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Critique of the USA

For the past 73 years I have been an American. I have served my country for four years (two years living in a tent in Asia during the Korean War). Lately, I am not a proud American. I strongly believe that what we are doing right now is dead wrong.

A couple of years ago, I took part in a discussion of the idea, "My country, right or wrong." This is what I wrote:

Critique of USA -- February 10, 2002

The problem for me in criticizing the US is I don't know where to start.
I might start by comparing the US with another country where I spent a
considerable amount of time: Japan.

Japan is a civilized country. (Definition: good public transportation,
gun control, and no tipping :-)

The US is a gun-freak's heaven. Especially with the NRA champions in
the White House. The number of guns in the US is roughly equal to the
number of people. Or if it's not, it soon will be. The murder rate by
handguns in the US is about 35 per million population per year. In
Japan, the number is 0.12, the lowest in the developed world.

Except for air travel, public transportation is substantially
non-existent in the US, with a few exceptions. The oil and automobile
interests force government expenditures toward more and bigger highways
and freeways. The Amtrak passenger train system is ancient and
unreliable. If you want to take the train from San Francisco to
Chicago, you first take a bus to Oakland.

I lived in Japan for eight years without a car. Subways, trains, and
taxis are extremely reliable, safe, and clean.

In the US, elections are bought and sold by industrial interests.
Reforming the laws that govern campaign contributions is not likely to occur.
On Friday February 8, the Speaker of the House (Republican Hastert)
warned that if the pending campaign contribution reform legislation
was passed, it might cost the Republicans the control of the House.

The Enron disaster might force congress to do something. By the way, I
was very proud to learn that of the 192 members of congress that
received contributions from Enron, only one returned the money. That
was Ms. Anna Eshoo, my congressman.

The typical US citizen hasn't the foggiest notion of what is going on in
the rest of the world and doesn't really care. Only in coastal cities
will you find some sense of interest in overseas nations. The east
coast tends to focus on Europe; the west coast on Asia. The big middle
focuses on God and corn prices, in that order.

A citizen of Dubuque, Iowa or Lincoln, Nebraska is much more concerned
about government price supports for farmers that he is about starvation
in Africa.

More than half of Americans believe that the Christian bible is
historically accurate. They believe in a redeemer, but they don't act
redeemed. Billy Graham is a folk hero. Americans are "salad-bar
Christians": They take what they want and ignore the rest.
Homosexuality is an abomination under God, but kill all who go wrong.

Americans also tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to any foreigner who
criticizes them, especially the Brits. We quickly remind any Brit, or any
European for that matter, that without our heroic efforts they would all
be German.

We spend a trillion dollars a year defending the country against its
enemies. Osama bin Laden spent a few thousand and took out the World
Trade Center.

America is a big friendly dog who wanders into your house uninvited,
licks you all over to show how friendly he is, wags his tail and knocks
the dishes off the coffee table, then pisses on the carpet on the way
out.

Oscar Wilde said that America is the first country to go from barbarism
to degeneracy without the intermediate stage of civilization.

In my opinion, my country has room for improvement.

earle
*

Evolution and God

I responded to a poster on the Usenet NewsGroup talk.origins recently. The poster clearly did not understand evolution. I believe that the poster's words were taken directly from a publication by "Answers in Genesis", a young-earth-Christian (YEC) organization. The poster's comments are preceded by the 'greater-than' sign. My comments are preceded by ***.

> Evolution actually involves much more than life arising from non-life by
> natural means.
***
Evolution is a force that acts on living beings. It has nothing to
do with "life arising from non-life".
***

> Evolution really does away with God and thus allows people to
> explain their existence without any supernatural being involved.
> In fact, evolution is a whole philosophy of life which teaches that man by
> himself can determine truth-that there is no God.
***
Evolution in particular, and all of science in general, says nothing
about any God at all.
***

> In other words, they
> believe that life can be explained solely on the basis of what they see
> acting around them today. In essence, this is their religion!
***
You abuse the word 'religion'. And certainly the diversity of life
that we observe *can* be explained by the theory of evolution.
After withstanding 150 years of attacks, the theory of evolution is
stronger than ever and is still the *best* explanation of the
diversity of life.
***

> Part of the evolutionist's religion is that energy from the sun-acting on a
> primeval soup millions of years ago-caused the first life-forms to emerge.
> Thus, they believe that the sun really gave birth to living things. They are
> really giving glory to the sun's energy for life.
***
Hogwash. Scientists observe that energy on the earth comes from the
sun. They don't "worship" the sun. And again, evolution says
nothing about what caused the first life-forms to emerge.
***
>
> Down through the ages, culture after culture has worshipped the sun. If you
> recall, the Israelites were warned not to worship the sun like the pagan
> nations around them.
>
> Scientists may claim that evolution has nothing to do with religion, but it
> is their religion to worship creation instead of the God who created the sun
> and all life.
***
Evolution is not a religion. In spite of your overwhelming desire
to believe that evolution is a religion -- you are wrong. The
theory of evolution is an *explanation* based on *observation* and
not a *belief* based on *faith*.
***

earle
*
"Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone
but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on
reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles."

--James D. Watson

Our Founding Fathers: Christian?

I have heard with regard to the United States that "this is a Christian nation" and "this country was founded by Christians." I do not believe this at all. I think that many Americans have no idea about the religious thinking of such men as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. Most of these men could be called 'Deists', that is, those who believe in some ultimate univesal force, but not a personal God who takes an interest in one's day-to-day activities.

In this note, I want to present some quotes from our Founding Fathers, which I believe will give an accurate picture of their religious beliefs.

"The Christian god is a three headed monster, cruel, vengeful and capricious.
If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god,
one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him.
They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."

--Thomas Jefferson

"His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever a man worshiped a false god,
he did. The being described in his five points is ... a demon of malignant
spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to
blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin."

--Thomas Jefferson, Works, 1829 edition, vol. 4, quoted from Franklin Steiner

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible
propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them;
and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra
of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."

-- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp July 30, 1816
denouncing the doctrine of the Trinity and suggesting
it to be so riddled in falsehood that only an
authoritarian figure could decipher its meaning and,
with a firm grip on people's spiritual and mental
freedoms, thus convince the people of its truthfulness.

[On the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John on Jesus]:

"We find in the writings of his biographers ... a groundwork of vulgar ignorance,
of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications."

-- Thomas Jefferson, to William Short, August 4, 1822

John Adams, a Unitarian, flatly denied the doctrine of eternal damnation.
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, he wrote:

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the
abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved --
the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

". . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the
natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle
or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part
of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor
of the rights of mankind."

--John Adams

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a
revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables,
tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and
Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody
religion that ever existed?"

--John Adams

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented,
there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more
unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more
contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity."

--Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment
of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits?
More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy,
ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition,
bigotry and persecution."

--James Madison

"The government of the United States is not,
in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

--George Washington (Part of the Treaty of Tripoli - 1797)

Fishing Alone

I read a post to some newsgroup about fishing. In its entirety, here it is, with my response following:

Fishing -- 8-12-04

> > I believe I'll go fishing.
>
> Bah. Fishing is just an excuse to hang out with the guys and
> drink beer (or, in a distressing number of cases, horse piss) all day.
> I prefer to be honest with myself and just hang out with the
> guys and drink beer all day. I'll give the mosquitoes a miss.

*
The only way to fish is alone.

If you need an excuse to hang out with the guys, there are much better ways.

Fishing alone is a spiritual undertaking. The catching of fish is not the prime objective. In fact, the hooking of a fish interrupts the placid benevolence of the process. If a fish is caught, it demands that you depart the contemplative mood and take care of the problem at hand.

That is not all bad. As you gently bring the unfortunate victim of your singular pursuit close to hand, you should note not only its size and desirability, but its fighting efforts to escape your advantageous position.

My rule: If that fish will feed two or three or more people to a substantial dinner, I would consider keeping it and not giving it its freedom -- which is what I would rather do. In most of the cases, at least in my experience, I would let the fellow go -- gently unhooking him from my barbless hook -- to go on and grow to raise offspring and to become a more enticing opportunity.

One might say that I fish to teach these creatures the wiles of fishermen and the hardware they display. The fish I release, I would like to believe, are smarter fish, less likely to be fooled than their brothers.

And once in a while, just once in a while, when the dinner requirements for me and my friends can be satisfied by that silver streak in the water, that heroic animal who preceded us all, who makes the fatal mistake of interacting with my pitiful gear, we bring him into the boat and dispatch him quickly.

And tonight we feast on his flesh, and thank nature for providing us such benevolence.

***