Will God Speak Again? A reply to 2016 responses, Part I.

This reply basically only addresses 2016. Many other debatable issues have been raised for the presidential debates which I have not addressed here. We'll let those soak in, while I take a break to play with grandchildren. Have a nice week!

Since primordial times, 12,000 years and longer, people have been trying to make sense of this world; many religions, currently including 34,000 separate Christian groups, exist to better understand and find comfort in this world and/or an eternal life in the spirit world. Robert Wright, in The Evolution of God, writes of the  ancient continuum, "The shaman represents a crucial step in the emergence of organized religion. He (or she, sometimes) is the link between earliest religion—a fluid amalgam of beliefs about a fluid amalgam of spirits—and what religion came to be: a distinct body of belief and practice, kept in shape by an authoritative institution. The shaman is the first step toward an archbishop or an ayatollah." As the modern world grew—especially as it grew via science—religion evolved in reaction.

Thus, in part, is the predicate upon which I address the religious aspect of my "2016" Critical Actions piece. As a reference point, on the religious spectrum, you might categorize me as a Deist Christian. (All responses to the piece are printed at end of this writing.)

A friend who is big on apologetics, for whom I have much respect, writes, "I am very familiar with D'Souza's work. He is a Christian intellectual and apologist; I would say brilliant. His book What's So Great About Christianity, an answer to Christopher Hitchin's book God is not Great, displayed a respectful but learned and effective rebuttal to Hitchins." I too believe D'Souza is brilliantly intellectual; anyone who has seen him interviewed could hardly believe otherwise. That said, my friend in part makes my case, 2016 he says is an "argument, a theory," --- from which D'Souza's fellow-conservatives give a stinging rebuke: the movie is filled with "misstatements of fact," "leaps in logic" and "pointless elaborate argumentation." It's "a brazen outburst of race bating," and other reproves similar to the mainstream Columbia Journal Review, "a fact twisting error laden piece of paranoia." Notwithstanding brilliant intellect, conspiracy theory without some convincing empirical evidence is useless for serious discernment. On the other hand, I guess religion can be, or is, theory whether or not it's conspiracy to raise question or is used in an effort to bolster one's point.

Another friend says, "Cornell, If you read Obama's autobiographies, you can verify what Denesh D'Souza said in the film and more clearly in his book. He is only using Obama's own words." As a gift of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, it's the only one I've read. I don't remember anything that would have brought forth suspicions or concern, I would highlight it. (Loaned the book, can't remember to whom, so I can't review it just now.)

My observations have been that many people are all too protective of their God and their religion; any little thing they hear or read, not ideal to their religious assertions, are suspects and must be defended at all cost. Many people are innocently drawn to this conclusion because of pervasive, conflation of politics/religion,

false e-rumors circulating, subliminally telling them, that references to God are being removed from governmental monuments, such as one I recently received: an omission of Roosevelt's "So help us God" being omitted from the WWII Memorial in DC. Or the latest, a falsely attributed e-rumor I received: the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. All these are a part of the political, subtle messages designed to strike fear in the hearts of those who will believe, including the endless, no so subtle, messages from FOX News: Media Matters explains, "Fox turned this into Obama-Hates-God-gate, by claiming the President did not mention God. But unsurprisingly Fox got the facts completely wrong." These intentional  prevarications are so widely spread that a huge swath of society walk it as "gospel truth." Add all that to "they're taking God out of the courthouse, schoolhouse, statehouse, and DC institutional houses," and you have a full-fledged Armageddon. It adds up to malicious insults to those who know it's not true, and we wonder why the country is so divided.

Rightly so, keep religion out of government as our nation's founders understood must be ensured. But you can't take God out of anything! Will God speak for Himself, in His own place and time, will he not? He needs little help from a cacophony of voices throughout the world. Let what's presently happening, violence, in Middle East countries make obvious that democracy and religion do not mix. Even though the vast majority are moderate, civilized Islamist citizens; It is the radical, extremist minority that insist on inserting their "only truth" religious law to rule. We have our own radical fringes, but mostly those naive of consequences, should Christian religion dangerously invade US government.

There are plenty of appropriate places for religion to thrive, where it can be influential in solving problems around the world, that await "God Speak." Will He speak again to the atrocities of the Jewish holocaust, labor camps, Serbian War Crimes, the Rwanda genocide, Darfur genocides, Armenians, Bosnian and others, including a current genocide watch in South Africa?

Will God speak as He spoke to Ezekiel or Mica; will it be through earthquakes, the melting glaciers, wild fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, deluging rains and floods, long-suffering droughts, climate changes, climate warming foretold by current-day scientist? Yet tumultuous torrents of natural disasters have been minimally experienced throughout the world, or have they? Richard Cizik, an American evangelical who presided over the largest evangelical organization in the world, as God's good earthly steward put forth a Biblical stewardship agenda. Cizik and his program fell from grace in the politicized religious-right evangelical organization, and he was removed as its president. As a result, Cizik founded the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. Will God speak again?

A preacher once said the Biblical cannon was closed, that's it. Even so there was much debate on what books were to make it in, and there are still varying cannons used by different Christians groups.  While I'm not a learned Biblicist by any measure, I've enjoyed the old stories, some of which equally match up to the Koran stories that tout 'kill the infidels." The stories of  oppressed Israelites who continued to fall in sin only to find hope in God for restoration. In an ongoing more modern-contemporary times are real-life narrative documentations by Martin Luther, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King. Men of unflagging faith, would-be bulging the canonical reams, pleading to be recorded in the annals of history that goes back 35,000 years, cavemen's magnificent frescos.  Will God speak for them?

Our Deist founding fathers, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and others put forth the ideal that all men (people) have inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. (Just what does that mean?) But a people in bondage, many would say, have never fully attained that ideal. For those people have endured abhorrent repressions much greater than against the Israelites: A 200-year slavery-trade, separating mates, man from wife, father from son, mother from daughter; another 60-years of bondage until Lincoln's Civil War ended; another 100-years of Jim Crow oppression; another fifty years in struggle for the  civil rights, our founding fathers said were inalienable to all men. Now, again, many states bring back voter suppression! While so many have overcome scars and stigmas, many, nevertheless, struggle in the aftermath of that history.  And we wonder why there are so many social ills: A penal system filled, exorbitantly  exceeding all other countries, where non-proportionate numbers of black are locked up. Except by the grace of God, a defense fund of $10,000 to $20,000, there goes another child, white, brown or black. (I write these words not to excuse anyone for wrong doing but that I, we, may be stirred to think about our (society's) responsibility to find solutions.)

The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander's book, has been adopted by United Methodist Global Ministries, Church and Society, as a suggested church-group study for Christians' soul-searching in this mass-incarceration crisis.  Will God speak again as he spoke through Jesus as He read Isaiah's words: And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,     "The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19 NIV)

Back to Dinesh D'Souza and his theology of which I know nothing nor make claims of it.  I would only ask, do you really think he's using his time in religious authority to best serve Christianity, fellowman? If the answer is YES, then your disagreement is with a party establishment, conservative operatives, who repulse D'Souza's specious excursion.

Madeline Albright concluded in her Mighty and Almighty that religion has done more good than harm throughout. I have to have that kind of faith also, for it is so bred in my raising, culture and being. Religion, however, has been a contentious dilemma throughout America's governmental history. David Holmes' well researched book, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, gives an excellent insight to their faith practice while serving our country. Jon Meacham in his American Gospel so capably chronicled our country's religious influence. Here he wrote in Newsweek:  

"America's first fight was over faith. As the Founding Fathers gathered for the inaugural session of the Continental Congress on Tuesday, September 6, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Thomas Cushing, a lawyer from Boston, moved that the delegates begin with a prayer. Both John Jay of New York and John Rutledge, a rich lawyer-planter from South Carolina, objected. Their reasoning, John Adams wrote his wife, Abigail, was that "because we were so divided in religious sentiments"—the Congress included Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and others—"we could not join in the same act of worship." The objection had the power to set a secular tone in public life at the outset of the American political experience." ................"As it was in the beginning, so it has been since: an American acknowledgment of God in the public sphere, with men of good will struggling to be reverent yet tolerant and ecumenical. That the Founding Fathers debated whether to open the American saga with prayer is wonderfully fitting, for their conflicts are our conflicts, their dilemmas our dilemmas. Largely faithful, they knew religious wars had long been a destructive force in the lives of nations, and they had no wish to repeat the mistakes of the world they were rebelling against. And yet they bowed their heads."

In the words of Robert Wright: "Religion needs to mature more if the world is going to survive in good shape—and for that matter if religion is to hold the respect of intellectually critical people." In the following passage by Wright, it is useful to know that the word “salvation,” comes from a Latin word meaning to stay intact, to remain whole, to be in good health. (R. Wright) The Greek word for "salvation," which is soteria and does not refer to doctrinal rigidity or even to one's destination in the afterlife, but simply means "to become whole." (Dr. Michael Brown)

" history has driven us closer and closer to moral truth, and now our moving still closer to moral truth is the only path to salvation—“salvation” in the original Abrahamic sense of the term: salvation of the social structure.

                 For Abrahamics of the Christian and Muslim variety, especially, the question of salvation doesn’t end with this Hebrew Bible sense of the term. They may ask: Does the growth of moral imagination conduce to salvation in the sense of individual salvation? Will it save my soul? That is a question for them to answer as their doctrines continue to evolve. But we can say this much: traditionally, religions that have failed to align individual salvation with social salvation have not, in the end, fared well. And, like it or not, the social system to be saved is now a global one. Any religion whose prerequisites for individual salvation don’t conduce to the salvation of the whole world is a religion whose time has passed."  

So, will God speak?  

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Good one Cornell, people have been trying to get me to drink this cool aid also (2016), no thanks

FW

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Dear Cornell,
I was very impressed with the movie and glad I got to see it. I believe very strongly that it is right on, despite what critics
thinks. As you see, I am not an Obama fan, and I'm praying he won't get elected. Also I'm not that impressed with Romney,
but I think he needs a chance to get in there and see what he can do. These are perilous times for our country and it's so important to not be deceived.
I know you don't like what I said, but you asked(ha), and I do respect others' opinions, even if I don't agree.

Blessings,
SW

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Cornell,

What an excellent piece of journalism! I am amazed that so many good people are buying into 2016 and so many other bizarre notions that have no basis in fact. I encountered some neighbors over Labor Day praising the movie as a documentary that really laid out the truth about Obama! Socialist, communist, and Muslim were the 3 words used the most. Also, I can't believe there hasn't been a single letter to the N&O editor expressing outrage at Mr. Leith's full page ad. Anyone urging me to watch Fox News for the truth loses all credibility immediately.

Thanks for sharing this.

DS

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Thank you Cornell, I'll have to see the Movie/propaganda/untruths,rf

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Well said! ND

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Thanks, Cornell, for the note. I have a different take on all this which I hope will be of interest.

I am very familiar with D'Souza's work. He is a Christian intellectual and apologist; I would say brilliant. His book What's So Great About Christianity, an answer to Christopher Hitchin's book God is not Great, displayed a respectful but learned and effective rebuttal to Hitchins. In fact he and Hitchin's were personal friends although it is impossible to imagine two people whose world views were different.

I have read The Source of Obama's Rage and I have seen the movie 2016. D'Souza presents his work as a theory, not dogma, to explain what he considers some curious statements and actions by President Obama. In the book and the movie he does not attack Obama personally. Rather he believes that Obama has a personal mission (my words) that is not in concert with mainstream America, both left and right. I agree with the criticism that much of D'Souza's critique is speculative, which I believe that he would admit. It is an argument, a theory.

I do not remember any religious arguments in either the book or the movie. If there were any, they were minor and not germain to the principal argument, at least as I remember.

D'Souza may or may not be correct but I think it is a mistake to dismiss this work as being as nutty as the birthers or that it is motivated by greed, sick partisanship, ignorance, etc.

VE

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Cornell,

If you read Obama's autobiographies, you can verify what Denesh D'Souza said in the film and more clearly in his book. He is only using Obsma's own words.

JB

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Amen! TB

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Well done. MC

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Wow. On a related note. Can you believe the reaction this film trailer, "The Innocence of Moslems" is getting? This the film that the Islamist terrorist mobs invaded our embassy over and murdered our Ambassador for. Religion of Peace? Probably still upset about the crusades. So much for centuries of enlightenment… Funny how when terrorist blow up a school bus, pizza parlor, or school, full of women and children, people come out of the woodwork to defend Islam as a religion of peace, or blame others for their acts. I'm not aware of any Christian international Terrorist groups, but I'm certain some in the media can find an excuse to justify the behavior of murderers and terrorists. Like somebody's stupid movie… Although, I didn't see a big uproar in the US media over the movie in which president Bush was assassinated. The media thought it was funny. I haven't seen 2016, but one thing's for sure. D'Souza will grow wealthy, the more the movie is in the news..

In reference to Zackaria, the so called "conservative". Why do liberals in the national media paint all "Tea Partiers" as rabid anti women, anti gay, anti poor, anti immigrant, racist, etc…? Does that wash? That's just ignorance being paraded as fact. As I understand the Tea Party movement, it's simply a decidedly "anti Federal Government waste" movement. Zacharia doesn't represent my views. To me, the attacks from the left are far more personal than those from the right. Commercials of Paul Ryan pushing a senior citizen in a wheel chair off the cliff, or Mitt Romney responsible for a women's death because of her husband's unemployment, are just a couple of the absolutely ignorant commercials that paint republican candidates as a caricature of their real selves. Why is it that the liberal media paints anyone who is for restraining the Federal or even State government as a racist, anti women, anti poor, etc….? When do liberals denounce those terrible commercials?

I'm a card carrying republican. However,

• I'm actually in favor of smaller Federal government, less spending on every program, including Department of Defense and all Social Programs.
• I'm for closing the borders, and a path to citizenship for currently illegal immigrants.
• I'm for clean air and water… (my family uses both) but anti government involvement in government subsidies for alternative energies or alternative energy companies. Progress energy pays nearly 50% more per kilowatt hour for excess power generated by private companies/individuals, than they charge, due to Federal mandates for the % of renewable energy requirements.
• I'm pro healthcare reform, but anti - "affordable care act", because of the unintended consequences, like the burden it will put on low income families, when their work hours are cut to 30 per week or less. And the hardship placed on the same low income families, and small businesses having to purchase insurance, or be fined every year. (The dream of the insurance industry is to have the government force people to buy insurance) The impact will be far more devastating that the 700,000 bankrupted families annually noted below. (where does that fact come from?)
• I'm pro death penalty and anti abortion on demand. (funny how liberals call pro-abortion "choice", so they don't have to think about what it really is.)
• I'm against gay marriage, not gay people. I'm commanded by my God to love everyone, however I don't have to support everyone's lifestyle to do that.
• I'm against the government paying for contraception, or viagra…
• I'm for fair taxation, which doesn't punish success. A tax code where everyone is treated equally, and everyone contributes. (simple, simple, simple) The notion that you can make opportunity for the middle-class (favorite buzzword of the democrat party) and not create opportunity for higher income people is nonsense. At what economic level does a person graduate from the middle-class working person, to the wealthy totally selfish 1% person who doesn't pay their "fair share"? And do you trust any administration to make that judgement?
• I'm anti drug legalization, because I understand and have seen the effects in my own family of what happens to people who use marajuana/drugs during the length of your entire life.
• I'm anti-union, especially public sector unions. The purpose of every business, including the business of unions is the perpetuation of their own organization. Unions are not the advocate of the companies or industries they operate in. Unions are for Unions… see the current Chicago Teacher Strike.
• I'm anti-bailout for any company including Banks, auto makers, Airlines, or government agencies like the post office, amtrak, dept. of education, etc…
• I'm anti Federal subsidies for every business, farm, individual. Let's stop paying for continued inefficiency in any segment of the economy.
• I'm for NASA.
• I'm for term limits for every member of congress. No member of Congress should be able to reside in Washington for years and years, building their wealth and influence, and perpetually running for the next election, by promising largesse to every advocacy group they can.
• I will also add that I'm for senior citizens, as I would like to be one someday. However, I'm not for keeping every promise to the current seniors by Politicians decades ago, and breaking the promise for everyone else in the future. That's in reference to medicare and social security reform. Seniors are largely responsible for the government that we have, (as they are and have always been a huge voting block) and the protectionist position of AARP and other advocacy groups on Federal Programs. I'm for means testing for all federal programs, including social security and medicare. Just like the democrats insist on with taxation.

The caricatures of both parties are absurd. There are plenty of Republicans, Democrats, & Tea Party members that have reasonable positions. The shame is that our political leaders have to play to the far left or far right, because that's the only thing that gets the media's attention. Then we all have to live with this cartoonish election cycle, made by the huge media who are trying to out-do each other every minute of every day.

I won't watch any of these movies, at least until it's at the dollar theatre, or out on dvd. I've watched Matt Damon's so called documentary, Michael Moore's movies, and Oliver Stone's revisionist movies, like JFK and W… Evidently, there are a lot of people who get their view of reality from these movies.

I really enjoy your blog. Keep up the good work. eb

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And a subsequent response from EB after I gave reference for the 700,000 hearlthcare bankruptcy figure:

Not really a fair question. "How many citizens declare bankruptcy because of medical bills". The number of factors and reasons contributing to the number of bankruptcies in the US, compared to other nations is unmeasurable.

• You would need to know the number of bankruptcies for all reasons, per capita, per nation. (is it even called "bankruptcy" in other countries?) (and how are the reasons verified)
• You would need to know the ease of going bankrupt in the US legal system, compared to other nations. The laws of each individual country.
• You would need to know what other bills, obligations, number of children, etc… per capita in each nation, compared to other nations.
• You would need to measure the lifestyle choices that people make here, compared to other nations. Ie; how many people who declare bankruptcy own homes, have car notes, have cable TV, high dollar cell phones, Air jordan Tennis shoes, etc…
• You would need to know the ratio of fat people per capita, smokers, drug addicted, alcohol addicted, etc…. per capita, and the impact of those lifestyle choices on their healthcare, and subsequent bankruptcies.
• You would need to know the diet and amount of exercise per capita, and the impact on the healthcare of people in each nation. I would tend to believe that exercise and diet in most cases is a personal choice.
• You would need to know the real employment rate in other countries, (or unemployment) and the effect that has on whether people can pay their medical bills.
• How many people lost their job, and therefore their insurance, and then had to declare bankruptcy.
• The amount of people who buy goods, services, etc… on credit, in the different nations. (which is probably as important in this equation as any other number)
• How about the number of cases per capita of catastrophic illness?
• What are the effective tax rates for each nation, and what is the impact of paying those taxes on a bankruptcy.
• How about the impact of mal practice insurance on medical costs, and the ease or difficulty of suing Doctors & hospitals in each nation?
• How about the number of hours people work, and the subsequent stress level's impact on health costs.
• The lifestyle of Japan, France, & Spain? How much time off do they have…
• Even the retirement, estate planning comes into play with this topic.

The real question is "What is the author trying to prove?". "Did they set out to prove it, or is that where the evidence took them?" Perhaps all of these factors were considered in the study. I'd rather know what the impact of personal lifestyle decisions has on both the health of our citizens, and the cost of that on our healthcare. Maybe it's not measurable. Perhaps no personal financial consequences related to healthcare costs, is what the author is pushing.

The gentleman who wrote the article below, appears to have an opinion/agenda for some sort of socialized medicine. As we've talked about previously, an article, book, or study can be cited to prove any point you want. Discernment of the data or research for me is key to understanding the point the author is trying to make. "Asking the Health Minister", is not going to fly with me. Don't those Ministers have an agenda too? Harvard Law & Harvard Medical School's studies are colored by the views of their professors, grad students, etc… I'd give no more credibility to their study than any other research. I recommend the book by economist Thomas Sowell, Economic Facts and Fallacies. This book not only has some great insights in it, but it makes me think about the complexity of the data/opinions we are subjected to by the TV news media, academia, internet, etc…

The excerpt below makes me think of the time my son in high school went to Florida on Spring Break. We planned out how much money he would need, and sent him down for 5 days. While he was there, he called and said he was out of money for his accommodations. We wired him a couple hundred bucks. He came home with a tattoo. I politely pointed out that not only did he break my rule and get a tattoo, but that I had paid for it. He pointed out that he didn't pay for it with the money that I sent him… He used the money his grandma gave him for his birthday.

When I hear American people say that can't afford insurance or don't have access to healthcare, (or had to go bankrupt) I wonder what they do have money for….

As always, I love your perspective. thanks EB