A Faith Restoring Event (a father, his son and his wife)

[From Bill Lifka (who I believe is a Cubs fan :^)] America is about to celebrate its 239th birthday. Sometimes I doubt it will reach 250 without collapsing for financial/economic reasons or the American Civil War II. When I get to thinking that way, something happens that restores my faith in Americans. It’s American people who will determine America’s future, so the faith restoring event always involves people. It doesn’t take a lot of good people to boost my morale since, as the song goes, “Give me ten stout-hearted men and I’ll soon give you ten thousand more.” 

This time it took three: a father, his son and his wife. Strangely enough, the event occurred in Illinois, the only State most likely to precede California into bankruptcy because a majority of its citizens have refused to admit what’s wrong. Adding to the unlikely setting, the event occurred in Chicago where the murder rate of young Black men exceeds that experienced in the Gulf Wars for the American military because a majority of citizens have refused to admit what’s wrong. 

It happened in Wrigley Field: the site of so many failures by the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Two days after Father’s Day, Keith Hartley took his son to a night game between the Cubs and the Dodgers. That isn’t unusual except the son Isaac is seven months old and wife, Kari, tagged along for boy’s night out. 

So there they are sitting a few rows back in the first base box seats and Isaac (I’m betting his nickname will be Zack.) is eating like the rest of the fans, except his is a bottle of milk capped with a nipple. The Cub’s batter fouls one off in their direction. The fans in the first two rows lean away and try to ward off the incoming ball. 

Not Keith and Zack. 

Keith moves to the wall and neatly snags the ball in his bare right hand as the Dodger first baseman lunges futilely over the rolled infield tarp. Meanwhile, Zack is neatly tucked into his Dad’s left arm, his eyes on the ball, his bottle firmly clutched in his hands and mouth. 

Others may complain about risks but I applaud Keith’s instincts. He’d be one of my choices for the first ten stout-hearted men. Twenty years from now, Zack would make the first ten, properly taught by his father how to act like an American. The first lesson was in taking him to Wrigley Field before he was old enough to know the Cub’s historic record. Sure, they fall short of the mark most of the time, but they hang in there swinging and running and occasionally hitting the ball and often catching it. 

It’s the perseverance that’s deserving of emulation by all Americans, not to mention keeping one’s eyes on the ball, which Zack seems to have mastered at an early age. 

Then there’s Kari. She remarked, “I was a little bit nervous………. he held on tight to both the ball and Isaac, so we were OK.” There’s no reason why Kari couldn’t have been the one to catch the ball but I doubt she harbors any resentments it was Keith who did the job. Kari is one of those All-American wives and mothers who accept and encourage maleness in their men. 

How does this apply to all the nonsense in Executive Branch, Congress, Supreme Court and our international policies? America is going wrong because its leaders are like the guys in the first rows at Wrigley Field. They shy away from the ball for fear they might miss it and people would blame them. It might hit them on the head and knock them out of the game. They might catch it and not know what to do with it. With all the Republican candidates is there one who is a Keith Hartley act-alike? Forget the Democratic Party. Forget those Republicans who are demagogues. 

Bill Lifka

L/C Good Vibes vs Good Deeds

Do liberals earn less money that conservatives? Nope - liberal's family income averages 6 percent MORE than conservative families.

Do conservatives give less of their income to charity than liberals? Nope again - on average, conservative headed households give 30% MORE!

This surprising (to me) statistic throws new light on our ongoing L/C discussion. For the details, see Washington Post columnist George Will's recent column at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/26/AR2008032602916.html

Perhaps "compasionate conservative" is not an oxymoron? Perhaps liberals like to talk about helping the poor and downtrodden, but when they take action it is by taking higher taxes from the rich and giving it to the poor while keeping a bit for themselves in the form of bigger government with more social services jobs for them and more votes "bought" with government help programs paid for by us taxpayers?

The data in Will's column are from a Syracuse University professor's book and include the following:

• Conservatives give more blood and donate more time.
• Do you REJECT the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality"? If so, you belong to a group that give FOUR times more than those who accept that statement!
• People who live in the reddest states give nearly twice the percentage of income to charity as those in the bluest states.

Also mentioned is the strong correlation of altruism with being associated with an organized religion. Perhaps religious belief is the "The God Delusion" (Dawkins) http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2008/03/god-delusion.html and "god is not GREAT" (Hitchens) http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2007/12/god-is-not-great.html, but that type of faith leads to actual, personal giving while the opposite leads to talking about it and getting "good vibes."

Ira Glickstein

god is not Great

god is not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens is an easy read - that man can really write! I found it interesting but full of irrelevant information and cheap argumentative tricks.

I know the scriptures are the writings of humans without the benefit of modern scientific educations. I know they have been translated and edited by humans for thousands of years. I am not a literal believer. Therefore, the rather obvious lack of scientifically verifiable content in holy books does not surprise me at all.
Hitchens claims (page 8) that religion has retarded development of civilization. On what evidence? None that I could find. The very fact that all societies and great civilizations of the past have been infused with what many of us judge to be irrational spiritual belief seems to argue for the benefit of religion for their survival and spread. If religion retards civilization, one would expect non-believing societies, free from religious retardation, to have been most successful. Can anyone cite an example? History proves the opposite!
Hitchens relates how he was asked by Dennis Prager if, approached by a bunch of men on a dark evening in a strange neighborhood, he would be less worried about his safety if he knew they were coming out of a prayer meeting. He spouts (page 18) a litany of cities (Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, ... "and that is only the B's") where, during certain times in recent and ancient history he would be less confortable if confronted by men exiting a religious meeting. Hitchens lives in Washington, DC and spends most of his time away from home in New York, London, Los Angeles, and so on. What would any honest person's answer be to that question?
He goes out of his way to trash both Mother Teresa (page 145+) and Ghandi (page 182+).
Hitchens was a Marxist before he lost his faith in that hopeless cause. He supported Trotsky who was exiled and later murdered by Stalin. One wonders if Hitchens would still be a Marxist had Trotsky turned the tables and eliminated Stalin.
Based on experience of loss of faith in Marxism, he laments (page 153) the pain he knows his book is inflicting on the religious faithful. I wonder if he is simply jealous of their faith? Like a kid whose balloon has popped, he savors the experience of popping everyone else's balloon.
He misquotes Rabbi Hillel, one of our most influential Jewish scholars, claiming Hillel stated the Golden Rule in the postitive version (page 213): "Treat others as you wish to be treated." In fact, even the slightest research would have shown that Hillel used the negative version favored by most Jewish scholars. Hillel wrote: "That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."
He has an entire chapter entitled "Is Religion Child Abuse?" and concludes it is much worse (page 217) "'Child abuse' is really a silly and pathetic euphemism for what has been going on; the systematic rape and torture of children ..." He cites cases where children have indeeed been abused by priests of various religions, but that is an argumentative trick. If some Englishmen rape and torture children would it be right to say English civilization is all about rape and torture of children?

In a Comment to a previous Topic I noted Hitchens's reaction to what he calls "Hannukah" (he can't even spell it wrong the "right" way "Hanukkah" as major media do :-(

"Hannukah" is, in his words, a "vapid and annoying" holiday where "the Jews borrow shamelessly from Christians in the pathetic hope of a celebration that coincides with 'Christmas'".

Sorry it annoys Hitchens, but our grandchildren and children and fellow Jews northwest of Boston were anything but "pathetic" a couple weeks ago as we joyously lit the Chanukah candles and consumed more than our share of latkes. In a multi-generational recognition, Vi and I and our family had the honor of lighting one of the candles at a multi-congregation event in Chelmsford, MA.

The Maccabees, the heros of our Chanukah story of religious freedom, were, according to Hitchens, "forcibly restoring Mosaic fundamenalism against the many Jews .. attracted by Hellenism." In doing so, they sired "the stench of Calvin and Torquemada and bin Laden ... a poisonous branch that should have been snapped off long ago."

Hitchens apparantly believes it would have been better for monothesim to have been wiped out by Hellenists in 165 BC because that would have prevented the excesses of Christianity and Islam!

Again, on what historical basis can that claim be founded? The Maccabee revolt was in response to the Syrian Greek effort to replace our monotheistic God with their pantheon of gods. To that end, the Temple in Jerusalem was forceably Hellenized. The success of the Maccabees restored a more traditional Judaism to that area, made the Greeks and later the Romans more tolerant of religious diversity in their empires, and set the stage for the later development of Christianity.
Would western civilization have been better off with a pantheon of Greek gods?
I think the case is clear that western civilization is an amalgam of Judeo-Christian and Greek/Roman civilizations and each of those components makes it strong. Had the Judeo-Christian element been left out, I think eastern civilization and religion (i.e., Ghengis Khan) might have wiped us out. Would the world have been better off? I don't know. However, Hitchens seems to hate western civilization so much that he might prefer whatever would have followed from a Mongol success.

On the positive side (at least for me as a Pantheist) he notes Leslie Orgel's comment (page 84): "... evolution is smarter than you are." (Orgel was an associate of Francis Crick, DNA pioneer.)

He also writes (page 165) "... people can be better off believing in something than in nothing, however untrue that something may be."

Ira Glickstein