence of the times, and also the living conditions I've had to endure for years now, so I'm not going to go into detail on this subject. I mostly wanted to get it out there so you can start to think about how the Church is not supposed to "lower the bar" because it has a responsibility toward humanity as a whole to keep it right where God set it. However, there are certain sins that one can see that Jesus, for example, had a merciful view of, and thus one can understand being pious and yet "chancing it with God's mercy" in those areas. I think you get my point. Part of being judicious is keeping one's mouth shut and not high profiling those areas where you are "taking a chance with God's mercy." That way you do not tempt others to follow you in sin, when they may not be so well positioned in their internal virtue and morality. That's why I repeatedly admonish my gay friends to not "promote the lifestyle." Likewise I do not think that those on birth control should rub the priest's nose in it, or their parish, touting themselves as enlightened and modern. I think it should be confessed, obviously, but not advertised as an area where debate is valid, because it is not. God knows all and sets standards for humans for a reason. It is not a "report card" for one by one salvation, as many seem to think today. It is the conditions under which God will offer his protection for the continuation of humanity. Period.

Shooting debate: quick discernment lesson

Hi. As usual I'm thinking very much of the young people who are living through these times and learning how to weigh the facts and form opinions, exactly when electronic media allows and promotes snap judgments, accusations and conclusions.

I have to make a quick example using the UU church because they themselves are actually raising the subject and of course learning about them is part of everyone's interest in reading this story. I've known about them since college when many of my peers left their church and went to UU because they felt that UU "OK's" whatever imbibing, drug use, sexuality and abortions. This was in the early 1970's and I'm not making a values statement: I'm telling you what my friends told me as they trundled off to the local UU, feeling they could be "spiritual" but still "do their own thing" (to use the popular expression). So I mention this just so people don't say, "Oh, what does MM know about UU?" I know that it was the safe house in my university town for those of my friends who most liked weed, LOL.

Having said that, here is part of the deplorable "dialogue" that is taking place that I must address as an example for my readers to see another challenge in faith and reason discernment. I want to teach you to notice intellectual contradictions. An intellectual, aka logical, contradiction is when someone says one thing, if you believe it, then you can't believe the second thing that they say, because they disagree in some real fundamental way.

So I've noticed that some UU members explain their faith by saying that it pretty much is "bring your own," and they cite that all sorts of believers go there, Christian, Buddhist, pagan, etc. So they present it as everyone is equal and all they care about is goodness and social justice. OK, if one wants a refuge from one's own religion and go to a place of a kind of spiritual social gathering, that's great. But here is the contradiction. They present a kind of "anything is possible" logic in the universe, there may or may not be a creator, that everyone is rewarded in their "journey" "toward" eternal life, etc. But in the same breath I read comments by UU's that state that they "know" that Christianity is incorrect, that Judaism is incorrect, that Islam is incorrect, and so on down the list. So which is it? How do they "know" that every organized religion is wrong? Who told them? How do they know? I mean, OK, say that everyone is welcome, and that it's all a open door groovy love fest of good works and eternal joy. How do you know?

If your head hurts now, so does mine. That's one of the things I least like about humans. They act on one hand like the universe is a great mysterious and all good "unknown," yet on the other hand they somehow "Know" that all organized religion is "wrong." How do they know? How do they know? How do they know?

If they reply to you that it's because flawed humans "wrote" the sacred books, then why would they believe that flawed humans merit eternal bliss in some engine free groovy "everyone is equal" world?

That, dear friends, especially my young friends, is a logical contradiction. They have an open ended faith, except they will tell you that all other faiths are known to be wrong. How do they know? How do they know?

I wish them well, but want to prevent those of you who are reading about them for the first time from falling into a logical error. Many who post on their behalf seem poorly educated in history. For example they will mention Hitler as an example of being 'right wing' (implying in Christian religion) without knowing that he was a pagan (I mean, look at the flags he designed, dummies). So if you dialogue with UU's be aware that they claim on the one hand to be all open ended to the infinite "good" and "equal" possibilities of the "eternal," but they are not open to believing that ANY institutional religion might actually be exactly as it is presented to be. Somehow they have a mysterious knowledge that all religions are "wrong." Hmm? Hmm.

Church shooting information emerging

The early spin and folklore, as I expected, was that the shooter "picked out this church to shoot up" because it has "welcome gays signs" and is "fighting for social justice." I have read endless comments based on that assumption.

Well, and here is an article with interviews with attendees who explain that actually the shooter's abused ex-wife did attend that very UU church years ago. Soooooo.... while he obviously was a disturbed hater, it's not like he picked out these poor people at random because they were the shining castle on the hill of tolerance. It's all the more terrible to me, actually, that he planned to kill every person in the assembly that his ex wife attended.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/woman-accused-shooter-hated-anyone-different-him/

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This article is just the beginning of the examination of the life of a lost and disturbed, violent person who spun out of control for decades.

I think all churches need to resist covering themselves in the glory of martyrdom when these events happen, because it usually is more complex, and more about the shooter than being about "you" or your faith.

I am so dismayed by what happened. But no one is really in a position to draw conclusions about their own faith and those of others (I don't mean the shooter, but the general "discourse" that has swirled around this event). If that were true then everyone would have to give the "win" based on number of martyrs to Christians.

So, as I said after OK City, and after September 11, 2001, while we are all eager for the facts, it's far too soon to demonize-or cover one's self with glory (except for of course the innocent victims and heroes in the shooting)-based on some theological or spiritual interpretation.

I hope that all the surviving victims pull through and that somehow the children and innocents who witnessed this and suffered so much will recover.

All I can do is watch

Many terrible things have happened today, this weekend, this week, this month, this year, and growing worse and worse through the past decades. All I can do is watch in frustration, and grieve. My warnings about how humanity is losing its very soul has gone unheeded, and I myself have had to duck from the ricochet, as danger has been brought to my very doorstep too many times, instead of humility, love and friendship. When will it become too much for all of you? When will you listen and take action, instead of acting out? Shunning me and keeping me in the dark has got to start not looking so funny or clever, it has got to, for your very sanity and survival. I literally cannot recognize what people have become in fifty years, even the "good ones" have become so plastic and unrecognizable. When the mask is torn off by horror of accident or crime, I grieve with you, but why have I had to talk to myself alone about the many impending dangers for so many years? Nihilism and rage, and plasticity. And even many of the pious cannot help take swipes at each other. You don't even know the motivations of the church shooter, but people could not wait to imply that it must be "anti" social justice. You look for agenda driven reasons and cannot even see the plastic nihilistic rage swirling through society building in its "no reason-ness" for decades now.

What will you do now?

A fourth prayer I have written

Dear God.
You are our refuge and our strength, even though the earth be shaken and our worldly possessions burn. My faith is my palace and my prayers are its gold and silver. I know that You will help me at the break of dawn, and through all the hours of every day. When I hold Your words and precepts close in my heart, I can call myself a true attendant to the Prince of Peace. My ear is intent on a parable; my music is only of praise and joy. Through the tears of personal sorrow and loss, my soul can still smile in the presence of You. Grant me the strength to always follow the path of redemption to You, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.


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Written today July 27, 2008. My words with special phrases from King David. I have in mind those who are suffering a material loss, or are fearful of the events of the world, and with this prayer they can remember and organize their internal sense of perspective and ongoing faith in God. It also reminds where one's true treasure is, and also that redemption is a continuing walk. Again, I think most especially of the young people as they grapple with understanding the challenges of their material and spiritual heritage as the world is today.