FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

• Gary William Green at Mad Mike's America examines the role of Jesus in several of the world's religions.

• Our favorite John Myste at John Myste Responds takes a well deserved rest from attacking the intellectual dishonesty of a mendacious blogger, who turns out to be ... well ... me, actually, to contribute his thoughts here at FairAndUNbalanced at the dishonesty of the Apostle Paul and, before him, Jesus of Nazareth.

• At Why do we have to do this, Sir?, our friend, erstwhile spiritual leader disguised as middle school teacher, investigates angels through the thought processes of teenagers

• PZ Myers, writing for Pharyngula, got me to thinking. I've always liked the Stones, still going strong after all these years. I don't know how Fred and Barney do it. Anyway, Myers has scheduled a podcast about Creationism. I sense a bit of skepticism.

• Vincent of A wayfarer's notes, a blogger who is more than a blogger, goes even deeper than usual. He considers mortality, the writings of others, and finally the meaning of life itself.

• It turns out that Ryan at Secular Ethics was singularly responsible for this week's Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. Ryan would be quite justified in expressing a degree of pride, but he remains self-deprecating about it. Ryan is also an increasingly generous contributor at Fair and UNbalanced.com. Although he is too modest to mention it himself, nobody has ever seen Ryan and Superman at the same time. Coincidence? I don't think so.

• James Wigderson begins with a light slap at Nancy Pelosi, repeating a frequent conservative Breitbart reediting of a remark she made about Obamacare during the amendment process. James continues with a variation on Justice Anthony Kennedy's slippery slope speculation that government will make him eat broccoli, which he doesn't like. James is afraid that agents will take away his stash of Snickers bars. I'm with James on this outrage. Forget death panels. They can have my Snickers when they pry it from my cold dead lips.

• Slant Right's John Houk takes off his tri-cornered hat for a solemn moment, then weeps in his party tea over the Obamacare decision.

• Manifesto Joe of Texas Blues is also not happy with Obamacare. It doesn't go far enough. Still Scalia is unhappy, which is a source of emotional sustenance.

• Infidel 753 does a Dewey vs Truman accounting of initial wrong reports on Obamacare. Jean Schmidt (R-Lameduck) was recorded reacting to the wrong reports. A video shows her launching into the upper stratosphere. As radio signals reach her with a news correction, she explodes in fury. Remnants can still be seen in the evening sky from most of North America.

• Tommy Christopher of Mediaite fame has video of the irrational exuberance at the wrong news just before Representative Schmidt received a corrected version, got sprinkled with Holy water, and melted into an angry pool of boiling rubber. Okay, so mixed-metaphors-are-us. I'm getting old. We all live with it.

• Mark at News Corpse watches the frantic efforts of FoxNews to recover from their gleeful initial reports on the overturning of Obamacare. They quickly reported on the sharp downward reaction of stock prices in reaction, but didn't know what to do when, minutes later, stocks surged and surged and surged. Up 278 points by close of business. Did I mention Jean Schmidt?

• T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense, laments that Obamacare is legal. Justice Kagan had been a professional advocate for Obamacare so she should have recused herself. She wasn't and she shouldn't. Ginsburg hates the Constitution and should have been impeached. She doesn't and shouldn't. All sides in oral arguments insisted the mandate was not a tax. True and so what? Saying something is so don't make it so.. Obamacare will explode the deficit. It won't. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the opposite. And on and on.

• Vixen Strangely at Rumproast examines the unusual decision by Congressional Republicans that Attorney General Eric Holder holds them in contempt. As I understand their logic, they have no evidence of any wrongdoing. Since they know there was wrongdoing, despite the lack of evidence, that lack of evidence means that Attorney General Holder is engaged in a coverup. The lack of evidence of wrongdoing is the evidence of wrongdoing.

• Jack Jodell, friend of the working blogger, has an angry piece at THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST chronicling Darrel Issa's refusal to allow testimony that would contradict conspiracy theories. Republicans in this Congress operate by ratchet rules. Evidence is allowed only in one direction.

• Kent Pittman, writing from Open Salon, takes on libertarianism, arguing that zero government would severely restrict freedom.

• Dave Dubya notes a public declaration, an official stand by the Texas Republican Party, against critical thinking.. This is an actual plank in their 2012 platform.

• Tim McGaha at Tim's Thoughtful Spot explains some of the powerful technology behind the arms race between the USA and the USSR. Amazing. Almost as amazing that we survived that stage of the madness.

• Papamoka at Papamoka Straight Talk discovers evidence of toxic substances in FrankenCorn, a genetically altered version of the yellow stuff.

• Nancy Hanks at The Hankster channels Nomi Azulay of the New York Times, making a case that voters would participate more if elections were non-partisan.

• The Heathen Republican compares President Obama's popularity the moment he took office with his support today. He finds that support has fallen in every demographic. I dunno. I suspect every President starts at an extraordinarily high point that will seldom be attained again. Plus, Heathen uses charts to illustrate his data, which will horrify John Myste. And he does it as an advocate for a point of view, which makes him intellectually dishonest. I would not have believed that it demonstrated anything but intellectual diligence until my friend John explained it to me.

In response to Burr Deming's
Republicans Can Still Eliminate the Obamacare Mandate

So Obamacare will be the law. People, real people, will be alive who would otherwise die for lack of proper treatment. Families who would have been forced into poverty will remain whole.

- Burr Deming, June 29, 2012

Wow! For a moment I thought David Axelrod had written a guest post.

When one adds 30 million more people to the health care roles and then provides HUGE disincentives to current doctors and future would-be doctors, you tend to get a whole lot more of a demand with a drastically shrinking supply of medical service providers.

Basic economics tells us that this would tend to cause prices for EVERYBODY to go up and precious resources to be rationed by appointed bureaucratic death panels (oops, I mean "end of life counselors")as they see fit.

In the end, just the opposite of what we all wanted will be the results. We will see more people die, longer waiting times for services, and skyrocketing medical costs.

There is a reason why the wealthy citizens living in countries with socialized medicine come to the United States for their treatment. I wonder where rich Canadians will go for treatment now that Obamacare has been deemed "constitutional" in the most cynical of ways?

In addition to his valiant attempts to enlighten Burr on the virtues of conservatism, T. Paine writes for his own site, where the Constitution is regarded without cynicism.

Please visit Saving Common Sense.

A joyful conservative yelled it. They've abolished the insurance mandate. Obamacare is going down. A friend of his said calmly, I'm very happy for you. Sure enough, CNN and Fox carried headlines. Obamacare was finished.

As corrections came through, and it turned out the decision was upheld, memory turned to the debate, such as it was, back in 2010. The debate, for the most part, was not what you would call nuanced. It was about tricornered hats, death panels, and keep the government out of Medicare. It was a limbo discussion from the right, how low can you go?

The Tea Party geezers (okay, okay, my fellow geezers) showed in force, financed behind the scenes largely by insurance companies. Every once in a while, an organizer would forget and wear a company shirt, logo and all. A lot of heat, occasional violence, racial epithets - plain, in the open, and roundly denied. Racists? They ain't no racists here.

When it finally got to the Supreme Court, the Constitutional tide had turned. The Obamacare lawyer seemed to have had too many Nyquil doses the evening before. And the judicial hostility was unjudicious.

Antonin Scalia has been in decline for a long, long time. Four years ago, he appeared on national television, explaining that torture by police was Constitutional. You see, the Constitution prohibits Cruel and Unusual punishment. Torture is not punishment unless there is a conviction for a crime. As long as a suspect is legally innocent, it is okay to administer torture because it isn't punishment. As soon as a guilty verdict is announced, torture is unconstitutional. Yeah, that's what he said, and that's the logic he used. It seemed, four years ago, like a case of agile mental gymnastics, a skilled sophistry that could justify anything.

By oral arguments on Obamacare, Scalia had plainly deteriorated. Gone was the intellectual ballet, replaced by a drooling rant that could have been written for him by a right wing radio announcer from any late night station. Had he not had a history, it would have been easy to imagine him having gotten his law degree from sending in boxtops. He might have held his own, barely, arguing from the corner stool of some neighborhood bar. At least he didn't slur his words. Justices Alito and Kennedy were coherent. Justice Thomas would have been as well, had he spoken.

The Supreme Court was finally tied into a square knot by Chief Justice John Roberts. Holding the center, Justice Roberts was threading a very strange needle. It was a case of the non-Tax, almost-tax, tax.

The Obama administration and the opponents of Obamacare disagreed on lots and lots. But they were united on whether the insurance mandate was a tax. It wasn't. Opponents didn't want it to be a tax because taxing authority is very clearly with Congress. Nothing ambiguous about it. But a Civil War era statute was also clear. You can't sue government over a tax until the government actually collects the tax. Since the insurance mandate isn't in effect for a couple more years, that would put off any court decision until then. Health care reformers don't want any foot dragging that will last that long. So everybody agreed not to call it a tax.

Chief Justice Roberts pulled away the football, and conservative Charlie Browns across the nation fell down hard. The issue was already before the courts, so it wouldn't get delayed. And taxing authority is clearly with the Congress. That's in the Constitution. Even the demented Justice Scalia would have said so, in more clear headed days.

So Obamacare will be the law. People, real people, will be alive who would otherwise die for lack of proper treatment. Families who would have been forced into poverty will remain whole.

However, however. There is a way for a future conservative legislature to kill the tax that dared not say it's name. Taegan Goddard cites Political Columnist Timothy Carney, although with minor reservations. On matters of taxes, the Senate filibuster rule, used so flagrantly by Republicans, can't be used in return by Democrats. The filibuster is not available to talk to death anything concerning tax rates. So, even though Republicans can't repeal the insurance mandate, the penalty, now held by the court to be a tax, can be lowered to zero. It can be done with 51 Senate votes.

A zero penalty would suit Republicans just fine.

Democrats included the mandate for a reason. Without it, Obamacare would become a death panel. Except the target wouldn't be your frightened grandmother. It would mean the death of those other death panels: insurance companies.

Here's how:

If insurance companies can't discriminate against preexisting conditions, there is no reason for you or me or anyone at all to buy health insurance ahead of time. Why pay a monthly premium if you can wait until you are in the ambulance. Why even buy it then, if you can buy it from your hospital bed?

So nobody would buy health insurance ahead of time. Nobody would buy health insurance until they were making a claim to pay for treatment. So insurance companies would have a lot of money going out for sick or injured people and no income coming in from those who are not yet sick or injured. And what happened to companies with lots of expense and no income? Come on, class, let's not always see the same hands.

Right. Those who said health insurance companies will go out of business can stay and clean the erasers.

Insurance companies will all go out of business and the government will have to take up the slack. A demanding public will see to it.

Republicans can eventually keep the House, and take over the Senate, and reduce the mandate penalty, which is now a tax, down to nothing at all. Then government will take over health insurance in a single payer plan that reduces cost, and health insurance companies will all go out of business. All of them. Out... of ... business.

I think again of those health insurance companies secretly financing frightened Tea Party types as they stormed town meetings and voted right wingers into office. Republicans will never put those health insurance mega-corporations all out of business by eliminating the mandate or tax or non-tax.

But a fella can dream, right?

A few friends dance to Star Wars

I would not call Biblical rules arbitrary. I am not privy to the reasoning of the beings who wrote them, whether they were mortal or otherwise. I assume that there was some reason--some motivation--to do so, but moral foundations range from the rational (fear of disease) to the irrational (simple disgust).

I raised the question of arbitrary rules to lead into my point that, if these rules are backed by some kind of reasoning, then the rules are only worth preserving as long as that reasoning is valid. If that is the case, then God's rules are not absolute, but were temporary measures designed to protect people at that time. And if God's rules are not absolute, then Christians are obligated to reconsider what constitutes "good" and "evil" in 2012.

Now, a Christian could argue that, since we cannot be certain that we know the purpose of Biblical rules, we cannot be certain that it is now acceptable to violate them. Therefore, we ought to follow them just in case. However, this argument takes us to my other point: without explicit justification, morality seems arbitrary; we become attached to rules for their own sake; and we are less capable of determining the other behaviors, if any, that are bad. These results have counter-productive and even harmful effects.

In my book, that's bad. But what do I know? God has sold more copies of his.

While Ryan frequently contributes here, he also writes for his own site, where reason is the best insurance against arbitrary rules, not matter the volume of volumes sold.

Please visit Secular Ethics.

In response to Burr Deming's Choosing to Worship God, Not Scripture

T. Paine's reaction is, sadly, the unfortunate misinterpretation of scripture shared by many Christians. Too many condense Paul's letter to the Romans to a single verse. After introductions and salutations, Paul begins his message with a short, insightful, theory about the nature of sin. God created everything. Evidence of God can be seen pretty much everywhere you look. But some worship, not God, but things God has created. They put forth representations of these things, icons, and worship them instead of God. This substitution is called idolatry. Paul expands on this substitution of values to name a host of afflictions that flow from it. Yes, he does mention homosexuality, alongside gossip and murder and disobedience toward parents.

- Burr Deming, June 24, 2012

Burr, my friend, I would humbly submit to you that you are quite wrong on this solitary issue. I would further submit to you that it is not I and “too many Christians” that have misinterpreted this passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. You are correct that Paul is calling out idolatry, but what you seem to gloss over is the list of sins that God abhors when one strays from God and/or worships other idols, whether those idols are a tangible carving or something less tangible such as power, money, sinful sex, or any other things that further distances one from God. They are not simply “afflictions” of idolatry. They are sins in and of themselves. All of those aforementioned sins can very much be idols though, and homosexual acts are specifically listed as one of those sins that further erodes one’s relationship with God.

When one tries to obfuscate the sin of homosexual acts by making it a part of a litany of other seemingly nonsensical sins like a prohibition of eating shellfish or wearing blended fabrics, you minimize a very real threat of not receiving His grace for one of God’s beloved persons. By minimizing the seriousness of homosexual acts because they were not the main topic of Paul’s discussion hardly makes such acts non-sinful or permissible in God’s eyes. Indeed one can see in various places throughout the Old and the New Testament of where homosexual acts are considered gravely sinful. From the aforementioned passage in Romans to 2 Peter 2:4-10 one can see that this is behavior that is not pleasing to God. See 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Christ tells us in Matthew chapter 19 that God’s plan is for man and woman to cleave together and become one flesh. This is what He intended and not for any other iteration of the sexual act outside of marriage.

I would further add that this is the teaching of the first and largest denomination of Christians in the world today. Indeed, that scripture from Romans was canonized along with all of the other books into the Holy Bible and was done so by that very church (and indeed was the only Christian Church from the time our Lord walked the earth as man until Martin Luther came along 1500 years later). No offense but I think I will follow the magisterium of the Catholic Church’s teaching on this scripture and others regarding this topic accordingly.

You further stated (correctly) that Christ did not come to “replace” the law of the Old Testament with a new covenant. I should have been more precise in the choosing of my words there. That said, Christ came to fulfill prophecy and bring into fuller revelation God’s law. John Myste’s inaccurate assertion that there was a “Christian reinvention of God” notwithstanding, part of that fuller revelation under the new covenant was that man could eat what were previously considered unclean animals (Acts 10:10) and other such minor things as bringing salvation not only to God’s chosen people of the Jews but also to the Gentiles as well.

“By trying to separate gay people from God, even with the mitigating effort to ‘love the sinner and hate the sin’ we would yield to yet another temptation. In the end that temptation does not separate anyone from our Creator but ourselves.”

I would take issue with the implications of your statement that “we” are trying to separate gay people from God. There is nothing sinful about having same sex attraction. It is acting out on those impulses in homosexual acts that is the sin. Further, it is the sin of the person perpetrating such acts. It is not a matter of those that wish to characterize or pigeonhole gays into a sinful category simply to meet some Pharisee-like letter of the law interpretation. Just like other sins regarding adultery, stealing, drunkenness, murder, etc., homosexual acts are not tolerable to God. Further, are we not called to be our brother’s keeper. If we see a friend flirting with giving into sin, are we not supposed to lovingly rebuke them to remain faithful to God? I, for one, am very thankful for the friends and family members that have helped me keep on the correct path far more than I would have in my sinful nature otherwise! Lord knows I stumble too much on my own regardless.

Continuing, I whole-heartedly agree that we must “endeavor to worship, not scripture, but God.” Truly only God is worthy of our worship. Part of how we worship Him though is by learning about Him through scripture. Indeed, St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of scripture, is ignorance of Christ.” Further, as I am sure you will agree, we all need to be careful to not use scripture as a weapon in order to justify our own opinions or agendas. We should use and seek to understand what is written by His various inspired writers in the manner that God intended, just as we should worship Him as He would have us do, and not as we want to worship Him.

Moving on, Ryan asked a good question: “I would like you to address the apparent arbitrariness of those rules. Is there a good reason that we should care about shellfish consumption, homosexuality, the proper way to prepare sacrifices, sacrifices in the first place, and so on? Or perhaps I should ask: Why does God care?”

All of those rules had an important purpose at the time, even if they are seemingly bizarre or antiquated to us today. I think Tim already gave a good summarization of why it was not permissible to wear blended fabrics. As for shellfish, they are filter feeders. In some conditions they can feed on phytoplankton that is toxic in “red tide” conditions. Consumption of those contaminated shellfish by humans could be very dangerous. Homosexual acts not only deny the propagation of the human species but also go against God’s design of male and female in matrimonial union, having children, and providing the best environment for their raising. It is actually rather pragmatic. Sacrifices became unnecessary after Christ’s perfect sacrifice of himself in expiation of my and the world’s sins. Basically it comes down to this: some of God’s rules are for our own protection, some are for making a more harmonious society, and some are for simply living a life that is in fuller communion with Him. Why God cares to give us these rules is because He loves us, and isn’t true agape love the desire for the well-being of the beloved?

In addition to his valued contributions here, T. Paine writes for his own site, where he is devoted to the well-being of all.

Please visit Saving Common Sense.

The ability of children to make important decisions is a matter that continues to befuddle society. The children that Jerry Sandusky assaulted were raped. It was rape because it did not involve consent. It was rape because it could not involve consent. If there had been consent, it would not have been valid. We as a society agree that kids are not capable of that sort of consent.

It goes beyond sexual relationships. Children cannot vote. They cannot be held to binding contracts.

Despite the instructions of Deuteronomy, most of us would decline to join a village squad devoted to the execution of children who wise off to their parents. The middle school kids who recently made news by harassing a somewhat older-than-middle-aged woman on a bus have reportedly received death threats, but most of us would be satisfied with something less drastic.

And age itself is a mitigating factor in the case of most crimes.

But the line does become blurred a bit with the commission of the most terrible of crimes.

Amid news of the Supreme Court striking down most of an Arizona law targeting those of Latino descent with routine demands for citizenship papers, and national expectation of a Court decision on Obamacare, a decision was announced about an Alabama law and an Arkansas law, each mandating life without parole for a couple of 14 year old kids. At least they were 14 at the time of their crimes.

One kid, along with an accomplice, beat and robbed a neighbor, then set his home on fire. The neighbor died in the blaze. Another kid was part of a store robbery. One of the robbers shot and killed a clerk.

Not the sort of kids you'd want to send to bed without supper.

The law pretty much views life without parole as just a hair this side of execution: a life sentence that is nearly a death sentence. Throw away the key is not the same as hang-em-high. But it demands some of the same legal protections.

The Bill of Rights says that cruel and unusual punishments are out of bounds. This is usually interpreted as making sure the punishment fits the crime. Stealing a loaf of bread is clearly against the law. But a ten year sentence for it would be excessive. So it can't be done.

The Supreme Court has held that the commission of a felony that results in death for a victim is the same as murder. So should age be a mitigating circumstance?

And the age of maturity involves a lack of capacity for judgment.

The Alabama law said there would be no consideration of age, not as a matter of age of consent, not as a mitigating factor.

The Supreme Court ruled that the mandatory part of the Alabama law was beyond what the Constitution allows. The Court did not say that kids can't face life without parole. A majority did say that the Judge had to be able to consider the fact that crimes are committed by 14 year old boys. Some lines need to be blurred. Some judgement needs to be exercised. Home life, degree of guilt, and other circumstances need to be considered. Judgment should be within the power of a Judge.

The vote was 5-4.

While most of the old Jewish law of the Old Testament was replaced by the New covenant of Christ, including the allowing of man to eat "unclean" food such as shellfish, the New Testament still admonishes against homosexual acts. See St. Paul's letter to the Romans 1:26-27.

- T. Paine, June 23, 2012

T. Paine, Objection Overruled.

The New Covenant was not new set of rules.

It was a renewal of a violated agreement.

Here is the source of the false claim Christians make:

Jeremiah 31:

31 Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith Jehovah.

33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law [Torah] in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people:

34 and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.

To quote a site I now have misplaced (forgive me author of that site, but overall you spoke a bunch of nonsense. However, you expressed this one thing very well, so I clipped it):

The prophet contrasts the existing covenant made with the fathers when he brought them out of Egypt (see Exod 24:8) with a covenant that God will make with the house of Israel and Judah in the latter days. The new covenant is distinguished from the older covenant in four ways:

• Yahweh will write the law in the minds and on the hearts of those in the new covenant.

• Yahweh will be the God of those in the new covenant and they will be his people.

• Those in the new covenant will know Yahweh.

• Yahweh will forgive the iniquities and the sins of those in the new covenant.

The new covenant, therefore, has two basic characteristics:

1. First, it describes an internal spiritual transformation resulting in a new relationship with God and a new possibility of obedience.

2. Second, the new covenant results in the forgiveness of sins for those in the covenant made with the fathers.

A covenant was made by God with a prior generation. The descendants of this generation did not know God intimately and they did not honor the agreement their fathers had made. God renewed the covenant with the descendants directly, forgave them, and made Himself more familiar. He promised to forgive the breach of contract and to renew the contract with His current chosen people. He did not promise more. I would think claiming that He promised more in the absence of said promise would be very dangerous. The God I know seems very cantankerous and moody.

Despite the Christian reinvention of God, He did not change His mind about the law. He did not decide that goodness would now be remade and that what was formerly wrong would now be OK. He did not decide that you can now eat whatever you want, ignore the Sabbath whenever you want, forego circumcision at your own discretion, allow babies He dooms to die for the sins of their fathers to be exempt from His wrath.

Anywhere the New Testament deviates from God’s original law, it rejects God’s law, as God is immutable, so far as I know, as is His law.

Nowhere does He offer this. Those who quote Jeremiah claiming God made such an arrangement libel God and better hope that God forgives them merely for accepting a crucified rebel into their hearts. However, nothing about the stated character of God suggests that He will.

Update:

T. Paine's reaction is, sadly, the unfortunate misinterpretation of scripture shared by many Christians. Too many condense Paul's letter to the Romans to a single verse.

- Burr Deming, June 24, 2012

And I also don’t agree with that.

T. Paine was right about Paul. Paul was trying to reinvent God, but also had to defend himself against the charge, so he claimed to honor the law. However, claiming to honor a law is not honoring it. Honoring it is.

Paul’s hippie faith was nothing like the Spartan reality of New Testament Law. God never endorsed or embraced such a thing, and never would have.

Updating the Update:

I don't think that the "old rules" were arbitrary. At least, the ones I've thought about had a base in practical reasoning.

- Tim McGaha, June 25, 2012

I agree with Tim. I don't think any of the old rules were arbitrary and most of them had a practical basis, even if we don't know it. I remember studying some of them way back, such as bury your feces (which may have been in the Talmud or elsewhere, I don't remember the exact spot).

The rules were not random.

As for homosexuality, assuming it was always forbidden, something I seriously doubt, obviously it can lead to infection and tears. The body is not well-suited for homosexual sex.

John Myste also writes for his own site, where rules are not random and hippies are free to believe what they want.

Please visit John Myste Responds.

This comes by way of the assiduous research of the great Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic Monthly:

We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of disfranchising as many of them as we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. We adopted the educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union south of the Potomac.

He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got. As to his "rights" -- I will not discuss them now. We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will.

That was United States Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina, speaking in 1900, on the floor of the United States Senate.

Well, he was honest about the aims of literacy tests as a qualification for voting. They had nothing to do with literacy, and everything to do with denying the basic right of citizenship to a class of people.

Those who felt that voting rights were primarily about politics, which politician was entitled to receive which votes, are not around to witness the reaction of those of us still curious about our history. Does anyone recall which local officials were elected at the turn of the last century? But we do recall that voting rights, citizenship rights, human rights, were denied to large groups of people for political purposes.

We look back at a century gone, in wonderment at those in that era who lacked even the simplest sense of justice, those who gave no thought at all to the fact that voting rights belong to voters, not politicians.

But that was long ago. Nothing to do with us now. Right?

Consider this litany of accomplishments:

We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years.

Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done.

First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done.

Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.

That from last week, words spoken by the Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mike Turzai. He was addressing cheering members of the Republican State Committee.

Well, he is honest about the aims of restrictive Photo ID's as a qualification for voting. They have nothing to do with the integrity of the voting process, and everything to do with denying the basic right of citizenship to a class of people. It is hard to find a fair minded person who honestly believes that the newer more restrictive laws are for any other purpose than to keep completely legitimate voters from casting ballots. Those who have little daily use for Photo IDs are invited to visit obscure offices in areas far away, with often absurd requirements of documentation far exceeding anything reasonable.

In Tennessee, a elderly widow who managed to keep voting, even during the harsh days of Jim Crow, is told she can no longer vote because she has trouble locating a marriage license to her long deceased husband. Is she a threat to the orderly process of government? The most significant part of her story, it seems to me, that most telling incident, is the reaction of a state worker to the woman's continuing efforts to vote.

The worker laughs. Laughs. The laugh comes from the unexpected determination, not to be seen from ordinary working folk. The worker says she cannot understand why anyone would go through that much trouble to vote. She explains that it has never happened before in her experience.

Of course. That is not simply the expectation. It is the objective. It goes beyond the rigging of elections by Republicans.

As it was a century ago, there are those today who believe this second great surge in voter suppression is significant only because one political figure or another will benefit: no thought given to the fact that voting rights belong to voters, not politicians.

Those cynics will be spared the reaction of those curious few, those who will look back a century from now in wonderment at those for whom the simplest sense of justice melted away in the summer heat of aggressive partisan passion.

From Reader and Blogger Tim McGaha of Tim's Thoughtful Spot:

I don't think that the "old rules" were arbitrary. At least, the ones I've thought about had a base in practical reasoning.

The dietary laws lead you away from things that are tricky to prepare safely. We all know about the dangers of undercooked pork. What is not as widely known is that you can't eat just ANY rabbit that you catch. Likewise, the prohibition against blended fabrics mystifies modern readers, but back in the day, that was important. Different fibers shrunk at different rates, and the very first time such a cloth got wet, it would be ruined.

Here is where Ryan raises an excellent point: it's not the law that's important, but the consequences of violation. We know how to prepare all manner of meats safely, so the dietary laws no longer apply. We can make pre-shrunk fabrics, and/or treat them to shrink uniformly, so cotton/wool blends are perfectly OK. The list goes on.

Some things are still prohibited. But they're not very controversial, for the most part. Murder. Theft. Adultery. The harms were obvious then, and they're obvious now.

One interesting question remains: Why was homosexuality on the list, back in the day? I have my own idea, but I'm curious to see what anyone else comes up with.

"Why was homosexuality on the list, back in the day?"

That depends on what you mean by the question.

Is it: Why would God condemn homosexuality? (Possible answer: God intended only for men and women to be together.)

Is it: What rational reasons could people have had to condemn homosexuality? (Possible answer: People needed to increase their population size.)

Or is it: What were the actual reasons for which people condemned homosexuality? (Possible answer: They were disgusted by it. Disgust has always been a significant force in morality.)

Only if we do assume that God's reasons are non-arbitrary (beneficial to humanity) would the first two questions have the same set of possible answers. The answers to the third question, however, would probably tend to be irrational.

"Different fibers shrunk at different rates, and the very first time such a cloth got wet, it would be ruined."

Is this a sufficient justification for a moral rule? Most people--including Christians--would say that it is not. But perhaps we can make it work by clarifying the harm that it causes:

"Blending fabrics is immoral because it leads to a waste of fabric, which is an important and finite resource."

The harm of blended fabric, then, is in its waste of important, finite resources. If that is the justification for condemning it, then it follows that we should condemn the waste of all other important, finite resources, which would in turn have significant political ramifications for Christians.

But also consider how counter-productive it is to condemn blended fabrics without justification:

1. The typical reader would conclude that there is something wrong with blended fabric in itself, such that we could never be justified in using them.

2. Morality becomes apparently arbitrary.

3. Other behaviors that should be condemned for the same reason are pursued because there is no explicit rule against them.

God should have either made a much more comprehensive list of rules or offered its moral justifications so that we could figure out what to do on our own. Instead, we have a limited list with some strange contents and little to no explanation.

In fact, some of the contents seem pointless or even immoral.

What are we to make of the Biblical rules concerning animal sacrifice? Are we to believe that the abstract symbolism of offering up the best of one's flock to God (and God's pleasure at the smell) is worth the tangible harm to the animal and the depletion of the flock?

What about the rules concerning slavery? Are God's words to the slave and master intended to preserve the practice? Or are they a strangely pragmatic concession that the practice will continue with or without the Bible--an abandonment of what is actually good in exchange for popularity?

With all of these problems, it is easy to see the appeal in simply loving your neighbor as yourself. But that rule suffers from its own problem: it dictates few to no particular courses of action.

While cautioning against pointless and immoral practices here, Ryan also writes for his own site, where animal sacrifice is not mandated.

Please visit Secular Ethics.

From Letters Of Note:

In November of 1966, two months after the first Star Trek series premièred in the U.S., science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote an article for TV Guide in which he complained about the numerous scientific inaccuracies found in science fiction TV shows of the day...

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In response to Burr Deming's Choosing to Worship God, Not Scripture

Paul responded directly to a similar view regarding spiritual law. Old Testament law was not at all abolished or replaced. At the conclusion of this section, Paul summarizes his view of ancient law. "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law." Paul's "by no means" is often translated as "God forbid." He is emphatic in his rejection of T. Paine's formulation.

I will leave the problem of whether or not a Christian should care about "the old rules" to you and T. Paine.

However, I would like you to address the apparent arbitrariness of those rules. Is there a good reason that we should care about shellfish consumption, homosexuality, the proper way to prepare sacrifices, sacrifices in the first place, and so on? Or perhaps I should ask: Why does God care?

If you can identify a good reason (e.g. back then, the forbidden behavior would have spread disease), would it not be fair to say that it is not the behavior itself that is wrong, but the harm that results from it? And if that is the case, would it not be fair to say that the behavior ceases to be wrong when we can control its effects?

Alternatively, you could say that the reason is unknown or even unknowable. But I can't imagine being satisfied with a deity who declines to justify its rules. I certainly can't imagine wholeheartedly condemning a "sin" without knowing why it deserves condemnation. If the rules are not arbitrary, why does God not explain them to its most favored, rational creatures? After all, a good justification would even motivate non-Christians to follow Biblical law...

When not questioning pointless religious dogma, Ryan writes for his own site, where motivation is backed by the rational.

Please visit Secular Ethics.

Friend, reader, and occasional generous contributor T. Paine of Saving Common Sense writes with a biblically based chide:

While most of the old Jewish law of the Old Testament was replaced by the New covenant of Christ, including the allowing of man to eat "unclean" food such as shellfish, the New Testament still admonishes against homosexual acts. See St. Paul's letter to the Romans 1:26-27.

Of course, this doesn't give us permission to hate gay people though, but rather only the sin of homosexual acts. Trying to obfuscate this truth by hiding behind other archaic and no-longer binding Jewish law such as wearing different fabrics, is silly.

T. Paine is responding to a protest I wrote a year and a half ago. I didn't much care for an attack on gays by a self-styled Christian spokesman. It is a bit of a sore point for me. It irritates that so often our faith is represented on mainstream media by voices of hatred.

Peter LaBarbera, who composes screeds against what he calls "Political Corectness" (one day he may find that missing "r"), is obsessed with homosexuality. A couple of years back, he had written yet another of what still seems an endless series of attacks against gay people. This one focused on the tolerance of gays in the military. The idea of gay people defending our country is abhorrent to Mr. LaBarbera. He accused President Obama of substituting his own agenda for that of God. To put the President's heresy in context, Mr. LaBarbera himself thoughtfully provided God's agenda, based on selected biblical passages.

At the time, I submitted my reaction to his attack. I suggested that other biblical prohibitions seem to escape his notice. He does not, for example, condemn Red Lobster restaurants for advancing the pro-shellfish agenda in violation of Leviticus. He does not advocate the public execution of children who defy their parents.

Mad Mike's America thoughtfully reprinted my efforts, linking back to this site.

T. Paine's reaction is, sadly, the unfortunate misinterpretation of scripture shared by many Christians. Too many condense Paul's letter to the Romans to a single verse. After introductions and salutations, Paul begins his message with a short, insightful, theory about the nature of sin. God created everything. Evidence of God can be seen pretty much everywhere you look. But some worship, not God, but things God has created. They put forth representations of these things, icons, and worship them instead of God. This substitution is called idolatry.

Paul expands on this substitution of values to name a host of afflictions that flow from it. Yes, he does mention homosexuality, alongside gossip and murder and disobedience toward parents.

Is Paul right in grouping homosexuality in with other acts as afflictions flowing from substitution? Paul often protests that his words are not to be taken as scriptural law. "I speak as a man" is repeated through many of his letters. His attitude toward sexuality itself is one of bemused befuddlement. Paul was asexual. In his advocacy of marriage, he confesses that he neither shares nor understands sexual attraction. But he does acknowledge its existence. Better to confine this strange practice to marriage rather than to increase our separation from God.

As with many things in Paul's letters, his larger point about idolatry is often missed. In the substitution of values, of lifting up things and worshiping them, humans let themselves in for all sorts of spiritual harm.

In fact, later translators of Paul's letter to the Romans grouped his thoughts about scripture itself into an entire chapter, Romans Chapter 3. It is a direct refutation of what has become a common Christian view of scripture, a mistaken view that seems to be shared by my friend T. Paine.

Many followers of Jesus view scriptural law as having been amended by, or replaced by, a new set of laws. This view sees scripture as a legal document to be interpreted much as a legal scholar would examine the Constitution., with the New Testament as a sort of list of amendments. Old scripture is valid unless supplanted by new scripture. In the US Constitution, for example, slaves were counted as partial humans for voting purposes, in order to make the votes of slaveholders count for more than non-slaveholders. The 3/5 rule is still in the Constitution, but it is viewed as no longer valid, having been repealed by amendments abolishing slavery.

Paul responded directly to a similar view regarding spiritual law. Old Testament law was not at all abolished or replaced. At the conclusion of this section, Paul summarizes his view of ancient law. "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law." Paul's "by no means" is often translated as "God forbid." He is emphatic in his rejection of T. Paine's formulation.

In fact, Paul devotes much effort to refuting folks like my friend T. Paine. Like Jesus, who said he was fulfilling rather than repealing the law, Paul sees Old Testament law as simply a manifestation of core principle. That core principle is what comes from God. That core principle is love. When the law contradicts love, go with core principle. You go beyond the law by fulfilling core principle, recognizing the difference.

The spiritual challenge for most of humanity, the overcoming of what separates us from God, involves a rejection of the worship of substitutes. Even when those substitutes were created by God.

Paul had some hangups about sexuality. But he seems to me to be in direct alignment with Jesus about scripture. By trying to separate gay people from God, even with the mitigating effort to "love the sinner and hate the sin" we would yield to yet another temptation. In the end that temptation does not separate anyone from our Creator but ourselves.

Scripture is for study, contemplation, and prayer. It serves the believer, not the other way around.
We pray to be led away from the temptation of idolatry to greener pastures.
We endeavor to worship, not scripture, but God.

Found on Line:
"Sanctuary"
Jessy Dixon

Well intentioned drivel.
Situation Comedy level offensive.
The Producers might have embraced it.
How bad does an ad have to be?

From Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty:

The European Commission has again invited trouble in a public-service campaign, this time in a video spot aimed at encouraging young women to "get involved in science."

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