Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy

We all know the verse that Linus recites at the climax of Peanuts Christmas. Charlie Brown is questioning what Christmas is all about. Linus ends his reading with “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men.” That’s great, and by 1965 when that was made, most Christians throughout the world agreed this is the meaning of Christmas. Trouble is, this was written before there was the modern version of Christmas and it originally said, "Peace on earth for those whom God likes." You need to understand a bunch of Greek and Latin to understand that, but simply, you drop one Greek letter and you have to also change the whole subject/object stuff of the sentence and that’s what you get.

I heard this a few times, and it just sort of passed by me. It’s an interesting artifact of history from a time when there were no copy machines. A simple mistake. No real harm done. Except, when you start digging through the various copies throughout history, it was not a mistake at all, it was quite deliberate. This didn’t just happen in the third century and now, with better tools of historiography, we are discovering it. This has been known throughout the history of Christianity by the few people who had control of these books. Just like now, where we have neighbors who are happy to break bread at their ecumenical gatherings and multi-denominational dinners and also fundamentalists who want holy war, there were people who said they wanted peace in the world and others who knew their scripture said only some of them should see that peace. Sometimes it was the same people, saying one thing while knowing the other.

http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/manuscript-workspace?docID=20022

The difference between now and then is the balance of power. For the most part, those who truly believe in tolerance and peace are in power. But every day we see signs that it is still a struggle. Mainstream religion may appear to hold these values, but the facts of these discrepancies in our manuscripts raises some questions. If you accept the expert opinion on this, if you accept that people who spend their days pouring over these fragments of paper and studying the ancient languages actually got it right, then why don’t we change the Bibles? That is, correct them to what they originally were. Even if we don’t change the Bibles, why don’t preachers tell us this is only what modern people believe, not the people who first wrote the words. Those were the people who were closest to the events that inspired the words. If we are saying that we should listen to what they say, that their ancient wisdom has value, why shouldn’t we be listening to what they really said?

There are a few ways to go from here. We could believe that peace should be for only a select group. We can believe that something from outside of the physical universe somehow guided these hands and created these words on paper once, then had another hand erase it or misspell it and somehow that series of changes was slowly revealing this truth to us. We can believe that the original authors had some special vision, maybe divinely inspired or maybe just some special set of circumstances that they observed that helped them tap into this wisdom. Or, we can believe we are creatures with the ability to reflect on the past and future, trying to figure out what to make of our existence on this lonely planet. There may be millions of other planets like ours, but the universe is rather large, and we can calculate the odds of contacting one of those other planets, and they aren’t good. We might want to figure out how to get along with just each other for the time being.

To put it simply, we need to say that whoever wrote the gospel according Luke, was wrong. And when I say “we”, I mean it needs to come from the people who make a living interpreting this book. Those authors were wrong on this account, and they were wrong about some of the other things they said. We have fought wars based on religion. That includes Christians fighting over the meaning of words like these. We have had Kings anointed by gods and we have died for them. We have believed that the world could unite under one set of laws, inspired by some spirit, and experience a thousand years of joy. We were wrong.

We have found that allowing for borders and respecting the sovereignty of others is a way to deal with our differences. We found we have universal values despite theological differences and tried to create international laws, and sometimes we even got it right. Sometimes, nations put aside their differences to keep one nation from getting out of control and imposing its will on weaker people. It’s rarely pretty, but we muddle towards a world where we talk more than fight.

Instead of looking to something that was said hundreds or thousands of years ago, we look to what can be demonstrated by our senses. We extend our senses with tools created by an understanding of basic principles that have been tested over and over again. We know the sun has come up every day regardless of what sacrifices were made, so we don’t make ritual sacrifices anymore. We know the earth compressed the organic material from millions of years ago to give us fuel to light our universities so people can work late into the night curing what was once called a curse. To make that happen, we also know that we need to have some degree of peace with the people who are sitting on a lot of that organic material. The same goes for copper and materials needed to create more sustainable energy infrastructure. What is important is, so far, we just have this one planet.

You can accept what I’m saying or not. You also have the tools to research this yourself. The manuscripts with these words on them have been cataloged, numbered, digitized and are available to you free right now. The 1% of today only have power over us because we don’t do this work. The 1% in the time of Luke had a much easier time of it because they were the only ones who could read at all. The fact that I learned these things is the result of the accumulated knowledge I mentioned above and the cooperation of people across borders. The internet began as a way for scholars to share their work. It has become a way to avoid the lines during the Christmas rush. How it will be used tomorrow is our choice.

People Suck

I came across this meme the other day while looking for something else. It's from a local Lutheran church. It's a nice church. I have friends there. They do good things. I don't know who put this up or how many of them would just agree to it without thinking. Hopefully not too many.

I couldn't confirm the exact quote, but it does paraphrase a work by Augustine, The Confessions. Augustine was born after Christianity was made legal by Constantine and contributed greatly to the work of trying to figure out what St. Paul meant and what the gospels were trying to say. Things like the Trinity were still being hotly debated at the time. Unfortunately, the people who won the debates were from some of the worst, most extreme forms of Christianity. The ones we would today call The Fundamentalists.

They wouldn't have called themselves fundamentalists, because they had not yet decided on what the fundamentals were. Today we define fundamentalists by those who call the Bible the literal word of God and consider Jesus to have been a real person, the son of God, who actually died and bodily resurrected . Back then, they were still debating which writings belonged in the Bible and if Jesus was a man, fully human and fully God, a spirit, a man who was born then possessed by the holy spirit, or what. The difference then was, people on all sides of those debates had some degree of power and influence. Today, suggesting that Jesus was not a physical human, walking around and talking to people, will get you laughed at in most circles, even outside of church.

So, why am I bringing this up? Sure, it's from 16 centuries ago. But here it is on a modern "wall". It's posted by a church that was founded by a guy who protested against a church that was corrupt. The Catholic Church claims to have it's roots in communities founded by all those writers from the first few centuries that Augustine was debating about. Those communities were protesting the corruption in the Roman Jewish community in their time. Churches today will often claim that they are challenging the world order, that they are uncovering the corruption of power, that they are symbolically turning over the tables of the money lenders in the Temple. And sometimes they do. But they also will tell you that you are not good.

Whatever other traditions churches might have, the legacy of them telling you that you are not good enough for God has endured throughout all of them. When you do that, when you convince people that there is something they don't know, and they need to keep coming back to you to figure out what it is, you can get them to do anything. In the case of the late 4th century Christians, they got people to burn the scripture they didn't like, tear down the churches that didn't teach the right brand of Jesus, and to do the same to people who sat in the wrong place and read the wrong books or said the wrong things.

This is not some alternate history. It is well known. It is the beginning of what came to be known as "The Dark Ages". I'm not blaming the Christians for this. The Romans started their own downfall when they kicked out Aristotle and gave power back to corrupt rulers instead of promoting democracy. Something would have replaced that, and we could have done worse, but we could have done a lot better.

After about a thousand years, we did start doing better. Instead of reading interpretations to people, we taught them to read. We didn't treat people like slaves, we encouraged each other to work for each other. We found out genius and inspiration was everywhere if you just gave it room to grow. Seems pretty obvious now, but it was a struggle to get where we are. People like Susan B Anthohy, Rosa Parks, Ghandi, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali continue that struggle today.

All of them fought using reason. They read, understood and developed philosophy that valued human dignity and human feelings. They didn't try to figure out some logic that explained why a God who claimed to be ultimately good could allow for evil in the world. They acknowledged that there is good and evil and they tried to find ways to deal with it. They didn't provide simple answers. They asked for the right to ask the question. They claimed the right to participate. If someone claimed authority by referring to someone from the 4th century who said they weren't good enough, that they could never measure up to some ultimate authority, they questioned that authority. It's the basis for the world of freedom we have today.

Keep what's good from religion if you can find it, but get rid of stuff like this.

Troubled Times

I found out about this the other day while listening to Laura Erickson’s “For the Birds” on the radio. It has nothing to do with birds, but Laura ventures into philosophy now and again. This is what the internet and modern communication is supposed to do. It connects us to the wisdom from 600 years ago and reminds us of what is important to all human life.

Actually, the fear is not of tomorrow but of the day after, and that is its danger — for the fear of death can keep us from living.

The essay was written in 1951 and begins with a reference to a book written as people were awakening from the nightmare of the Black Death and beginning to experience the Renaissance. It talks about what to do in the face of such destruction and relates it to the fear of the time when it was written, nuclear annihilation. In the 14th century, people hid out in abandoned mines. In the 20th century, they cached weapons and fuel and built compounds in the wilderness in Oregon. For some today, they just stay home and don’t engage with the rest of the world. All of these are choosing death while they are still alive.

If you knew you were to die day after tomorrow, what would you do tomorrow? Only one answer has ever been sensible: Just what I would do if I did not know — go to the office, take the children to the park, go on with the job, get married, buy the house, have a baby.

People still respond by hiding and isolating themselves. If anything, we’ve just expanded what we fear. We fear the modern medicine and modern farming that was supposed to fix the problems of disease and starvation. We fear the government that was created in response to unchecked monarchies. We fear we are being lied to by the institutions that are supposed to offer us access to information so we stop trying to figure what is true. We build virtual walls by shutting out the voices of people not like us and by ignoring our neighbors.

This may all seem like a downer, but DeVoto offers an answer, perhaps “the answer”, an answer that is repeated throughout history in stories and poetry.



The link is to Laura’s blog. It expands on the quotes I’ve put here. It further links to the complete article by Bernard DeVoto.

How many partners do you need?

When I ask people what we should do when we disagree, most people say we should go find people who do agree with us and work with them. At best they might make some sort nod to inclusivity. This worked fine for most of human history, but then we found out that what we do affects people on the other side of the planet. What we wear and what we eat can cause suffering for children on other continents. What we don’t do can result in death and disease just down the road from us. Even if we want to be selfish, ignoring that suffering will eventually result in problems for us and our loved ones.

There are answers to the question. We have rules of order for running meetings. We have neighborhood groups and community organizations. We have Constitutions and International Law. We have the Rule of Christ if you prefer, Matthew 18:15-20. But very few people know how these systems work and even fewer actually use them or use them wisely. All of them are designed to regulate common decency; take turns speaking, respond to what was said before starting a new topic, when consensus doesn’t exist take a vote, seek facts, agree on how to determine truth then stick to that agreement. Drawing a boundary and keeping some people outside of it is the last resort.

I left the 3^rd largest denomination of Christians because they couldn’t agree on how to deal with the issue of homosexuality. The United States moved on and I realized my church was no longer a leader on one of the most important issues of our time. But I didn’t blame all Christians. I blamed half of the people in my church and I blamed the poor system of decision making they all inherited. But I still acknowledge and support those who are fighting that fight from the inside of what I consider a flawed organization.

That’s around 6 million people I consider allies, not enemies. I’m sure I have many differences with many of them. But they have a voice that gets heard in tiny villages all across Africa where they still have the death penalty for loving someone in the wrong way. They have ways and means of building community that I don’t. My facebook post congratulating my friend and his husband doesn’t have that kind of impact.

I just picked this one issue. If you think this post is about advocating for LGBTQ or whatever initials I forgot, you missed the point. Pick your issue; GMOs, Afghanistan, vaccines, big government, big organic, sending food to Kenya, choice, life, free speech, then think about who you can’t talk to because you disagree on those issues. Then pick an issue like breathable air or drinkable water or creating communities where children can grow and discover their place in the world. How many partners do you need to make that happen?

You're own evil demon

I came across this rather interesting use of a very old thought experiment. Descartes was trying to figure out if he existed independently, or if something was controlling him, like an evil demon. He eventually concluded his ability to think proved his independence. This still left him with a somewhat circular argument but some people start this thought experiment, and can't passed the evil demon. I see people doing to themselves or trying to do to others. They try to make people into their own “Cartesian demons”.

You can do it to yourself by thinking you are a failure, then believing it. You can let others do it by allowing them to tell you that you are in some way flawed. You can let them convince you that they are smarter, or that all humans are incapable of understanding some fundamental truth or that none of us know the real way things work. Of course they have the answer, and if you believe them, you give yourself up to them to get it. Or, you just give up to the idea. Either way you’ve let an imaginary “demon” take control.

The extreme case is a cult, but less extreme cases can be seen every day with fake headlines or fake science and claims that reality is fake. Well established facts become a conspiracy of the elite. Extensive investigations into voter fraud are tossed aside because one paper ballot was counted twice. Always left unmentioned is that the problem was caught and corrected, otherwise, how would we know it ever happened?

People believe we can’t make a difference and that we are being controlled by invisible forces. They fear poison in the water, in our food and even in our medicines. We accept the status quo that there will always be poor despite centuries of solving social problems. There is always some disaster or someone being slighted to prove the point.

The good news, no special powers are required to escape this demon. Just think for yourself. If it’s a claim about science, then find all the research you can and learn how a scientific consensus if formed. If it’s government, get involved. The US just had two polar opposites in the presidency. I’m guessing no one is controlling this. If your evil demon says we can’t know everything and we’re just animals, then how do you know that? You would need to know everything to know that we can’t know it. There is nothing to do but learn more. You don’t know what your limits are.

Truth Pledge

People say I argue a lot on facebook. I’m not going to argue about that. But most of the time, I’m trying to just get the discussion on to an honest track. I try to find agreement about basic facts, like pain hurts, and people die, and life is risky, and there are things we don’t know, and love is better than hate. Okay that last one is not a fact, but you get the idea.

With that in mind, here’s someone who has thought about this, and is organized enough to get people thinking about it.  

 I Pledge My Earnest Efforts To:

 Share truth

• Verify: fact-check information to confirm it is true before accepting and sharing it
• Balance: share the whole truth, even if some aspects do not support my opinion
• Cite: share my sources so that others can verify my information
• Clarify: distinguish between my opinion and the facts

 Honor truth

• Acknowledge: acknowledge when others share true information, even when we disagree otherwise
• Reevaluate: reevaluate if my information is challenged, retract it if I cannot verify it
• Defend: defend others when they come under attack for sharing true information, even when we disagree otherwise
• Align: align my opinions and my actions with true information

 Encourage truth

• Fix: ask people to retract information that reliable sources have disproved even if they are my allies
• Educate: compassionately inform those around me to stop using unreliable sources even if these sources support my opinion
• Defer: recognize the opinions of experts as more likely to be accurate when the facts are disputed
• Celebrate: celebrate those who retract incorrect statements and update their beliefs toward the truth

I heard about this through Bart Campolo’s podcast where he pointed out the people who sign this are going to be the people you already trust. Maybe. Or they are going to be those “others” that you don’t trust and you see as people who sign pledges and don’t understand them. Yep. But it’s a start. If enough people, important people, people who are in positions that are supposed to be trustworthy, sign it, it will begin to carry some weight.

It’s very short and all you do is click the orange button. Email is required, which I know will scare a few people off. It’s not for everyone.

Meanwhile, we can actually start doing this with each other. It’s like recycling. We can shake our fists at the big polluters of the world, but if we aren’t reducing our plastic consumption and separating our garbage, nothing is going to change. As Bart says, “Science can’t proceed unless people agree to be honest with each other about their results. Everything has to be verifiable. When people lie about their results, it slows down the whole process. Science is a conversation and this conversation can only go forward if we agree to these ground rules. In the same way, collective governance, the social contract, social cooperation can only really do well if we agree to have the conversation where we all use the same facts. If we are going to live together, have a community, large or small, we’ve gotta agree to some rules of conversation. The first of those is everybody’s gotta tell the truth about physical things, money that can be accouted for, etc. Without that, we can’t make any decisions, we can’t even argue.”

Oddly enough, I’m now going to cite a study on Buzzfeed. It was also mentioned in the podcast. Usually I don’t trust Buzzfeed, but this one has been reviewed and cited by more reputable sources. It compares the top 20 fake news items on facebook in the last election cycle to the top 20 real news stories. The fake news engaged 8 million people, while real news only had 7 million shares. That’s you. That’s every time you share something and say, “I’m not sure about this, but I’m sharing it anyway.” Or even when you say, “This is dumb.”

I know that’s hard not to do sometimes, but it’s something I’m trying to do lessof myself. There are ways to avoid it and still engage the issues.Share an article that discusses the bad science or “alternative facts” and provides the facts that were left out, or explains the bad analysis. Sometimes, in the case of bad science, the counter argument is to simply show the actual scientific study underlying the discussion. Often, the summary of the study tells you the opposite of what the fake news story says. If we do that we’ll have a facebook full of actual data instead of the interpretation of someone who knows little or nothing about the field. With politics, link the full speech, or to a chapter from Adam Smith, or the Supreme Court decision that is being claimed as supporting evidence, or a longer story of the historical event in question, or a Pew poll,anything but the fake news. You can refer to the fake article by giving the source, title, author and date if you want. I can usually determine fakeness just by examining those four things.

There is also a menu item in facebook to report fake news. This of course requires that you read it and do a little fact checking, but it’s the tool we have for now. Some of you have already figured out to just not join facebook, but I’m assuming you aren’t reading this, so I’m not talking to you. This is for all of my online relationships.

One little story before you go. I participated in my first online discussion group back in 1993. It was a computer group supporting getting technology into the community. In the middle of some other discussion, someone popped in and said we should all be concerned about congress wanting to tax email. He included a number identifying the bill. I dismissed it. This urban legend continued to make the rounds on the Internet for years, making it all the way to the 2000 presidential debate between Al Gore and George W Bush. Neither of them knew how to answer the question or had heard of this bill, because it never existed.

Back then, I learned about Snopes.com and started educating people about this and other stories that only existed in emails and discussion forums. It took over a decade to get rid of that one story. It would have been great if Al had known about fake news, but the term wasn’t on anyone’s radar at the time.It sure is now, but it is already out of control and it played a yuge part in the 2016 election. We owe it to ourselves to create a public square filled with honest discussion.

Fake News

I have an ongoing "discussion" with a local columnist in the free rag in Duluth. He writes about every conspiracy under the sun, his favorite being "Big Pharma". I write to the editor, and get published most of the time. This one is about where fake news comes in general, and how to spot it:

As Gary moves on to the next conspiracy theory, let’s look at his strategy in general. I showed Gary these steps. He says this is what Big Pharma and mainstream media and whoever else he rails against does. I’ll show how you can tell fake from real after showing this 7 step method of phony science.

This system starts with an industry that is somehow threatened by established science facts. It funds and creates information that looks scientific, but isn’t. You can see where the Duluth Reader begins to play a role in this, somewhere around step 5. Whether the Reader or Gary Kohls are unwitting participants or willing supporters of these industries is known only to them.

1 – Create uncertainty about accepted views of science. Not with new science, but by cherry picking papers or experiments that were never confirmed or were proven false. Any isolated article will do.

2 – Spoon feed the press with this disinformation through non-profits and bloggers.

3 – Build and finance industry-aligned front groups that appear to be grassroots efforts.

4 – Recruit professionals into the campaign.

5 – Talk-radio and cable news and more from the earlier steps should pick up the story at this point. They might not realize the source.

6 – The political support is now there. Votes can be had by supporting the ideas. Questioning these unscientific sources can get you labeled as the one who hasn’t read the latest research.

7 – The industry behind the phony science can now step out of the shadows, supported by every aspect of mainstream society. They can appear to be neutral and positive voices in the debate. Maybe even play the victim.

How can we recognize this is happening? It’s not as hard as you think. You need to compare the stories that are published through all the steps with the actual science. You don’t need a degree in every possible science, but you need to learn what actual science looks like. It looks like the articles printed in accepted journals like Nature or Scientific American. It looks like what is being taught in Universities around the world.

You may not be able to evaluate every study but you can evaluate the methodology. You can see who did the study and see if they have knowledge and experience and if they are respected by others with similar knowledge and experience. You can see if something was predicted based on their knowledge that was later shown to be true. You can evaluate where they say their knowledge came from. Did it come from institutions of learning where you would send your children or are they someplace you’ve never heard of? If a study is quoted, get the name of it and who wrote it. Look it up and look up if it has been refuted or even retracted. Often, you need look no further than whatever article you are reading. Does it have a byline saying who wrote it? If there are sources, check a couple of them with the above tests. I have seen citations that actually don’t lead anywhere, or lead to studies that don’t say what the article says it does.

Try this test. There is probably something that comes from universities and science journals that you accept, like the earth is 4.5 billion years old, we went to the moon, climate change is being caused by human action, or germs make you sick. Look at how you were convinced of whatever you accept as true. Look at all the things that would need to be explained if they were not true. Now, apply those standards to vaccines or chemtrails or whatever else is being questioned. If you apply standards of logic and evidence honestly and equally, you will arrive at the best conclusions that humans are currently capable of. If you want to align yourself with the real world, you should at least give it a shot.

If you want more, and I know you are dying for it, click here. My comments are signed with various versions of John W. They go back 3 weeks. I have ones for June 14 and May 25th somewhere, I'll try to get them online. The one with the graphs is a doozy. May 17th is probably my favorite. That's where I started. 

Self Promotion

This is me, on a podcast. It's a guy in Duluth who invited me via the Lake Superior Freethinkers facebook page. His "topic of the month" was "The Meaning of Life". I give a couple answers, one from Dan Fincke, one from Dan Barker that the question is backwards. Aidin does some good probing in to my own journey. It's actually not that bad.

Topic a Month Podcast

I didn't quite get to an expression of my main theme, so added this in the comments afterward:

To tie this all together, the reason for caring for others is that others cared for us. As we expand who we help, who we educate, more people will be able to use their skills effectively and find their best fit in the world. As we have done this, for example, women have become more empowered, giving them the right to control their own reproductive choices. So, counter-intuitively, helping people who are having lots of babies results in decreasing population.

As people see a world of hope, where their children will survive and help each other, they don't see the need to have lots of children. Educating each other, empowering each other, leads to people making better choices for leadership, instead of feeling the need to join a paramilitary group and tear down governments.

We can do this on the world scale, bringing appropriate technology where it is needed, as well as across the table from each other, listening intently, and teaching instead of fighting.

Accidental Courtesy

http://accidentalcourtesy.com/

Available on Netflix and elsewhere. To say this movie is controversial or provocative would be an understatement. A jazz musician, and would-be diplomat is the star. You see his successes; a couple dozen KKK robes that men have given to him when they quit the Klan. Later, you see how difficult it is when he sits down with a couple of young men from Black Lives Matter.

Unfortunately, whatever it is he does, is not easily taught. He does speak publicly, we'll see if his ideas grow in the future. I like his basic premise, that sitting in a room full of people who agree with your point of view and discussing how to be more "diverse", is not going to solve anything. We need to sit down at tables with the people with whom we disagree.

There are a few of those conversations throughout the movie. I suspect they are like nothing you've ever seen.

I've tried to have these myself. I've tried to understand the racist mind or the libertarian ideas. I do some of the things I see Daryl doing. I ask why they think government should not provide services to all people equally. If they think services are provided unequally, I ask why they think that. I ask what it takes to create a free and open society at all. To me it means accepting, even embracing ideas from other cultures while finding common ground. To them there is something dangerous about that. They cite failures in the past when cultures were mixed. But if I cite historical precedents of success, they say they don't apply.

I try to talk about values, because "free and open" does not mean anything goes. Some libertarians will actually say anarchy is possible, as long anyone is free to leave a given boundary. Within the defined boundaries, the rules can be that there are no rules, except for the rule that if you want to leave you can. Somehow, that rule has to apply to everyone. If this sounds like a science fiction premise, I think you're right. There are too many problems with it for me to even begin.

If it's not anything goes, then what should everyone agree to? Fire departments? Police? Libraries? Defending of borders? Food safety? This leads to a discussion of legal agreements, which leads to a need for agreements about what a law is and how they can be enforced. Things break down around that time because they are starting to define governments, not agreements between individuals, but they still think they are talking about a system where if they want to say white people rule, it can work.

I like to talk about when the modern idea of nations was created. I know, I'm using that history that doesn't count as evidence, and in conversation, you usually don't get to do this. In 1638 in Westphalia, the treaty called The Peace of Westphalia was signed, ending decades of religious war. A few years later, Isaac Newton was born and the science that was used to get us to the moon was created. I kind of see those two things as related. When we can stop arguing about how our cultural beliefs are more important than some other culture's belief's and start looking at the problems of survival themselves, we can begin to work together and build that peaceful world we all say we want. When I try to talk about love, that's when things really tend to get out of control.

They tell me that their opinion is sharing of their views and my opinions indicate I am closed minded and that I am not listening. That the values that the government supports that they agree with are the right ones, and the ones they don't agree with are the equivalent of them being forced to do something at gun point. They tell me their evidence, even if they can't show it to me is correct, and my scientific studies are the fallacy of an argument from authority. Eventually, we get to where there is no way to demonstrate truth, no one can prove anything, we don't know if we exist and it's just everyone for themselves. Basically a return to the stone age.

People observing these conversations tend to focus on the emotional argument. The person getting upset often gets the benefit of the doubt that the upset was caused by how the argument was presented. This ignores anything about the logic or reasoning of the argument itself. There is no excuse for presenting an argument poorly or for shaming someone who lacks background information or berating them for failing to understand. But someone's failure to understand is not always the fault of the person making the argument. It's good to remember Bertrand Russel's rule of allowing others time to absorb new information when these conflicts arise.

Some of this is basic ignorance. Not stupidity, just not knowing. In the documentary, Daryl goes to the Lincoln Memorial, with the big statue of Lincoln in a chair. He walks around and asks a couple people to please take a step or two from where they are standing, because that is where Martin Luther King Jr. stood when he gave his famous speech. He knows it's the spot because it is engraved in the marble they are standing on. That's it. No statue, No plaque. It's not even in color. If it's not pointed out to you, you miss it. A lot of history of non-white European men in America is like that. Daryl calls this "standing on the dream". We do it all the time, without thinking about, without knowing what we are missing.

No One Will Buy My Book

First off, I won't write a book about my approach to the Bible, so my prophecy in the title of this blog post will be fulfilled due to my own inaction. The reason I won't write it is I see what kinds of books people buy about the Bible. Most of them confirm what has been being said for hundreds of years. A few of them say they have something new to say, then they say how amazing it is and how you will discover God and Jesus by looking at it this way. I don't want you to discover anything that isn't true. Most people find reality pretty boring. Too bad, they don't know what they are missing.

In Rob Bell's latest book, he manages to both give this message to the church and tell you that he knows what God thinks and knows how you can know that too. He has the advantage of once having preached at a mega-church and he's studied the ancient languages and been seminary school. But I don't think you need to do all that to understand what he gets right and what he gets wrong.

Most organizations that say they are teaching something about reality that you can only find by following their ideas, their practices, will tell you anything except that you can find it on your own. John Prine may be one of the few people who could tell you that and still sell albums. Churches and fortune tellers and gurus and snake oil salesmen and politicians have a goal of self preservation.

The Bible does not teach you to hang on to one way of thinking. It teaches you to give things up. It teaches you that your tradition is corrupt. It teaches you that your leaders have an agenda that does not further the needs of the community. Sometimes, while doing that, it recommends fixing it by returning to the tradition, but in some more pious or more devout or more self-sacrificing way. This is one of the more commonly ridiculed flaws, but focusing on those just becomes a mask for the major theme, found throughout, that to make progress, you have to leave where you are.

Being a slave may be comfortable, but it's not who you are. Your family is great, but it needs to spread itself out over the land and maybe not get together as much. And later, you may find visiting that long last relative and reconciling old wounds may be just the ticket. Whatever it might be, getting together every Sunday with the same people and singing from the same hymnal is probably not it. Celebrating the glory of what someone said thousands of years of ago is not progress.

Rob's sub-title is about transformation, mine would be something like, "An ancient library that has some useless and wrong history and some stories that changed things in important ways a long time ago and just a few stories that can still inspire some people today." Probably not a blurb that is going to sell anything.

Critical Thinking

Someone asked me how we can know if something we see on the internet is true.
This is just some notes I threw together. It starts with deciding how much effort you want to put in to it, then figuring out if there are expert opinions you can rely on.

I’ve gathered facts and I’ve determined that I have most of the information available on this topic.

                Great, you’re done.

I have some information, but I don’t have all of it. Acquiring more data would require months or years of study.

                Decide if you want to do that study. Or, use the listed items below.

The issue may not be settled. The people who are the best minds on this issue do not agree. They might even say they don’t know enough to make a judgment. Or it is settled, but you just don't have all the information yet. You can become an expert or you can rely on experts:

1)     How do you know who the experts are?

a.       Degrees from accredited institutions

b.      Honors, awards

c.       Appearances to the public, intended to help the uneducated understand the issue

d.      Participation in setting public policies that can be evaluated

e.      Publications that provide real world, understandable examples and illustrations

f.        Historical precedence

2)      When those experts disagree, do they do it respectfully, or are they claiming bad motivations or hidden agendas?

a.       Do both sides have a body of evidence they refer to, or does one concentrate mostly on pointing the flaws in the other?

b.      Can you at least follow a logical flow to the arguments?

c.       Are the two sides willing to debate?
d.   If there is an article or book, check for response articles, redactions and retraction.
e.   If refuted, did the original author respond, either with more facts, or did they admit they were wrong in light of the new data? 

3)      Can you identify any other facts behind those motivations or agendas?

a.       Are they pointing to anything written or recorded, can you verify their data?

b.      Are they using words like “some” or “always” or “stupid” or “commie”?

In the best case, you have a friend or acquaintance in the field in question. Someone you can trust to clarify anything specific.

Second best is to attend a public lecture and ask your question face to face. Sometimes you can find very intimate settings for these types of discussions. For example, a farmer might be willing to show you their operations, a lab worker might take you on a tour, or someone good with numbers could show you where to find data and how to interpret it.

Unsealed documents

I haven’t written a Monsanto blog in a while, but it seems things are heating up, and this article came through my feed. I’ve heard people being accused of being paid trolls in online discussions and unscientific sites like Natural News, but this site has an appearance of being a legitimate news site. They accuse people of being tools of the pesticide industry, and specifically mention the Genetic Literacy Project.

I had a little trouble identifying the source of the article, but Quora did not have answers that settled me at all. https://www.quora.com/Journalistic-Ethics-and-Norms-How-legitimate-is-The-Centre-for-Global-Research Other debunking type websites did not give it nice reviews either. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch . http://fakenewswatch.com/ lists it as a “Clickbait Website”.

Here’s the article. Please limit your clicks on it, it just encourages them.

May 3, 2017
http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-accused-of-hiring-army-of-trolls-to-silence-online-dissent-court-papers/5588396

This article is almost devoid of facts, except the ones presented by the Monsanto quotes. It almost seems like someone disguised a pro-Monsanto article as an anti. It uses a facebook quote as evidence and notes that earlier evidence says a “single comment” was taken out of context, but now they have more. I couldn't find that much "more".

It linked to a website of court documents that were recently unsealed.
https://usrtk.org/pesticides/mdl-monsanto-glyphosate-cancer-case-key-documents-analysis/

Clicking on it gives a long list that looks impressive. This is a tactic of using a bibliography as if it is evidence itself. Many people will see that and accept it as legit and move on.

The first one I looked at (4th in the list) was “Order denying Monsanto motion to increase page limit”. It was 4 sentences long, saying “FURTHER ORDERED that Monsanto Company shall be permitted …. in opposition of up to 25 pages in response to Plaintiff’s Rem..” I couldn’t read it all because there was a big “DENIED” stamp over it.

So, I started going through them. The first was a motion to keep some notes sealed, saying, “Compelling reasons and good cause exist to redact portions the Motion to Compel and the Rowland Rough Transcript”. There was no scientific information and no specific evidence of anything.

The next was a lengthy answer from Monsanto of allegations and amounts to nothing more than a legal denial. Studies are cited, but the document could not be used to determine truth of either side.

The third is about a 1996 case of false advertising. You can look that history up anywhere.

The 5th one says they can question a guy. I skipped a couple because they looked like more of same.

Then “Monsanto’s motion to strike plaintiffs’ reply exhibit 1…” is interesting. They are accusing their accusers of making a frivolous and illegal filing of an irrelevant document. It would be interesting to see how that one turns out.

I skipped the back and forth about Rowland.

In the request for the production of all original re-cut slides in study BDN-77-420, something is redacted. I don’t know if the request is reasonable or not, so I’ll withhold judgment on that one.

“Monsanto discovery dispute” is a long discussion about the IARC ruling on cancer risk. That could be interesting if you haven’t already read up on it.

I thought maybe I finally found the evidence discussed in the article at “Jess Rowland documents unsealed”, but this was 100 pages about the review by IARC that led to the cancer ruling, and other studies that conclude glyphosate is not carcinogenic.

Documents “unsealed” (227 pages) looks like a general declaration of what the IARC is about. That entry also says “key documents on pp. 203-4”. The words “involving experts” and “ghost-write” are used in that memo. That was the only remark I found that was relevant to the article.

I found nothing to indicate Monsanto concealed anything, or any evidence of pseudo-science. The article correctly states that “plaintiffs allege”, but I didn’t see the links to their studies. There were over a thousand pages, so I might have missed something. It seemed a bit misleading to me to mention 50 lawsuits, and that court documents have been unsealed, but then find those documents are mostly very common legal wrangling. The article states the papers are “being gathered” on a whistleblower website, but that site is run by RTK, which is affiliated with this globalresearch.ca, which looks shady. This is “guilt by association”; create an accusation, create a group that documents accusations, document it there. The documents themselves don’t contain much as far as I can tell.

None of this helps me make any decisions about what I should eat or what I should buy, or who I should believe. My opinion; eat whatever you want, but don’t use articles like this to help you decide. 

Doubt

From the book, Doubt by Jennifer Michael Hecht, her closing statement:

Cicero ended his study, “The Nature of the Gods”, by picking a winner among the doubters and the tradition is worth keeping up. The contest I want to judge however is not between various doubters but between the great doubting tradition and all the other traditions of religious thought. Theistic religions all have in them an amazing human ability; belief. Belief is one of the best human muscles. It can be very good. The religions are all beautiful and horrible, filled with feasts, sacrifices, miracles, wars, songs, lamentations, stained glass, onion matzahs and intense communal joy. Everyone kneeling, everyone rocking, everyone silent, everyone nose to the floor.

The religions have also been the energy behind much generosity, compassion and bravery. The story of doubt however has all this too, it also has a relationship to truth that is rigorous, sober and when necessary, resigned. And it prizes this rigorous approach to truth above the delights of belief. Doubt has its own version of comforts and challenges. From doubt’s beginnings it has advised that if you create your own desires and model them after what you actually experience, you can be happy. Accept that we are animals, but ones with special problems. And that the world is natural, but “natural” is just an idea that we animals have in our heads. Devote yourself to wisdom, self-knowledge, friends, family, and give some attention to community, money, politics and pleasure.

Know that none of it brings happiness all that consistently. It’s best to stay agile, to keep an open mind. Anyway, if you live long enough you’d likely find yourself believing something that you’d never believe today, or disbelieving. In a funny way, the one thing you can really count on is doubt. Expect change, accept death, enjoy life. As Marcus Aurelius explained, “the brains that got you through the trouble’s you have had so far, will get you through any troubles yet to come”.

Throughout history many great thinkers have argued that the study of these questions could give life meaning, grace and happiness. Many heartily suggest, indeed insist that doubters should do some practices, some therapy, some art to tune themselves to a manageable relationship with a universe that very possibly has no humanness at all. Doubters in the modern world have all sorts of philosophies and communal experiences in which to engage and participate. And it is not uncommon for doubters to compose a sacred but secular for themselves out of reading philosophy of some sort, taking part in psychotherapy, art and poetry, meditation, dance, secular solemnities and festivals.

The only things such doubters really need that believers have is a sense that people like themselves have always been around, that they are part of a grand history. I hope it is clear now that doubt has such a history of its own and to be a doubter is a great old allegiance deserving quiet respect and open pride for its longevity, its productivity, its pluck, its warmth, its service to friend and foe and its sometimes ruthless commitment to demonstrative truth. I give the palm to the story of doubt.

My Bibliography

In case you're wondering where I get my ideas. This is about 25 years of reading.

             Christian days

The Tao - Lao Tzu
Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time – Dominic Crossan

Something by Marcus Borg

The Doors of Perception  -

Religious America, Secular Europe? Peter Berger and Grace Davie. 2007

Iron John – Robert Bly

The Gospel of Inclusion – Carlton Pearson

The Great Emergence- Phyllis Tickle

Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis

Abraham: A Journey to the – Bruce Feller – Well researched look at how the 3 monotheisms draw from one tradition.

Jesus for the Non-religious John Shelby Spong

                Not so Christian days

Blessed Unrest Paul Hawken – about organizations working for peace and justice

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

The Imitation of Christ Thomas Kempis

Dante's Divine Comedy – actually, I couldn't finish it

Jonathan Livingston Seagull – Richard Bach

The Meaning of Life A Short Introduction – Terry Eagleton

The Story of Philosophy Will Durant – excellent complete coverage

Reason, Faith, and Revolution – Reflections on the God Debate by Terry Eagleton, 2009

Spinoza on Ethics - Surprisingly strong emphasis on god and the impossibility of uncaused events.

50 Voices of Doubt

                Definitely not Christian days

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road Kill Him – Sheldon B Kopp

The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follet – fiction, but paints a picture of the time when there were two Popes

Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

What's So Great About Christianity – Dinesh D'Souza – Terrible, complete cherry picking of history, ignores anything bad about it. It was recommended by a liberal Methodist Bishop so I include only as an example of something that a Christian could be fooled by.

The Daily Show and Philosophy – not that great

Fire, Water, Spirit – Malidoma Some. A biographical story, not theology, some history, mainly mythology.

Banned Questions from the Bible – mostly for teens, a few high points.

Compassion – Karen Armstrong (I think I read her History of God)

Critical Thinking books recommended by Russell of ACA

                Demon Haunted World – Carl Sagan (read parts of it)

                Innumerncy –John Allen Paulos (ways people are fooled with math)

Who Wrote the Bible - Friedman

Mistakes were Made but not by Me – Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson  About psychology of belief

Not the Impossible Faith – Richard Carrier. Why Christianity flourished.

Tony Jones A New Atonement

The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin – Amir D Azcel – this was more history of the man and his political problems and not much about this religious philosophy.

How the Irish Saved Civilization – Thomas Cahill – fills in a few gaps in history

The Liberation of Theology -  Juan Luis Segundo – religion is politics

Introducing Liberation Theology – Leonardo Boff 

Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed - William R Herzog

The Botany of Desire – Michael Pollan – has a great bit on the Genesis creation story as a metaphor for the dangers of pagan rituals involving hallucinogenic drugs

Sir Gwain and The Green Knight

Bertrand Russell History of Philosophy – Comprehensive, reviewers have said it contains inaccuracies

God’s Philosophers – James Hannam – A rare look at early science in the Middle Ages, but it has some historical errors and leaves a lot out.

Everything Must Change – Brian McClaren

Thomas Sheehan, The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity

Quest for Jerusalem – about recent histiography on Columbus

Free Will – Sam Harris

Infidel  Ayaan Hirsi Ali amazing story of a woman escaping Islam

I am Malala – the girl who was shot in Afghanistan for going to school

Wittgenstein’s Poker – A fun history of 20^th century philosophy, including Karl Popper

Sense and Goodness Without God – Richard Carrier – rare idea for philosophy incorporating all modern knowledge

Wild – Cheryl Strayed – Not about religion, but a about a journey of healing.

And God Said Billy – Frank Schaeffer – bizarre, but a look into the fundamentalist mind

Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God – Frank Schaeffer. Cherry picking, but at least he admits it.

Snowy Tower – Martin Shaw

Branch from the Lightning Tree – Martin Shaw – these are about myth, they are essential

American Gods – fiction, but a fun play on mythology and how the European gods followed people to the US

Think – Simon Blackburn Descartes to modern era

A.D. 381 Charles Freeman – covers the history of the theology of the 4^th century. Amazing.

In Faith and In Doubt – Dale McGowan – for mixed secular/religious relationships, but also has some interesting data on belief and how it doesn’t match the given identified denomination

The Brothers Karamzov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers K - David James Duncan 

Man's Search for Meaning – Viktor E Frankl. Totally amazing.

Why I am Not a Christian – Richard Carrier

Hitler Homer Bible Christ – Richard Carrier
Is There a God - Richard Swinburne - read this for a class, don't recommend it

The Tao of the Dude – Oliver Benjamin – fun, just sayings mostly

The Christian Delusion – John Loftus, a collection, got it for the Carrier chapter mostly

Eve – William Paul Young (Author of The Shack), fiction. Uses Genesis creation narrative to tell the story

The Way of the Heathen – Greta Christina - 2nd only to Sense and Goodness

Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World – Miroslav Volf, disagree with it, but it's still interesting

Islam and the Future of Tolerance – Sam Harris, Maajid Nawwaz

How to Defend the Christian Faith, Advice from an Atheist – John F Loftus, very sarcastic

Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower – Tom Krattenmaker. Disappointing, very religious.

On the Historicity of Jesus – Richard Carrier

A Christian and an Atheist Walk Into a Bar – Shieber and Rauser.

Doubt – Jennifer Michael Hecht

Why I Left, Why I Stayed – Tony Campolo, Bart Campolo

What Is the Bible - Rob Bell
War on Science - Shawn Otto
Flourishing: Why We Need... - Miroslav Volf
Social Conquest of Earth - EO Wilson
The Bonobo and the Atheist - Frans de Waal

Misquoting Jesus - Bart Ehrman
How Jesus Became God - Bart Ehrman
Breaking the Spell - Daniel C. Dennett
The Brothers K - David James Duncan - fictional story that includes some amazing insight into the human psyche
How to Read the Bible - James L. Kugel - using it as a reference
The Sacred Depths of Nature - Ursula Goodenough
Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief - David Madison
Jesus Mari and Joji - James C. Jensen
The G.K. Chesteron Collection
Jesus Interrupted - Bart D. Ehrman
Small  God: Discworld #13 - Terry Prachett - a humorous interlude
The Man Who Knew Infinity - Robert Kanigal - interesting look about someone who came from the Hindu tradition and how that affected his view of the world, but the story is mostly about his understanding of physics
Consilience - Edward O Wilson - not all that much about religion
Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari (I include this one to say I don't recommend it. He overuses the idea that things are myths. That idea is better developed elsewhere.)
The Righteous Mind - Includes some history of the evolution of thought as it relates to religion
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Love Your Enemies Arthur C. Brooks (for a Conservative's perspective on politics in the Trump era)
Science of Religion course on EdX - highly recommend this

Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer

Resistance is inevitable

I was at a Christian camp the other day, not as a Christian, it was a cross-country skiing group. I like to poke around their libraries. This one was just a bookshelf will old Bibles, old Sunday School guides, except one book from 1982 by Francis Schaeffer, The Christian Manifesto. I didn’t have time to read the whole thing, so I’m not sure just what the “manifesto” was, but I’m pretty sure he was promoting violent overthrow of the US government. That might sound like something from a 60’s radical rather than a leader of evangelical conservative Christians, but it was definitely in there. His justification was that the government was allowing, and in fact supporting the killing of innocent children, via abortion.

I’m not going to dwell on the violence part too much, and he doesn’t lay out any kind of plan. What was interesting was how he made parallels to those 60’s radicals and lots of other radicals through history. He kinda of made violently overthrowing your government sound completely rational and logical. I’ve seen this sort of thing in my travels with counter cultures. When I took a paid position as a canvasser against the transportation of nuclear waste for example; it would have been right about the same time Francis was writing this book. One night, an anarchist joined us and took a few minutes to explain that she thought the only way to ultimately end the nation’s support of nuclear weapons was to violently overthrow the government, take control of said weapons, and of course, she and her minions would do the right thing and dismantle them. She didn’t say too much about killing untold numbers of people in gaining that power, but it seemed to be her plan. No one joined her army that night and I have no idea what became of her.

Schaeffer takes a longer view of history. In this book for instance, he builds his case by listing many of the wars that took place between Protestants and Catholics. When the Protestants won, he tells the story about an evil Catholic King who was deposed and the people of that kingdom were saved further oppression, because they now had a Protestant ruler and were free to be, well, Protestants. When the Protestants lost, he said they were martyred. Just as modern news of war talks of the brave soldiers defending freedom and is less generous about those who die daily from our constant shelling, these stories soften you up for the call to action.


He then further builds his case using a “just war” theory from Lex, Rex, or The Law and the Prince; a Dispute for the Just Prerogative of King and People, published in 1644. Apparently this is a quite famous work. As shown in the bottom paragraph here, Shaeffer, using Rutherford’s logic, believed it was the duty of the people to execute God’s will when the government body does not. On the next page, he compares this to Bob Dylan. He says the differences in language changes nothing, although I would say Rutherford is a little stronger in his suggestion of an actual uprising, and Schaeffer later minces no words at all.

There certainly were those who listened to Dylan and were inspired to shot at cops or bomb government buildings, but Dylan was not telling them to do that anymore than the Beatles were sending secret messages to Charles Manson. I couldn’t copy the whole book, but on page 110 Schaeffer says it is time to use appropriate forms of protest, and in other places, he is definitely leaning toward what Rutherford called “lawful resistance”. He was suggesting doing more than marching around with cardboard signs. On this page he is talking about how the ACLU  has taken God out of the schools. In later pages he speaks to the problem of the government supporting abortions.


To be very clear, I advocate none of this. I don’t want people to have abortions, but there are better ways to reduce the need for them than by picketing abortion clinics. Until it becomes a regular part of our government to throw people out of their homes, or force people to worship one way or the other, or to lock people up for their thoughts, I’m not ready to take up arms against them. I know those things happen, and more often than I’d like, but we still have legal means to undo them and to punish our police when they need to be policed. There was a time in my life when I broke the law on a daily basis, but I never thought that the system of law itself was unjust. It has unjust aspects, but that’s part of living in a democracy, you aren’t supposed to like everything about it. Nor are you required to. If you don’t, you can work to change it.

So, back to this book. I could be wrong about what Francis Schaeffer actually meant. A central point of it though, and I think he does a good job of making this point, is that the idea of there being a higher law, one that transcends temporary governments and power structures, has been around for a long time, perhaps for as long as there have been power structures. There has always been a resistance of some sort. Most of them we don’t hear about, because they don’t have the power and never get it.

It doesn’t matter if that resistance is fighting for “free love” or for “moral power”, the rhetoric will sound very similar in either case. They will call the law makers law breakers, or worse they will call them rapists and murderers. What Schaeffer is a little less quick to mention, is they, or someone who hears them, will then justify bending the rules just a little in the name of their higher authority. When you can convince someone that you have tapped into the transcendent reality, and that they are now privy to that special knowledge, you can get them to do just about anything.

I’m trying to present all of this without judgment. When you are unfamiliar with the background information of a culture, something like a doctor being shot in cold blood for performing abortions or a protest erupting into violence can be a shocking story with no rhyme or reason. But rarely do such things come out of nowhere. Manifestos by people living in shacks in the woods are rare, and typically less coherent. Anarchists like the one I met, show up, break a few windows and fade into the background. But organizations like the ACLU and the Evangelical Church will probably be around for a while. We’re going to need to find ways to get those two camps together.

If you click around the link to the L’Abri Institute above, it’s more than just an introduction to who Francis Schaeffer was. It tells of his work that included trying to understand just what the 60’s counter culture wanted, something I'd like to see more of from that side. If you follow the link to the ACLU, you’ll see they fight for everyone’s rights, not just against religion or for liberal causes. And as we found out last November, there is something they are not listening to either. If you are unfamiliar with one or the other of these histories, I can see how it would seem like there is some evil force in the world that needs to be countered. If you are unfamiliar with both, the world would seem chaotic indeed.

Compromise is Anathema

I'm just going to park this here, so I don't lose it. It's a story as good as Romeo and Juliet or Ruth from the Old Testament.

Ex-Westboro TED talk

Back to the Shack

There are no what I would call “spoilers” in this review. The trailer tells you that the little girl is killed in this movie. That is the central story. It is not a murder mystery, and I won’t talk about those parts anyway. It’s an unusual movie with a lot of quiet conversations, sitting around a table or a campfire. There’s plenty of story too, and no gratuitous violence. But, if you want to form your own opinions, see the movie first.

So, I went to see the movie “The Shack” this weekend. I liked it much better than the book; partly because it only lasted an hour and a half. But seriously folks, go see this movie. The book has sold over 20 million copies, so someone you know has likely read it, although they might not be talking about it.  That might be because the best parts of this story are the ones that aren’t on the surface. I see three layers.

The first one is the obvious one; man has a difficult childhood with his church-going but abusive father and never quite buys into Christianity, then comes into the fold in the end. The next layer is a little deeper, revealing a softer, modern theology, but one that still holds on to Jesus is real, prayers are answered sometimes, and there is a heaven and our lack of faith is the reason for hell. This is the layer that the author of the book talks about in interviews. It’s the theology that he wanted to describe through story, for his children, when he wrote the book. The third layer comes from his life experiences and is not expressed directly in much of the dialog. It appears in the book, sometimes seemingly by accident then disappears as he goes back to hammering you with the speeches by “Papa” the God figure, His Son, and a few words from the Spirit.

In the movie, you are spared those lengthy dialog. You still get the big questions, like “why does God let bad things happen”, and you get the same inadequate answer, that He doesn’t “purpose” them. But then, there is no adequate answer to the problem of how to be perfectly loving and perfectly merciful and all powerful. You can’t allow people to be who they are, and forgive them when they harm others, and also love everyone but not use your power to protect them. Those who try to make this system work, have to give up something or add some ad-hoc reasoning. Paul Young does it by reducing God’s powers. Also, like many theologians, amateur or otherwise, he puts some of the burden on people. When Augustine does this, you end up with “original sin”, making people responsible for their own suffering. When Young does it, it almost comes out like humanism. We can’t save the world, so we have to forgive each other when we fail.

One scene from the book I had forgotten is when Mac, the hero of the story, meets Wisdom. She sits on the throne of judgment, where Mac has been sitting all his life without realizing it. You might know someone like this. But Mac’s judgment was not tempered by wisdom. She offers, and then insists that he take that seat. She shows him many images of people deserving of retributive justice, and Mac gladly condemns them to hell. Then he is shown his own father. Then he sees that man as a boy, being abused himself. Knowing who to judge suddenly gets more complicated.

This does not cure him of being judgmental; there is no way to stop that. If we don’t judge, we don’t know good from bad. But it widens his perspective on the whole of humanity. Not long after that moment, he sees how his anger at the man who killed his child has blinded him and separated him from the love of his family. Now he has judgment tempered by wisdom, the ability to forgive, including forgiving himself.

Unfortunately, the movie, or what I remember from the book, doesn’t give you much more on this. If we all had the power of God to forgive and also the power to love people so much that they would do less of the things that needed forgiveness, the world would be a more peaceful place. But we don’t. Bad things happen. Evil exists. Forgiveness is necessary. But forgiveness is what comes after. We still need to judge good from evil, and be aware of intentions, and take actions to prevent evil when we can.

That’s the humanist message I was talking about; we can’t change what has happened, but we can look at what led to it happening, we can understand that people usually do the best they can given the circumstances they are handed. We can learn from the mistakes and work together for something better. We can hope that people eventually see the error of their ways, or that some good comes from bad. But that is not guaranteed. It may take a generation or longer to see something grow out of whatever ashes someone left behind. We may be left with nothing but a bad example to remember and to try to avoid. In the end, all we have is each other.

My review of the book from a few years ago.

A discussion on an interview with the author.