Perplexities #1
1. Evangelicals and Donald Trump
They almost seem direct opposites: Evangelicals and Donald Trump. One perceives itself as very religious, strict doctrinarians of Christian gospel. Much of their life revolves around a strong, almost impenetrable faith in their biblical beliefs. The other rarely, if ever, goes to church, is a proud womanizer, worships himself and money, and would never consider Christian scripture as the driving force in his life. The only commonality between Trump and the Evangelicals seems to be a genuine anger at current day American society.
When asked recently if he ever goes to church, Trump gave the non politically correct answer as only Trump could do: he replied “I never go to Church because I have too many other important things to do.” Earlier in the campaign Trump declared: “I could shoot someone and my supporters would stick with me”. I reckon this is not much different from the evangelicals stating: “they would never change their beliefs (which come directly from God via their faith) no matter what evidence presented against any of their beliefs. These two human factions are creatures of strong feelings—not facts, not logic, not science.
The biggest difference is that Trump, to my knowledge, has never really done anything for the less fortunate and views them with disdain (the Trump mentality is that in every dealing between two parties, one side will always get the short end of the stick and it must, by one way or another, be the other party. The Evangelicals have little empathy with those outside their own religious beliefs, I mean how could they feel any empathy with heathens?” The perplexity here is that I don’t think anyone would ever view Donald Trump as even vaguely reminiscent of Jesus—not in his talk, his mannerisms, his actions, or in his empathy with the less fortunate in life. Somehow, to the evangelicals, this is a minor point, but a perplexing one. A quote from Hitler is applicable here: “I now pray to God that he will bless in the years to come our work, our deeds, our foresight, our resolve: that the almighty may protect us from both arrogance and cowardly servility, that he may help us find the right way which he has laid down for the German people and that he may always give us courage to do the right thing and never to falter or weaken before any power or any danger. Long live Germany and the German people.” My guess is that Hitler too had the support of the evangelicals.
2. Abortion as a Political Issue
We all have heard the arguments for and against abortion. We are not dealing with facts here, so our beliefs must be based on logic, reason, science, or faith in a a belief rooted in our inherited religion. For me, my favorite quote on the topic comes from a Catholic Nun: "I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is." (Catholic Nun)
Be all this as it may, the perplexity here on the topic is this: For all practical purposes the issue has become moot. Having an abortion for most women is as simple now as taking a pill. A doctor is not needed to generate an abortion. So we can pass a law and make abortion illegal and that will put an end to abortions. Huh? We made marijuana illegal and that just generated a vigorous black market with all the crime, gangs, and jailing that comes with such futile legislation. Thus, if we want to end abortions, making it illegal is a non starter these days.
3. We need to respond to Russia’s military involvement in Syria with military measures of our own.
The reasoning goes that we have a moral obligation to innocent citizens of Syria to enter into the fray with our own military might. Bush called them ‘peace soldiers’ or ‘peace fighters’ or some such designation. The only trouble is that such military intervention in the Middle East has never brought prosperity and peaceful democracy to any of the countries over there that we invaded. Not Vietnam, not Iraq, not Afghanistan, not Lebanon—not to mention countries in Africa or South America, or for that matter, any of our urban city ghettoes via the police and political war on drugs.
Thus, on what basis do we envision any success with a military invasion in Syria? We can enter the fray and kill hundreds of thousands of people, and make even more millions homeless. That doesn’t seem such a good deal to those millions directly affected. And of course, we sure as hell don’t want them fleeing to our country. Even I agree with that. Perhaps we should say to Russia: “Fine, you can have Syria as your political ally. What? Capitulate to the Russians? Don’t we understand the Domino theory? First of all Syria has not been our ally, we are not losing an ally. Somebody will have to rebuild the whole country—right now it is a pile of rubble. Russians, like ourselves, have their own domestic economic problems, let them spend their economic resources rebuilding Syria. Let Russia be the target of rebels within Syria who want an imperial country out of their country. If we just toss in the towel, there will be hundreds of thousands less deaths and millions less forced to flee to refugee camps outside Syria.
The perplexity here is that we can’t solve the problem within Syria via military measures, so why make matters even worse by military intervention? Why sucker more young Americans into the military and then feed them to the wolves over in Syria. Well, we might say, “don’t send troops, just air strikes, smart bombs, and drones. With no possible good outcome and only deaths upon deaths as a result, what would be the purpose to get involve militarily? Let Russia be the one setting themselves up as the newest target for all sorts of angry religious groups in the Middle East. What does Syria have that we remotely need? In fact what does the Middle East have anymore that we really need? We are pretty much energy independent now from oil. Their religious hatred of each other is not something we can prevent. We can’t even prevent this sort of thing in our own country. Our military invasions of these Middle East nations has only made us behave more like them than they ever are made to behave more like us (as evidenced by this latest Presidential election). We have, as a nation, become more like them, than they have ever become more like us.
4. Why are so many of the leaders for liberal policies Catholics when the Catholic church opposes these policies? The Kennedys, Daley, Biden, John Kerry, almost double the number of Catholics who are democrats in the Senate compared to being Republican, 2/3 of the Justices on the Supreme Court are Catholics, Pelosi, Ryan, 30% of Congress, etc. It doesn’t seem to be just the Catholic Church which has lost control over their flock, almost all, and maybe all, of the major religions in the world are suffering an increasing disconnect between church doctrines and how their members adhere to ‘outdated’ doctrines.
The Catholic church stands out here only because they have the Pope through who God interprets scripture to the flock. Protestants have no such intermediary with God and diversity of personal opinion on these ‘hot button’ issues exists with less tension amongst their flock. All major organized religious scriptures contain passages which are clearly out of date, and so many church members just ignore them, at first just rarely, but over time they have less tendency to blindly follow such outdated doctrines. As this happens, church attendance falls, and as church attendance falls, those still very active in the church tend to become frustrated and angry about all the ‘heathens’ out there. There are a lot of angry citizens in the United States, angry enough that they will vote for anyone who essentially would blow the whole system up. Ah, we end up back with the current Presidential election.
Anyway, the perplexity here is most evident with the Catholic Church, but it is just as true with most organized religious groups. Ethics has not disappeared, but the Church as the source of ethics is becoming less and less the source. Is this good or bad? Time will tell. Not human time so much as evolutionary Time. Alas, we Go, Time stays.
The endless perplexities we find on our plate are simply ample evidence that human intelligence has limits, and these limits may well be our undoing as a species—like the inability to enforce responsible reproduction and thus reduce human overpopulation on this planet, or establish global livable minimum wages so workers across the globe can get their fair share of the economic pie. Presidential debates don’t even talk about the issues which are likely to cause our species to self destruct, with carnage everywhere. Maybe future Presidential debates should be held in looney bin madhouses or at least be classified as just another inane scripted ‘reality show’—worthless entertainment tripe. We could probably predict that if the debates were on the specifics of solving the real issues facing the entire planet, a Sarah Palin yodeling contest would attract more viewers. I know, kind of sad.
I suppose many of us can at least retain some sanity and contentment in our own lives, for now at least. But let’s not put our ears to the ground, we may well hear the footsteps of the immediate future marching ominously toward us. For my part, I hope the footsteps of aging get to me first.
