The Left Hand of God

The End

2006-09-28T09:42:00.000-04:00

The staff at the LHG is made up of those society has rejected: the homeless, 40 year old virgins, single mothers on welfare, street corner prostitutes, retired superstar athletes, and assistant professors. In our offices, we spend a good chunk of time arguing over who has it worse. All sorts of positions have been taken. The most controversial (and perhaps bitter) argues that while the homeless have their freedom and virgins their chastity, while single mothers have their children, prostitutes their pretty woman, and retired superstar athletes their money, assistant professors have none of the above. And just when they think things might be okay, an arbitrary exercise of power reminds them that their fate is not in their hands.

Here at the LHG we rise and fall together. If some of us go, we all do. This gig is over - thanks for your time.

Celebrity Death Match

2006-09-21T02:43:00.000-04:00

my money is on the brunette

Celebrity authors, we meant (not heavyweights like Stephen King or JK Rowling, celebrity authors in the nerd world, not the real world). One one side atheist crusador Sam Harris, on the other ex nun Karen Armstrong. Who's right about the future of Islam? Read them here and here, and then flip a coin to decide who's right.

Spank Me Please

2006-09-20T01:10:00.000-04:00

whatever

At some point in the past decade, spanking and washing your kid's mouth with soap vanished from the annals of proper child rearing. What is a parent supposed to do? Fortunately for them, Jesus Camp picks up the slack. Don't despair: with or without a mouth full of Dove, your kid will praise the Lord.

On Muslims and Mayhem

2006-09-18T00:03:00.000-04:00

i've come to suck your blood...

Unless you've got your head in the sand you by now know that the pope has pissed of the Muslim world by - perhaps - criticizing Islam and its prophet. More specifically, Benedict delivered a speech where he quoted a 14th Century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Doesn't sound good. But are Muslims and the press taking the statement out of context? After all, everyone agrees that Benedict's comments on Islam were but a small part of his address. Now you can see for yourself. At Informed Comment you can find the complete text of Benedict's address and the best commentary LHG has found thus far.

Better than Porn

2006-09-14T21:53:00.000-04:00

not

A big chunk of our readership comes from academia. See above: University of Texas, Yale, University of Pennyslvania, University of Miami - who are these people? Students looking for paper ideas? Faculty looking for lecture tips? Administrators procrastinating? Whoever you are and whatever your intentions might be, the LHG thanks you for stopping by.

Still Waiting for Godot

2006-09-14T02:15:00.000-04:00

face it: godot's not coming

Samuel Beckett is one of those writers that you're supposed to like if you fancy yourself at least a tiny bit intellectual. It is thus with some shame that the LHG confesses to having sat through Waiting for Godot on two ocassions (the first time on a high school literary magazine field trip, the second time on an attempt to offer an original date to a very unlucky girl) and both times having been bored senseless. In Paris, when the play was first performed spectators rioted - it's beyond us why they even bothered. But we do like how Beckett describes his take on language:

"More and more my own language appears to me like a veil that must be torn apart in order to get at the things (or the Nothingness) behind it. Grammar and Style. To me they seem to have become as irrelevant as a Victorian bathing suit or the impertubability of a true gentleman. A mask. Let us hope the time will come... when language is most efficiently used where it is being most efficiently misused. As we cannot eliminate language all at once, we should at least leave nothing undone that might contribute to its falling into disrepute. To bore one hole after another in it, until what lurks behind it - be it something or nothing - begins to seep through; I cannot imagine a higher goal for a writer today."

On Philosophers and Fashion

2006-09-13T00:10:00.000-04:00

One of our staff members who dabbles in philosophy is often seen bicycling around the neighborhood on a pink bike and his hair tied back into puffy pig tails. Mind you, he's straight. So what gives? In a diary entry Susan Sontag describes the French philosopher Jean Wahl who wrote a book on existentialism that was required reading at a LHG retreat two months back:

"Yesterday I went to my first Paris cocktail party, at Jean Wahl's...Wahl very much lived up to my expectations - a tiny slim birdlike old man with lank white hair and a thin mouth, terribly distracted and unkempt. Baggy black suit with three large holes in the rear end through which you could see his (white) underwear, and he'd just come from a late afternoon lecture - on Claudel - at the Sorbonne."

Can it be that philosophers and philosopher wannabees, given over to thought as their highest pursuit, have no time to spend on common courtesy?

Underwear is now obligatory at the LHG.

Reza Strikes Again

2006-09-12T01:50:00.000-04:00

We once posted a plee directed toward Reza Aslan's agent. Needless to say, he has yet to call. Meanwhile, Reza keeps playing the public intellectual game. Click here for his piece on "The War for Islam" published in yesterday's Boston Globe. It's worthwhile reading.

PS. If the Boston Globe forces you to register, fear not. Just typing lazurdadeldiego@gmail.com for username and password for password will do the trick.

The LHG, as always, at your service.

September 11th, Five Years Ago Today

2006-09-11T01:00:00.000-04:00

Above a video that reviews the events. A word of warning: the footage is graphic and the music sappy (we think it's better seen on mute). Below, two articles in Sundays New York Times give the LHG a sense of hope five years after 9-1. The first reports that:

In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades. More than 40,000 of them were admitted last year, the highest annual number since the terrorist attacks, according to data on 22 countries provided by the Department of Homeland Security.

Many have made the journey unbowed by tales of immigrant hardship, and despite their own opposition to American policy in the Middle East. They come seeking the same promise that has drawn foreigners to the United States for many decades, according to a range of experts and immigrants: economic opportunity and political freedom. Those lures, both powerful and familiar, have been enough to conquer fears that America is an inhospitable place for Muslims.

Why is this hopeful? It's hopeful because every year thousands of Muslims are choosing the United States as their home. These Muslims are showing that Islam can thrive in a pluralist society, in a society with a separation between church and state. They are showing in practice what Tariq Ramadan has said in his books - that there is no fundamental incompatability between Islam and the West. Indeed, the United States has one of the largest Muslim populations the world over. The central battle of the "war on terror" is the struggle for the hearts and minds of Muslims. Maybe there is still a chance that the United States can win that battle.

The second article reports that:

Abu Zubaydah, the first Osama bin Laden henchman captured by the United States after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was bloodied and feverish when a C.I.A. security team delivered him to a secret safe house in Thailand for interrogation in the early spring of 2002. Bullet fragments had ripped through his abdomen and groin during a firefight in Pakistan several days earlier when he had been captured.

The events that unfolded at the safe house over the next few weeks proved to be fateful for the Bush administration. Within days, Mr. Zubaydah was being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques — he was stripped, held in an icy room and jarred by earsplittingly loud music — the genesis of practices later adopted by some within the military, and widely used by the Central Intelligence Agency in handling prominent terrorism suspects at secret overseas prisons.

President Bush pointedly cited the capture and interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah in his speech last Wednesday announcing the transfer of Mr. Zubaydah and 13 others to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And he used it to call for ratification of the tough techniques employed in the questioning.

But rather than the smooth process depicted by Mr. Bush, interviews with nearly a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials briefed on the process show, the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah was fraught with sharp disputes, debates about the legality and utility of harsh interrogation methods, and a rupture between the FBI and the C.I.A. that has yet to heal.

Why is the hopeful? It's hopeful because at a time when the federal government has curtailed civil liberties and openly boasted of breaking the Geneva Convention members of the FBI not only protest the mistreatment of prisoners, but more importantly are allowed to do so. As long as there is dissent and debate, there is also hope that the United States can recover its moral compass. Despite the criticism of U.S. foreign policy that at times has appeared on this blog we at the LHG are, to paraphrase a close friend, glad that the United States won the cold war.

All You Need to Know About the WTO

2006-09-07T00:05:00.000-04:00

the nay sayers

Readers of the LHG will know that we're interested in globalization as a political and economic process. And when it comes to globalization, few topics are more controversial than the WTO. When the WTO is discussed, passion flame. Is it good? Is it bad? Some say it's an engine for free trade and development in the Third world, others claim that the WTO's version of free trade is not fair trade, that in fact it's just a pawn for the interests of rich countries. Indeed, wherever the WTO summit meets, protests follow. It's practically impossible to get an objective and impartial take on the organization.

Until now. After months of research, the LHG has found a remarkable website that will tell you everything you need to know. Plumb its depths, read, explore, learn. The facts are here. As the X-Files used to say, the truth is out there.

On the Lure of Academia's Siren Song

2006-09-06T15:15:00.001-04:00

haircuts are expensive

Professors: what do they have that you don't?

The Religious Roots of Violence: Islam IV

2006-09-05T00:28:00.000-04:00

not one of the 70 virgins: his niece is cute

(Previously on the LHG: The Religious Roots of Violence: Islam I, II, and III)

Osama Bin Laden:

This is also where Bin Laden comes in: Osama's dad had a flair for palace building and over the years royal favor turned his family business into the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia and one of the largest in the Middle East. The Bin Laden children were raised and educated with Saudi princes and had contact with leaders of Islamic movements all over the Muslim world.

Soon after the Soviet invasion of Afganistan Bin Laden started to raise money for the resistance. By 1984 he had established a guest house in Peshawar to house fighters bound for the front. In 1988 he established a database of all the jihadists and other volunteers who had passed through his camps - giving birth to an organizational structure built around a computer file whose Arabic title Al Qaeda (the [data] base) would become famous later.

When Bin Laden returned to visit Saudi Arabia he warned the Saudis that Iraq was planning to invade Kuwait. This embarrased the Saudi government which at the time was on good terms with Hussein. When the Iraquis did invade Kuwait in 1990, Bin Laden offered his fighters to defend the Saudi kingdom. Instead of accepting the offer, the Saudi government accepted US military assistance. This convinced Bin Laden that the Saudi's Islamic credentials were a sham.

For him, driving out the Americans is the condition for reclaiming Islam in the peninsula. In 1996 he issued a "Declaration of Jihad against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places: Expel the polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula." And on August 7^th of 1998, on the anniversery of the arrival of American troops in Saudi Arabia, two huge explosions rocked the US embassies in Nairobi Kenya and Dar es Salaam Tanzania.

The rest is well known.

(Christianity coming soon)

State of the Union

2006-08-30T17:29:00.000-04:00

To be read before Labor Day.

Quit Spanking the Monkey

2006-08-29T01:16:00.000-04:00

On August 24th the New York Times reported that "Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students."

A spokesperson for the Department of education claimed that the omission was a mistake. Nonetheless, "Scientists who knew about the omission also said they found the clerical explanation unconvincing, given the furor over challenges by the religious right to the teaching of evolution in public schools. It's just awfully coincidental, said Steven W. Rissing, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio State University."

Fishy indeed. As far as the LHG can tell, evolutionary biology is still off the list. Doesn't the Department of Education have bigger issues to deal with? Lets take just one example: In a major city like Miami 48 percent of adults 20 and and over never graduated from high school.

Maybe improving our public schools is in order - maybe the Department of Education should quit spanking the monkey and get down to work.

The Religious Roots of Violence: Islam III

2006-08-28T00:20:00.000-04:00

better than santa claus

(Previously on the LHG: The Religious Roots of Violence: Islam I and II)

Saudi Arabia: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1791) and the Wahhabi movement.

Al-Wahhab regarded the condition of Arabia of his time - land of Muhammad - as corrupt and idolatrous. He and his followers set out to purge Islam of what they considered impure going as far as to destroy the tomb of Muhammad and his Companions in Mecca and Medina.

Wahhab combined religious zeal and military might when he allied with Muhammad ibn Saud, a local tribe chief, to form a religious and political movement. Eventually Saudia Arabia was created: the kingdom merged the political and religious; it was and is led by a succession of kings from the House of Saud with the close support of the religious Wahhabi establishment.

Today the Saudis export this extreme and militant version of Wahhabi Islam to other countries and communities. They offer development aid, build mosques, fund and distribute religious tracts and commision religious scholars. And provide financial support to extremist groups who follow militant brands of Islam worldwide.

Afghanistan:

In December of 1979 the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan; and this provides an opening for Saudia Arabia to retake leadership of the radical wing of Islam. Afghanistan allowed the Saudi government to shield the US from radical Islamic activists, making sure that the Soviet Union would replace the US as their main scapegoat.

In the training camps around Peshawar - the capital of the Pakistani NW frontier province where three million Afghan refugees were living - thousands of Islamic radical fighters converged from all over the Muslim world. An international group of Islamic militants, willing to fight worldwide for the sake of their radical understanding of Islam, emerged. They were funded by Saudi Arabia, and the US who provided military support and training.

Think about it: you've got three million refugees and Islamic radicals converging in Peshawar. These refugees were now "detribalized" and had become poor urban youth highly receptive to radical islamic ideology. Children, cut off from their families, where taken to religious schools were they received an education funded by Saudi money and thus connected to a radical Wahhabi version of Islam. Their alliance lay with that radical version of Islam. They are the Taliban - literally meaning students, who adhere to a Wahabbi version of Islam.

To All Those Who Need to See to Believe

2006-08-25T15:22:00.000-04:00

and you know who you are, more proof from ebay: Jesus on a rock, Jesus on a tomato, and Jesus in a group of trees.

LHG considers Jesus on a tomato a particularly good buy. Hurry, the first two auctions are ending soon.

Screw the Protestant Ethic

2006-08-24T12:23:00.000-04:00

lord, is that really you?

LHG is always looking for ways to make a quick buck. Now God is for Suckers reports on Jesus' sightings. Seems that if you find an image of the guy someplace weird you can make a killing on ebay (check out Jesus on a log).

Our interns our scavenging the dumpsters outside the office as these very words are being typed.

The Religious Roots of Violence: Islam II

2006-08-24T00:44:00.000-04:00

here's looking at you, kid

(Previously on the LHG)

To uncover the roots of today's mess in the Middle East, you need to look at the interplay between Iran, Saudia Arabia and Afganistan that began with the Iranian Revolution.

Iran:

In the 50's and 60's many Muslim states were governed by modernizing rulers who tried to suppress Islam and follow what they understood to be the US's and Europe's secular example. They thought that if they could just imitate the "West" their nations would prosper.

They were wrong. Economic progress did not follow the closing of mosques and religious schools, the banning of the headscarf and imitation of Western dress. Opposition grew, and no opposition had greater impact than the 1979 Iranian revolution that, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, overthrew the Shah of Iran and set up a theocracy, an Islamic government run by Islamic scholars which he himself led.

Most importantly, however, the Iranian revolution also defined itself in opposition to Saudia Arabia. There emerged a struggle for leadership of the Islamic world. Regimes in Muslim countries viewed the Shah's fate as a lesson, and many of them became ostentiously religious in response.

The Muslim world had been under Saudi religious domination since the late sixties: Saudi Arabia claimed to be an Islamic state, was guardian of Islam's holiest sites, had oil and thus lots of money to spread its views around the Muslim world. After 1979, however, the new masters in Iran considered themselves the true standard bearers of Islam. As far as they were concerned, the leaders in Saudi Arabia were usurpers who sold oil to the West in exchange for military protection - a US backed monarchy with a facade for ostentatious piety.

(to be continued)

Readers Rejoice

2006-08-23T16:54:00.000-04:00

We're back, after a few days off. After all, according to Pope Benedict working too hard harms the spirit.

Jews make naughty professors

2006-08-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

Make love, not war

LHG learnt from Progressive Islam that in response to Iranian President Ahmadinejad's anti-semitic cartoon contest - a group of Jews is sponsoring their own. They state: “We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

We like the idea. You can see the entries here.

One more reason not to get married

2006-08-15T01:29:00.000-04:00

racquetball anyone?

Unlike Tariq, most of our staff members are marriage phobic. So we're both glad and sad to report that there's one more reason not to get married, Bernard T. Pagano has passed away. Who is Pagano you ask? Only the priest this staff member would have wanted leading the ceremony. The Los Angeles Times reports:

The Rev. Bernard T. Pagano, a maverick Roman Catholic priest who was accused and then cleared in a string of armed robberies by the "Gentleman Bandit," has died. He was 81. A woman who claimed to have been Pagano's lover gave police photographs of him because he closely resembled the composite drawings of the robber.

During Pagano's 1979 trial in Delaware, several witnesses said the lanky priest, then 53, was responsible for the robberies. Pagano drew attention for his cavalier attitude toward the proceedings, and played racquetball during a break in the trial.

In a dramatic turn, Ronald W. Clouser, from the Philadelphia suburb of Brookhaven, showed up with a lawyer and admitted that he was the real Gentleman Bandit. Though his hairline was not receding as much, Clouser closely resembled the priest. A 1981 made-for-TV movie, "The Gentleman Bandit," sympathetically retold Pagano's tale.

But for some law enforcement officials, there was more to the story.

Norman Cochran, who at the time was the Delaware State Police superintendent, said this week that he is still convinced Pagano committed several robberies. He also believes that Clouser committed robberies about the same time in areas north of Wilmington. "The ones that we charged Father Pagano with were south of the city," Cochran said. "The modus operandi was entirely different." Cochran said Clouser touched his victims in a sexual way — something he said Pagano did not do. Despite authorities' misgivings, the case against Pagano was dropped and prosecutors apologized.

Pagano, the associate pastor at St. Mary Refuge of Sinners in Cambridge, Md., at the time of his arrest, once angered church authorities when he entered a charity wrestling event as "The Mad Monk." After he was cleared of the robberies, Pagano moved to New Jersey, where he was an advocate for people wrongly accused of crimes, and he served as a parish priest at St. Mary of Mount Virgin Church in New Brunswick.

Pagano, a priest mind you, may or may not made a hobby of politely robbing people at gunpoint, played racquetball during breaks of his trial for armed robbery, had a mistress, wrestled under the name "the mad monk," had a movie made about him, defended the falsely accused, and did not - I repeat - did not touch his victims in a sexual way. Truly a life well lived.

Sorry Sweetie, let's wait another year. A good priest is hard to find.

Shaken, not stirred

2006-08-14T00:22:00.000-04:00

Tariq Ramadan makes many a woman swoon. We quote from comments:

"Tariq Ramadan is a hotty. I'll marry him so that he can get his green card and spread the liberal Muslim word...then we will make little hot muslim babies."

Ladies, he's married and has four kids. So not only is he smart and sexy, he's that rarest of breeds - a man who can commit. Don't give up hope, however. Muhammad had many wives, so all Tariq needs is to be given the attractive options.

As his exclusive agent, the LHG is in charge of the selection process. Send your pictures to lazurdadeldiego@gmail.com - they'll be evaluated by our staff and those selected will be forwarded to the man himself. First fifty submissions get signed copies of Western Muslims and the Future of Islam.

Good luck, ladies. Mcdreamy awaits.

The Religious Roots of Violence: Islam

2006-08-10T10:40:00.000-04:00

somos los piratas

Exile is the second key story line in Western religion that shapes violent images of God. Notice that the Exodus story is a story about God's liberating violence. But what if instead of defeating your enemies you are always getting your ass kicked? What if instead of living in the Promised Land you are always living under foreign rule? How do you make sense of that?

While Exodus is a story in which God uses superior violence to free an oppressed people; exile, on the other hand, is a story where God uses violence to punish the chosen people for their sins. If Exodus was a story of God's liberating violence; then the exile is a story of God's punishing violence. Obey God and prosper. Disobey God and suffer.

This theme of exile is key to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam today. Islam was once a great empire, far superior in wealth and culture than Western Europe. How then does one explain why the Islamic empire declined and gave way to domination by imperial, capitalistic, and mostly "Christian" nations? The logic is simple: if fidelity to God leads to historical prominence, then historical decline is caused by lack of fidelity to God, Muhammad, and the Qur'an.

As the charter of Hamas states:

Hamas "found itself at a time when Islam disapeared from life. Thus, rules were broken, concepts were vilified, values changed, and evil people took control; oppression and darkness prevailed, cowards became tigers; homelands were invaded, people were scattered…When Islam is absent from the arena, everything changes."

From this perspective, Israel's occupation is seen as punishment from God for deviations from Islam. Thus independence, development, dignity will be achieved only by a return to Islam, the re-Islamization of societies that have become lax and therefore weak.

(to be continued)

A Modern Islam

2006-08-09T00:21:00.000-04:00

yes, professors can be sexy

Tariq Ramadan is a Swiss Muslim and probably the most important scholar of Islam in the West. He argues for a modernist version of Islam (despite this fact the U.S. last year rescinded his visa thus keeping him from entering the country to deliver a keynote address at the American Academy of Religion and take a position as distinguished visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame).

This interview is a good summary of his views.

The Religious Roots of Violence: Judaism III

2006-08-08T01:10:00.000-04:00

Wishing he was an only child

(Previously on the LHG)

In 1979 a small group of Jewish women and children from Kiryat Arba crawled through the window of an abandoned hospital in Hebron, occupying it illegally and establishing a a Jewish settlement on the site, Beit Hadassah. In time the settlement grew to more than fifty families with some 450 Jews sequestered in what amounted to an armed fortress in a city of more than 100,000 Muslims. The land is sacred, it is Jewish sacred land, and the Jews must take what is theirs by divine right.

A Jewish text records the debate of sages 1800 years ago on why Cain murdered Abel. By naming what drove Cain to kill, each sage meant to identify the source of human violence. According to one, a twin sister was born with Abel and the brothers fought over who'd possess the only available woman. Another sage argued that the brothers agreed to divide everything in the world between them. One claimed the shirt on his brother's back and ordered him to strip; the other claimed the ground under his brother's feet and shouted, "fly."

Blows followed, then blood.

The third sage, a Rabbi Levi, also said the brothers agreed to split the world. But then, he said, one claimed the land where Israel would reside, the other insisted it was his, and "Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him."

The history of fratricide began, said Rabbi Levi, with a fight over the Holy Land.

Sources:
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Is Religion Killing Us?
Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days

The Religious Roots of Violence: Judaism II

2006-08-07T00:55:00.000-04:00

Papa Kook

(Previously on the LHG)

Remember that Native Americans were wiped out by European settlers who saw Indians as Cannanites, Indian land as the equivalent of Canaan and themselves as God's chosen people. You make think that times have changed, that these ancient texts no longer have real relevance. You would be wrong.

In the 1967 "Six day war" Israel defeats Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, takes the West Bank of the Jordan River from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, the Gaza Strip from Egypt and completes control over Jerusalem. The frontiers of the territories controlled by the state of Israel now more or less coincided with those of the biblical Promised Land. It's impossible to exaggerate the impact this event had on religious Jews.

One group took this incredible sign and turned it into a model of action. These were the disciples of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook and his son Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook. They understood 20^th century events - events such as the Balfour declaration and the growing Zionist enterprise in Palestine - as steps toward Israel's redemption. Now came a victory that was seen as a pure miracle. Israel's decisive victory and rapid occupation were read as the expression of a divine plan to make the state of Israel conform more closely to the Biblical promise land. Kook's followers formed Gush Emunim or "Bloc of the Faithful." The group’s immediate goal was to establish Jewish settlements in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, making Jewish possession of the occupied territories an established fact. Its members also pressured the Israeli government to undertake a policy of re-judaization of the region, first through the formal annexation of the occupied territories and then by establishing a new state governed by Jewish law. They believe that this process will gradually lead to the coming of the messiah and redemption.

According to the members of Gush Emunim, every grain of the Land of Israel is holy. God gave this land to Abraham and his descendents, God gave it to the Jews. While God was directing history, His believers could help it in the right direction. Since the Jewish conquest of the Land of Israel was a step toward redemption, the believer's task was to take possession of the newly conquered land by settling it.

(To be Continued)

In Remembrance

2006-08-06T10:53:00.000-04:00

The Religious Roots of Violence: Judaism

2006-08-04T01:38:00.000-04:00

For Judaism, the Exodus story line is the most problematic. Traditionally, Exodus is supposed to convey the following point: a liberating God heard the cries of an oppressed people and intervened in history to save them. It’s a story of human freedom through divine deliverance. Violence, however, taints this story.

At best, Exodus is a story about God's liberating violence. It teaches that God's violence and violence done in God's name are legitimate means to achieve justice. God liberates the enslaved Israelites. Yet God achieved this goal through vicious violence, including the murder of every firstborn in Egypt as well as wiping out the "entire" army of the pharaoh. Israel, moreover, is created through the massive displacement and destruction of other peoples, laying claim to a land that belonged to others by conducting a bloody conquest under the banner of divine will.

God tells Abraham: "To your descendents I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Cannanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites." (Gen 15:18-21).

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you… and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy…" (Deut 7:1-2, 5-6)

Remember that Native Americans were wiped out by European settlers who saw Indians as Cannanites, Indian land as the equivalent of Canaan and themselves as God's chosen people. You make think that times have changed, that these ancient texts no longer have real relevance. You would be wrong.

(To be Continued)

On Bombs and Hezbollah

2006-08-03T14:53:00.000-04:00

This is an interesting piece from today's New York Times - an op ed that downplays the importance of radical religion for Hezbollah.

ISRAEL has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won’t work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. At first it consisted of a small number of Shiites supported by Iran. But as more and more Lebanese came to resent Israel’s occupation, Hezbollah — never tight-knit — expanded into an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious and secular aims.

In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less comparable to, say, a religious cult like the Taliban than to the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960’s. What made its rise so rapid, and will make it impossible to defeat militarily, was not its international support but the fact that it evolved from a reorientation of pre-existing Lebanese social groups.

Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks — which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 — involved 41 suicide terrorists.

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

What these suicide attackers — and their heirs today — shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.

Thus the new Israeli land offensive may take ground and destroy weapons, but it has little chance of destroying the Hezbollah movement. In fact, in the wake of the bombings of civilians, the incursion will probably aid Hezbollah’s recruiting.

Equally important, Israel’s incursion is also squandering the good will it had initially earned from so-called moderate Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The countries are the court of opinion that matters because, while Israel cannot crush Hezbollah, it could achieve a more limited goal: ending Hezbollah’s acquisition of more missiles through Syria.

Given Syria’s total control of its border with Lebanon, stemming the flow of weapons is a job for diplomacy, not force. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, Sunni-led nations that want stability in the region, are motivated to stop the rise of Hezbollah. Under the right conditions, the United States might be able to help assemble an ad hoc coalition of Syria’s neighbors to entice and bully it to prevent Iranian, Chinese or other foreign missiles from entering Lebanon. It could also offer to begin talks over the future of the Golan Heights.

But Israel must take the initiative. Unless it calls off the offensive and accepts a genuine cease-fire, there are likely to be many, many dead Israelis in the coming weeks — and a much stronger Hezbollah.

Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.”

Spanking is for sissies

2006-08-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

Abraham: spanking is for sissies

There are those who argue that religious violence stems from a misinterpretation of Judaism, Christianity or Islam, that when properly understood these religions are inherently peaceful. Even if the murderer claims to kill in the name of religion, these people respond: False, you are mistaken, you are deluded, you misunderstand your religion. In the face of murderous acts they say - this is not Islam, this is not Christianity, this is not Judaism.

At the LHG we think this is a mistake. It's a mistake because it overlooks the fact that violence is inscribed in these religion's sacred texts. When a Jewish extremist uses the Hebrew Bible to justify the razing of Arab households it's too simple to say that he's just misreading scripture, when a rightwing Christian uses scripture to justify persecuting Jews it's too simple to say he's just misreading the New Testament, and when Bin Laden turns to the Qu'ran to justify terrorism it's simplistic to say he's merely misinterpreting his sacred book. In his Is Religion Killing Us? Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer identifies three "violence of God traditions" - exodus, exile and apocalyptic - that pervade the main Western religions.

The posts that follow will explicate these traditions.

Nibble on this apple

2006-08-03T10:33:00.000-04:00

To my New York readers: If you're interested in photography as an art form (and you should be) go see this fantastic exhibit by the incredibly talented Constanza Mirre. Its a great window into the world of old Buenos Aires bars, and the characters that make them their home away from home (or away from the jabru).

12 West 56 street, on the corner of 5th avenue. Monday-Friday, 9-5, through the first week of September. Hurry, and you can buy her book. Better yet, go for a limited edition photo before prices skyrocket.

Thy Kingdom Come

2006-08-02T18:02:00.000-04:00

Seems like such a nice man

Holy War: A Texas Preacher Leads Campaign To Let Israel Fight

Mr. Hagee Draws Evangelicals By Arguing Jewish State Fulfills Biblical Prophecy 'End of World as We Know It' By Andrew Higgins Wall Street Journal July 27, 2006; Page A1 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115396305776618640.html WASHINGTON -- After Israel sent warplanes into Iraq in 1981 to bomb a nuclear reactor, Texas televangelist John Hagee sent letters to 150 fellow Christian preachers to rally support for the Jewish state. He got just one positive response. When Mr. Hagee pressed ahead with plans for a pro-Israel gathering in a San Antonio theater, he says he got a death threat on the phone and someone shot out all the windows of his station wagon parked in his driveway. Last week, as Israel's armed forces pounded Lebanon and worries of a wider conflagration mounted, Mr. Hagee presided over what he called a "miracle of God": a gathering of 3,500 evangelical Christians packed into a Washington hotel to cheer Israel and its current military campaign. Standing on a stage bedecked with a huge Israeli flag, Mr. Hagee drew rapturous applause and shouts of "amen" as he hailed Israel for doing God's work in a "war of good versus evil." Calls for Israel to show restraint violate "God's foreign-policy statement" toward Jews, he said, citing a verse from the Old Testament that promises to "bless those who bless you" and curse "the one who curses you." The gathering was sponsored by Christians United for Israel, a national organization the 66-year-old preacher set up this year. The group lobbies politicians in Washington, rallies grassroots support for Israel and aims to educate Christians on what it calls the "biblical imperative" of supporting the Jewish state. Mr. Hagee is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement. This evangelical political philosophy is rooted in biblical prophecies and a belief that Israel's struggles signal a prelude to Armageddon. Its followers staunchly support the Bush administration's unequivocal backing of Israel in its current battle with Hezbollah in Lebanon. President Bush sent a message to the gathering praising Mr. Hagee and his supporters for "spreading the hope of God's love and the universal gift of freedom." The Israeli prime minister also sent words of thanks. Israel's ambassador, its former military chief and a host of U.S. political heavyweights, mostly Republican, attended. At a time when Islamist groups are displacing secular nationalists as the main vehicle for political revolt across the Middle East, Mr. Hagee and like-minded evangelicals are injecting greater religious fervor into American attitudes and policy toward the region. They see, and even sometimes seem to embrace, the notion of a global conflict between Islam and the Judeo-Christian West, just as do many zealous Muslims. "This is a religious war that Islam cannot -- and must not -- win," Mr. Hagee wrote in a recent book, "Jerusalem Countdown," which focuses on what he says is a coming nuclear showdown with Iran. "The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching.... Rejoice and be exceeding glad -- the best is yet to be." The book has sold nearly 700,000 copies since it was released in January, according to his Florida-based religious publisher, Strang Communications. Christian Zionism has been around for years but is now gaining greater prominence as it gets turbocharged by the marketing flair of Mr. Hagee and other religious entrepreneurs. Mr. Hagee has deployed massive resources to galvanize support for Israel. He heads a San Antonio megachurch, which claims 19,000 members, runs a television company and has close ties to Republican Party power brokers. His Washington banquet last week cost about $500,000, according to an organizer. A big Christian broadcasting network, Daystar, carried the event live. The following day, he mobilized evangelicals representing all 50 states in a lobbying blitz through the Capitol. Armed with talking points scripted by Mr. Hagee and his staff, they peppered senators and congressmen with arguments for Israel and against its enemies, particularly Iran. While Mr. Bush is clearly close to evangelicals, he has never fully embraced their agenda or rhetoric. But their views are generally in sync with the aims of his national-security strategists, who reach similar conclusions through a different logic. They have long blasted what they've termed the "false stability" of a region mostly ruled by autocrats and that has tolerated terrorist organizations committed to Israel's destruction. The influential "neo-conservative" school of foreign-policy advisers has also buttressed this line, arguing that the U.S. must push more aggressively for democracy in the Middle East. Bedrock for Bush Christian evangelicals, who first found political traction under President Reagan in the 1980s, now number about 50 million and form a bedrock constituency for President Bush. Best known for their lobbying against abortion, same-sex marriage and on other domestic issues, they have also taken a keen interest in foreign policy, especially since the attacks of 9/11. "Leave Israel alone. Let them do the job," Mr. Hagee told his supporters last week at the banquet. Israel's enemies, said New York Congressman Eliot Engel, one of the few Democratic speakers, "do the work of Satan." This melding of realpolitik and religion, say former and current U.S. officials, has produced a potent force. Israel's evangelical supporters "were out there before, but didn't really appear on the radar screen," says Dennis Ross, a Middle East envoy in the administrations of both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "Now they are an important part of the landscape." More than any prior White House, the Bush administration has established formal, regular contacts with American evangelical leaders. The White House says it isn't overly influenced by any one group. "The president makes decisions about policies for our country based on what is right for our citizens," says Dana Perino, deputy press secretary. "The United States has been an ally of Israel since its founding, and President Bush has worked to strengthen that alliance." The main vehicle for Mr. Hagee's pro-Israel activities over the years has been San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, which he first joined as pastor back in 1975 when it was called Church of Castle Hill, a moribund parish with only a few dozen worshippers and heavy debts. He had quit his previous church the same year during a messy divorce that was quickly followed by his remarriage to a young churchgoer. Attracted by Mr. Hagee's mix of thundering oratory and folksy humor, the congregation mushroomed. The son of a puritanical preacher, Mr. Hagee first visited Israel in 1978. He says he went there "as a tourist and came back home a Zionist." While in Israel, Mr. Hagee visited Jerusalem's Western Wall and says he felt a "nearness to God like no other place on Earth." At that moment, he recalls, "The Lord required of me to do everything I could to bring Christians and Jews together." After returning to Texas, Mr. Hagee says he plunged into a "three-year study binge to discover the Jewish roots of Christianity." This coincided with a surge of contacts between American evangelicals and the then Israeli government of Menachem Begin, a devout biblical scholar and hardline defender of Israel's right to territories won in 1967. Mr. Begin worked hard to cultivate American evangelicals, with whom he shared a belief that Israel's birth in 1948 and subsequent struggles were a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Mr. Hagee says he met with Mr. Begin three times. When Mr. Begin ordered Israel's air force to bomb Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, Mr. Hagee was horrified by widespread criticism that followed. After reading a San Antonio newspaper that described the attack as an act of "gunboat diplomacy," he decided to organize a pro-Israel gathering. Local Christians initially showed little enthusiasm for the idea. San Antonio's Jewish community was even more wary. "There was a lot of skepticism," recalls Aryeh Scheinberg, an Orthodox rabbi who took part in meetings among Jewish leaders to decide how to respond to Mr. Hagee's proposal. "Everyone wanted to know: 'What does he really want?' I said, 'Let's give the man a chance and take the risk.' " The pro-Israel gathering went ahead with both Jews and Christians present. As Mr. Scheinberg mounted the podium to deliver a final prayer, security told Mr. Hagee of a bomb threat. Mr. Hagee, a stocky man who got to college on a football scholarship, says he asked God to make the rabbi pray "not like Moses but like a Presbyterian late for lunch." The threat was a hoax. The event has been held every year since, though some Jewish leaders refuse to attend and reject any alliance with Mr. Hagee. "Many of his views are hateful," says Barry Block, a prominent reform rabbi in San Antonio, who accuses Mr. Hagee of demonizing Muslims and propounding a divisive right-wing agenda that erodes the barrier between church and state. When addressing Jewish audiences, Mr. Hagee generally avoids talking about Armageddon. But his books, whose titles include "Beginning of the End" and "From Daniel to Doomsday," are filled with death and mayhem. "The battlefield will cover the nation of Israel!" he writes in "Jerusalem Countdown," his recent work, describing a "sea of human blood drained from the veins of those who have followed Satan." Some fellow evangelicals accuse Mr. Hagee of ignoring Arab Christians. Donald Wagner of North Park University, an evangelical Christian college in Chicago, first traveled to Israel at around the same time as Mr. Hagee but reached the opposite conclusion. "I was very pro-Israel until I went there," says Mr. Wagner, who heads a research group that challenges the theology of Christian Zionists. A Turn to Television Little known outside of Texas when he first embraced Zionism, Mr. Hagee turned to television to promote Jesus, Israel and his own name. His main platform for this was Global Evangelism Television Inc., a nonprofit organization. First set up in 1978, GETV initially relayed the programming of others to local cable operators. In the 1980s it began pumping out its own shows featuring Mr. Hagee for broadcast on national Christian networks. His sermons and chat shows now appear on 120 stations and, he says, reach more than 90 million homes. By the mid-1980s his flock had outgrown his church in central San Antonio. In 1987, Cornerstone moved to a 35-acre suburban campus with a 5,000-person assembly hall and a new television and radio studio. As his exposure grew, so did controversy. He ran into flak for inviting former White House aide Oliver North, a pardoned felon, and disgraced televangelist Jimmy Swaggart to speak at Cornerstone. He also feuded with the U.S. Postal Service over nonprofit rates for church mailings that contained ads for his books and videos. (He sued and, he says, got a refund of around $40,000.) Mr. Hagee also upset black leaders. To help students seeking odd jobs, his church newsletter, The Cluster, advertised a "slave" sale. "Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone," it said. "Make plans to come and go home with a slave." Mr. Hagee apologized but, in a radio interview, protested about pressure to be "politically correct" and joked that perhaps his pet dog should be called a "canine American." The quarrels didn't stop the steady growth of his congregation, which is multiracial. His "nights to honor Israel" got bigger, too, as did his clout as a fund-raiser for Israeli causes. He says he has raised over $12 million so far. Increasingly prominent, the preacher attracted the eye and, initially, the ire of Jerry Falwell, the dean of the Christian right and another enthusiastic supporter of Israel. In 1994, The National Liberty Journal, a conservative monthly run by Mr. Falwell, labeled Mr. Hagee a "heretic" for championing so-called dual-covenant theory -- a belief that Jews and Christians have separate deals with God that allow each to get into heaven. The traditional Christian view is that Jews and other non-Christians must convert -- or end up on the wrong side of the battle of Armageddon. Soon after the article appeared, Mr. Falwell arranged to meet the Texan at a Christian pow-wow in Memphis. Mr. Hagee, says Mr. Falwell, convinced him that he didn't believe in the "dual covenant." Mr. Falwell now sits on the board of Christians United for Israel. Mr. Hagee, citing a New Testament verse, says a "remnant of Jewish people...have favor with God right now" but he is vague on which Jews will get to heaven without conversion, saying that only God knows this. He dismisses the dual-covenant issue as "something to start coffee-table debate." Closer to Power

Mr. Bush's 2000 election victory and the Republican Party's control of both houses of Congress brought evangelical Christians closer to power than ever before. Mr. Hagee had met Mr. Bush several times while he was Texas governor and solidly supported his push for the White House. Mr. Hagee was closer, though, to another powerful Texan, Congressman Tom DeLay. Soon after becoming majority leader in the House of Representatives, Mr. DeLay gave the keynote speech at Mr. Hagee's 2002 pro-Israel gathering in San Antonio. Mr. DeLay, since embroiled in a corruption scandal, also spoke last week in Washington. In 2003, The San Antonio Express-News dug into Mr. Hagee's filings with the Internal Revenue Service. The article alleged no wrongdoing, but reported that Mr. Hagee received more than $1.25 million in 2001 for his church and TV work and had a trust that includes a nearly 8,000-acre $2.1 million Texas ranch. Mr. Hagee says that the bulk of his earnings comes from royalty payments from his 21 books, not from churchgoers' donations. He says he'll earn much the same this year if book sales hold up. His finances under the spotlight, Mr. Hagee reorganized his holdings in a way that allowed him to avoid having to make public filings. In September 2004, Global Evangelism Television re-registered as a church under the name Grace Church of San Antonio. Churches, unlike religious TV companies and other nonprofit outfits, are exempt from filing detailed returns with the IRS. A further reorganization in recent weeks moved all assets into Cornerstone Church. None of the Church's financial records are publicly available. Mr. Hagee said his lawyers had recommended the changes for "greater clarity." President Bush abandoned President Clinton's efforts to secure a big-bang peace settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict but, under prodding from Britain and others, did back a slow-paced plan known as the Roadmap for Peace. In May 2003, Mr. Hagee and other evangelical leaders sent a letter to President Bush applauding the invasion of Iraq but complaining about the Israel-Palestine peace plan. They said it would be "morally reprehensible" for the U.S. to be "evenhanded" between Israel and "the terrorist-infested Palestinian infrastructure." Last fall, he took his annual "night to honor Israel," to Israel, holding the event in the hangar of an Israeli air-force base. He spoke at the Israeli Parliament and organized a visit for his U.S. followers to Megiddo, an Israeli hilltop that he believes will be the site of the battle of Armageddon. Mr. Hagee also started laying plans for Christians United for Israel, hoping to meld a plethora of mostly small pro-Israel Christian groups into a national network. He contacted Mr. Falwell, who says he immediately offered support. He hired David Brog, a lawyer who had worked in both Israel and on Capitol Hill and who is a distant cousin of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, as the new organization's executive director. As Mr. Hagee's plans took shape last fall, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby, set up an "outreach" unit to work with Christians and others. Appointed to head the unit was a San Antonio native who had previously worshipped at the synagogue of Mr. Scheinberg, the Orthodox rabbi who has been one of Mr. Hagee's keenest supporters. Christians United for Israel held its first meeting in San Antonio in February and immediately began organizing last week's Washington event. To galvanize support and allay suspicions in some quarters of his motives, Mr. Hagee traveled around the country, meeting with Christian and Jewish leaders. Some Jews worry that Christian-Zionists want to convert Jews to Christianity, something Mr. Hagee has always denied. The current eruption of violence, says Mr. Hagee, shows that Israel should not surrender land in search of peace and that Christians and Jews are on the same side. "If God opposes giving away the land, if it has never worked, let's come up with another plan," he thundered last week. "Do not give the land away. It belongs to you. It is God's heritage to you." --Karby Leggett in Jerusalem contributed to this article. Write to Andrew Higgins at andrew.higgins@wsj.com

Too much of a good thing

2006-08-02T01:59:00.000-04:00

Here at the LHG we never believed it was possible to have too much of a good thing - World Cup, girls (or guys, depending on your gender and persuasion), cocoa puffs, more was always better. The Los Angeles Times, however, has shown us the error of our ways:

"Stafford, Texas (LHG: we know what you're thinking, it had to be Texas) has 51 churches and other religious institutions packed into its 7 square miles. Gene Bane, the city's director of building permits, has a large map of Stafford that is dotted with round yellow stickers, each dot denoting a church or religious facility. In some parts of town, the dots are so close together they nearly meld into a big yellow glob.In one quarter-mile section near the city center, parishioners can choose among 17 churches. There are three small churches in the Quail Ridge Plaza shopping center, and three large brick churches on the street behind it. Down the road, the Evangelical Formosan Church is tucked behind a muffler shop."

And because churches and religious instututions are tax exempt - guess what - they're bankrupting the town. Yes, there can be too much of a good thing.

Which religion is the right one for you?

2006-08-02T01:41:00.000-04:00

88% agnosticism and 50% Islam - is the LHG the antidote to Islamic extremism? Actually, we're proudest of our 29% of Satanism.

Next we'd show you our astral chart, but that would scare the hell out of you.

You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don't believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof).

Agnosticism is a philosophy that God's existence cannot be proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe.

agnosticism

88%

Islam

50%

atheism

38%

Judaism

33%

Buddhism

29%

Satanism

29%

Christianity

21%

Hinduism

17%

Paganism

17%

Which religion is the right one for you?
www.quizfarm.com

What kind of theologian are you?

2006-08-01T16:45:00.000-04:00

Given the options, it could have been a lot worse. After all, Moltmann was a big influence on Latin American liberation theology, we like parts of Tillich's Systematic theology (especially Volume III), Political Expectation and the Protestant Era (on the other hand, we've always thought that The Courage to Be was overrated and yes, we know Tillich was a pervert), and Schleiermacher's On Religion is a classic. Not sure, however, where the 2o% of Calvin came in.

You scored as Jurgen Moltmann. The problem of evil is central to your thought, and only a crucified God can show that God is not indifferent to human suffering. Christian discipleship means identifying with suffering but also anticipating the new creation of all things that God will bring about.

Jurgen Moltmann

80%

Paul Tillich

67%

Friedrich Schleiermacher

60%

John Calvin

20%

Charles Finney

13%

Martin Luther

Jonathan Edwards

Karl Barth

Augustine

Anselm

Which Kind of Theologian are You?

So you're finally getting laid

2006-07-31T17:12:00.000-04:00

Since we're on the topic of marriage, let's talk about sex. For you Christians sex is supposed to happen only within marriage (the unitive and the procreative, remember?), and since sex ed is not going to be happening in a school near you, you're going to get to your wedding night a hopelessly clueless virgin.

No longer. Mother Jones reports that all you need to know can be found at The Marriage Bed: Sex and Intimacy for Christians. To be honest, LHG is rather impressed. Among other things you'll find the most detailed description of male and female genitalia we've ever seen (the more prudish can choose the no-pictures option), an exhaustive discussion of types of birth control, tips on how to strip for your man, whether oral sex is really sex, what to do with a vibrator, do's and don'ts in relation to bondage, phone sex, adult nursing, role playing and all sorts of other useful information. The entries on "Sex for the Clueless Bride" and "Sex for the Clueless Groom" are not to be missed.

Our one complaint? Nothing on Catholic schoolgirl outfits.

Welcome to the Halls of Power

2006-07-31T16:26:00.000-04:00

Who Needs Marriage? Part II

2006-07-31T00:45:00.000-04:00

The LHG is on record as being in favor of gay marriage. Yesterday's Sunday The New York Times, however, has an interesting piece on gays who oppose seeking the right to marry. On what grounds you ask? On grounds that the gay movement was not about gaining all the rights that heterosexual people possess, but rather was about the freedom to pursue lives unburdened by the weight of convention.

Here are some highlights:

"To these activists, the fight for gay marriage is the mirror image of the right-wing conservative Christian lobby for family values and feeds into the same drive for a homogeneous, orthodox American culture. The Stonewall confrontation and early gay rights movement, after all, was about the right to live an unconventional life, and to Mr. Dobbs and others like him, marriage is the epitome of convention. He said that he does, however, support civil unions for all as a replacement for civil marriage."

"But as the fight for same-sex marriage rages across the country — this month being defeated in the highest court in New York State as well as Washington — the anti-marriage gay men and lesbians say they are feeling emboldened to speak out against what they view as the hijacking of gay civil rights by a distressingly conservative, politically correct part of the gay establishment. They say the gay marriage movement, backed by major well-funded organizations like Lambda Legal, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has drained resources and psychic energy from other causes like AIDS research, universal health insurance and poverty among gay people."

"They question whether monogamy is normal. They wonder why gay men and lesbians are buying into an institution that they see as rooted in oppression. They worry that adapting to conventional “family values” will destroy the cohesion that has made gay men and lesbians a force to be reckoned with, politically and culturally."

"And some see the insistence on defining homosexuality as strictly a matter of biology — rather than a matter of choice and sensibility as well as biology — as part of the same conformist impulse. Rob Klengler, a businessman in Marblemount, Wash., is troubled by the focus on what is normal in sex or domestic life. I don’t know if I would use the term ‘normal’ or not,” he said. 'To me, it’s a simple choice. To me it’s a choice like whether I eat red meat. I like chocolate versus vanilla ice cream. It’s just a choice.' Other groups, while supporting gay marriage, are using the issue to push for legal recognition of other nontraditional relationships, like unmarried couples of all kinds."

While we still support the drive for gay marriage (if you're gay and don't want to get married, just don't) we like the disruptive thrust (no pun intended) of the argument. In particular, we like the way the personal politics, who and how you choose to love, overflows into societal politics as it challenges traditional family structures. We also like the rejection of the whole idea of the gay gene. While the LHG is not up on the literature on this topic and we're sure this will come across as naive, we have long thought that a Sartrean like choice to be gay is more empowering than the idea of succumbing to a biological impulse - in the former it's about the creation of new ways to be human, in the latter it's an accident of fate.

We appreciate the ambiguous advice Sartre once gave a young man torn between two incompatible paths: "choose, that is, invent."

Get Religion, the missing pages

2006-07-30T22:13:00.000-04:00

Gospel of Judas it ain't

Another dumpster (this time behind the office) uncovered the garbage stained missing pages to Get Religion! A Guide for Democrats. Can this book keep the Democratic party from striking out when thrown the religion curveball?

Chapters (continued)

5. To Get to Heaven You Need the Hell Knocked Out of You: Gays for God or What Part of “Love” Don’t You Understand: God and Gays, One Happy Family or God Hates Shrimp: God and Gays, One Happy Family

Like chapter four, here I tackle a one of the most controversial issues in American politics today. Once again, Democrats have accepted the way Republicans have defined the issues: God and Republicans on one side, homosexuals and Democrats on the other. Like in chapter four, I’ll reject these terms and show how Democrats can bring God on board the “gay” side of the debate.

6. I Support the Separation of Church and Hate: Religion in Our Schools or Don’t Pray in My School, I Won’t Think in Your Church: How Religion Can Be Part of Our Schools

This chapter tackles the question of whether religion should be allowed in public schools, in the shape of prayer or actual coursework. Currently, Democrats stand for no religion while Republicans stand for a little bit of religion, usually prayer and some teaching of morality. I’ll argue that Democrats need to out religion Republicans, and present a case for lots of religion in schools. Schools should teach classes in comparative religion and values as well as allow prayer from different faiths. Here our position should be: the more religion the better.

7. Join the Religious Left Today

The concluding chapter outlines the strategies that emerge in each one of the chapters. It provides a kind of cheat sheet Democrats can carry and turn to when frustrated about religion. It’ll include guidelines followed by a short explanation. These are some of the guidelines:

a. Whoever sets the terms of the debate has won half the debate.
b. Shift the terrain, refuse your opponent’s terms and set your own.
c. Ignorance is never an excuse to ignore religion.
d. Sometimes the best antidote to religion is more religion.

8. Appendix: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The appendix provides short introductions to key institutions as well as who matters in religion and politics in America, ending with an actual quotation. The Christian Coalition, Planned Parenthood, the Moral Majority and other institutions, as well as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Ralph Reed, Cornel West, Jim Wallis, Michael Lerner, and other figures will be included. Here’s an example:

Pat Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network and his flagship program, the 700 Club, attracts millions of viewers. After a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1989, he also founded the most visible successor to the Moral Majority - the Christian Coalition. That failure convinced him that the political success of the Christian agenda required more effective organization at the grassroots level and so the Christian coalition concentrates on building strength through local chapters. Its success at this task is a key reason why the Bush campaign was so effective in mobilizing the conservative evangelical vote this past election. In fact, one of Bush’s closest advisers throughout the race, Ralph Reed, was the Christian Coalition’s head until 1996 (before leaving to found his own political consulting business).

Favorite Quote: “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” (Washington Post, August 23rd, 1995).

PS. Yes, our staff scavenges in dumpsters.

A Bit of Intelligent Design

2006-07-29T16:06:00.000-04:00

and a lot of nostalgia.

Gathering Our Minions

2006-07-28T00:25:00.000-04:00

LHG's two part call on religious education has been taken up by a worthy spokesperson - Daniel Dennett, a famous philosopher (well, as famous as a U.S. philosopher can be these days) who teaches at Tufts and author of the recent Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

What's our two part call you ask? Shame on you for not remembering. The first part was the claim that religion is worthy of the same merciless rigor with which we should examine all expressions of our humanity. While the second part was the claim that once subjected to this standard religions should be taught in schools, even public schools. So it's with great pleasure that the LHG paraphrases the letter Daniel Dennett sent to the current (Volume LIII, Number 13) edition of the New York Review of Books where he speaks our mind. He writes:

"...my proposal for a nationwide curriculum on the established facts about the world's religions...Why do I think investing in such a compulsory educational program would be worth the cost? Because all the religious organizations that are widely acknowledged to be toxic - dangerous either to their participants or to innocent outsiders - depend on the enforced ignorance of the young people being raised therein. My proposed political bargain is strikingly uncomplicated and maximally tolerant: teach your children (at school or at home) this national curriculum and then you can teach them anything else you want. (You can even teach them that the obligatory curriculum is a load of rubbish, but they will be tested on it!) I submit that any religion that can thrive under this requirement deserves to thrive, and any that can't deserves extinction. Creating a generation of young people that have a matter-of-fact knowledge of the different histories, creeds, practices, obligations, and prohibitions of the world's religions won't solve all the problems, but it is a first step toward inoculating them against the diverse attractions of fanaticism."

Well put, Denny. Next time, however, don't forget a shout out to your mentors at the LHG...

Colbert's Wisdom

2006-07-24T23:37:00.000-04:00

Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report: "Public Schools are giving more days off to accomodate more religions. If they allowed prayer in public schools they woulden't need to give those days off."

Is this such a bad idea? We at the LHG believe that world religions should be taught in public schools. For us teaching religion involves no special challenges, it's no different than teaching philosophy or literature. If there is a difference, it's that religion is a far more important and urgent a subject. Once religion is taught in schools - their history, development, key ideas, etc - why not grant students of different religions a place to pray, meditate, and express their faith? Do so, and integrate that space into the classroom teaching experience.

After all, kids loves fields trips. Do it right and it would be like a field trip without having to leave school grounds.

On Balls and Economists

2006-07-23T21:09:00.000-04:00

While some of our staff count them among their closest friends, our conviction that the great majority of economists represent a lower form of humanity remains strong. Here's an example of why many economists are best viewed within the confines of a zoo. Yesterday's Sunday New York Times has a piece about how the middle class is being squeezed out of major U.S Cities: "The percentage of higher-income neighborhoods in many places has gone up. In New York, the supply of apartments considered affordable to households with incomes like those earned by starting firefighters or police officers plunged by a whopping 205,000 in just three years, between 2002 and 2005."

So what does an economist have to say about this? "Firefighters who want to live in high-priced cities can work two jobs, said W. Michael Cox, chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “I think it’s great,” he said. “It gives you portfolio diversification in your income.”

Can you believe this guy? He draws a parallel between the rich guy who diversifies his financial portfolio and the poor sap who needs to work two or more jobs - and thus never sees his family, barely sleeps, wonders whether he'll make the rent - but in the process gains "portofolio diversification of income."

Mr. Cox, you have muchos huevos grandes, and belong in a cage with other animals of your ball size.

Get Religion

2006-07-21T10:29:00.000-04:00

Found in the dumpster outside our offices today: (last pages seem to be missing)

Get Religion! A Guide for Democrats

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Spare Us Lord, Or Why We Need To Get Religion

This chapter shows why Democrats, the United States and God need us to get religion. Democrats need religion to avoid getting spanked again in the next election. We just can’t win unless we make inroads in the religion and values voting bloc. The United States needs religion because the debate about religion and politics is really a debate about who we are as a nation; it transcends any one election or politician. Unless we get religion we can’t participate in that debate, so conservative voices win by default. God needs us to get religion because the religious right’s view of God is just shameful. For the sake of Democrats, the U.S. and God – we must do better.

2. Holy Crap: Does Religion Really Stink?

The introduction shows us why we need to get religion. This chapter explains why we fear religion, why we think religion stinks. I’ll argue that we fear religion because of the way it can inspire people to make radical efforts to transform the world. It’s an unsettling and disturbing force, but it can be a good one. That is, the smell of religion in American politics depends on us, on whether we direct its transformative capacity in a positive direction. I’ll show that religion can be brought into our politics like a fresh breeze – clearing the air of the foul Republican monopoly over issues of values and morality.

3. Freedom Isn’t Free, But Only Poor People Pay: Why God Doesn’t Cut Taxes on the Wealthy

The main religious and moral issues in American politics are abortion and homosexuality. Poverty has not emerged as a moral issue. Yet income inequality in the United States – the gap between the richest and poorest 20% -- is greater than in India. Here I’ll show Democrats how to make poverty a religious and moral issue. Doing so allows us to shift the focus away from abortion and homosexuality, attack Republican economic policies as anti-Christian and frame our liberal economic agenda in Christian terms.

4. Vote for the Bush of Your Choice: Why God isn’t Pro-Life or Pro Life Doesn’t End at Birth: Democrats and Abortion

Here I show that Democrats have accepted the way Republicans have framed the issue of abortion – God and Republicans on one side, women and Democrats on the other. As long as the issue is framed in this way Democrats will be on the losing side, the division must be rejected. Instead, I’ll argue that Democrats can bring God into the pro-choice side of the picture. God need not fall only and exclusively on the Pro-life side.

2006-07-20T17:00:00.000-04:00

On Liberalism and Heartbreak

2006-07-19T15:34:00.000-04:00

Fundamentalist Christian denominations (those that usually see the Bible as the literal word of God, support creationism, see gay rights as an assault on a God given family structure) are on the rise, liberal Christian denominations (those that see the Bible as a human text, believe in modern science, and see social structures as historical and contingent creations) are losing members in droves. Want to know why? Click here to read Charlotte Allen's, Beliefnet's Catholicism editor, take on the sins of liberal Christianity.

Meanwhile, let me tell you true story. A long time ago in a frozen land known by the name Cambridge, Massachussetts, a young grad student tired of gazing at a cute girl from afar decided to throw caution to the wind and make a move. To his shock and surprise, the girl seemed pleased that he had struck up a conversation; that is, she actually talked back. Two weeks later, they were kind of dating.

Then one tragic Saturday the girl asked whether the boy would go to mass with her. Now the boy was no mass goer, and going to mass would also involve missing his weekly soccer game, so the boy was torn. Everything he held sacred told him that picking mass over soccer was wrong. "It would mean a lot to me," she said. So he chose mass.

Mass was, well, it was mass. Until at one point, she reached for his hand and he saw the congregation as a whole hold hands. In one voice, they sang:

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

On leaving ceremony, boy commented that John Lennon's "Imagine" struck him as more of a campfire than mass song. Soon afterwards, he was cast alone into the Cambridge snow.

The Life of the Mind

2006-07-18T18:09:00.000-04:00

Just in case there happen to be any PhD. or prospective PhD. students among our readers, a word of warning: the real courage is not the courage to finish the PhD., it's the courage to abandon the PhD.

What can you look forward to? Promotion? In Richard Russo's Straight Man the main character, an aging professor of an English Department in some mid level U.S. state university, looks back over his life and bluntly states "promotion in an institution like West Central Pennsylvania University was a little like being proclaimed the winner of a shit-eating contest."

You've been warned.

PS. Some our staff may have received or be in the process of receiving their PhDs. Some are happier than others. But all agree that warning you, dear reader, is the right thing to do.

Slowly but Surely

2006-07-17T16:06:00.000-04:00

the academy will kneel before the LHG...

Who Needs Marriage?

2006-07-17T09:53:00.000-04:00

Not same sex couples. Recently New York's highest court upheld a ban on same sex marriage. What's interesting, however, is the rationale - that straight couples may be less stable parents than their gay counterparts and so need marriage to keep them in line.

A Yale law school professor explains in the New York Times:

“Heterosexual intercourse,” the plurality opinion stated, “has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not.” Gays become parents, the opinion said, in a variety of ways, including adoption and artificial insemination, “but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse.”

Consequently, “the Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples.”

That's it folks. Same sex couples don't need marriage because they're likely to make better parents. So let's do the right thing and keep them from making the same mistake so many straight couples have made in the past - saying "i do."

No World Cup, No World

2006-07-13T17:27:00.000-04:00

While LHG was watching World Cup, others were busily plotting the end of the world. The Los Angeles Times reports on various Jewish, Christian and Muslims groups actively working for the endtime. It's heartening to know that the three most important Western religious traditions are finding a common cause.

A reminder: Jesus was most likely an apocalyptic prophet who believed the world would end in his lifetime, thus the urgency of his ethics. Paul also thought the world would end while he was still around. Check out 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 -

16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage each other with these words.

LHG is hoping for at least one more World Cup before the end.

Decisions, Decisions

2006-07-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

This sunday World Cup comes to an end, and with it the meaning that life had since July 9th. What's the lesson from Argentina's defeat in quarterfinals? The main lesson is that in World Cup, as in life, the key issue is not whether you're going to win, but rather how you're going to lose. Winning a World Cup is a close to impossible task, and one, moreover, in which luck and accident - the draw, injuries, referi mistakes, and a whole host of other factors - plays a role in determining the outcome. Focusing on how you're going to lose liberates from the obsession with the end result, and allows the focus to fall on what really matters, the choices you make.

In his "Existentialism is a Humanism" Sartre says that in the absence of God we alone determine who we are. Think of it this way: Before building a table, a carpenter has a mental picture of what the table would look like. In the same way, God, before making human beings had a picture of what we'd be like. That picture is our essence, our existence comes afterwards. But if God doesn't exist, then all we have is existence, and in the process of existing, in the course of the actions and decisions we take or don't take, we make our essence. In the absence of God only our lives determine who we are. In determining who we are, however, we also determine who human beings should be. In choosing for ourselves, we choose for all of humanity - in defining ourselves, we define humankind.

So how are you going to lose? Are you going to lose with your best players on the field at the end of the game? Are you going to lose having defended a 1-0 advantage by playing the way that gave you the goal or by giving up the ball and the field? Are you going to lose having made substitutions geared toward grabbing victory, or geared towards avoiding defeat?

How you answer these questions determines who you are, and how you think the game should be played. Given luck and accident, all we can do is answer them. It's not given to us to achieve victory - only to deserve it.

Forsaken

2006-07-01T10:55:00.000-04:00

She speaks for all of us at the LHG.

A Call to Prayer

2006-06-25T23:44:00.000-04:00

Argentina plays Germany on Friday (11am US east coast time) for the quarterfinals of the World Cup. To eliminate Germany from their own World Cup would be phe no me nal. (In the 1990 World Cup played in Italy, Argentina beat Italy in the semifinals).

So please, pray for Argentina to win. If enough of you do and they win, the whole LHG staff promises to break a twenty year absence from the confession booth.

Burning Questions Answered

2006-06-25T23:16:00.000-04:00

As the staff continues to refuse to work during World Cup, LHG wants to thank its loyal readership for their patience and support. As a token of our appreciation, we will, for one time only, break our vows of secrecy and answer three questions posed by a curious reader:

Anonymous said...
Where is the left hand of god's office located? how much staff does it have? are any of the writers cute?

a. Our offices are both everywhere and nowhere. Since we need to stay one step ahead of God to do our job right, we're constantly on the move. We're like those nuts who drive around trying to anticipate a tornado, except we've got no sophisticated equipment and so go by smell, and God is the tornado (or whirlwind).

b. Honestly, it's impossible to know. We operate in fully independent sleeper cells of one. Perhaps 20, perhaps 200.

c. They're all really really good looking, until you actually meet them.

Some things are just more important than God

2006-06-14T17:56:00.000-04:00

and the World Cup is one of those things. Our staff demanded the right to watch the world's greatest sporting event in a country where people actually cared - so we moved the office to Buenos Aires. Now, however, we can't tear them away from the TV.

So LHG will be back, after World Cup.

PS. Comment of the day, from Oranguteena: "you sometimes remind me of Woody Allen." (Sad but true. Am just not aging well...)

Thanks for commenting: On Zizek and Opus Dei #2

2006-06-06T12:06:00.000-04:00

Hernanii responds: "I don't mind you used my comment as a post, but i'd say I was very sad to read your reply. To say that the current sexual environment is a "consumer good" is a very mean thing to say. I'm sure you don't tell gay people that their sexuality is a "consumer good". Another thing: the people championing the sexual revolution thought their approach to sex was "better" than the repressed and myth-prone approach their parents had, not just "different" or "countercultural". if tolerance and openness are dominant now, that is a GOOD thing. plus: the unbelievable smugness of this expression: "those who seek more radical social and cultural change".

LHG: Let us clarify the position taken in our offices. First, we purposefully didn't use gay rights and gay sexuality as an example because we believe that the movement toward full acceptance of gay rights - including those rights that are most controversial because of their sexuality (marriage, adoption, etc) - is perhaps the most progressive cultural/sexual movement available today, especially in the United States. Gay sex and gay sexuality, as far as we at the LHG can see, has not been turned into a consumer good.

Second, you're right, those involved in the sexual revolution thought their position was not just countercultural but better, the former word doesn't do justice to the position. But the sexual revolution wasn't just about the physical act of sex, it was, more importantly, about transforming the way people related to each other; it was about a transformation in human relationships (which is also how we understand the struggle for gay rights). Today, when heterosexual sex has seeped into every aspect of culture, from the mass media to advertising to illness to the pharmaceutical industry, abstaining from consuming heterosexual sex as a product could very well be the beginning of a change in human relationships.

Third, often "those who seek more radical social and cultural change" have fallen prey to an elitist snobbery. If so, however, the fault lies in the person and not the ambition. It seems to us that the call to consumption, made from the First world, begs the question of who's doing the consuming. The expansion of what could be called the right to consume in the Third world would be the product of "radical social and cultural change." Within the First, however, it seems if not reactionary at least irresponsible.

PS. Are we really far apart in our views?
PSii. A recent office poll revealed that those at the LHG who abstain from sex, sadly, don't do so of their own free will.

Thanks for Commenting: On Zizek and Opus Dei

2006-06-05T16:41:00.000-04:00

In reference to the post connecting Zizek and Opus Dei, Hernanii comments:"Ivo, you see? This is what I mean when I say that the progressive approach to consumerism is just as puritan and repressed and conservative as the religious one: you shouldn't enjoy yourself. For LHG it's a funny coincidence, for me it's a signal that progressive philosophy, the one that championed the sex revolution, gay rights and the legalization of drugs, now wants us all to be monks."

"Wants us all to be monks." That's well put. But LHG isn't sure it should be seen as something negative. The sexual revolution rebelled against the hypocrisy and repression of a Victorian morality - it was clearly countercultural. Today, however, sex finds its way into practically every consumer good, and is perhaps even the primary consumer good. Sex, therefore, is an intrinsic part of dominant culture today. When every revolutionary ideal has been incorporated and turned into a consumer good, what path is left for those who seek more radical social and cultural change? The LHG is reminded of Marcuse, who once said that the beginning of revolutionary change will begin when one day people decide they're not going to work...

PS. Heranii, LHG apologizes for taking your comment and using it as a post, but it saves the staff from having to come up with a new idea.

On Zizek and Opus Dei

2006-06-02T14:18:00.000-04:00

LHG was recently challenged to draw a link between rock star Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek and Opus Dei. Here it is: A central insight of pyschoanalysis is that all social orders are based on repression that block challenges to that order. Mental health, in turn, requires liberation from those repressions. According to Zizek (and LHG likes this argument) contemporary capitalism works a tad differently. Today capitalism works not by repressing but rather by presenting us with the possibility of satisfying an ever extending set of desires - social control comes not from repression, but from the satisfaction of those desires. Liberation, therefore, requires abandoning the pursuit of such satisfaction.

What does have to do with Opus Dei? Paul Fortunato - an Opus Dei member who openly admits to using the cilice (that spiky thing on the leg) and a professor at the University of Houston - gives us a clue in his Op Ed piece in today's New York Times. He writes: "One key element behind corporal mortification is to feel solidarity with the poor and the suffering, denying oneself some comfort, whether it be by fasting or wearing a cilice. I have explained what a relief it is to make my life uncomfortable, how liberating it is to unplug from the consumerist, instant-gratification culture that dominates us. Without the cilice, I find my life as an American consumer unbearably comfortable."

Here's the connection with Zizek: Corporal mortification runs against what are perhaps the strongest desires within our contemporary capitalist order - those of the flesh. Opus Dei's use of the cilice can be understood as a way to step aside from the pursuit of bodily satisfaction. It goes against the capitalist glorification of bodily pleasure. From this standpoint, the cilice is far from a medieval leftover - it's actually 21st century liberation.

To kneel or not to kneel

2006-05-31T11:00:00.000-04:00

Working at the LHG is a thankless task. Not only are we understaffed, malnourished, and barely read - but lets face it, religion nowadays usually isn't a happy topic. You have no idea the number of fanatics, bigots, murderers, molesters, and tooth fairies that show up at our office every day. Yet every now and then there is a ray of hope. Change may be on the horizon.

For example, the U.S. Catholic church is in the midst of a gripping and momentous debate as to whether it's kosher to kneel in church. As the Los Angeles Times Reports: "The debate is part of the argument among Catholics between tradition and change. Traditionalists see it as the ultimate posture of submission to and adoration of God; modernists view kneeling as the vestige of a feudal past they would like to leave behind."

Some churches have banned kneeling, altar boys have lost their jobs for kneeling, parishioners have walked out of mass to kneel outside church. It's heartening to see the Catholic church tackle the great moral issues of our time.

LHG on this debate: Get a life.

From London

2006-05-23T13:32:00.000-04:00

LHG is in London - will post again next week.

Finally, a church I can believe in

2006-05-18T17:53:00.000-04:00

Vamos carajo

Soccer or God? The choice is clear: Anglican clergy don't care if the Second Coming is near - they want to watch the World Cup.

But beware.

To quote Bob: "The Archbishop of Canterbury and others might remember the last time religion and English football mixed at the World Cup. A little something called the Hand of God."

Amen.

God works in mysterious ways

2006-05-17T11:37:00.000-04:00

Professors: the unsung heroes of our time

While the Da Vinci Code movie apparently almost sucks - its negative portrayal of Opus Dei has benefited the organization, leading to a rise in people interested in joining its army of murderous albino monks.

What does the LHG think? We support any book or movie that has a heroic professor as the star.

Sex, Babies and Catholics

2006-05-16T12:30:00.000-04:00

Monica Bellucci: Gotta love the unitive

A cool argument, courtesy of Charlotte Woods-Hill:

First, let me set it up:

For the Vatican, couples who are finding it impossible to have children can only resort to treatments and techniques were no donor is used, no spare embryos are created and the means of assisting the infertile couple to have children does not replace sexual intercourse within a marriage. While in some cases the rejection stems from the status of the embryo (within Catholicism the embryo is a person, so the destruction of unused embryos within invitro fertilization is akin to murder) in all cases the rejection is based on the Catholic understanding of the sexual act.

Sex is valid when, within marriage between a man and a woman, it combines two elements: the unitive element, and the procreative element. In a nutshell, sex needs to include a husband and a wife actually engaging in intercourse (the unitive) without contraception and so open to the creation of new life (the procreative). This understanding rules out:

a. donated sperm (violates the unitive - sperm doesn't come from the husband and sex between the couple isn't involved).
b. donated eggs or a surrogate mother (violates the unitive - egg doesn't come from the wife and sex between the couple isn't involved).
c. artificial insemination of the wife with the husband's sperm (violates the unitive - this time wife and husband are included, but no sex between them).

Now let's use artificial insemination to exemplify the argument:

The Vatican opposes artificial insemination because it violates the unity of man and woman within procreation. The problem, however, is that this understanding of procreation is based on the guy's experience of procreation and ignores the girl's. Think about it - the guy is only involved when sex is taking place; for him the unitive and procreative are literally inseparable. To be blunt, he only participates when inside. It's quite different for the girl - for her procreation goes beyond the sexual act - the unity of the bodies - into a nine month process. For the girl, the unity between the unitive and the procreative is just a part of a much longer process which is her own. If one went by the female experience, one of the major arguments against artificial insemination comes unglued.

The upshot: In this at least, Catholic theology is not neutral or mainstream. Instead, to quote Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, it's malestream - unwittingly based on the male experience.

Madame Bovary

2006-05-16T09:25:00.000-04:00

Shave those legs

We've never been a fan of Madame Bovary; but we do find Flaubert's temper amusing. This is from an 1872 letter:

"All this for the sole purpose of spitting out on my contemporaries the disgust they inspire in me. I shall proclaim my way of thinking, exhale my resentment, vomit my hatred, expectorate my bile, ejaculate my anger, sluice out my indignation..."

Judas Iscariot, Savior

2006-05-15T00:33:00.000-04:00

I bet you've betrayed with a kiss

For all the recent hoopla surrounding the Gospel of Judas, the best retelling of Judas' treason remains Borges' short story "Three Versions of Judas." It makes Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code look as controversial as Sunday brunch.

Read it, and spread the word.

French or Freedom Fries: Thanks for Commenting

2006-05-14T12:50:00.000-04:00

Hernanii, author of the forthcoming bestseller Golden Boys, writes:

Hernanii: ivo, do you really think 9/11 has this kind of explanation: american bombs pouring on an innocent world? which bombs? where? careful: you are only halfway of saying that 9/11 was "deserved".

Hernanii: reading more carefully, i realize now that you're not endorsing any specific views, you're just using an infortunate comic strip.

LHG: Hernanii, in no way does the LHG believe 9/11 was deserved. On this, there is a view that we do endorse - 9/11 was an atrocity. Perhaps the comic strip is unfortunate but it does highlight another view held at the LHG, that there are actually some valid reasons why the US is disliked abroad - which can be summed up by saying that the US relates to the rest of the world in terms of double standards. Just a few examples: a hypocritical foreign policy, the use of military might or covert operations or sanctions to unsettle foreign governments and punish populations, refusing to subscribe to international treaties, allowing itself the preemptive strike use of nuclear weapons, violating the Geneva convention and more.

Here's another article that reflects on the "hate US" phenomenon, this time focusing on the US's "soft power," its cultural influence.

PS. For the record (and for the office in charge of green card applications): the LHG is actually rather fond of the US...

French or Freedom Fries

2006-05-13T01:59:00.000-04:00

These books offer an answer...

Did Howard Dean just mess up...

2006-05-11T23:12:00.000-04:00

Dean: the rebel yell

the party platform on gays, or is this another example of what we at the LHG call strategy #3 - "if you can't beat them join them?"

The Dismal Science

2006-05-11T18:08:00.000-04:00

Why can't a nation sue an economic team for malpractice? If you're a doctor and you give a wrong diagnosis that leads to death, or the wrong medicine that leads to serious injury, you can be sued for malpractice. So why not sue an economic team or institution for prescribing the wrong policy advice when that advice leads to tragic economic consequences?

Economists often tell you to think in the long term, but as Keynes once put it, "in the long term we're all dead."

Idolatry alive and well #2: thanks for commenting

2006-05-11T17:25:00.000-04:00

In reference to the posting "Idolatry alive and well #2," Kelly12luv@yahoo.com writes: "Of course the institutions of the world govern according to this policy. Institutions (politics plus business) fundamentally lack ethics and morality because it is not tied to profit. Now ethical behavior may be governed through laws and legislation, and on the surface most MNC's preach ethical business behavior (a must in order to save face), but we all know there are MANY loop holes that these corporations exploit and go unnoticed to the average constituent and consumer. The sad truth is that unless ethical behavior can be tied to profits or regulated through laws, most corporations will rape, embezzle, steal, and exploit the unprotected and unrepresented (i.e., the poor, the environment, and the animals).... Thank god for the watch dog companies- these are the people we need to support. "

LHG: Yes, corporations often exploit and watchdog companies are important to monitor and inform the public of such behavior. From our perspective, however, the problem runs deeper. The LHG believes it's possible to argue that the institutions that govern the global economic order - the IMF, World Bank and the WTO - are creating a system in which it is harder and harder for poor countries to overcome their poverty. A simple example: today's rich countries weren't born rich, they grew rich through weak intellectual property rights and protected industries (not to mention slavery and colonialism). Yet today strong intellectual property rights - the same kind that condemns thousands to death in Africa through AIDS - and the opening up of national industries to foreign competition is the norm. The US, however, was famous for stealing technology from other countries and most European countries didn't set up a strong patent for pharmaceutical products until the 1970's - when they had a comparative advantage in the field. Another simple example: How can a country that doesn't produce anything other than, say, bananas, start to produce cars or computers unless it can protect the infant industry? It's impossible, it takes time to be able to compete with established producers.

Why the focus on depriving poor countries of the very same tools once (and often still) used by the rich? Here's one suggestion, penned by Friedrich List, a well known economist who lived in the 19th century:

"It is a very clever common device that when anyone has attained the summit of greatness, he kicks away the ladder by which he has climbed up, in order to deprive others of the means of climbing up after him...Any nation which by means of protective duties and restrictions on navigation has raised her manufacturing power and her navigation to such a degree of development that no other nation can sustain free competition with her, can do nothing wiser than to throw away the ladders of her greatness, to preach to other nations the benefits of free trade, and to declare in pertinent tones that she has hitherto wandered in the paths of error, and has now for the first time succeeded in discovering the truth."

Kelly12luv, thanks for commenting.

Got Balls?

2006-05-09T01:14:00.000-04:00

Balls: the bigger, the better

The Democratic Party is finally trying to come up with a vision of what it stands for. That's good news, but here at the LHG we do have one concern. It's easy to find the balls to develop a vision when the other party is in disarray. It's harder when your opponent is strong, and yet that's when it's most necessary. The firmer the Republican hold on congress, the house and the presidency, the greater the Democrat's need for a compelling vision for themselves and the nation as a whole. Otherwise the latter's only strategy is to hope for the former's failure; a strategy, needless to say, lacking both vision and balls. So, are these newfound balls muchos huevos grandes or more like the mushy little cocoa puffs LHG fondly ate before discovering cocoa pebbles?

Only time will tell.

So sue me

2006-05-08T23:45:00.000-04:00

Lawyers knocking on your door? Rejoice, they're spreading Christian love.

Sex, or la Novia Manuela

2006-05-08T00:49:00.000-04:00

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Sex is a no win proposition: If you don't wear a condom you're an irresponsible bastard; and if you do, you're a sinful bastard.

A Line to Remember

2006-05-05T12:34:00.000-04:00

Casting His Economist's Spell

Famed economist John Kenneth Gailbrath died recently. Here's a great quotation, stolen from la ciencia maldita: "if you can't comfort the afflicted, at least afflict the comfortable."

That's a line I want to remember.

Top Ten Reasons Why Democrats Need to Get Religion

2006-05-05T00:40:00.000-04:00

10. 45 percent of Americans percent go to a religious service once a week.

9. 61 percent of all voters go to a religious service once or twice a month.

8. Two-thirds of all voters are members of a religious congregation.

7. Eight in ten Americans believe in judgement day.

6. 84 of Americans percent believe that Jesus is the son of God.

5. 90 percent believe in heaven.

4. 90 percent pray to God

3. 96 percent of Americans believe in God

2. Half of the Americans who believe in God claim to have experienced God’s presence in the past twenty four hours (I’m hoping today is my lucky day).

1. The U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the world

Idolatry alive and well #2: Thanks for Commenting

2006-05-05T00:16:00.000-04:00

In reference to my posting on idolatry as incarnated in TRIPS and pharmaceutical companies, Confucious-Pillar writes (LHG commentary inserted inbetween):

CP: While it is very easy to place all the blame for this supposed atrocity on U.S. pharmaceutical companies (whom I, for the record, do not support in any way. They steal from their own people too.), at what point do we hold individuals responsible for their own plights? AIDS is treatable upon manifestation, but its transfer is also highly treatable via a much less costly option: abstinence. Contemporary statistics as per South African Police reports entail that a South African woman is raped every 36 seconds, and a child every 15 minutes. Surely it is our duty as educated individuals to share our abundant knowledge, and thanks to individuals like Bill Gates (who is responsible for the single largest charity effort known to man), Africa is currently developing the infrastructure necessary for the spread of information and ideas.

LHG: Yes, contracting AIDS is often the result of irresponsible conduct - but that doesn't change the fundamental issue. Currently, it's only those who can afford the high cost of such drugs - the wealthy minority of humankind - who don't pay for their irresponsibility with their lives. For the majority, death is the price.

CP: I'm not contending that our current administration is justified in its hypocrisy, but were we even able to offer cost-effective, even free HIV treatment to third world countries, would they have the necessary infrastructure to administer these treatments? Also, who would ensure that this medication doesn't fall into the hands of other self serving individuals who would seek to horde supplies in lieu of helping those in need? I realize that pharmaceutical companies bickering over intellectual property laws does little to amend the problem, but giving away the fruits of our labors to a people who would scarcely know what to do with them could prove even more disastrous.

LHG: They do. South Africa and Brazil provide two examples of countries that are able to provide AIDS drugs to their population far below the cost of such drugs in the United States. Of course, an underlying issue is whether health should be considered a fundamental human right.

CP: I agree that medicinal information should be available to all those in need, but at what point do we recognize the fact that the development of advanced HIV treatment consumes a tremendous amount of tangible resources (not to mention countless hours of research by individuals who could easily find a higher wage designing anti-depressants)? I firmly believe that the U.S. should make some sacrifices for the third world that drives our super-consumption, but the problems go much deeper than simple matters of medicine.

LHG: Drug companies argue that patents are needed to recoup the money spent on research and development of new drugs. Studies have shown, however, that U.S. drug companies often spend more on marketing, advertising and administration than they do on research and development. Of the 1035 new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug administration between 1989 and 2000 only 15 per cent were innovative drugs. The others were modified versions of new drugs with low research and development costs. In the specific case of AIDS, many drugs were developed by publicly funded laboratories and tested with public funds. To top it off, pharmaceutical companies based in the United States, Europe or Japan today barely produce, let alone research, drugs against malaria or tuberculosis, which ravage the Third World yet are extremely rare in the industrialized nations. The whole industry is geared toward the wealthy - either by focusing on drugs that are of interest to the wealthy or pricing drugs so that only the wealthy can afford them. Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor is good on this topic.

Confucius-Pillar, thanks for commenting - what would I do without you?

Gandhi Phone Home

2006-05-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

Gandhi made ahimsa (non-violence, non-injury) the centerpiece of his understanding of Hinduism. Unfortunately, not everybody agreed; he was murdered by a Hindu nationalist with a fundamentalist take on Hinduism.

As the reaction to this movie shows, Hindu fundamentalism is alive and kicking. Yes, Islam is not the only religion with an active fundamentalist streak.

Idolatry alive and well #2

2006-05-03T12:13:00.000-04:00

Remember my post "Idolatry alive and well, " where I focused on Larry Summer's justification for dumping polluting industries in the poorest parts of the globe? LHG is toying with the idea of arguing that Summers' line of reasoning isn't an aberration - it's actually how the world works. What the hell, I'll say it - the institutions that govern the world operate according to that idolatrous logic. Here's an example - the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement the World Trade Organization (WTO). I know it sounds dry, but bear with me.

TRIPS has to do with patents and the stakes are most visible when dealing with the pharmaceutical industry. Here's an example: In 2002, the World Health Organization estimated that six million people with HIV/AIDS would clinically qualify for antiretroviral therapy. In the same year, however, only an estimated 60,000 were actually receiving therapy. TRIPS, the pharmaceutical industry, and the governments of the wealthy nations act together to ensure that only those who can pay the price of drugs are able to live with AIDS.

In South Africa, AIDS is a pandemic: the South African economy is predicted to be 17 per cent smaller in ten years than it would be without AIDS. By 2010, there are expected to be 2 million AIDS orphans in South Africa. To deal with the crisis the South African government passed the Medicine Act in 1996, which tried to make essential medicines more accesible through, for example, compulsory licensing. (In compulsory licensing you break the patent and produce the drug yourself at far lower cost. AIDS therapy that costs $15,000 a yr in the US costs only $4000 or less in Brazil).

In response, the United States government argued that the Medicine Act violated TRIPS, imposed trade sanctions and placed South Africa on the “301 Watch List” of countries under scrutiny for their trading practices. Only intense activist pressure on Al Gore, who was then campaigning for President, led the US government to back down. Nevertheless, thirty nine multinational drug companies filed lawsuits against President Mandela in 1998 further tying up the law in South African courts.

In 2001, on the other hand, Canada overrode Bayer’s patent for the anthrax treating drug Cipro. Health Canada stated: “Canadians expect and demand that their government will take all steps necessary to protect their health and safety.” Unlike AIDS in South Africa, however, Canada had yet to face a single diagnosed case of Anthrax. The United States followed suit by threatening to buy generic substitutes, asserting the very same rights denied to countries crippled by AIDS.

In this model, medicine is only for those who can pay, and is judged as valuable insofar as it can be paid for by the wealthy. James Orbinski, international president of Doctors Without Borders, summed it up: “He who can’t pay, dies.”

Sounds like Summers's logic to me...

What did Jesus do?

2006-05-02T16:58:00.000-04:00

LHG loves this description of what Jesus did....

There is silence all around. The Baptist appears, and cries: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled boy of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is his victory and His reign.

Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.) 370-371

What would Jesus do?

2006-05-01T11:35:00.000-04:00

Here at the LHG we both strongly agree and vehemently disagree with Gary Wills' take on Jesus and politics. We agree because Wills is right when he says that the Jesus of the Gospels "is dark, scary and demanding" - far more demanding than any secular politics can ever grasp. The ethics that Jesus taught - turn the other cheek, love your enemies, if asked for your coat give your cloak too - is just too radical to ever become an institutional politics. So to try to make his ethics a political program is to water down the message and thus betray the messenger.

Wills, however, skirts over a key problem. Why was Jesus so radical in his ethics? Most New Testament scholars believe Jesus was so radical for the simple reason that he thought that the end of the world as we know it was right around the corner. The Kingdom of God was at hand and thus our usual worldly concerns should no longer be of concern - none of our usual standards of behavior apply when God is about to build the Kingdom upon the ashes of the old.

So, there really is no easy way to put this: Jesus was wrong. God did not step in - the end of the world did not come. It's the fact that Jesus was wrong that makes Wills' answer simplistic. The Christian needs to draw connections between Jesus' ethic and contemporary politics because s/he can no longer assume the end of the world is near. The Christian must live, and live politically, here and now.

What Wills says should not be done, must be done. Otherwise Christianity has failed to learn the lesson from Jesus' mistake.

Are all deaths equal?

2006-05-01T01:44:00.000-04:00

“Since September 11, I’ve been thinking about that incident, about how we in the media participate in a process that confirms and reconfirms the idea that death and murder are tragic, extraordinary and intolerable in some places and banal, ordinary, unavoidable, even expected in others...Are we, in the media, neutral observers of this deadly mathematics? No. Sadly, it is we who do much of the counting. It is we who have the power to choose whose lives are presented in Technicolor, and whose in shades of grey. It is we who decide when to cry ‘tragedy’ and when to shrug ‘ordinary;’ when to celebrate heroes and when to let the bloodless statistics tell the story; who gets to be an anonymous victim - like the Africans killed in the U.S. embassy bombings in 1998 - and who gets to have a story, a family, a life - like the firefighters in New York. On September 11, watching TV replays of the buildings exploding over and over again in New York and Washington, I couldn’t help thinking about all the times media coverage has protected us from similar horrors elsewhere. During the Gulf War, for instance, we didn’t see real buildings exploding or people fleeing, we saw a sterile Space Invader battlefield, a bomb’s-eye view of concrete targets - there and then none. Who was in those abstract polygons? We never found out...The global “we” - as defined by London and New York - now reaches into places that are clearly not included in its narrow parameters, into homes and bars where local losses are not treated as global losses, where those local losses are somehow diminished relative to the grandness, the globalness of our projected plan.”

Naomi Klein, Fences and Windows: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (New York, NY: Picador USA, 2002) 165–67.

Hasta el Nobel no Paramos

2006-05-01T01:35:00.000-04:00

You got the scoop here - he's my friend, he'll be famous one day, and his blog is to your right...

Chill, it's just a movie

2006-04-28T13:30:00.000-04:00

The Vatican is calling for a boycott of the Da Vinci code flick. LHG really doesn't understand the uproar. The book is fiction, the movie is just a movie. Get over it. Maybe the staff here is just out of touch. What do you think?

Idolatry alive and well

2006-04-28T00:51:00.000-04:00

If I were Christian, I'd argue that God is a God that supports human life. Not just the life of the "soul" but also our concrete bodily life. An idol, on the other hand, requires human sacrifices. So any line of reasoning that justifies the sacrifice of human life is by definition idolatrous.

Take, as an example, a memo written by Larry Summers while he was the World Bank Chief Economist and Vice-President for Development Economics. In the memo, Summers presents the economic logic behind the dumping of polluting industries in the poorest parts of the globe. This is the key argument: "the measurements of the cost of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."

The reasoning is simple. If one were to place toxic waste in a rich country it would lead to the illness and death of wealthy people with high life expectancy. Lets say that a North American or European contributes $20,000 per year to the global economy while an inhabitant of one of the lowest wage countries contributes a paltry $360 per year. If both are forty years old, the wealthier of the two can be expected to work for at least twenty five more years during which he will contribute another $500,000. The poor person at forty, on the other hand, will likely work for only fifteen more years to muster a mere $5,400. In economic terms, the lives of the wealthy are far more important to the workings of the global economy than the lives of the poor - so it's economically logical that illness and death should occur in places where the lost earnings will be the least.

Notice the outcome: when worth is measured according to this logic the poor are inevitably sacrificed, and that sacrifice, moreover, is scandalously justified as legitimate.

Ugly Truths

2006-04-27T13:14:00.000-04:00

I'll be using this data to make a case for "idolatry" as a concept to better understand our world...

What Religion Would You Recommend?: Thanks for commenting #2

2006-04-27T01:23:00.000-04:00

Anonymous writes (edited, you can read the rest in comments section): "Isn't it amazing that many of the religious claims still stand even thousands of years later and people believe they receive truth in them when many theories in other areas have actually been proven completely false."

LHG says:

Of course, an issue here is how you would actually disprove a religious claim. Take religious experience as an example. If somebody tells you God talks to them - how would you counter that claim? To do so, you'd have to go to the source of an experience which is tough to do. A different way to go about it is to stress not the source, but rather the effects. In the history of Christianity a conversion is often deemed real if it's expressed in a life of piety - the effects determine whether the conversion experience was real.

On the other hand, anonymous, lots of religious claims have been disproved and people don't really care. The Gospels, for example, are not historical documents. They don't give us factual accounts of Jesus' life. Yet lots of Christians still think they do. And yes, that's often were faith comes in. But it comes at the price of sacrificing our capacity for criticism. Interestingly, Islam has a different understanding of faith than Protestant Christianity. Protestant Christianity often sees faith as a kind of believing without reason, for Islam it's reason that leads to faith.

Thanks for your comment, and good night.

What Religion Would You Recommend?: Thanks for commenting #1

2006-04-26T21:05:00.000-04:00

In response to my post "What Religion Would You Recommend?" Confucius-Pillar writes (edited, you can see the full version of the response in comments):

"Why, if we have known of man's fatal weaknesses for so long, do we continue our destructive cycles? I contend that this cardinal sin reigns supreme above the rest, for in pride, we neglect to learn from our errors. Perhaps this is why we practice religion, and certainly why, when asked which one is right, I can only respond: all of them, and none of them."

LHG agrees with placing pride at the forefront of the seven deadly sins - but wants to press further the idea of recommending a religion. Why assume that one must choose among one of the religious traditions? Why can't we choose elements from different traditions? We tend to see religions as sovereign states that jealously guard their boundaries; you can't belong to more than one religion without feeling like a traitor to your faith. Instead, LHG likes to think that while you may have been born into one religion, as a human being all religions are part of your spiritual inheritance - and you've got as much of a right to them as a native adherent. So perhaps choice is not just between religions, it's among different ideas within all the religions.

PS. Confucius-Pillar, thanks for your comments!

Fear and trembling institutionalized?

2006-04-25T20:11:00.000-04:00

Kierkegaard, from me to you

A random thought: can Qutb's political program be seen as the social embodiment of Kierkegaard's vision in Fear and Trembling? I'm not suggesting that Qutb read Kierkegaard - I don't know whether he did or not - but if one were to take Kierkegaard's argument (which was centered on the individual) and try to give it a social program, woulden't you end up with something Qutb like?

On Islamic Extremism: Qutb and his Vision

2006-04-25T14:00:00.000-04:00

Qutb's vision:

a. The governments in the Islamic world are in a state of unbelief, much like the condition of the world before the advent of Islam.
b. These governments create their own law and in so doing stand against God's law. In standing against God's law they lose all legitimacy.
c. A religious/political vanguard needs to be created that will struggle against the effects of unbelief.
d. The model of training for that vanguard will be the Quran. Here he's looking back at Muhammad and the expansion of the early Islamic community. The idea is that they were successful because all they had as a guide was the Quran. For Muslims to once again thrive they need to turn back to their sacred text.

What comes next the LHG actually finds very cool:

Creating a truly Islamic government is not just a human desire, it's God's will. God has created everything and thus has rights over everything. Secular government and society places humanity and our laws before God. For Qutb, unless Islamic law rules, we're guilty of idolatry - worshipping ourselves and our desires over God.

What the LHG likes about this is the great urgency behind this vision and the way it's connected to democracy. For Qutb, a true democracy - a true egalitarian vision - can only take place if we live under God's law. Otherwise, some people rule over other people.

Anyway, cool - but also dangerous.

Hurting for Egypt

2006-04-25T11:03:00.000-04:00

Read Sayyid Qutb's Milestones if you want to understand

what happened in Egypt yesterday and gain a glimpse into the worldview of Islamic extremism. It was deemed so dangerous that anyone in Egypt who owned a copy could be arrested and tried with sedition.

And if you don't i'll tell you about it later. Left hand of God is off to his weekly soccer game...

Summing up:

2006-04-25T00:17:00.000-04:00

Republicans won on a platform of family, morality and God. That’s bad news for democrats; it’s hard to run on a platform of anti-family, immorality and Satan worship. This is not Portugal.

Ed Helms, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Strike 1, strike 2, strike 3 - you're out!

2006-04-24T00:01:00.000-04:00

For the Left Hand of God (LHG), of all the ways Democrats are striking out, the "if you can't beat them, join them" approach is both the best and the most disturbing of the three. Let's look at the three strikes one more time:

The strength of the "avoid it like the plague approach" lies in that it's a position taken from conviction; the politician in question really doesn't believe in mixing politics and religion. LHG respects that. It's weakness, however, is fatal. It hands over the religion and values camp to Republicans on a platter. God becomes a Republican, by default.

The strength of the "hey, I'm religious too approach" is that the politician has barely tried to come up with something substantive, or even decent, to contribute to political debate. And as they say, if you don't try you can't really fail either. The weakness, however, is the same as the strength. You've barely tried, so why the hell should we vote for you?

Finally, the strength of the "if you can't beat them, join them approach" comes from a politician making a real substantive attempt to grapple with religion in relation to public policy. This is what needs to be done if Republican aren't going to play the God card by themselves. Thumbs up, so far it's the strongest of the three. The weakness, however, is also the most disturbing of them all. Think about it: You've gone beyond position one and brought religion to play with politics, you've gone beyond position two and actually TRIED; but, lo and behold, you've failed! You failed because in the process of developing a positions that bring together religion and politics you've abdicated your convictions and mimicked the Republican platform.

This is tremendously disturbing. When trying to develop a progressive approach to religion and politics the best Democrats can muster is to look like fuzzy Republicans - the Republican program with a 10% discount. Is this really the best that can be done? Is there really no room for religious discourse in a progressive political platform? Is it really true that to make room for religion the politics needs to become more conservative?

LHG, for one, refuse to believe that's the case.

Three strikes and you're out: on democrats and religion (strike 3)

2006-04-23T18:04:00.000-04:00

Strike #3: the "if you can't beat them, join them approach." This position is better than strike 1 insofar as it recognizes that a politician in the United States today must draw an explicit link between religion (or at least value talk) and politics. It's also better than strike 2 in that it tries to give substantive content to a position, rather than merely giving examples of one's own religiosity (I was an altar boy, I go to church, I pray, etc). Strike 3's fatal flaw, however, comes from the fact that when adopted you've given up on your own moral and political convictions - the Democrat becomes a Republican.

Can you recommend a religion?

2006-04-22T17:32:00.000-04:00

To some religion should always be talked about with great respect. For them, religion is different from economics or political science or literature, because it touches upon the deepest beliefs and feelings a person might have. It's one thing to critique or make fun of shakespeare, it's quite another to critique or make fun of the bible.

But isn't this position intellectually dishonest? It seems to boil down to the following statement: "Use your full critical capacity when examining all spheres of life - except for religion. When it comes to religion, leave those critical capacities at the door." Here at the Left Hand of God, we believe religion is worthy of the same merciless rigor with which we should examine all expressions of our humanity.

In fact, we like John Dewey. For Dewey the main problem with religion was not this or that article of belief. The problem was not that it required believing stuff that given modern science it's now hard to believe. It's deeper. Religion requires a mode of imparting truth that is just not compatible with a democratic society. Religions impart truth from the top down - when it comes to truth they're hierarchical and often authoritarian. Democracies, on the other hand, need open debate and discussion to flourish. You just can't have a thriving democracy when people are not allowed to challenge authority, when truth is given once and for all.

What kind of religion would you recommend for a democracy? The whole idea of recommending a religion sounds strange. But should it?

Three strikes and you're out: on democrats and religion (strikes #1 and 2)

2006-04-21T16:44:00.000-04:00

The Democratic party has three approaches to religion and politics - and all three are, to put it mildly, rather lame.

Strike 1: the "avoid it like the plague approach" - you avoid talking about religion because you believe in the separation between church and state. Unfortunately for democrats, the outcome is that republicans get to carry the banner of religion unopposed.

Strike 2: the “hey, I’m religious too! approach" - when you see that your opponent’s shameless use of religion is getting votes, you chip in “hey, I’m religious too!” Kerry, for example, tells us he’s an altar boy, as if that would make him a good president. Who cares if he’s never talked about his faith before. Sad.

Strike 3: on monday

Reza Aslan

2006-04-19T00:46:00.000-04:00

I know envy is one of the seven deadly sins, but i just saw Reza Aslan on the Colbert Report. The guy's everywhere. Who's his agent? And how can i get in touch with him (or her)?

What do Michael Lerner and Diego Maradona have in common?

2006-04-18T22:06:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know that Michael Lerner just published a book titled The Left Hand of God - but i swear that this blog's name is neither a tribute to his book nor proof of my lack of originality (note: proof may be forthcoming in later weeks).

The year is 1986, the place is mexico city, the time is mid-afternoon, the event is quarterfinals of the World Cup, the teams are Argentina and England. In 1982, a mere four yrs before, the same nations fought the Malvinas/Falklands war and Argentina got its butt whipped. This time, however, Argentina would carry the day: 2-1. And in the process Diego Maradona, the greatest soccer player of all time, scored both the most beautiful and the most infamous goals in World Cup history. In the former, he received the ball just behind mid field and dribbled past half the english team and the goalie. In the latter, maradona - all of 5 feet 4 inches - miraculously levitated over english goalie shilton - 6 feet plus - and may have punched the ball into the net with his left fist (you be the judge). "Was it a hand ball?", he was asked after the game. If it was, Maradona smiled, "it was the hand of god."

That's where this blog's name comes from. But this excursion isn't just an apology to lerner, it also sets up a point which relates to the perspective from which we think about issues, including religion. It's late, i'll make the point tomorrow.