Recently in Faith & Religion Category

by Mark Adams

Nothing to see here, nothing at all.

Just remember two things. The Catholic League's pompous leader, the homophobic Bill Donohue (last seen running bloggers off of John Edwards' campaign) is a partisan hack who will forgive anything if it gets more Republicans in office, or more face-time for him on Teh TeeVee. But he doesn't speak for anyone but himself.

Second ... IOKIYAR.

[I will be away from any computers this week; in the interim I'm republishing some of the more popular posts from the recent past. This one was originally published on April 12, 2005 and was part of a larger conversation with our friend Tom "Wince and Nod" Hawkson.]

Reading the drift of the comments here, I feel compelled to link to a brief summary of the case Marbury vs. Madison. So go read it if you must. It's short and sweet.

Now...Wince:

Earlier in the other comment-thread you said, "Supreme Court Justices have a tendancy to think that the Constitution means whatever they say it means. That's overstepping their bounds and it is tyranny."

I think you are looking at this in a shallow way. The entire fabric of our judicial system is rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic of making difficult judgements based on ambiguous fine points of law. A judge, being only human, listens to both sides, considering the pro's and con's of the opposing arguments and then decides what wins and what loses. It's a "judgement call" in the truest, most profound sense.

And long ago, we the people agreed to invest a selected group of our peers with that authority and with that responsibility.

You can always appeal. But the appeals have to stop somewhere here on Earth. And that is why the Supreme Court is called the highest court. Gosh! even the name is a tipoff.

Some would say God's Law is most high. Perhaps it is, as defined (for example) in the Bible. But we are not a nation that is governed by the church or the temple. Even if we were, all you have to do is look at the Talmud to understand that there is always more than one opinion about everything.

No, we are not a government ruled by the church. We are a government of the people, for the people and by the people. We follow a document that WE wrote.

Some would hope that God guided us in that ongoing endeavor. But if that is the case, it is also certainly true that God helps those who helps themselves.

It's hard to make your way through the difficult questions Wince, I know. But we all agreed, long ago, that this was a job for the people to do. We don't wait for God to judge these difficult cases for us.

Unfortunately we all think we know best. I know better than you, and vice versa. And don't get me started about the lawyers. But in order for there to be progress, we have to have a system of laws and someone needs to judge who is right and who is wrong. Preferably someone here on Earth.

Unfortunately, we're only human. We're all fallible, especially Supreme Court Justices. Maybe that's why they begin each session with a prayer for guidance. They need all the help they can get. Goodness -- it isn't just enough to read the text of the Constitution; you have to be ready to listen to people debate what it means. That alone is a huge job, given that everybody has an opinion and by the time it reaches the Supremes, you've got some high-powered legal minds leaning on you. But if that weren't enough, when the debate is over, you still have to decide who the winners are and who the losers are.

Once you've spoken, it's over.

Sorry. Would that it was more simple, but that's how it goes.

So it takes a special person to do this. It isn't something that you or I can do, unless you or I were to be vested in robes of ultimate, infinite authority and infallibility. But that isn't what this nation is all about.

We're a nation of people who have our own ideas and opinions about what's best for all of us. And we have an earthly mission to work it out in a reasoned way. That's why our government has three branches and that's why each one is checked and balanced against the others.

It's a big job being a Supreme Court judge (there's that word again). And before someone is qualified to judge the law as measured against the Constitution, they must attain a lifetime full of experience. They must show evidence of excellence. Yeah, there have been some real losers on the bench. But that's the occasional price we pay to live in the best nation God ever put on the Earth.

I'd say it was worth it, Wince. Wouldn't you?

Sorry this was so long. I didn't have time to make it shorter.

by Mark Adams KOS-Posted

John Edwards is just not your average tone-deaf, pandering politician with the common sense of a goldfish, like the so-called leaders we've become accustomed to. He's truly a liberal. But liberal does not mean you have to be "Godless."
First, the News:

1. In yet another first, Edwards decided NOT to participate in the skeet shoot debate being hosted by FOX News in Nevada.

2. Edwards directly links Jesus to the central themes of his campaign, saying Christ "would be appalled" that we "resort to war when it's not necessary," and ignore "the plight of those around us who are suffering."

Wondering where all those disenfranchised Christian voters might turn when the dust settles between the exasperated fiscal conservatives and imperial neo-conservatives as they fight over the hard-core Coulterites in the GOP?

(cross posted at Daily Kos)

Jim Caviziel, star of Passion of the Christ, appears in an anti-stem cell ad with a creepy subliminal message.

I won't provide a link to the full ad -- it's easy enough to Google.

But, rest assured, it is a real ad. I understand it will be running tonight on TV during the World Series broadcast -- live from Missouri where Amendment Two is a hot-button issue in the close race between Republican incumbent Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill.

The anti-stem cell bunch is running this ad to counter the powerful ad featuring Michael J. Fox -- you remember that convicted felon Rush Limbaugh mocked Fox for faking it or purposely going off his meds to shoot the pro-Amendment Two ad.

So now, the anti-crowd is rolling out some other big guns as well -- Jeff Suppan, the starting pitcher for St. Louis in tonight's game also appears in the ad.

Man, if ever there was a reason to root for the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, this is it!

Others appearing in the anti-stem cell ad include Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals and Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond.

These are the battle lines, people: We're for prevention, they're for punishment. One side wants life-saving research to go on; the other side wants to send you to Hell.

Send money to Claire McCaskill's campaign.

• Secretary Jackson Fabricated the Entire Story, Spokesperson Claims, Contradicting Prior Response Very unprofessional (at best) and very likely illegal (at worst). But no worries -- Congress will never investigate.

• Leader of Iran lectures Bush on being a good Christian
  This is what you get when the separation of church and state is torn down and religion trumps government. I wonder if Bush will bother to respond to Ahmadinejad.

• Another poll hits a new low
  68% believe the U.S. is worse off today than it was before Bush became president. Ouch. And with his approval at 31%, how long before he dips into the 20's?

• Israel gives Palestinians a peace deadline
  PA has until year's end or Israel will set its final borders unilaterally. Meanwhile, Fatah and Hamas continue to squabble about not missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

• The difference between New York and New Orleans
  Hillary Clinton talks about how Bush backed New York after 9/11. Wish I could say the same about him backing New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

• Hayden is great (but then so was Goss)
  Watch the video: Bush uses the identical words to nominate Hayden as he used to nominate Goss.

• Should the Democrats campaign for Congressional investigations?
  Some pundits think not; but I think people might want to know (for example) what really happened to those missing billions in Iraq.

• The Evolution of Dance (video)
  How many of these dances did you do in your day?

• The 1-Second Film
  One-second of animation, 90-minutes of credits, all in 70mm, all for a good cause. End-credits are estimated to last 90-minutes and will include a feature-length 'making of' documentary. All profits raised by the finished film will benefit the Global Fund for Women. The best part? You too can be credited as an Associate Producer. All it costs is a $1 donation. No wonder the end-credits last for 90 minutes!

As faithful watchers of The West Wing know, the incoming President has 18 months, tops, to get anything done. So his/her campaign has to focus on what that is -- and leave the rest for later.

That said, I was interested to see this list of issues that Democrats in Blogville have reached consensus on.

Scan the list and tell me -- which one of these you would campaign on?

Atrios:

I think the "liberal netroots" does have a fairly clear consensus on a number of issues. I'm not going to claim every liberal blogger or blog reader agress with everything on this list - that'd be ridiculous - but nonetheless I'd say there's a pretty obvious general consensus on the following:

• Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration
  
• Repeal the estate tax repeal
  
• Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI
  
• Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one)
  
• Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation
  
• Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice. On the last one there's probably some disagreement around the edges (parental notification, for example), but otherwise.
  
• Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code
  
• Kill faith-based funding. Certainly kill federal funding of anything that engages in religious discrimination.
  
• Reduce corporate giveaways
  
• Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan
  
• Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions.
  
• Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana. Generally move towards "more decriminalization" of drugs, though the details complicated there too.
  
• Imprison Jeff Goldstein for crimes against humanity for his neverending stupidity
  
• Paper ballots
  
• Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies. Obiously details matter.
  
• Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes.

I'm sure I could think of a few more things. I left off foreign policy because I find that most people who write about it imagine they're playing the game of Risk. It's nice to have nice bumpersticker doctrines which are ultimately meaningless, but basically "put grownups in charge" is my prescription. Kick the petulant children out.

...adding a few more things which would be obvious if we weren't living in the Grand and Glorious Age of Bush:

• Torture is bad
  
• Imprisoning citizens without charges is bad
  
• Playing Calvinball with the Geneva Conventions and treaties generally is bad
  
• Imprisoning anyone indefinitely without charges is bad
  
• Stating that the president can break any law he wants any time "just because" is bad

...oh, and I meant to include:

• Marriage rights for all, which includes "gay marriage" and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens.

[Note: I'll be away from my computer for the rest of this week. In the meantime, here is one of the more popular posts from the past.]

Surveys show that people who (say they) attend church services regularly usually vote Republican. People who don't, vote Democratic.

So does that mean Democrats can't talk about spirituality? And if they don't, will they continue to lose elections in a nation more and more being forced into a quasi-theocratic mold?

In Bill Moyers' On America, the author talks about aging and how the most successful and happy older people maintain "a capacity for wonder, surprise, and joy -- especially the joy of the present experience."

He talks about his last televised conversation with Joseph Campbell, the longtime teacher of comparative mythology at Sarah Lawrence College, and how Campbell talked about the "guiding idea of his work: to find the commonality of themes in world myths, pointing to a constant requirement in the human psyche for a centering in terms of deep principles."

"You're talking about a search for the meaning of life," I [Moyers] said.

"No, no, no," he answered. "I'm talking about the experience of being alive!" He explained: "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is the experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."

World (or national myths), deep principles, and the rapture of being alive -- being connected to something bigger than ourselves. America has just such a tradition and it isn't about religion. Democrats would do well to think about that some more.

[Note: I'll be away from my computer for the rest of this week. In the meantime, here is one of my more popular posts from the past.]

Reading the drift of the comments here, I feel compelled to link to a brief summary of the case Marbury vs. Madison. So go read it if you must. It's short and sweet.

Now...Wince:

Earlier in the other comment-thread you said, "Supreme Court Justices have a tendancy to think that the Constitution means whatever they say it means. That's overstepping their bounds and it is tyranny."

I think you are looking at this in a shallow way. The entire fabric of our judicial system is rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic of making difficult judgements based on ambiguous fine points of law. A judge, being only human, listens to both sides, considering the pro's and con's of the opposing arguments and then decides what wins and what loses. It's a "judgement call" in the truest, most profound sense.

And long ago, we the people agreed to invest a selected group of our peers with that authority and with that responsibility.

You can always appeal. But the appeals have to stop somewhere here on Earth. And that is why the Supreme Court is called the highest court. Gosh! even the name is a tipoff.

Some would say God's Law is most high. Perhaps it is, as defined (for example) in the Bible. But we are not a nation that is governed by the church or the temple. Even if we were, all you have to do is look at the Talmud to understand that there is always more than one opinion about everything.

No, we are not a government ruled by the church. We are a government of the people, for the people and by the people. We follow a document that WE wrote.

Some would hope that God guided us in that ongoing endeavor. But if that is the case, it is also certainly true that God helps those who helps themselves.

It's hard to make your way through the difficult questions Wince, I know. But we all agreed, long ago, that this was a job for the people to do. We don't wait for God to judge these difficult cases for us.

Unfortunately we all think we know best. I know better than you, and vice versa. And don't get me started about the lawyers. But in order for there to be progress, we have to have a system of laws and someone needs to judge who is right and who is wrong. Preferably someone here on Earth.

Unfortunately, we're only human. We're all fallible, especially Supreme Court Justices. Maybe that's why they begin each session with a prayer for guidance. They need all the help they can get. Goodness -- it isn't just enough to read the text of the Constitution; you have to be ready to listen to people debate what it means. That alone is a huge job, given that everybody has an opinion and by the time it reaches the Supremes, you've got some high-powered legal minds leaning on you. But if that weren't enough, when the debate is over, you still have to decide who the winners are and who the losers are.

Once you've spoken, it's over.

Sorry. Would that it was more simple, but that's how it goes.

So it takes a special person to do this. It isn't something that you or I can do, unless you or I were to be vested in robes of ultimate, infinite authority and infallibility. But that isn't what this nation is all about.

We're a nation of people who have our own ideas and opinions about what's best for all of us. And we have an earthly mission to work it out in a reasoned way. That's why our government has three branches and that's why each one is checked and balanced against the others.

It's a big job being a Supreme Court judge (there's that word again). And before someone is qualified to judge the law as measured against the Constitution, they must attain a lifetime full of experience. They must show evidence of excellence. Yeah, there have been some real losers on the bench. But that's the occasional price we pay to live in the best nation God ever put on the Earth.

I'd say it was worth it, Wince. Wouldn't you?

Sorry this was so long. I didn't have time to make it shorter.

McCain is set to deliver the commencement message at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in May.

Here's the McCain we remember (and voted for), c. Feb. 2000:

...Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and a few Washington leaders of the pro-life movement call me an unacceptable presidential candidate. They distort my pro- life positions and smear the reputations of my supporters.

Why? Because I don't pander to them, because I don't ascribe to their failed philosophy that money is our message.

Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.

So, does this means he'll be hanging out with Farrakhan and Sharpton now, too? Didn't think so.

The next time a Democrat tells you s/he could vote for McCain, please set them straight -- McCain is a lost cause.

[Click image to watch video.]

I don't agree with much of anything that the Family Research Council advocates. I don't much care for its Executive Director Tony Perkins. I think they stand for a dangerous confluence of religion and government.

But on one thing we seem to agree: the death sentence handed down on that Christian convert in Afghanistan is not only wrong, but our endorsement of that regime is shameful.

Perkins:

[The Afghani] constitiution and the wording of giving deference to Sharia law is very similar to what is in the Iraqi constitution....The resolve of the American people will not long stand if they know that they are giving their sons and daughters to die for just changing the names of regimes.

I've said it a thousand times: If the mullahs sit on the Supreme Court in judgement of the Iraqi and/or Afghani consititutions, then freedom is most definitely NOT on the march.

We've spent our blood and our treasure creating two regimes that are inimical to everything we stand for and everything in our American tradition.

And that a guy like Tony Perkins has finally woken up and taken notice of what Bush has done, well, you know we've reached a tipping point in this whole shameful episode in our history.

Update: Pachacutec Tivo'd the interview and relates that MSNBC left out Perkins' slip-of-the-tongue: he actually said "our sons and dollars" which is pretty damn funny.]