Random Thoughts

I don’t have anything to blog about.

Well, not quite true.  I do, but they are going to take time to develop and currently for my classes for the month of April I have three research papers to write, three tests to take, a timeline, and a final to take.   For some reason this is slowing me down when it comes to doing substantive posts.

So, since I am trying to do at least two blogs a week I thought I would do some free association and just post a bunch of random thoughts on random subjects.   Hey, it may not be my best blog, but I least I attained my goals – climb every mountain and so on.

Anyway, first random thought – how about them Republicans?!  Just when it seems as if their election season multiple foot in mouths moments forgotten they come along and provide new ones.

First, from the state that brought us such statesidiots as Sarah Palin comes Congressman Don Young and his use of “wetbacks” when describing how things used to be in the days of his youth on his father’s farm.

Yep, that will bring in the Hispanic vote for the Republicans.

And then there is Republican National Committee Dave Agema’s  facebook posting in which, based on an on line article (which we all know is totally reliable) “Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals,” by Frank Joseph, M.D, posted that gays were responsible for “half the murders in large cities”, were sexually promiscuous, and were riddled with sexually transmitted diseases.  Oh, let’s not forget the child molestation and their being responsible for the high costs of our healthcare.

Way to stay on the wrong side of history Dave!

Oh, should also mention that today is not only Good Friday, but more importantly, Dindy and mine’s 33^rd anniversary.  Not only have we added on a few years and a few pounds since we were married but we have also added on a lot more love during those years.   Didn’t think it was possible to do that.   Looking forwards to another 33 years, and then another, and another.

Guess I could give a preview on some the blogs that I am not working on right now due to school.

One is a blog about Paul Copan’s book “Is God a Moral Monster?” in which he defends God’s morality against the attacks of the new atheists such as Richard Dawkins.  This one is actually a critique of the book and will consist of multiple blogs.   I already have the rough draft for the first three chapters (this only takes two blogs and that because I spend most of the first one explaining what I am about to do and why).

I suppose I could go ahead with that, but then there is a good chance that there would be a long gap between parts of the critique, so I prefer to wait and finish off the book.

Spoiler alert – so far Mr. Copan does not succeed in defending the literal reading of the Old Testament’s God’s morality.

Now, my other two blog ideas are just some random notes right now.  What is fun is they grew out of the research paper I am writing for my “Bible in Historical Context Class”.   This paper is about the use of the Bible to support both the abolitionist arguments against slavery and the slave owner’s arguments for slavery prior to the Civil War.

The first blog is comparing how the Bible is used and interpreted in relation to slavery, gay rights, and abortion.   There is a relationship between how the Bible is used and viewed by the abolitionists and Christians today in regards to slavery and to how those Christians in favor of gay rights are viewing the Bible.   Conversely for the slave owners of the 17^th – 19^th centuries, those few Christians who are OK with slavery, and those, more common, Christians who are against gay rights all share a similar view of the Bible.

However, the same is not happening in regards to abortion even though of the three issues it is the one that has the least Biblical support for being anti-choice and the most Biblical support for being pro-choice.

The other blog arising from my research is how the Bible and Christianity was used by the blacks in pre-Civil War America to resist the oppression of the whites – whether the whites were slave owners, fellow citizens, or abolitionists.   It is not something I had ever considered or known about until I started reading the poems of Jupiter Hammon and followed that up with some readings about blacks during that time and followed that up with an interesting discussion with Professor Day of the University of Texas at Arlington about this.

Not only is this going to make for a better paper (although I am going to be bumping up against the length requirements, probably) but provide material for an interesting blog about how religion can and does help a people and society   Atheists are all too aware of the drawbacks and harms but too many refuse to consider the good and positive aspects that can come from religious beliefs.   Hopefully this will stir up some good discussions when I get around to writing and posting it.

OK, lets see, what else.  Sun is out and shining.  Really wonderful day out.

I have come up with some more aphorisms, but not enough to update that blog yet.

Hmmm, didlle day do re doso,  ahhh,

Ah, I see I am at 932 words and going.  Nice respectable length for a blog.  Hopefully next week someone will say something that will spark a blog that I can write fairly quickly.  Otherwise I may have to do Random Thoughts 2 and I am not sure if I have that many thoughts.

Enjoy!

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How the Baptists Have Falle…. Um, Wait – How Some Baptists Have Fallen But Others Have Not: Or a Lesson in the Importance of Fact Checking Before Writing the Blog

Let me preface this by saying that my initial, very short post had an important message.  However another two other important lessons were also learned by yours truly (ones I already knew but did not follow this time) so that I urge anyone reading this to read the “Important Addendum” at the end of this blog too.    

From  http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/jacquielynn-floyd/20120920-gov.-rick-perry-vs.-satan-secular-humanists-and-american-constitutional-history.ece?action=reregister

“While chatting with members of Vision America, which is calling for 40 days of pre-election prayer and fasting “to save America,” Gov. Rick Perry described the doctrine of church-state separation as a “myth” devised by Satan to drive Christians from public life.

He additionally warned that American families are “under siege,” that “Christian warriors” must defend the nation against secular attack, and that the president “and his cronies” are trying to scrub every trace of religion from American life.

Get thee behind Rick Perry, Beelzebub!

“This separation of church and state, which has been driven by the secularlists [sic] to remove those people of faith from the public arena, there is nothing further from the truth,” he said, stumbling a little over that tricky word “secularist.”

“Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you.”

There’s more — lots more — about the Founding Fathers and Judeo-Christian values and rescuing the nation from secularism and atheism.”

 

I was reading the above column about some remarks made by the wonderfully unenlightened governor of my home state of Texas, Rick Perry, and it got me thinking about church state separation.  I don’t know if Rick Perry is a Baptist or not, but this made me think of the Baptists and of how far they have fallen in regards to church/state separation.

 

The founder of the Baptists in America, Roger Williams, was a strong believer in the strict separation of the church and the state.  The early Baptist churches, when they were a minority religion and concerned about their rights being trampled by the larger and more established churches, were strong believers in the separation of church and state, as witnessed by the Dansbury letter and other writings of the time.

But today, now that they are no longer a minority religion and are instead an established and more powerful religious group, they wish to pretend that the separation of church and state does not exist and does not need to exist.

 

Oh yes indeed, power does indeed corrupt.

 

 

Important Addendum – well dang, I hate doing things ass backwards which I did by writing this blog, almost one click away posting it and then fact checking it.  I have seen so many Southern and other sorts of Baptists speaking out against church/state separation that I just assumed that it was a policy of the Baptist church in general.   Just before I was about to post this I decided that I needed a copy of the policy stating the Baptist position and went looking for it.  Instead I found this, from the American Baptists Churches USA    

http://www.abc-usa.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Pm1kkXvrrqM%3d&tabid=199

AMERICAN BAPTIST

 

RESOLUTION ON SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

 

“We proclaim that separation of church and state is central to our American heritage; that

it has made possible a measure of freedom not previously achieved under any other

system; that it is indispensable to our national policy of equal rights for all religions and

special privileges for no religion.

 

Church and state are separate not only in their functions, but also in the source of their

financing. Government being under public control is properly financed by taxation.

Membership in religious institutions and organizations is voluntary, and therefore should

be supported by voluntary contributions. We believe that the use of tax money for

support of religious groups is in opposition to the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

 

We declare that this principle does not mean that the state is indifferent to the church, nor that the church is unconcerned for the state. It means rather that church and state are separate in their institutional life and that neither controls the other.

……..

We object strenuously, therefore, to any proposal that authorizes taxes or borrowing

power be used to make grants or loans to sectarian or church related schools. We

emphasize that the use of government finances in support of any sectarian purpose is a violation of basic religious liberties for it coerces citizens to support religious objectives which many of them cannot conscientiously approve.

 

Adopted by the American Baptist Convention 1961

 

Affirmed as an American Baptist Churches Resolution by the Executive Committee

of the General Board September 1983

 

Revised by the Executive Committee of the General Board – March 1993

 

Modified by the Executive Committee of the General Board – March 2001

 

Modified by the Executive Committee of the General Board – March 2005”

 

And this from the Baptist Joint Committee

http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138&Itemid=129

“The separation of church and state, or the “wall of separation” talked about by Colonial Baptist Roger Williams, Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. Supreme Court, is simply a shorthand metaphor for expressing a deeper truth that religious liberty is best protected when church and state are institutionally separated and neither tries to perform or interfere with the essential mission and work of the other.

While the phrase “separation of church and state” technically is not in the First Amendment, and although there is no evidence that either Thomas Jefferson or James Madison used the word “separation” until the 19^th century, the principles those words represent are there. Who would deny that federalism, the separation of powers and the right to a fair trial are constitutional principles? But those phrases do not appear in the Constitution either. And how could anyone read Jefferson’s “Bill Establishing Religious Freedom” in Virginia and Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” without concluding that they unequivocally supported the concept?

Baptists often hold up Roger Williams’ “hedge or wall of separation” and point to Jefferson’s 1802 Letter to the Danbury Connecticut Baptist Association where he talked about his “sovereign reverence” for the wall of separation. But we often forget about the writings of the father of our Constitution, Madison, who, in a letter to Robert Walsh in 1819, observed that “the number, the industry and the morality of the priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of church and state.”

Of Course then I also come across such Baptist sites as this one

http://www.allaboutbaptists.com/distinctives_Church_and_State.html

“Does the Bill of Rights really call for the separation of church and state?

There are actually those who would have all Americans believe that anytime a Christian exercises his freedom (I did not say “right”) to influence government based on his Biblical convictions, he/she is violating the Bill of Rights.  Furthermore, that same believer is infringing upon the rights of others.
This is indeed ignorance in it’s saddest form, for the Bill of Rights does not state what rights we have but, rather, what restrictions are placed upon government so that it cannot infringe upon our God-given freedoms.  It is much less a document stating what citizens can do but much more one that clearly states what government cannot do.

The ongoing argument still being put forth by those who resent Christians (including us Baptists) is that our wanting to keep such things as prayer and the Ten Commandments in our public school systems smacks of violating the human rights of those who do not accept such things.”

 

 

OK, two lessons re-learned. 

Lesson one:  Always fact check before you write, always fact check before you write, always fact check before you write. 

Lesson two:  All large organizations consist of a variety of groups and people with a variety of different opinions on any one subject.  All large organizations consist of a variety of groups and people with a variety of different opinions on any one subject.  All large organizations consist of a variety of groups and people with a variety of different opinions on any one subject.

 

 

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Why I Still Value Being Published in Print

No doubt about it, posting on the web has the potential, oft-times actualized, of reaching more people than print does.  Yet despite the fact that I greatly desire for my ideas, thoughts, and words to be read, considered, and enjoyed by as many of my fellow humans as possible, I still greatly value seeing my words in print:  newspaper, magazine, and/or book. 

 

The question then becomes – why?  If my goal is to have my words noticed and considered by as many people as possible, why waste time and effort in trying to get those words in print instead of electron format? 

 

Partly, the answer is that there are still many people not hooked up to the web and who would have no chance of reading my sparkling words, follow my keen wit, and be informed by my thoughtful and complete analysis of different issues. 

 

Partly, it is that all too often web sites cater to groups of like minded individuals so that they become all too insular and limited.  Print can do a better job of crossing those boundaries. 

 

However, my primary reason for trying to get my writing published – whether letter, essay, poem, story, or book – is because it provides me a sense of validation that what I have written is good, that the words are well chosen, the sentences well constructed,  and my ideas well presented:  that, in short, what I have written is good, or at least better than most. 

 

Now, let me quickly say that a lot, in fact probably most, of what gets published is trash and poorly written – just like the internet.  However on the web an even greater percentage of what is written is trash, and poorly written trash at that. 

 

On the web anyone can post anything.  You do not have to meet anyone’s standards or qualifications.    Should I wish I could write and post:

                XO%$zAbtome   11 sdoy?? Aodjen;ndfnoforeveryoung am I to be or not aldlee,soodeoudoen

                Douelodjfojdojfenoeldiofoeofnoellllllll lonely boy longly girl X)(*& in the glory of the night

There is no one to tell me not to.  There is no one to tell me that is gibberish if I think it a great commentary on today’s culture.  No one to satisfy with my writings other than my own ego. 

 

With print though, even though you are satisfying that same ego, you now have to be conscious of others people’s opinions in a way that you do not have to be on line.  People are going to look at what you have written and judge them and their judgment will decide whether your words will be read by anyone else besides them.    Their judgment may be faulty, their judgment may be biased; nonetheless the fact that my words, my writing, is being judged makes me write with more care and discipline. 

 

And when that letter, that poem, that essay, that short story, that novel is selected to be printed I derive a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure for having passed through that judgment; at having passed through a quality filter if you will.

 

Let me state again that most of what is printed is junk.  Let me also state that there is also much gold to be found amid the trash in the web.  I will further state that were my blogs to start receiving 1,000 or 10,000 or even 100,000 hits a day my sense of accomplishment would be tremendous.  In fact, I would be strutting around the house and making myself insufferable to my friends and family.  I already get a sense of satisfaction when I see people have read my blogs and, even more, responded or subscribed to my site. 

 

However, while there is trash and gold both in print and on the web, the ration of trash to gold for print is lower than that for the web.  All because on the web you do not have to meet anyone’s standards, because there are no quality filters at all, either poor or good. 

 

It is because of that challenge and the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that I get from passing through that filter that I will continue to occasionally try to  freeze the electrons of my words into ink. 

 

 

 

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