Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is one of those things that is often associated with religion. There are Christian fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalists, Mormon fundamentalists and so on. But what has it ever occurred to you that all of these movements have something in common? Once you see that they do, you also see that fundamentalism is present in many other aspects of life as well.

Religious fundamentalism is a reaction to any part of the religion that is complex. It is often law centered and always centers itself around and issue about what you personally should think or do. For instance, the religious text says that it is a bad idea to (whatever) or a good idea to (whatever) then that is how it is. There are no exceptions. Do this believe that. Circumstances, events, and all of the things which make life complex are completely ignored.

But if fundamentalism is a reaction to complexity, then it can be found in so many other aspects of life that it begins to amaze. An example that comes to mind is the attacks of September 11, 2001. For various reasons, Islamic fundamentalists hijacked several planes and flew them into the World Trade Center (a target that had been attacked for years) the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Th reason for these hijackings is both simple and complex. They hate us. Why is where it becomes complex. But there are those in our society that cannot bear the thought that this is true. They simply cannot believe in a world complicated enough to bring about such action, so instead they invent an alternative story.

The alternative goes something like this. The world trade center was rigged with controlled demolition by President Bush in order to bring them down and declare war on the middle east in order to get more oil. The pentagon was hit by a missile. The planes were actually empty and were flown into the buildings remotely.

Fundamentalism is present in environmental thought as well. There are no doubt problems with the environment, but the answer is complicated and involves making better technology. However the fundamentalist view is that we must move backwards with our technology. No heat, no AC, no plumbing so poop in a bucket and dump in in your yard.

I realize that I have just scratched the surface of many topics here, but I am pointing out that they all have the same reaction to complex problems and that reaction is fundamentalist thought.

Just a few thoughts on fundamentalism. I would love to hear yours.

Happy New Year!

Blessings to you all for 2008!

Snorting Sleep and other news

There are a few News stories that I find interesting today. This is serious buisness.
I will be back with the regular blog soon. Love you all and I hope you are having a safe holiday. Don't drink and drive! Wear your seat belt. Pay attention! Don't be stupid!



Snorting sleep:

In what sounds like a dream for millions of tired coffee drinkers, Darpa-funded scientists might have found a drug that will eliminate sleepiness.

A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. The discovery's first application will probably be in treatment of the severe sleep disorder narcolepsy.

The treatment is "a totally new route for increasing arousal, and the new study shows it to be relatively benign," said Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and a co-author of the paper. "It reduces sleepiness without causing edginess."

-Wired

Test Tube Universe

A "universe in a test tube" that could be used to assess theories of everything has been created by physicists.

Time is running out - literally, say scientists" Are we missing a dimension of time? Are dark forces at work in space? The test tube, the size of a little finger, has been cooled to a fraction of a degree above the lowest possible temperature, absolute zero, which is just over 273 degrees below the freezing point of water. Does one of these test tubes hold a baby Universe? Inside the tube an isotope of helium (called helium three) forms a "superfluid", an ordered liquid where all the atoms are in the same state according to the theory that rules the subatomic domain, called quantum theory. What is remarkable is that atoms in the liquid, at temperatures within a thousandth of a degree of absolute zero, form structures that, according to the team at Lancaster University, are similar those seen in the cosmos. "In effect, we have made a universe in a test tube," says Richard Haley, who did the work with Prof George Pickett and other members of the "Ultra-low Temperature Group." The Holy Grail of physics is to establish an overarching explanation to unite all the particles and forces of the cosmos. But one of the complaints commonly levelled at a leading contender for a "theory of everything", called string theory, is that it is impossible to test.

UK Telagraph


Raw Milk Ban

(AP) -- Many raw milk consumers are opposing new dairy standards set to take effect next week in California, saying they could outlaw some of their preferred products.
The new law does not create an outright ban on raw milk, but producers believe it could dry up supplies by setting new bacteria limits they say are difficult to meet.

Mark McAfee is founder of Fresno-based Organic Pastures Dairy Company, the larger of two raw milk producers in California. He said consumers "are fed up with the government being in their kitchens, and they want to be able to make their independent choices about food they want to eat."

State officials, on the other hand, say producers should be able to meet the standards, which they maintain are necessary for consumer safety.

Merry Christmas With the Hoff

Christmas or Indigestion? The Savior is Born!

“Glory to God in the Highest Heaven, and on earth peace to people whom He favors.” This is the message of the angles that came to announce the birth of Jesus, the savior of the world, who was on Christmas night born in a barn of all places. It is a message of hope and wonder, and it makes a much better Christmas card than the message of John the Baptist, “Repent you brood of vipers!” Yes, one is a hallmark moment and the other is not.

But, in their own way, each is announcing something wondrous. Something so unexpected and so strange, that shepherds came to see if it was true. Was the Son of God, this Jesus really lying in a barn, or had the dried sheep meet they had eaten for supper gone bad, leaving them with a hallucination that was both astonishing and terrible to behold? Chances are good that they were betting on the bad dinner.

These shepherds in the field were as an unsavory lot 2000 years ago as they tend to be now. Oh, not bad guys mind you, but they did things in a very earthy way. They spoke with earthy language, using words that were not polite. They had an earthy aroma about them and they were known to drink too much and fight with knives. To me, sounds like business as usual on the range in Montana. Nevertheless, having an angle appear to you has an unsettling effect, no matter how tough you are. Assurances of, “Be not afraid,” tend to sound a bit hollow when you are seeing the glory of the Lord. Such times probably call to mind all the sins you have been committing gleefully in the last month or so… maybe even longer. But instead of the smiting with lightning, or burning with fire or something a person in such a situation might expect; (after all God is suddenly paying personal attention to you, and that cant be good right?) the news is good. A savior is born. The shepherds were blessed.

How odd indeed. Not the priests, not the city council or some other important people, but shepherds are told that God has come to earth to save us. Odder still, He is born in the barn between here and the next town over. What could you do but go find out if it was true or if it was simply dinner food digesting badly?

We all know how the story goes, the shepherds get to the barn and the whole thing turns out to be true. They are so baffled that they tell everyone that will listen what happened to them. Mary treasured the words of their story and they praised God. After all, who couldn’t?

We can be sure that none of them really had any idea what it would all mean, but one thing was for sure, God was doing something and it was something unexpected. Things were going to be different now. God was born in a barn and talking to shepherds, yes, the world was going to be in for a shock. Christ had come and right away, He was changing everything. If God favored shepherds, then things were going to be ok. Merry Christmas, for Christ has come to bless us all, and He is changing everything.

Age of the Universe

There is a discussion that I mostly try to stay out of, but seems to keep finding me. Maybe it is because of my combination of theological and scientific training.

Just how old is the universe? Those of the scientific persuasion say 4.5 billion years, give or take a billion. Those of the religious persuasion say 6,000 years, give or take a hundred.

I can defanatly say, without a doubt, that I have no damn idea.

That being said, the religious camp looks silly in this situation. 6,000 years was the end of the last ice age and the birth of human civilization for certain, so for all practical human history purposes, that was our beginning, but the universe??

When I ask about the dinosaurs, I get some kind of nonsensical response like how they were put in the earth by Satan to trick us into thinking the universe is old. OK, and once we are tricked then what? Is this plan is related to the underpants gnome plan of profiting off the theft of children's underwear.

Or sometimes I get the even stranger tale that dinosaurs were around when humans were, up until about 1,500 BC. OK, then how come the Egyptians and Babylonians and all didn't paint and carve statues etc. about dinosaurs? They made images of everything else!

4.5 Billion years? I don't know. It sounds good enough to me, at least until a better idea comes along. But I wonder why it is a problem to religion? Is your faith so weak that you cant handle the idea of God being able to live for 4.5 billion years? Are you so self centered that you demand that God follow your rules of physics? Are you pissed off that the Bible isn't a physical science and natural history text?I would personally find the ideas that physics presents to be an amazing addition to conceptions of God.

If Steven Hawking is right. Time does not exist apart from the physical mass of the universe, meaning that God created it all "right now" on God time. So I guess you could say that the universe just started from God's standpoint. Interestingly, Augustine said the same thing in his "City of God."

I think that this leads into another point that I will write about soon: The nature of fundamentalism. I am not just talking religious fundamentalism either. I have seen fundamentalism come in many shapes and sizes. But that is for another post.

Remember, I'm out there lurkin, and I'm just gettin stronger!

Prepare the Way ...

The Advent message of prepare is one that we understand far better than the message of waiting. We do so many things to prepare for Christmas that preparation for anything is something that is easily taken into our routine. However, when we hear the message of “Prepare the way of the Lord,” the mistake is made that we are to prepare by figuring out what it is that we are going to do to the said coming Lord, or perhaps what we are to do for the coming Lord. After all Jesus will need me to do something to or for him right? Wrong my friends, completely wrong.

Preparation for the coming Lord is preparing for what Jesus is going to do to you. The God in the flesh, Jesus, the coming Lord, whom John the Baptist warns us to prepare for, is coming because of what people are already doing and have done, not because of what we do for him. This truth is what we remember in Advent.

Forgiveness is coming at Christmastime and during Advent we remember that forgiveness is what we are to prepare for: being forgiven and freed from death. In Scandinavia there is a tradition on Christmas Eve that North Americans find shocking. The people go to the cemetery on Christmas eve, in the darkness because there is no sun during that part of the winter, and put eternal candles on the graves of those who they love, or if there is no one they love buried there, in the center of the cemetery. The entire cemetery is eventually lit up with the light from the candles on the tombs, graves and common area. The candles represent the presence and forgiveness of Christ to those who are present and those who are dead. It is to help them remember that the Son of God died because he did the one thing that people could not tolerate: forgave them. This Christmas practice of the Scandinavians is also a reminder that you are already forgiven for the failings in your life and humanity so death is not the final word to life.

Christmas is prepared for by being ready to accept the gift of the savior to the world, God who came in the flesh to forgive all and save them from death. Advent is a solemn time because of this remembering of the consequences of sin and of being saved: death to us, and death to our savior at the very hands of the people He came to save. But the joy of Christmas is that we know that this savior is a gift for us and that on Easter morning we learn that death no longer holds us in its clutches.

Something happens when we begin to remember what happened at Christmas. Perhaps we become angry. After all we don’t want help, forgiveness or any of that! We want to prepare to do something to or for Jesus, or our family in Jesus name. Or perhaps we want to do something for the world in Jesus name, wouldn’t that be great if we could make peace in some troubled part of the world and do it for Jesus? Or would we know in our heart that we were distracting from our own guilt? Trying to make up for what we know is not right in ourselves? Or simply being a theologian of glory instead of understanding the theology of the cross. As one of my colleagues once screamed in my face while pounding her fist on the table, “Jesus doesn’t come to this church until I bake the Christmas ham.”

Ready or not here Jesus comes. Bringing a gift that is as often unwanted today as it was 2000 years ago, forgiveness. Remember, like the Scandinavian Christmas celebration reminds us, that without this gift, death awaits as a permanent condition. Remember, and be thankful, for in remembering this, peace will be with you.