Big Business: Capitalism & Religion

Here's a great article posted on AlterNet.

How Big Business Invented the Theology of 'Christian Libertarianism' and the Gospel of Free Markets

By Kevin Kruse / AlterNet

June 1, 2015

During the Great Depression, big business needed rebranding. Blamed for the crash, belittled in the press, and beset by the New Deal’s regulatory state, corporate leaders decided they had to improve their image, and soon. “The public does not understand industry,” an executive complained, “because industry itself has made no effort to tell its story; to show the people of this country that our high living standards have risen almost altogether from the civilization which industrial activity has set up.”

Accordingly, corporate leaders launched a public relations campaign for capitalism itself. In 1934, the National Association of Manufacturers hired its first public relations director in its four decades of existence, expanding its annual budget in that field from just $36,000 to nearly $800,000 three years later, a sum that represented half of its total budget. NAM marketed the miracles of “free enterprise” with a wide array of advertisements, direct mail, films, radio programs, a speakers’ bureau, and a press service that provided prefabricated editorials and news stories for 7500 newspapers. Ultimately, though, the organization’s efforts at self-promotion were generally dismissed as precisely that.

While old business lobbies like NAM couldn’t sell capitalism effectively, neither could new ones created especially for the cause. The American Liberty League, founded in 1934, originally seemed business’s best bet. It received lavish financial support from corporate leaders, notably at Du Pont and General Motors, but ultimately their prominence in the group crippled its effectiveness. Jim Farley, then head of the Democratic Party, famously joked that it ought to be called the “American Cellophane League” because “first, it’s a Du Pont product and second, you can see right through it.”

As the 1930s came to a close, corporate leaders looked over the returns on their investment and realized the millions spent had not swayed public opinion in the slightest. The image of big business still needed repackaging. In a 1939 address to the US Chamber of Commerce, H.W. Prentis of the Armstrong Cork Company proposed the way forward. “Economic facts are important, but they will never check the virus of collectivism,” he warned; “the only antidote is a revival of American patriotism and religious faith.” Prentis’ speech thrilled the Chamber and boardrooms across America. Soon propelled to NAM’s presidency, he continued to tell corporate leaders to get religion. His 1940 presidential address, promoted heavily in the Wall Street Journal and broadcast live on both ABC and CBS radio, promised that business’s salvation lay in “a strengthening of the spiritual concept that underlies our American way of life.”

Accordingly, corporate America began marketing a new fusion of faith, freedom and free enterprise. These values had been conflated before, of course, but in the early 1940s they manifested in a decidedly new form. Previously, when Americans thought about the relationship between religion, politics and business, they gave little thought to the role of the national state, largely because it was so small it gave little thought to any of them. But now that the federal government had grown so significantly, corporate leaders sought to convince Americans that the New Deal threatened not only the economic freedoms of business leaders, but the religious and political freedoms of ordinary citizens as well. They worked tirelessly throughout the 1940s and 1950s to advance a new ideology that one observer aptly anointed “Christian libertarianism.”

Initially, businessmen outsourced this campaign to an unlikely set of champions: ministers. Though this decision seemed unorthodox, the logic was laid out clearly in private. “Recent polls indicate that America’s clergymen are a powerful influence in determining the thinking and acting of the people in the economic realm,” noted one organizer, and so business leaders should “enlist large numbers of clergymen” to “act as minutemen, carrying the message upon all proper occasions throughout their several communities.”

Over the second half of the 1940s, corporate leaders lavishly funded new organizations of ministers who would make their case for them. Some of these groups secured donations from a broad array of businessmen. Reverend James W. Fifield’s Spiritual Mobilization, for instance, amassed millions in corporate and personal checks from leaders at companies such as General Motors, Chrysler, US Steel, Republic Steel, International Harvester, Firestone Tire and Rubber, Sun Oil, Gulf Oil, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Colgate-Palmolive-Peet and countless more. Others leaned heavily on the generosity of a single patron. The Christian Freedom Foundation, created by Reverend Norman Vincent Peale and then led by layman Howard Kershner, was sustained almost single-handedly by Sun Oil President J. Howard Pew. The Pew family’s contributions to the organization averaged more than $300,000 a year for twenty-five years.

With this generous funding, ministers in these organizations spread the arguments of Christian libertarianism. “I hold,” Reverend Fifield asserted, “that the blessings of capitalism come from God. A system that provides so much for the common good and happiness must flourish under the favor of the Almighty.” But concern for the “common good” was uncommon in their arguments, which tended instead to emphasize the values of individualism. In their telling, Christianity and capitalism were indistinguishable on this issue: both systems rested on the fundamental belief that an individual would rise or fall on his or her own merit alone. Just as the saintly ascended to Heaven and sinners fell to Hell, the worthy rose to riches while the wretched were resigned to the poorhouse...

My Religion Says I Can't Work

Ta-Wan

It crossed my mind some years ago to take on all religions so that I could have lots of days off work and lots of holidays. My friend invented his own religion called COJ (the Cult of John) with it's own holy book the Bibble, I have not asked him yet but I'm pretty sure that if I joined his cult he'd give me as many days off as I liked. - But why when I can have my own?

I find the hours we keep and days in seven's to be quite out of sync with my natural rhythms; so I state from here on in that I am now a tax exempt, work exempt, Wowist priest. Wowists do not recognise days of the week or time, so are exempt from everything.

When I meet you I (may) say the word wow in conversation and this should be seen as reverence to the great wow, you should respond by not really noticing and this shall be the way we honour the wow. I will wear wowist clothing which will be just like normal clothing so that anyone wearing normal clothes will too be stating love of the wow.

I may also like a bowl of ice cream, so I'll see to that myself now. - Apart from that, all will be about the same but I won't be paying tax or working again.

This post originally appeared on Ta-Wan's blog, Tao Wow.

Jed McKenna's Theory of Everything II

Scott Bradley

Buddha realized complete, unsurpassed enlightenment; God spoke to Moses from out of a burning bush; Jesus is the Son of God; the angel Gabriel dictated the Koran to Mohammed; an angel directed Joseph Smith to the Golden Tablets which he read with the aid of magic spectacles; Jed McKenna has realized "perfect knowledge: complete and absolute knowledge about everything." What all these largely contradictory claims have in common is that they require belief. For the most part, that faith is instilled through the happenstance of nurture; most Saudis are Muslims, most Hindus were born to Hindus, etc. But there are also converts, and these typically require some form of motivating 'proof' to tip the balance toward the acceptance of an ideology otherwise foreign. These take various forms — reasoned arguments, an unexpected personal experience, personal contact with someone thought to be 'saintly', or simply an appeal to "give it a try and you will see".

Which of these does Jed McKenna offer? Well, if the first chapter of the book under review is a reliable indication (personally, I am not yet convinced he isn't pulling our legs), then he begins with a reasoned demonstration of the proof of his claims. This demonstration is so brief and simple (I would say simplistic), however, that it obviously requires fertile and well prepared ground to take root. In short, one must be predisposed to believe, if not already believing.

What one must believe is that an 'enlightenment' that yields "perfect knowledge" is possible. Does one then need to also believe that the pseudonymous Jed has realized it? Perhaps not. But in any case, the question for me is moot. I am willing to suspend judgment on both the claim that such an experience is possible and that he in particular has experienced it. I have simply decided that I am not interested in pursuing it.

By his own account, such an experience is extremely rare. It might be comparable to winning the lottery. There are those who win lotteries, but few, I think, who would presume to tell us how to do so. At best, all one could do is buy as many tickets as possible; and, as with the pursuit of enlightenment, one's success would ostensibly be a function of one's single-minded, all-in commitment. In the case of the current analogy, this would require living in abject poverty so as to buy as many tickets as possible. To my thinking, the life experience might be better served in living it.

I think we can safely say that the pursuit of enlightenment, for all practical purposes, is best understood as an end in itself, regardless of outcomes. (Unless, of course, one believes some form of salvation is required, a belief that finds no fertile ground in me.) From this perspective, it just comes down to one's personal choice, and an assessment of whether the benefits (purpose; the belief that one is ‘spiritual’) outweigh the harm (self-deceit; "dark nights of the soul").

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Extremist Taoism

Ta-Wan

The Hua Hu Ching states in its opening passage:

"My teachings are simple; if you try to make a religion or science of them, they will elude you."

and Taoism is at its best a philosophy, famously stating in the Tao Te Ching "The Tao that can be told is not the Tao" so by ruling out any religion or set method to its discovery. I recommend sitting by a lake over reading any book explaining Tao.

Yet even against the intent and strong statements in nearly all Tao literature that Tao should not form a religion - Taoism as a religion exists, it is a religion based around the Tao and has all the rubbish of all religion attached to it such as worship of deities and so on.

If we accept that anything that can lead to a religion will eventually give rise to extremist action and "us VS them", then wouldn't it be fun to set up a sect that was extremely lazy?

Take all the lines we can such as: "The sage, by doing nothing, does nothing wrong." and adapting the lines slightly like that to give them a real leaning towards the slacker.

We would then, in not too long have a Tao of absolute laziness loved by stoners, students, slackers and co - hopefully with time a member would take the teachings and see them as an undisputed truth that must be stood up for. With their leadership the whole group will be crystallized around the teachings and they will be seen as the word of God.

When the inevitable happens and the new extremist Tao is seen by its members to be being encroached upon by another group of people, politics or lawmakers, they will fight back.

Being the religious extremists they are they will go to the letter of their doctrine and fight their cause by staying in bed a lot, showing up late for everything, being religiously disorganized and aiming to fail.

The end result being a religious war where a group of disorganized folk don't really get much done. I'd say the body count would be very low.

So if anything, even when not intended to become a religion, even in stating it shouldn't, still does - we then by encouraging passivity, disorganization and laziness, make for a very laid back group of extremists come the revolution.

This post originally appeared on Ta-Wan's blog, Tao Wow.

Ziporyn on Xunzi III

Scott Bradley

In my view, the satisfaction of human desires is the only justification of any position developed by any early Chinese thinker.
(Ziporyn; Ironies of Oneness and Difference, p. 200)

If this is the case, then early Chinese philosophy was profoundly humanistic. Human happiness is the overwhelming concern of the human enterprise. Taken in the context of the understanding that this happiness is predicated on its harmonious interface with Nature and society generally, as well as with one's own self, we see how the pursuit of happiness meets all the requirements for universal benefit.

Humanism, at least as it arose in the West, is curiously in contrast to theism. The Creator creates for 'his' own purposes, and it is 'his' purposes that matter; the created are of secondary and derivative significance. Chief among the Creator's purposes are that 'he' be worshiped, "glorified", and obeyed. (Let's call it The Great Ego — “I AM that I AM".) Things exist for God, not for themselves. Human desires are thus subordinate to those of God; they can be rightfully realized only when they conform to 'his' purposes, and quite often even innocent desires do not meet this criterion.

The satisfaction of human desires is necessarily an enterprise; it does not just happen. As individuals we are required to create the conditions necessary to our own happiness. This requires that we exercise self-restraint, lest the satisfaction of our desires negatively impact the conditions necessary to our happiness. As social beings who live collectively, we are also required to create institutions which facilitate the realization of happiness for the greatest number of its participants, and this requires societal-restraints lest a few deprive the many. As members of a vast ecological community (Earth), animate and inanimate, we are required to restrain our individual and collective desires when they negatively impact the harmony of the whole. A collapsed ecosystem is not conducive to happiness.

All of this "restraint" is a non-restraint when taken in the context of the understanding of happiness as living in harmony. Harmony is not only a condition of happiness; it is happiness.

Thus, we have various philosophies and political theories that suggest the best way to deliver the goods, some more effectively than others. Seeing them all from this perspective, perhaps we are better able to choose between them. What need not apply are the concepts of good and bad.

As an American, I feel compelled to question how harmonious the core value of the pursuit of happiness as an individualistic, capitalistic endeavor really is. Given the present disparities of wealth and, more importantly, the impact of the consequent poverty, one must ask if this ideology is in fact the most conducive to happiness for any of us, including the wealthy. One must also wonder if this ideology most cherished by the dedicated theists among us is not a consequence of worshiping The Great Ego.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Intraworldly Mysticism II

Scott Bradley

Yearley (in Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu) identifies intraworldly mysticism as that aspect of Zhuangzi's philosophy that renders it radically different from the more conventional reworkings of that philosophy by subsequent interpreters (principally the author of the 17th Chapter). He begins his discussion of what this means, and how it is in many ways unique, through a comparison with two other types of mysticism, and although I have already (and recently) made similar comparisons, I will briefly share his analysis here.

These two traditional forms of mysticism essentially follow the distinctive lines of Western theism and Eastern monism. The former, Yearley suggests, seeks union with God, who must ultimately remain other. (When Jewish [Spinoza], Christian, and Sufi mystics transgress this line, as they sometimes do, they are said to have committed heresy.) The latter, seeks absolute unity with the Ultimate. In the case of the former, a helping hand is required; the practitioner cannot do it on her own, but requires grace, God's involvement. In the case of the latter, the practitioner is the Ultimate and need only to discover that reality. In both cases, one is directed out of and away from the mundane world.

Zhuangzi's intraworldly mysticism, on the other hand, makes no appeal at all to either union or unity with anything beyond our actual existential experience. It is fully focused on and engaged in the world, albeit in a manner of detached freedom that Yearley describes as having a "mind as spectator". It may be that I have not correctly understood Yearley at this point, but his subsequent explanation of intraworldly mysticism seems to me to have followed a consequence of that mysticism as if it were the essential experience itself.

Yearley understands intraworldly mysticism as the ability to engage with things as they arise and to let them go as they pass since the world is ever-transforming (hua). He uses Zhuangzi's "Axis (or Hinge) of the Dao" (where we are entreated to sit in the center of the circle so as to be able to respond to all events and opinions with equanimity) and his imagery of using "the mind like a mirror" (reflecting but not retaining) to makes this point. This is certainly a suggested practical expression of Zhuangzi's mysticism, but is it the mysticism itself? I think not. Indeed, it seems to me that Yearley has taken up and intellectualized a theme of Zhuangzi's philosophy to the detriment of his overall vision, very much like the author of the 17th Chapter also did. The extremes to which he later drives this interpretation (to be discussed later) are, I think, a consequence of this mistake.

So what then is the true understanding of Zhuangzi's vision? Fortunately, lack of space does not allow me to pursue it now. Perhaps tomorrow I will have forgotten that I have backed myself into this corner.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

The Essence Of Zhuangzian Play III

Scott Bradley

I often juxtapose playfulness with seriousness, yet it is quite possible for play to be serious — up to a point. Play can, in fact, play with most anything, but the spirit of play persists only where it has the last word; play can be serious, but it can never take seriousness too seriously. There can be, and often is seriousness without play, however; and this, whatever its practical value within the context of its parent worldview, is decidedly not a part of the Zhuangzian vision.

Allow me to suggest an example. If one believes that Reality has suffered some fundamental moral or ontological schism, as do all the world's religions (as best as I can tell), then one is required to get very serious in terms of at least personal redemption within it. Something must be done, or dire circumstances will follow. One will go to hell, or what's apparently nearly as bad, one will be reborn into existence. The revealed religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) see Reality as eternally sundered (God and 'his' creation are never One; God's moral nature requires eternal hellfire). The intuited religions (Hinduism, Buddhism) believe that it'll all work out as One in the end, though only after we have all become sufficiently serious about our individual redemption to allow it to be so. In both cases there is the need to get very serious about one's redemption.

Zhuangzian play could not exist in the context of such world-negation. Despite all the suffering that typifies the life experience, self-inflicted and otherwise, all is ultimately well, (and if not, outside volitional change). The human condition, absurdly magnified in its self-importance in the context of vastness, is no different than the rising and passing of stars or the decomposition of an overweight atom. "Handing it all over to the unavoidable" is an act of complete affirmation and openness, of entrusting oneself to unfolding Reality, where nothing need be done — not even that.

Zhuangzi's vision is of a purely optional affirmation of apparent reality; no eternal outcomes are at stake. Nothing need be taken too seriously. This allows the detachment necessary for all of life to become play; even the serious parts.

Seriousness without play saps life of its inherent joy, and what's perhaps worse, generally believes it is necessary to inflict itself upon all the world so as to sap the joy of us all.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

What to Say

Trey Smith

There is an insightful piece in the Guardian today, Grieving As an Atheist: A Surprising Dilemma, by Tiffany White. She tells of initially being at a loss for words upon learning that her best friend's mother died.

I felt like I should have been saying the usual things: "God is with her now", "She's now in heaven" or "You're in my prayers". These phrases sound better because these are the phrases we're used to saying. "She's in a better place" provides a sense of hope and optimism. "You're in my prayers" shows caring and understanding. But that day, as I stood there on the phone struggling to think of the right things to say, I realized I couldn't say those phrases anymore. I couldn't tell her I was praying for her because I wasn't. I couldn't tell her I thought her mother was in "a better place" because to me that place was a hollow grave.

As White states, there are some pat phrases we offer when we want to be empathetic or sympathetic. When you grow up within a religious tradition, there are several of these stock phrases you can pull out of your quiver whenever the need arises. These phrases may lack genuine substance, but they make the utterer feel as if they have performed their solemn duty.

But even if I were still a Christian and had the privilege to pepper my condolences with hopeful phrases of heaven and angels, those phrases might sound better, and sure they provide immediate reassurance (which is what they're designed to do), but the phrases themselves are empty. When people say they're praying for you, how often are they really? But saying "I'm praying for you" sounds nice, regardless if there's any truth to it or not. We're conditioned to say these phrases whenever we're confronted with a tragedy, but we put little thought or effort into why we say them.

When faced with tragedy or heartache, if we are at all honest with ourselves, almost anything a person can say is empty. It doesn't make the situation better or bring a loved one back from the dead. So, what could a religious adherent or an atheist say or do as a meaningful gesture? I think White hits upon the best answer.

During my second phone call to my best friend, I decided I would let her do the majority of the talking. After all, this wasn't about me, it was about my friend, and I realized the best thing I could do for her was to simply be there for her and be a supportive listener. I told her she could call me any time she wanted, even if it was 4am, even if she just wanted to bawl in my ear. Even though I wasn't armed with an arsenal of hopeful and optimistic phrases to make her feel better with, I realized that simply being a caring and understanding friend was more important. And isn't that what really matters?

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The Seventh Seal Revisited II

Scott Bradley

Death, what it means and how to meet it, is the principle theme in The Seventh Seal (Bergman; 1957), but this also brings religion to the fore. The son of a Lutheran chaplain to the royal household, Bergman has a lot of religious baggage with which to deal.

That the knight and his squire have just returned from ten years in the Crusades, murdering, raping and pillaging at the behest of the Roman Church, looms large in the background. The squire, never having had much faith to lose, has only become more sure of his cynicism. Religion is a scam. While they were off suffering the torments of war, those who sent them continued to profit through the nurture of fear and prejudice. But the knight, once a true believer, has been cast into despair. He still wants to believe, but cannot. He has already believed a monstrous lie.

The Black Death that took one of three Swedes ravages the land. Priests burn 'witches' alive. Prompted by the Church's ceaseless promulgation of self-negating guilt and the fear of judgment, troops of self-flagellants stagger through the land. Death has a fearsome face; God awaits with more dreadful tortures still.

Have things really changed all that much?

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

The Great Mystery As Teacher V: Delighting in Life

Scott Bradley

This human form is merely a circumstance that has been met with, just something stumbled into, but those who have become humans delight in it nonetheless.
(Zhuangzi, 6:28; Ziporyn)

It all just happens, without intention, without purpose, without any reason why. This at least is how things so appear to the philosophical Daoist, and though he would not wish to make of it a dogma, he takes it as the apparent reality that informs his living. We might say that Zhuangzi was not burdened by a theist enculturation that rendered such an outlook less obvious to him than it may to us. Weighing the two, I myself see how the theist thesis clearly "adds something to the process of life" in as much is answers psychological needs that are themselves in apparent disaccord with the way things are. Then there is the simple fact that "God" is a great idea except in that it is always just an idea that falls infinitely short in every way of what God would have to be. Every God-concept, by whatever name, is a form of idolatry. Let there be God; only let us truly honor it in understanding that it is Utter Mystery and not assign it personality, moral concerns, intentional dabbling, and other absurdly limiting anthropomorphisms.

Our lives just happen, apparently without rhyme or reason, and that is part of the Mystery that teaches us. Existentialism, bound by the rationalism it purported to dismiss, typically took this as an occasion to despair, but for philosophical Daoism it is an occasion for thankfulness and trust. "We delight in it nonetheless"; all of us. Thus, to delight in this experience of having a human form is living life as life lives us. It adds nothing to the process of life. It is in harmony with the life experience.

The more we can delight in life, the more authentically we allow the life experience to manifest itself in us. Releasing ourselves into vastness is all about affirmation, and nothing about negation. All is included, nothing is rejected.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

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Jesus Ain't No Buddha

Trey Smith

Ryan Rotella, a junior at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) said that his professor, Dr. Deandre Poole, of his Intercultural Communications class, asked students in the class to write the word “Jesus” on a piece of paper, fold the paper, and step on it. By the time FOX News and Commentary got to the story, “asked” had become “directed,” “step” had become “stomp,” and the “Stomp on Jesus” firestorm was manufactured. FAU reacted by apologizing to those who were offended, immediately placing Poole on administrative leave, and banning him from FAU’s campuses.

Poole was using an exercise from an instructor’s guide to a popular textbook, Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, written by Jim Neuliep, a professor of communication and media studies at St. Norbert College, in Wisconsin. The instructor’s guide describes the exercise:

This exercise is a bit sensitive, but really drives home the point that even though symbols are arbitrary, they take on very strong and emotional meanings. Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper. Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence, instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.

Poole, under orders from FAU not to discuss the case, did say that he never told anyone to “stomp on Jesus,” but asked his students to step on the piece of paper. Poole said that one student approached him after class and said, “How dare you disrespect someone’s religion?” while hitting his balled fist into his other hand. Poole claims the student said the “he wanted to hit me,” but didn’t. Poole reported the incident to campus security and filed a report.

Poole, a former Sunday-school teacher, identifies himself as “very religious” and says that Jesus “is my lord and savior.” Poole has received hate mail and death threats, including one threatening Poole, an African-American, with hanging. Poole is on a one-year teaching contract with FAU, and although FAU may not fire him, the non-renewal of his contract will send the same message.

Not one to miss out on an opportunity to pander, Governor Rick Scott called the assignment “intolerant to Christians.”

Christians have learned well from their Islamic brothers. Any slight to their faith, real or imagined, is to be met with the full wrath of the faithful. As Poole’s situation demonstrates, no slight is too insignificant, or too illogical. Like Islam, the only way Christianity can get the respect they think they deserve is through threats and intimidation. Like Islam, it appears that Christianity has given up any hope of achieving respect through persuasive argument.
~ Academic Freedom Sacrificed To Religious Intimidation by David Drumm ~

For me, this news item highlights a key difference between a deity-based religion versus a philosophic religion or a philosophy. The former treats symbols as sacred, while the latter does not. For the former, even a symbol of the symbol -- like a word written on a piece of paper -- is holy, while the latter recognizes symbols for what they are -- symbols.

To underscore this difference, think of the Zen Buddhist koan, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." Can you imagine a Christian saying this about the savior (If you meet Jesus, kill him) or a Muslim saying this about the prophet (If you meet Mohammed, kill him)? Want to talk about blasphemy! You would be denounced by the faithful until the cows come home.

Think about the first line of the Tao Te Ching.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

Can you imagine a devout Christian standing up to declare, "The God we worship is not the eternal God"? Such a person would be tossed out of the flock so fast it would make your head spin!

People of a religious ilk -- particularly those of the Abrahamic religions -- have never come to grips with the notion that they treat the finger pointing at the moon as the moon itself. The finger -- the symbol of the deity -- has become just as important, if not more so, than that which they ostensibly worship!

This whole situation would be downright comical...if not for the societal implications it engenders.

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Good Question!

Trey Smith

Why do we have them and why do they make $170,000? Actually, the Senate Chaplain makes a bit less than that (in 2011, he made $155,000). That’s probably because the Senate Chaplain has only 100 potential customers, whereas the House Chaplain has 435 of them. In any event, considering the lack of heavy lifting required by the job, these salaries (underwritten by the taxpayer) seem fairly generous.

So, what, specifically, do these chaplains do? According to their charter, congressional chaplains perform “ceremonial, symbolic, and pastoral duties.” While it’s hard to know what those duties might have been in the 18th century, today they seem to consist mainly of opening sessions of congress with a prayer, making themselves available to House and Senate members for spiritual guidance, and giving visiting religious leaders a tour of the building. Not a bad gig.

Of course, trying to evaluate or defend the incomes of disparate jobs is a fool’s errand. It’s not only comparing apples and oranges, it’s comparing apples and papayas. Dishwashers make $16,000 a year, school teachers toil in the vineyard for $50,000, the minimum major league baseball salary (even for a bench-warmer) is $480,000, and Wikipedia says Judge Judy gets $45 million a year for dispensing her aggressive, show biz justice. Forget about it.

The Senate Chaplain has his own crew. He has a Chief-of-Staff, a Director of Communications, and an Executive Assistant to help him dispense his duties. In 2011, the total budget for the Senate Chaplain’s office (including salaries and expenses) was $415,000. While that seems exorbitant from one perspective, from another perspective it seems meager, almost miniscule. After all, don’t we taxpayers spend $415,000 every 90 seconds or so in Afghanistan? It’s apples and papayas.

But the most conspicuous issue isn’t their salaries. Clearly, the elephant in the room is the apparent violation of the constitutional provision establishing the separation of Church and State. Clergymen prowling the corridors seems inappropriate. Simply put, why are we permitting (and paying!) some sanctimonious, Bible-thumping zealot to step onto the floor of the U.S. Congress and lead our duly elected government representatives in a mandatory prayer?
~ from Why Do We Have Congressional Chaplains? by David Macaray ~

This is a darn good question! To be quite frank, I never realized these folks were on the payroll. I thought they simply called in clergy to lead a prayer and then these folks went back to their congregations and monasteries.

I have no problem whatsoever with members of Congress seeking out religious instruction and guidance. As citizens, they are free to believe or not believe as their consciences direct them. But an official position and office that you and I pay for? That blows my mind.

It also suggests something else: prayer doesn't work! The US Congress can't seem to get any meaningful thing done. The only time the two sides seem to find common ground is in support of Israel, approving funds for the war/national security state and their shared evisceration of the US Constitution. When it comes to the employment problem or passing legislation to help out the vast majority, they are wholly (or holy) ineffective.

So, it would seem to me that all these mandatory prayers have been a waste...unless it turns out that "God" is a ruthless capitalist who supports rampant imperialism and sticking it to the poor. If he IS that sort of fellow, then maybe those prayers are working after all.

"God in the Dock"

Scott Bradley

I have put this title in quotes because I'm sure it has already been used elsewhere, though I can't remember where. The idea of questioning "God" is an important one to me because I was for a long time a Christian and I ultimately abandoned that faith when its "God" could no longer live up to the lofty moral standards he ostensibly proclaimed. "God" must ultimately kill "God".

As an aside, I'd like to address the understandable sense of embarrassment that I feel in saying I was a born-again Christian. I do occasionally have my previous beliefs thrown in my face when I mention some of the moral absurdities of that faith. My answer is simply that when stoned on LSD and you have an incredible transformative experience packaged as Jesus, all the absurdities that go along with it are of little consequence. In other words, I did not become a Christian because I believed its doctrines but because almost accidently (it was with a laugh and as a lark that I prayed the prayer) I had my socks blown off. I saw it happen to another while my friend and I were bumming around S. California shortly thereafter. An AWOL marine, also stoned on LSD, had the same experience before my eyes, and when my friend mentioned Noah (and his ark) the marine exclaimed, "I believe, I believe!"

The revealed God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam made the critical error of identifying with certain beliefs and ‘historical’ deeds which though then acceptable are now seen as monstrous. "Hell" is, in my opinion, the most horrendous idea ever conceived by the mind of man. (Though strictly speaking Judaism has no hell — just a smoldering dump, Jesus was Jewish and thus his ideas were Jewish and likely reflected the Jewish thought of his time.) Of 'historical' events I need only mention a few: choosing one tribe above every other, Passover (being the passing over of that tribe while God murdered the firstborn of all of Egypt), raining fire and brimstone on Sodom, ordering the total genocide of the indigenous peoples of Palestine. (These are all from the Judaic root, but Christianity and Islam have made their own horrendous use of and contributions to them.) If this "God" is God, then we are in deep shit indeed.

Nietzsche wrote that every great idea must ultimately lead to its own negation. Understanding this, we can both affirm the contributions of these traditions — and they are many — and also leave them behind. Judaism gifted the West with a high moral code; yet that morality, once internalized, cannot but renounce the very God supposed to be its author. If God is in the dock, it is because he has failed of his own morality.

This is about my personal journey and I feel no crusading need to disabuse others who still believe of their faith. These things happen when they happen and not because we make them happen, or even because we ever wished them to happen.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

TYT - Fox News Basks in its Own Ignorance

Do Ideas Matter?

Scott Bradley

Having just finished a series in which I once again critique (criticize) the ideas of my betters (intellectually, spiritually), I am left with a certain unease. Indeed, that series has yet to be submitted to Trey and is thus still to be reconsidered. Perhaps it will end up in the Satanic Verses file. The unease is twofold; first there is the desire to avoid negativity. Secondly, there is the nagging question as to whether this concern about ideas is not a symptom and expression of the very dependence on ideas and formulae that this entire enterprise is intended to overcome. Do ideas matter?

Like everything else within the human experience, they do and they do not — many times over and in infinite ways.

In terms of the evolution of human society, how we are in the world, world-view is of immense importance. The question is asked, for instance, why China did not produce the empirical sciences despite all her other achievements. The answer is framed in terms of her general world-view. This, of course, can be turned around. Fang Yizhi (1611-1671) wrote: "The Western Learning is skilled in measuring palpable objects, but clumsy in penetrating to the incipient impulses that make things so." (Ziporyn) Clearly, ideas do matter, and their evolution and cross-fertilization is valuable in the context of human well-being.

Similarly, the world views that frame our individual being-in-the-world are partly determinative of how we behave in and relate to the world. Ideas do matter.

Still, the influence of ideas upon us as societies and individuals is obviously only approximate and variable. Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Daoists, Muslims, Hindus, whenever in a position to do so, and despite the religious ideas that would forbid it, all commit occasional mass murder. Ideas clearly have their limitations. Other forces are at work.

Perhaps it is often not so much the content of ideas that matters, but how deeply they are allowed to penetrate our being, which is to say, how much they become more than mere ideas. All the above mentioned religions have ideas capable of leading their practioners to happy and 'spiritual' living — if only they become more than ideas. This is another way of saying that you don’t have to get it right to get it. Does anyone ever get it ‘right’? At best, we can only grow that world-view that is ‘right’ for us, and having grown it, learn to live it.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Response to Panikkar I

Scott Bradley

Raimon Panikkar (A Dwelling Place for Wisdom) makes the following statement in the context of a consideration of wu wei: "Nevertheless, it is not mere passivity, not quietism, because it is part of Man's dignity of being commissioned to bring the universe to perfection." (p.62) What's wrong with this statement?

Everything. And nothing. In truth, there is nothing 'wrong' with this statement unless it is intended as a faithful representation of what wu wei actually means in the context of Daoism. Panikkar was a great religious syncretist; his scholarship, particularly in his remarkable knowledge of the Indic, Buddhist, and Christian traditions and the original languages in which they were first formulated, is sweeping. The difficulty with syncretism, however, is that in borrowing the thoughts of others in order to create one's own grand synthesis one must necessarily rend the original contextual garment of the traditions from which it borrows. Christianity as theology, for instance, does not lend itself to incorporation into a wider, more inclusive point of view. This is because Christianity is 'historically true': This man here is god incarnate. ("I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father except by me." Whether or not Jesus actually said this is debatable; whether or not it is a cornerstone of Christian theology is not.) We are certainly free to pick and choose as we wish and to even declare Christianity (or any other religious philosophy) to be something other than what it has traditionally been, but honesty would seem to require that we acknowledge that we have rent the original fabric in having done so.

It might be argued that every bit of philosophizing (or theologizing) is necessarily syncretic in that it is always a new, personal response, and thus interpretation, of what has gone before. In this regard, I am most certainly a syncretist; I wouldn't have it any other way. I often speak of "philosophical Daoism" as if it were some pre-existent, fixed philosophy and not simply what I make it to be. It is not. I'm making it up as I go along. It's mine. In sharing it with you, besides articulating it for myself, I simply offer more grist for your own syncretic mill.

There are two considerations that have prompted this post. The first has to do with philosophical content: Does the statement quoted above correctly reflect the Daoist understanding of wu wei and the Daoist perspective generally? Secondly, why does it bug me that it does not? From a Daoist perspective, it is the latter that is the most fertile ground for investigation.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Alternate Theories

Trey Smith

As readers should understand by now, I don't subscribe to the belief in heaven and hell. Though I don't claim to be an authority on such matters, I think it is likely that, when we die, that's it. Nothing comes afterwards. Just because I lean that way, however, doesn't mean it's true. I could be as wrong as wrong can be.

At least, I think I take the intellectually honest road. I unabashedly admit to complete ignorance in this matter. But there are a lot of people in this world who say they KNOW what cannot be known. You can't argue with them because they possess the extra special secret decoder ring! If you suggest that they are as ignorant on this matter as you are, they smirk because, of course, they KNOW.

It is because of these sorts of people that I ponder the afterlife question. Today I will share two alternate theories to the typical fundamentalist Christian viewpoint.

Let's say these fundies have the system basically correct. There is a real heaven and there is a real hell. Me thinks that all the people who are certain that their ticket already is punched for heaven will wind up in the "other" place.

I'm sure you've had occasion to become a bit peeved with another person who tries to tell you what YOU think. A common response to this action is "Don't put words in my mouth!" No one can know what goes on in another person's mind. It's a world all its own!

The people who KNOW that a spot is reserved for them in heaven are putting words in God's mouth. If you read the Bible, ya gotta understand that this drives God up the fricking wall. God encapsulates all the knowledge that exists and so, if you KNOW what God's plan is for you, then you are saying that you are God. That has to be the worst sin imaginable. So, as your punishment for thinking you possibly can KNOW the mind of God, you will burn forever and God will watch with glee.

A commonly held belief is that humankind --actually, males -- are created in the image of God. But what if we have that wrong. What if the creatures made in God's image are earthworms, mosquitoes or gnats? Ya know, those pesky little critters that we exterminate without really thinking about it.

If God more closely resembles a giant mosquito, then maybe the afterlife consists of having our spiritual blood drained again and again and again. It will be like setting up a family picnic amidst the murkiest swamp imaginable. Every time we swat away or slap one mosquito, a billion more take its place.