"America may have entered the equivalent of Rome’s bread and circus period, but I believe we can reverse this cultural decline by restoring a culture of the common good. This is nothing more complicated than a personal and political commitment to watch your neighbor’s back"

This may be the one thing that should resonate from your candidacy. America has never been about fairness and opportunity. It has always been about "getting mine" until the stock market crash and the Great Depression threatened the entire political system. There was no social safety net, just the individual commitment to watch out for your neighbor. The conservatives that have had a hissy for the past forty years over the "welfare state" have never had a problem accepting the largesse of politicians in shifting their costs to the taxpayer.

All the things you decry in this missive are individual choices. You just don't like the choice that some have made:

Greed- Isn't that one of the deadly sins?

Excessive Materialism- Isn't that just another face of gluttony?

Instant Gratification- The sin of envy comes to mind

Torture- Well, lumping Bush into the fray also brings sloth into the discussion of wrath, but please stop spreading the ticking-bomb meme in the discussion. Nothing can be further from reality to believe that the 24hr scenario would be dissuaded by torture. In fact, if the bomber was that motivated to do it to begin with, do you not think that they would be heartened to hold out for that time just to know that the bomb had gone off?

Internet Porn- Well, lust has been around long before the Puritans, and again, it's an individual decision, like all the Puritans that would routinely relieve their sexual urges with farm animals. Or the bible thumping conservative preachers that hurry out from bible services to gay prostitute's "services"

So let me wrap up with the one thing that wasn't mentioned so far:

"We will win it by winning the underlying moral argument that a culture of the common good is morally superior"

No thanks. Good public policy is not "morally superior"- it's either good public policy or not.

And it comes awful close to "Pride".

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran

Notrol,

Good public policy is not "morally superior"- it's either good public policy or not.

Might we take a discussion of the common good further if we discussed it terms of ethics rather than morality?

"The religious left"

Oh jesus, that's gonna be a hoot! Mebbe Jesus can save America after all?

I was with you when you wrote about the problems that excessive greed is causing our society. I agree with that entirely. I'm disappointed that you can't recognize that opposition to all tax paying, and support for all tax cuts is the major way that greed is harming our country.

When you start moralizing about porn you lose me. Porn is, to start with, largely in the eye of the beholder. What was universally accepted as porn in our country just 50 years ago, is now seen as acceptable expression of sexuality. Who knows what the future will bring?

So, lets just limit this discussion to the real problem - "tax cuts = good. tax hikes = bad. This philosophy must eventually lead to a "bankrupt" government, with no revenue at all.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Well, now you've lost me, destor23. I've seen your comments on here and I almost always universally agree with your politics. A few times I have noticed a hostility toward religion, but I let it pass, as we on the religious left actually believe in tolerance.

What I don't understand is how you were with Tom when he talked about courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice...but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.

Of course Tom isn't going to look to pass laws against conspicuous consumption (unless you count progressive taxation) or to enforce morality (unless you count immigration reform to avoid exploitation or measures to protect children from sexual predators or to end State sanctioned torture) but I think his call to the common good is EXACTLY what we are missing in politics today.

If you have read Reich's latest book, he talks about how we as consumers have sold out we as citizens. I'm energized by Tom's message, and if we had more people like him running all over the nation, there might not be so much apathy among the voting public.

When someone says that there is some kind of a "common good" we can look out for I grasp my moral, political, and financial wallet real tight, cause I know he wants to take something from me for the "common good"
Tell me you are gonna take it from somebody else, and tell me who, and tell me you are gonna give it to me, and you got a shot.
Tell me I need to give something up, and why, and who gets it, and I'll consider it. It may have to be done.
But start talking about the "common good" especially our moral "common good" and all I hear is "Watch out"!

Why do you think someone is "taking something from you?" Does a kid in grade school really "take something from you" when he gets a lousy free lunch? Does it really hurt you financially when Grandma uses her medicare? Half of all discretionary spending in the budget of the United States goes for the "common defense" and I never hear the wingnuts bitch about that.

Bev, when kids in school don't get a free lunch, that is taking something from me. When any person, for any reason, is denied civil rights, that is taking something from me. When our country cannot find the heart or money to support the elderly, the disabled, or act with compassion and generousity to the orphan, that is taking something from me.
Most of all, when those who profit from the infrastructure and hard work of people are allowed to rip and run, that takes something from me. Does that help?

Pretending there is some "common good" to which all Americans subscribe is, from my life's observation, a crock. For 20 or more years I have seen the interests of a very few, who already had more than most, touted as the "common good".
The phrase has lost its meaning, I think that is why he uses it. There are a lot of "common goods". So let's define what we are talking about, and who takes and who gives. You know, the "common good" is a lot like "free trade", but maybe, I'll grant, not as perverted as "freedom"

Yes, that does help. I see what you mean and I agree with you.

Thanks so much for responding Bev. I appreciate it.

You're quite welcome.

So, if I stop looking at porn, and take care of my mother and father-in-law as they grow older, and don't cheat the people who work for me, the US will stop making war on Iraq, and stop outsourcing jobs and infrastructure to authouritarian countries, cause they appreciate how much I revere the "common good"?

Tell me, does the "common good" demand that Bush, Cheney, et al face an international law court, or does the "common good" mean not letting foreigners get their hands on our leaders so they can railroad them?

There is no easier phrase to misuse, and frankly, I suspect anyone who would use it at this point of obfuscation, at the very least.

Please understand this, re your statement:

What I don't understand is how you were with Tom when he talked about courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice...but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.

Some people cite their faith as a source of courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice.  In my view, faith gets in the way of those very things, because the thoughtfulness and decisions that one makes to arrive at those goals are removed by an acceptance of someone else's dogma. 

Morality, honesty and justice beome intrinsic and valued when those goals have been thought out and actually DECIDED; also they are more sincere when rewards (eternal life) are removed from them.  I know how hard it is for religious people to really believe that people can actually want to be good without the fear of eternal hell-fire, but I can only say that being the kind of person you believe you should be is your own reward.

It strikes me that there are many people who do horrible things and justify it by scriptures; those who do bad things and justify it because they just don't care also exist.  One is as bad as the other, in my humble opinion.

People who do good things --> well, who cares why they do them?  It makes the world a better place, and again -- doing good should be it own reward, so no ideology should get the credit.

That said, I also find some good things in Tom's message, although it is a little more heavy-handed than I thought when he first started posting.  I want to hear more before I really decide if he is someone I want to support here in Virginia.

Jan

There is no culture war on greed. It's a convenient aside in 20% of Hollywood gossip shows. There is a sustained war on pleasure, enjoyment, and elevating the human condition beyond the sniveling servants of God preferred by E-vengelicals, who are themselves dripping with ill-gotten and excessive riches.

Regarding this:

...do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?

What do you consider is sacred within us?

How can porn, internet or otherwise destroy it? 

Do you think that there are other things, like poverty, illiteracy, war, religious zealotry, and hatred that are more destructive to our humanity than watching people have sex (which after all, is normal)?

I am 59 years old.  When I was 20, the guy who lived downstairs from me asked me to give some films to a friend of his.  They guy wasn't due for 2 days, and I knew how to run a projecter.  My roommate and I watched the poorest quality porn for 2 days!  It was funny and weird, and I watched every single frame!  So what?  I had very little experience, and I learned a little bit about life.  The people in the films were all older than me, and I was the same person afterwards that I was at the beginning.  That is my experience with porn.  Anyone else?  Oh, yeah.  I had another experience when I was in Nurse Practitioner School and they showed us Misty Beethoven to help us not be nervous about examining people of the opposite sex.

Any questions, children?

Jan

Add another voice of concern about the pornography position.

But do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?

Study after study shows that porn tends to depict women in violently subjugated positions, and can shift norms of sexual expectations.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

A compassionate conservative is a contradiction in terms, just as enlightened liberal is a tautology.

Tom and group--

I can't say that I am a "regular" here at TPM, but I haven't seen much of this Mooser fellow until today, and all he has done is show up and say that if you use words like "common good," you must be an evil Republican.

Seriously, I fear for our country if phrases like the common good, morality and, (gasp!) freedom have been so warped by the right that anyone who tries to enter politics sounding like a 21st Century Bobby Kennedy is questioned this aggressively.

Lets keep our eyes on the ball, people.

I couldn't agree more, CVille. True self worth comes from within. The doing of something has to come from ones true nature or it's worth is tainted. It's also true that if we are to survive as a nation and for that matter as a species we must find a way to find worth in each other because of who we are not who or whether we worship.

Let me say something about moral priorities. I spent the first 3 days as a guest blogger speaking almost entirely about the Iraq War, torture, and the possibility of war in Iran. The emphasis of my posts on conviction politics was that Dems too often fall back into the safe space of the "it's been mismanaged" or “not our business” critique rather than making the case for what was wrong about this war from the start – that unilateral preemptive war is fundamentally unethical.

Even with this post, I spent the bulk of this post talking about an ethical critique that applies primarily to our economy, health care, wages, and torture. Then I mentioned the explosion of internet porn as an exaple. Yet several of the posts seem to suggest that I am so obsessed with banning people from seeing porn (a position I did not take) that I am ignoring these other issues. That kind of response, frankly, seems utterly out of step with what I have presented. I obviously knew the porn example would provoke a response, but I find it disconcerting that hundreds more words have been spent responding to that than to the points about economic fairness and a just end in Iraq, a plan we spent months talking to Iraqis and security experts to develop. One of the things that bothers me about our national debate on values is that we end up spending more time talking about sex than war and justice. It is not that we should never talk about sex publicly but that we should be able to do without it immediately trumping other issues of greater urgency.

I am also trying to make a deeper point, which may not have been clear. I do believe there is a connection between our cultural values and the policies that emerge on war, wages, and the environment. This was my point about Dr. King’s prophetic speech on Vietnam. He went well beyond that single war to talk about a culture of militarism, racism, and excessive materialism that enabled it. I believe that the have conservatives won, and continue to win, the moral case for greed and for security through unilateral force in part because we don't even want to have the conversation. If talking about what is truly good means opening the possibility that someone may question our personal choices, we resent it.

I believe our problems go deeper than the war in Iraq, and the build up to war in Iran is a perfect example. If we keep talking about isolated problems ( Iraq ) instead of the values that enable them (militarism, exceptionalism, instant gratification), we will always be fighting as underdogs when the next debate arrives.

Yes, Lincoln was a great, moral man. And it should not be forgotten that he ended that speech to Congress from which you quoted with these words, "And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts."

God help Tom if he were to say something like that around the Mooser.

To pick a nit, it was a preventive, not preemptive war. Preemption, with good reason an attack is imminent, is generally accepted to be within the laws of land warfare, and would be defensible under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Preventive war involves a completely different ethical and theoretical basis.

I would like to hear your definition of militarism. So many people use it in different ways, I would rather not guess.

For the record, I was consistently opposed to the operation in Iraq, which, precisely, is a campaign in a broader war, when the saber-rattling got obvious. I have consistently opposed, in substantial detail, a military action against Iran. I am not, however, opposed to all military actions. It is not clear where you stand on such; that's one reason I explicitly ask what you mean by militarism.

Has it occurred to you that you might not have disagreement on some of the other issues? I am intensely interested in healthcare, and both guest blog about it and deal with it professionally. There seemed no particular reason to discuss it in this thread. I discuss it in other threads, where there are quite specific policy discussions. If there were specific proposals here, I missed them.

In like manner, I just posted, at Wikipedia, the last major (I hope) article of a rather extensive series on intelligence. I find that there is too little real information easily available on the topic.

Do you think ending the war in Iraq has not been discussed at TPMcafe, just a little, here and there? Your bringing it up is a bit of dog bites man. Something with a flavor of not just censorship, but deciding on others' morality (i.e., whatever is, or is not, sacred in me is my own damn business) is more man bites dog. Going down the subjugated women route comes across as heterocentrist and disapproving of consensual variants on sex.

I do believe there is a connection between our cultural values and the policies that emerge on war, wages, and the environment.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

JOG,

but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.

Well, now you've lost me, JOG. Where did Tom mention his faith? I missed it. Do you have a quote on that?

He didn't lose you. You did.

No doubt you want to be unfettered, but not all expression leaves others free after you're done expressing yourself. And to the extent expression does damage to others, it can be regulated. That is the constitutional law we have now. "Unfettered" shows that you should read up on speech cases in the Supreme Court Reporter.

Porn erodes relationship morals and therefore meaningful relationships. We've heard folks lie about its harmlessness long enough. Meaningful relationships involve love and dependable commitment in service to one another. Porn erodes that, and other causes will be found for pretextual blame to cover the shame of the real cause of a fizzled relationship.

Since sex apparently is the crack cocaine of material sales, I wouldn't expect ad dependent media to report that porn is poisonous, because it is the basis for exploiting a dopamine-rewarded behavior to influence buying behavior.

What to do about the damaging media? That's a different topic. I think a culture sea-change makes sense. It's all we have if laws can't apply.

Tom: I believe we can reverse this cultural decline by restoring a culture of the common good.

Mooser: The phrase [common good] has lost its meaning, I think

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

"Common good" and "general welfare" sound very similar to me. So what's wrong with promoting the Constitution? Has the Constitution of the United States lost its meaning? Certainly Americans can agree on some government programs that serve the general welfare. Fire protection, education, public health--the purpose of government is to provide these elements, and more, that serve the common good.

That's what Tom will ask us to do, so let's shut up about whether there is a common good or not--there is--and look at how it can be best be defined, and whether it ought to be provided by the public or private sectors.

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

You sure seem offended by his free speech, his freedom of religion, and his belief that morality in relationships impacts the quality of those relationships. Or are you one of those who would ban ethics from philosophy and morals from ethics?

You also seem most offended by the idea that anything could be sacred. In fact, I believe that sacredness may be what provokes your rages the most. You can't stand the word, can you. It triggers a guilty rage, it seems.

And that is the point of arguing the healthiness of social morals, and finding common ground in them.

We probably are in near universal agreement. But here's my problem with religion when it comes to cultural matters -- religion is the party that's on the attack. Somebody who makes porn just wants to sell porn to people. The institutions of religion don't concern them. Somebody who views porn just wants to get off. Religion is not their issue. But religious groups made porn an issue for government. That has to be stopped. Religious people shouldn't be using government to coerce other people's behavior. They can use rhetoric, sure. But not government.

So, I'm not hostile to religion, per se. Believe whatevcr you need to believe.

But don't seek to impose those beliefs. You personally are probably not the sort to do so. But one group's moral beliefs shouldn't effect another's.

I'm sure Tom's not for outright censorship. But using the pulpit of government to stoke social sanction isn't right either. And, remember that the government can discriminately tax certain forms of expression without censoring them.

I know I seem hostile to religion. But I hope you understand that some of that hostility is in self defense. I don't go into churches telling people how to act. Why do they come out of churches with such suggestions and demands?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

"Religious fruitcakes." A phrase meant to marginalize religious people and make them lesser citizens because you disagree with them.

Studies more recent than the 80s show productivity, jobs and families lost to the net addiction of pornography.

So regarding your first sentence, if you do the former you can actually manage the latter.

What good you do in your backyard has a cumulative effect with others' good. That's the "common good" assumption, that there are things in common we can do that are good.

Unedited: "Wow... that's kind of a prude response."

My edit: Sorry, that was my initial reaction. I should have done better than hurling names, though.

Seriously, though... my view on something like porn, or any outsider art, is that the effects don't matter. People should have the right to express themselves and the right to consume whatever expressions they want. I don't like the idea of people having their behavior limited just because, hypothetically, somebody lost a marriage or job or whatever over it.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Poverty, illiteracy, war, and hatred are destructive to humanity. That doesn't mean net porn or other types are not. I think porn motivates men to dislike their spouses' bodies and deem them uninteresting by comparison. It's an immoral virtual visitation of strangers into committed relationships.

And religious zealotry depends on what a religion ties someone to. If it is actually Jesus Christ their religion ties them to, then there is only good there. If one's religion ties them to greed or avarice, then there is no good or God there, just greed.

If a person is zealous to be like Christ, neither is that destructive, unless he/she does not actually imitate Christ and does some evil instead.

Wow..I'm almost speechless here.

Everyone else has made the points, so I will just say that when I read the initial post, I thought it was made by a centrist Republican (at best).

I think (hope) you are saying that we must sacrifice nationally and have a true stake in our foreign and domestic policy, but if that is the case, you are really going about it the wrong way.

The problem is not that we have lost our "soul" as a nation. The problem is that there are too many people defining what that "soul" is, on both sides.

Porn is not the problem. Bling is not the problem. 50 Cent is not the problem. And if you really think these things are, you are the problem.

This is one of the most refreshing, fair, rational and reality-based comments on this topic I've read so far. Excellent.

There's also a question of degree here. I don't know if I would sign on to the claim that "porn undermines relationships" as such; porn has been around for a very long time and many relationships have prospered nonetheless. But the internet is an environment flooded with porn; when your 10-year-old gets his own email address, he's probably about 3 months from getting his first email advertising a porn site. That's very different from an environment where porn was available but largely concealed behind brown wrappers or on the back shelf of the periodical section. These differences in degree entail a difference in kind. For better or worse, the generation in their 20s now has already grown up familiar with a dizzying variety of pornography and sexual behavior that literally hadn't even been invented 15 years ago. The Baby Boomers may have thought they invented sex, but I'm pretty sure that the current generation actually has invented a few new twists.

Anyway, the human spirit is resilient and adaptable, and young people seem to still be able to relate to each other, apocalyptic NY Times Magazine articles to the contrary. But youth culture in the US really is increasingly toxic and shallow, and exposure to porn is part of this. The explicitness of points contests at fraternities etc. is rooted in malign changes in American character. It is possible for culture to change for the worse, and in the US, it has.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

While I don't believe any baked goods were mentioned, you have made assorted comments that indicate you marginalize people who are not believers in a Judaeo-Christian religion, or committed to an alternative loving relationship, or both. I can't say Abrahamic if you limit marriage to one man and one woman.

No, I didn't mean gay marriage. I refer to Muslim, and fundamental Mormon, polygamy.

You keep referring to "sacred" as if that is a term equally understood and agreed-to by all.

I hear you marginalizing quite a few people do not live by your moral system.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Again, "we?" I've read and appreciated Viktor Frankl. Some of the significant things I took away were human drives for meaning, which were not necessarily involving a religious soul. He also recounts a rather chilling insight into the mind of an SS guard, who he manipulated into getting him proper medical treatment, rather than the usual immediate killing, after Frankl broke his arm.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Notrol,

There are more conservative, "moral" voters in rural southern Virginia than progressive "moral" voters...so what will Mr. Perriello have to offer them? That the "common good" is the right thing to do? They already know that, because Mr. Goode has defined the "common good" already in his terms. What are his (Mr. Goode's) terms? Read Mooser's posts. What are they (Virginians) going to have to give up for someone else to get.

I admit my unfamiliarity with the specific culture of southern Virginia, but I am compelled to believe that enough Virginians, southern or otherwise, as well as most Americans, pretty much have some notion of "common good" figured out for themselves.  But I would agree and add that the skillful manipulation of rhetoric to inject an otherwise abstract idea of the common good into a specific political agenda contains the potential for disappointment at best and disaster at worst.  

For an agenda to be ethically effective and morally neutral I submit that an emphasis on restoring the public sphere would go a long way to satisfy voters with progressive sensibilities and/or inclinations without imposing authoritarian tendencies we would otherwise find familiar in the positions of the religious right.  To restore the public sphere and inspire an ethic of civic patriotism, no one need give up their moral principles, nor is it necessary to impose a particularly subjective morality on the broader civil culture.

Mike7Woodson,

Poverty, illiteracy, war, and hatred are destructive to humanity. That doesn't mean net porn or other types are not. I think porn motivates men to dislike their spouses' bodies and deem them uninteresting by comparison.

Unfortunately, this reads like a projection of your own vulnerablity onto the society at large.  In the standard set by this example any expression, from the Victoria's Secret catalog to music video, could be considered pornographic simply by featuring models or performers that are in any way "easy on the eyes."

There are arts to cater to infinite manifestations of tastes, exciting and inspiring audiences with imagination, empathy and maturity.  Granted, there is also tremendous potential for exploitation and degradation.  There is an eternal paradox at work here.  Pornography is a lucrative and ubiquitous industry in the world, and we ought not fool ourselves into believing that it will go away or become sympathetic to that other abstraction, "family values."  Indeed, a great deal of pornography's appeal is its forbidden nature.  Perhaps there is a way to resist the tendency for the denial of that and embrace it on some civilizational level as the legitimate form of human expression that it always was and will likely remain. 

We routinely tolerate and regulate what can fairly be considered adult indulgences, many of which are obviously more destructive than any performance art, such as alcohol, tobacco and firearms.  These are available even as they are certainly not for everyone.  I think it would be a big mistake to reestablish the Hayes Commission, but I would submit that even low-impact regulatory action like applying progressive labor standards to the work environment of pornographic artists could begin to reduce the severity of the exploitative circumstances of those artists and advance an ethical adult entertainment industry.  

Your comment on restoring the public sphere is especially appropriate here at TPMcafe, with its coffeehouse metaphor, since Juergen Habermas gave credit, for modern writings on the public sphere, to social patterns of 17th century coffeehouses. Technology does have good and bad ways of mixing the public and private spheres. What has been bothering me in this thread is that the following morality and/or ethics are ultimately personal choices, and thus of the private sphere. Information gained in the public sphere can help develop a sense of ethics, but, to borrow from Kipling,

"Go back to Earth with lip unsealed—go back with open eye,
"And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:
"That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one,
"And . . . the God you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!"

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Censorship may not be a viable or appropriate solution, but do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?

Another vote here for not believing internet porn is destroying our Republic. 

In terms of the problems we have, putting in the same sentence as government-sanction torture is pretty much ridiculous. 

Seriously, though... my view on something like porn, or any outsider art, is that the effects don't matter.

Howard, I'll respond on the question of definitions of sacred and why Tom's use of any definition does not have to equal public policy. It can mean public sector cooperative leadership in overtly honoring what is sacred to his or her constituents in a general, yet effective way.

What is sacred, by a general definition, is that which the establishment clause anticipates that the government must not sully. The establishment clause is itself a law of sacredness, or "setting apart." However, it is not a clause of non-recognition or non-protection regarding the sacred and religious that is consistent with public health and safety rules. Here common interests overlap between laws and morals, and police powers in states traditionally protect public health, safety and morals. There is a sense in which no law achieves public health, safety and morals without popular support, but holds a line around which the people may do the rest. The "doing of the rest" seems to be the zone that Tom speaks of.

The Supreme Court has done some work on outlining in negative relief where government may and must not tread with respect to religion and its sacredness, which includes recognizing and guarding, not financing or governing, what is sacred exercise to the religious yet fully compliant with public safety and health laws. To know where not to tread, the branches of government must recognize the religious and sacred unless there a compelling state interest to disregard it, which again, has involved public health and safety.

Also what is sacred, is what the constitution anticipates are traditions which the people founding it recognized as desireable for protection in the First Amendment. Free exercise of religion is a positive right which contains the sacred but purposefully does not positively define it. It is a positive right because the substance of religions, absent biases or interventions of government, for the most part has been considered good for the commonwealth and community.

In our Church we have protested the Russian Federation's intense involvement (entanglement / principal-agent) with the Russian Orthodox Church when its leadership, the Moscow Patriarchate took over ultimate leadership of the Russian Church Abroad. Such an extreme comes about when the "common good" is lost to the sort of greed interests that Tom assails in his very sane piece. Rather than do what Tom is discussing and stand guard to hold the line of protection, to include recognizing the goodness of religion in society just as the Constitution already does, the door later opens to what Putin is doing to the Church in Russia. The door opens to this because the trends that Tom is talking about do erode a republic. Erosion leads to collapse of social fabric.

This is why I have made such a big deal of Russia's tampering with religious freedom and sanctity by nationalizing it for state objectives. Ultimately, politics is worldly and if it hijacks religion as a principal, it will destroy the sacredness of what it touches. It will ultimately kill those who remain sacred and do not tow the line of political objectives who are in the Church. It is religion that some secularists blame for the ill actions of such a commandeering state, and that is like blaming a hostage for a hostage-taker's actions.

So bleaching our culture of the sacred would begin with silencing leaders in all sectors who would do what the constitution has done: recognized and verbally, even loudly encouraging folks to seek the sacred in their respective faiths and use the power of their spiritual lives to do the good that government cannot. By silencing officials in this way, some argue they serve non-establishment. However, this is a false connection as generalized encouragement to all to follow their respective consciences in developing their faith traditions freely is not establishment whatsover.

Granted: that some in the GOP and among Dems and their trysts with greed-ideology and "the"ology contradict their sincerity in encouraging what the constitution encourages. But that is merely political hypocrisy of that particular official, and not proof that the sacred things publicly recognized as good, even encouraged, are not powerful for the public good.

Religions and their role in individual dignity, morals, well being and civil rights are worthy of encouragement. When bad actors get into these groups and do bad things, I wish to high heaven that the dishonest blamers of the religious / spiritual / and sacred would heed reason and stop persevering in false accusations.

"I do believe there is a connection between our cultural values and the policies that emerge "

I just don't know what you can mean by "our cultural values" in this diverse country of 300 million people. You must be making some implicit assumptions about how "our" is determined. I suggest that for anyone's set of cultural values there will be millions who share it, millions who share some but not all and millions who share very little if any.

The human being is not only driven, but also led. In this, perhaps one of the most powerful images is of an innocent baby which totally depends on parents to love him / her to live at all. And in this, I see a soul. Souls are vulnerable yet have courage despite it. Without souls, there is no courage.

If all is "drives" then all is mechanistic and no individual praise or censure is due for anyone acting as they act because it is all about their "drives" not their choices. We all simply do as the incidents and accidents have determined, to include the accident of choice and the accident of moral inferences from relational dealings.

If I can cite my "drive" and make a rule of one out of it, then I've become a Social Darwinist. And if that wasn't un-empirical enough, I could also embrace eugenics because afterall, it is the "drive" that the great accident of nature gave me.

I make this pathway argument not to say it is what you do with the "drive" premise, but to say that many have driven the ill-highway from soulless drives to atrocity.

We are also led, as I experience life, and led by those in whom we trust and who honor some trust in leading to our benefit. It's not merely transactional, unless one should reduce it to transaction by argument. And yet there's so much more to us. There is soul.

Freedom depends on soul, that which escapes what human drives control and responds to a greater and purely good existence beyond the dross referenced in the Desiderata.

Hardly a representative sample of what is out there. Not even close.

Your points miss the prevalence of American leaders who have always recognized the positive right of free exercise of religion as a general encouragement to Americans to freely exercise with sincerity their faiths, i.e. a thousand points of light, the social gospel etc. to take care of what government simply cannot. I think what some rabid atheist revisionists delusionally want is to sterilize what the First Amendment clearly encourages by its double protection: the fertility of spiritual living in the public by emphasizing economics as anesthesia and waxing blind to past dearths in collective moral and spiritual commons that put other civilizations in museums.

I also see George H.W. Bush's presidency as one in which this common-good generalization was inspirational to many within their own religious, philosophical or spiritual contexts. Sure he lacked the charisma of a Kennedy, from whose mouth "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" carried further. Yet I see the "thousand points of light" as very similar. However, this is the same George H.W. Bush who exercised collaborative deference to international law and cooperation in preparing (rapidly) the response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Duplicate

Even if there is a prevalence of American leaders who believe what you claim, they have no governmental authority. Your definition of "rabid atheist revisionist" seems more and more to be anyone that doesn't follow certain Christian principles.

You keep citing economics. I keep coming back with specific philosophical references, and you keep ignoring them. You apparently claim that you have knowledge of my innermost motivations, and that I have a soul or that I am a coward. When did you get the direct interface to my brain?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Point taken.

"Leftist party line"? Care to make an actual substantive argument? Or at least point me to where this party line is published, since you apparently are sure that I couldn't have thought of these things myself.

I cited the Meese Commission because it was a prominent example, I would be more than happy to look at the "study after study" Tom claims exist if he would provide more than an assertion.

Perhaps you could provide some examples of what you consider "cultural decline," since we obviously disagree on that, along with some examples of this foisting you disapprove of.

It's interesting just how many comments the word "porn" elicits on a website . ..

Let me begin by drawing a distimctopm betweem the 1960s and the "me generation" of the 1970s and 1980s. Speaking of greed, Tom wrote: " "the sickness was certainly present in some of the post-great society liberal hangover of “do it if it feels good .  . ."

For a minute let me defend the 1960s--the  sex, drugs and rock&roll hedonism of the late 1960s was not about greed, it was about pleasure. Self-indulgent pleasure perhaps. but the pleasure did not involve hurting someone else. Slipping a drug into some else's drink was not considered cool. Sleeping with a friend's girlfriend or boyfriend was taboo. You would be less ashamed if you slept with your brother.

The counter-culture of the late 1960s valued a collective vision. People lived in communes--and some of them worked. (I knew groups of 8 or 9 people who lived in a house for a few years, sharing cooking, housework, etc. The houses were always fairly dirty, and if you were invited for dinner the food wasn't great. But the atmosphere was festive-)

The collective vision extended to a world-view that said that the life of a Vietnamese person was as valuable as the life of an American. Ideally, we would live in a world "without borders." This is very different from current ideas aout globalization--much more like "Doctors Without Borders."

It was in the later 1970s and 1980s that the "greed is good" and "I've got to do what is best for me" memes became popular. This, by the way, is also when CEO salaries began sky-rocket--and when CEOs began to be seen as "celebs." The worship of money had begun.

AS for porn, it seems to me that porn goes hand with repressed sexuality. Certinaly, in the 1980s adn 1990s the very real threat of AIDS put a damper on the free love of the 1960s (with good reason) ,but it also seemed to me that as young people became more conservative, they became more puritanical about sex. Young women started talking about marriage at an earlier age. There was more of a sense that a sexual relationship was a transaction: I give you this and you give me that. It was almost as if people were going back to the Annette Funicello days of "Not until I have a ring on this finger."

Did porn become more popular and darker? I don't know, but I do know that the rise of the Internet has generated more and more porn, and the image of someone alone in a dark room, looking at porn on  his/her lap-top does seem to epitomize that lack of a collective spirit in a fearful and narcissistic age.  Why would someone want to look at porn--why not just sleep with someone? (I don't mean randomly, but why not just find a sexual partner?)

I''m not at all religious, but I do agree with Tom that some porn (not all) represents a corruption of the spirit that seems in keeping with the growing self-absorption, greed and self-hatred of the last 25 years. (I believe that self-absoroption and self-hatred are the flip side of the same coin.)

I would guess that we all agree that kiddie porn is simply wrong--and should be outlawed. It may or may not encourage child molesters. But people who get off on it are very, very sick. And there are other kinds of porn that involve brutality that's way beyond titillating S&M. Usually, it seems rooted in a horrifying misogyny. I think of the Lacrosse player at Duke who wrote that he wanted to skin that girl alive . . .

As for Christian politics, here too, things aren't black and white. Think of Jimmy Carter and Rosalind, reading from teh bible to each other every night. He is certaintly someone who understands "the commond good."

So I think there's a lot to think about in Tom's essay. Clearly, he touched a nerve.

I realize you were responding to the broad range of responses and not just me, but the reason I responded strongly to the point about pornography was, first, that it was as jarring as if you'd said that the examples of our cultural problems are war, greed, and reckless driving, and second, because you presented it as "of course everyone agrees on this, but as liberals opposed to censorship, we can't do anything about it," which I believe is false, and third, because you claimed scientific support for your views that I believe is unwarranted.

Furthermore, the reason our "debate about values" always focuses on sex is not because people immediately ignore more important topics and jump to sex, it's because conservatives created the "debate about values" and have worked for decades to define "values" as only being related to sex. Giving a topic related to sex unwarranted prominence is not a way to reverse that.

My values tell me that poverty, unfairness, war, and greed are self-evidently bad things, and I have no problem having that conversation. And if you want to have a conversation rather than a chorus, you should consider that others of us speak not because we "resent questioning of our personal choices," but simply because we disagree with you.

I agree with you that having politicians speak from conviction is a good thing (even if I disagree with some of their convictions), but I reject the idea that ordinary people avoid conversations about our values. That problem lies with our politicians, not with ourselves.

"sexual excess" as a phrase means absolutely nothing to me.

frankly, i see prudish, repressive attitudes toward human sexuality (and so-called 'pornography' is in fact a very healthy component of human sexuality) as a very serious threat to both my personal well-being and the health, safety, and 'general welfare' of humanity in general.

the "common good" is not threatened by 'pornography', the "common good" is threatened by those who are threatened by 'pornography'.

What is sacred, by a general definition, is that which the establishment clause anticipates that the government must not sully. The establishment clause is itself a law of sacredness, or "setting apart."

Circular definition; semantically null. Again, I am hearing a circular definition of the sacred, mostly coming across as "if you were Judaeo-Christian, you wouldn't need clarification."

Your null call is null. You hear a circular definition, but I have provided you with the constitutional law reality of protection of the sacred via recognition of positive religious rights with negative reliefs found in case law rules made in settling controversies.

The government defines what does not deserve free exercise protection when conduct steps into the jurisdiction of government's public health, safety and welfare responsibilities. Religious free exercise that doesn't do this, a governing official is free to encourage in general among the people as a good social fabric regenerator and protector. I wrote that the constitution grants positive rights with the greatest possible latitude simply by holding that government laws and functions cannot be ruled by any religious group(s) over the others.

I offered you some less exclusionary words, from philosophers that seem not offensive to a Judaeo-Christian ethos, and you have so far ignored them, continuing to chant "sacred" as if that has meaning to me.

I retain the word sacred to stand by a sound position against revising the language to suit political and not constitutional requirements set by random individuals or by yourself. Your asking for definitions is a respectable right and I've answered honestly that governing definitions of religion will not pass establishment which are specific and positive, i.e. what religion is. Such a definition will favor some more than others. So the government focuses on conduct. And a definition that is intentionally generalized is more broadly free in what it does not restrict. The police powers are the negative borders, and that enters government jurisdiction.

In some ways you seem to seek certitude in defining "sacred" and I'd ask why. Your answer seems to be to keep Judeo-Christians in line and out of the church-state business. Well, the very act of defining religion for government purposes is a violation of establishment and conversely free exercise where it impinges on same.

So an intentionally open definition by which the government has used its own inner-jurisdictional sphere as the border (it knows what IT is, and what it's job is, not what religion is or isn't). And this is done to respect the expanse of the religious and sacred.

So bleaching our culture of the sacred would begin with silencing leaders in all sectors who would do what the constitution has done: recognized and verbally, even loudly encouraging folks to seek the sacred in their respective faiths and use the power of their spiritual lives to do the good that government cannot.

Sacred, so far, seems to apply to "people of faith". I've never heard an animist, a Buddhist, a neopagan, or an Ethical Culturist use those terms. Such people generally associate "faith" with some, not all, Judaeo-Christian descriptions of a personal deity.

I've heard Buddhists, neopagans and animists refer to what is sacred to them. I use faith as inclusive of "people who believe what they believe" about spirituality or religion or central meaning.

Do you not see how that description makes people who are not Judaeo-Christian nervous, even before getting into atheists and agnostics?

I see those who are not the majority religious identity in any country as reasonably more nervous about the majority than others, yet I'm not sure the shoe fits here. Wicca is not the majority, that is for sure. However, it is one of the many religions enjoying the same protections as the others. As such, I think this is testimony to the civil libertarian vision harmonized by Judeo-Christian dissenters from unconstitutional politics against race. There is tolerance by the majority, yet begin asking it to give up its words for minorities, and that's too much to ask.

It is unclear how you see the role of divine punishment for negative reinforcement. Most Wiccan revivalists do not think of divine punishment, but do put much emphasis on a tradition that an action reflects threefold on the actor. In other words, take a bad action and have it reflect back on you.

I can see the deterrence value in that, even if it is simply a principle on which a witch would rely yet read no moral into.

The Eastern Christian view tends toward seeing Divine punishment as equivalent to God granting the will of the individual who does not want God involved with him or her, i.e. what that individual wants. It is the weight of receiving what that person wants in terms of what was lost while living on after death that many call punishment.

Yet punishment, strangely enough, connotes a possibility of fulfillment of a term, or a reformatory existence that could cause the soul to change course, or will. It's not guaranteed. God deals with every soul differently in our tradition. Remember how some were told to sell all possessions and some were not? It depended on where their hearts were when considering the call of Christ.

Eternal punishment seems to refer to those who reject the God of Love, the eternal God that Is Love. One who rejects eternal love gets eternity with love all around him or her while yet rejecting it from one's inner being. This is sadly possible in that God Is Love and cannot be other than what God Is, and will enter a heart only by sincere invitation. Improving morally is part of preparing the heart as a living invitation to God's indwelling.

If I hear you correctly, one cannot be ethical without "faith", so even religious that don't especially use that concept apparently cannot be truly ethical people.

To hear me correctly on this, you would have to have more stamina than I expect you to have and read all of my comments and posts, the balance of which discuss the Christian faith's respect for those not in the Christian faith living by their own standards which may be a law unto themselves, or who may not live up to their own standards. IOWs it is by their own standards that they would be judged by God.

And note...Christ in the gospels tells the twelve apostles that they will be kings in heaven who judge the 12 tribes of Israel. It doesn't say they will judge the gentiles. There are even checks and balances in the kingdom of heaven it seems, and room for those who are of Jewish or Greek descent. Imagine that. And Christ said, there is neither Jew nor Greek nor Scythian nor slave in Christ...

Religions and their role in individual dignity, morals, well being and civil rights are worthy of encouragement.

All religions? Churches of Set and of Satan? (I do know a Satanist priestess named Rosemary, and I assure you that I am unnerved by Rosemary's Baby's Baby). Himmler's twist on Norse? Skoptsies? Cult of Cybele? Qutbism? Thuggee?

Religions and their roles in individual dignity, morals, well being and civil rights...

Those that worship god(s) of selfishness seldom if ever sincerely support the above qualities of the polities in which they operate.

When bad actors get into these groups and do bad things, I wish to high heaven that the dishonest blamers of the religious / spiritual / and sacred would heed reason and stop persevering in false accusations.

False accusation? A Qutbist does not want to convert or destroy, based on an interpretation of an Abrahamic religion -- admittedly a heresy to many?

Can't say I catch the application of your example to my point.

Howard:

In a voluntary and consensual sexual relationship, dominance isn't necessary. Why is it art if it glorifies non-consent? Doesn't that make rape a topic of twisted art too?

Perhaps these bondage folks could consider toning it down and calling it leadership, drop the restraints and then keep it to themselves.

Some of what those folks do to each other "consensually" makes for the lore of many an emergency department.

The art of tying knots is the art of tying knots. The art of tying knots that bind one person by another, i.e. which by definition involves imprisonment of another involuntarily, shame, and other things should probably be limited to books on sexual psychopathology and not falsely advertised as art for false sophisticates to mull around and say "harmless."

That the Japanese have words for it doesn't make it something to adopt. Exotic things aren't necessarily civil libertarian. And bondage shares nothing in common with liberty. So again, why glorify it?

We're talking social ethics here.

Without individually applied and self-disciplined morality, ethics aren't practicable, but only provide a front of legalisms that an organization or culture has put in place to give the appearance of rectitude.

My emphasis

In a voluntary and consensual sexual relationship, dominance isn't necessary.

Why is it art if it glorifies non-consent?

Doesn't that make rape a topic of twisted art too?

Perhaps these bondage folks could consider toning it down and calling it leadership, drop the restraints and then keep it to themselves

Some of what those folks do to each other "consensually" makes for the lore of many an emergency department.

The previously stated as consensual art of tying knots that bind one person by another, i.e. which by definition involves imprisonment of another involuntarily...

...shame, and other things should probably be limited to books on sexual psychopathology and not falsely advertised as art for false sophisticates to mull around and say "harmless."'

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Howard why do you respond to my comments responding to others as if I'd put them to you?

Part of my answer would depend on whether you consider ethics and morals synonymous, and, if not, how you define them. I understand morals to be defined by some external source, where ethics are the individual choices made as appropriate action for specific situations.

Morals are rules of self-discipline imposed by the self from within, whether written or derived via the essential faculty of conscience. That they find tablets, stone or paper doesn't matter or make them external things. Only a person can put them outside of themselves and make them external. But that is not their definition to me.

Ethics is branch of philosophy and it is also a way of saying morals so that folks in modern government and legal circles won't freak out and think the Judeo-Christians have taken over the government or company. Ethics are SOPs of "should" and often derived from huge breaches in morality by folks under indictment, professional discipline or, in some cases, enjoying lucrative reward for breaches via book deals.

Sacred? I simply find it an imprecise word, all too often used condescendingly by those who believe they have the One True Whatever, and typically, but not always, are from some (but not all) Abrahamic traditions.

Howard you think and argue a point of view based on a world view you hold. Why are you not your own absolutist, or the pope of Howardism? When you argue for your perspective, it implies you have a stand. How is that stand not itself condescending simply because you believe it is right and I know you so believe?

Several terms come to mind that can include what I understand a religious, of a deistic religion, person would consider a sacred experience. Few Buddhists would call enlightenment sacred; there's a deistic implication in the word. If you called it transcendental, self-actualizing, or peak experience, we might have grounds for agreeing.

Ok, fair enough. It seems that the translation of terms is important in the points you're making. Transcendent is actually also part of the Christian faith in some theologies about the supernature of God. In this, the ability of human beings to be transcendant is coupled with unity with God in love only, as only what is Infinity can transcend the is limited. Human beings suffer limit by choice because of attachment to limited things. Desire God and desire Infinity while dropping the notion of limited beings controlling the Infinity (magick) rather than joying and living in same, allowing regenerative Infinity to pass through and supply them forever.

The heart and intelligence and transcendantly undefinable Infinity is a United Being in which we live and which lives in us, and not only that, but empathetically as us, in Christ. The catchy song asked: "What if Jesus was one of us?" He Is. He skipped the bus; he walked.

Martin Buber's idea of the I-thou relationship is not restricted to being a relation to a deity. The title of Rudolf Otto's Experience of the Holy is a little misleading, as his concept, the numinous: "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self" is not inconsistent with earth-oriented traditions, quite a bit of Buddhism, animism, and quite a few things that don't qualify as Abrahamic.

I can recognize the experience of that as interpreted by non-Abrahamic religions.

Even within religions, even within Abrahamic religions, there is considerable difference on what a sacred experience might be. There are those that believe they have a direct,conscious experience of the deity. Others believe that by faith, they will be rightly guided, perhaps through sacred writings. There's an interesting similarity between Islam and the idea of being "born again", as a submission to the deity.

These are some astute observations. I believe God is capable of reaching every person uniquely while yet Being One. It is miraculous.

So no, "sacred" doesn't give me a guilty rage. Depending on the way it is used, it may be along the lines of "believe as I do or you are wrong". That annoys me, unless someone shows me their dedicated phone line to the Big Guy.

That comment wasn't to you, but to the fellow that Andrew had to chastise for insulting Candidate Tom.

No line isn't tapped by self-consciousness or vanity, so why don't we open the door of the heart to God therein where no lines or devices can attach that will withstand what the heart was meant for?

How you go from the idea of a highly individual numinous or transcendental experience, to the idea of "social morals", which seem to be prescriptive for a society, baffle me -- the two ideas seem disjoint, unless, of course, that morality goes back to the External Reference That Declares It's Right, just like the Testaments, the Koran, the Apocrypha, the Book of Mormon, or the Gardnerian references. (How many Gardnerian witches does it take to change a light bulb? "We can't tell you, for that is a secret of the third order (quick, look in the book and find out")

Howard, much in the Bible is mis-characterized as an attack on the Christian faith or Judaism, so the same references are used to answer those attacks here and are not meant as didaskalia. The propensity to not compromise one's faith in discussions may sound dogmatic or assumptive but that isn't the intent.

What about religions without a strong written reference? What do they use for reference?

Same as those with written references that began in the heart of man as communicated somehow by God from transcendant places in the heart.

You miss the point of the reindeer and tooth fairy and so on.

The point is that the generosity and love of St. Nicholas and parents who make something sweet of a child losing a tooth are all the more miraculous than the reindeer and fairy. In fact, the point is that reindeer would not fear and would indeed fly for someone with such miraculous love and St. Nicholas was reputed to have a special relationship to animals as many saints were said to garner the trust of otherwise wild animals.

Also, I beg to differ. The tooth fairy and Santa Claus exist on levels within the minds and emotions of persons, mostly children. They represent innocence retained and or respected by adults, something that is greatly missing today. Or can you see the difference in connection one would have with his family who just returned from his office having prepared a gift for his wife and children and prayed for them with total focus, rather than he who had spent the time on the net surfing for images to lust after. Who keeps his bond of love as opposed to returning empty handed and alienated?

I'd be willing to wager that convicted killer Scott Peterson's post-disappearance order of porn channels not only showed that he did not expect Lacy to return, but that he had a relationship to what porn offers which likely helped destroy his bond to his pregnant wife to the point of resentful hostility...selfishness..extreme selfishness. I believe there are many, many cases of this sort of thing never making it into trials or journalism because such evidence is often challenged as prejudicial. However, it doesn't mean it isn't factually or motive-relevant.

What bondage depicts when "voluntary" is involuntariness. Desiring involuntariness when one claims voluntariness legitimizes the phantasm of same, seems to me to be not something psychologically or relationally healthy. It seems somehow mixed up with a great deal of shame, or whatever.

Regarding your use of examples of other things I didn't talk about, I'll just object as to relevancy and false analogy.

I think the supposition that voluntary exhibition of involuntary, bound and non-free -- even degrading things that are then called healthy sexuality -- is not healthy. That's my opinion and I've given reasons for it.

I've heard you, but you don't like my analysis of what you've said. Very well. I can respect your different view, and what seems to be indignance in your words (could be wrong) I hope will not last.

You are not surprised by my simple question and say so because you want to use it as a put-down? I can't otherwise understand why you would make a show of the question rather than just answering it.

Satanism has its own writings which are in bookstores for all to see and what I've seen so far is that it is based on extreme selfishness. Take what you want is the teaching, as I understand it. Some publicly add 'and do no harm' yet others have told stories of this not being the case in practice.

In any case, Satan being the representative of anti-God and anti-Christ evils, whether via hypocrisy among subversives in the Church (the tares of which Christ spoke) or outside of it, attacking with all gusto, the anti-Christ view isn't something that does community good without a selfish exploitative interest, otherwise, Christ would not be opposed in both its teachings and its renunciations. Why would you have brought the example up if you didn't see it as different, i.e. your Rosemary comments.

I realize that you are sometimes prepared to give *equal opportunity offense to both extremes* so carry on from whatever pole you're on. I think your views are sometimes extreme as you seem to think of mine.

Thanks, Mikey, but when I need you to tell me what my partner and I should or should not do, or read, or perform, or write, or film, I'll let you know by drooling all over my bib.

There is a certain amount of data that suggests things other than shame may be involved. Let me mention something that is not sexualized, but does pertain. You may or may not be familiar with Dr. Temple Grandin, who has written several books on being a high-functioning autistic. She is an animal behaviorist, working principally with meat animals. At one point, she observed that the restraint devices used on cows and sheep could calm them, and had an insight that such might help her with some characteristic autistic anxiety states. Some of the http://www.autism.org/hug3.htmlclinical trials of the "lateral hug" machine may be of interest, and I highly recommend her autobiographical books as an example of how someone became tremendously insightful on the way her atypical mind worked.

There is a spectrum of restraint, from ropes to things that blend into the conventional foundation garments. I still laugh about it, but a friend of mine found that what was supposed to be an erotic corset was exactly what she needed so her chronic rib and shoulder injuries stopped hurting.

What you may be hearing as indignity as what I hear as a strong desire for adults to stop private practices, because you believe, without any data mentioned so far, that is "immoral" and leads to the decay of society.

I won't try to list the clinical studies indicating that relaxation techniques, sometimes associated with sensory deprivation, have on overall health in selected individuals.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

The non-governmental authority of government leaders in such things as Kennedy's and Bush I's calls to common cultural movements for good deeds for the country was exactly my point, and I think, Tom's. 

Howard, did my comments address you? No, unless you've taken on other IDs here which I doubt. So why the personalization? I think you added yourself to various categories and then used your own perception to dream up that I called you a coward. You assume we don't have souls? If so, would I be rational to say you were calling me soulless? Or would I be more rational to say, I don't agree with Howard on that, but recognize he holds that view. The latter is my view, actually.

I'm not catering to your every point. Sometimes I'll agree with something and not go into the agreement, dealing only with those matters of controversy; and sometimes not. In any case, you're in prosecutorial mode here on the basis of your judgment that I've judged you. An opinion expressed isn't a government decree, but when I write, it seems that is what you try to make of my opinions. You don't treat your own strong opinions similarly though.

It's alright. It's part of the robust exchange and I expect it from time to time.

"rabid atheist revisionist" huh?

It was not atheists who lead the Crusades or the Inquisition.

It was not atheists who burned and drowned women for being unattractive or sharp-tongued.

It was not atheists who burned crosses and humans in the South.

It was not atheists who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center.

So if you're looking folks being stricken with hydrophobia, look in the mirror, my superstitious friend.

Howard, did my comments address you? No, unless you've taken on other IDs here which I doubt. So why the personalization? I think you added yourself to various categories and then used your own perception to dream up that I called you a coward. You assume we don't have souls? If so, would I be rational to say you were calling me soulless?

No man is an island, entire of itself

Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls

it tolls for thee.

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Social Democrats, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Social Democrat.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left
to speak up for me

Howard I'll start with your last comment first:

So when you tell someone else they are a coward without divine gift, it is time for me to speak up.

Never said the above, but if you can tell me that a programmed mechanism has courage, that is, something that simply does what it is programmed to do, I disagree. And if a programmed thing can't have courage, it can't have cowardice either. So on inferring from that point, you've erred.

What might have been a correct summation is that I have no particular reason to believe I have a "soul", that there is a Christian concept of "soul" that is not shared by other religions, and you appeared to suggest that one could not be courageous without belief one has a soul.

And one couldn't be cowardly either. My implication is that without a soul, there is only a biomechanism evolved or programmed by impersonal factors to do one thing or another. And another part of my opinion is that body is not divorced from soul but is part of same.

Now, if you want to say that your coreligionists consider courage a blessing upon the soul you believe is granted by your God, I have no problem with that. I have a problem with suggestions that one who does not believe in a soul cannot have what is generally accepted as a human virtue, courage.

No, I want to say that having a soul is a generally accepted precursor to one's free agency apart from a body's instincts and genetic determinents. And in the free agency accompanying stressful situations, such as being born into a world like this and daring to live, courage is most visible.

You don't need to know or even believe you have a soul to have a soul. You're not getting it. If as I do, I believe you have a soul, I think you have a soul whether you believe you do or not. In that, my only position could be that you could have courage. I could hold no other position considering that to me, every person has a soul. 

I do not know your specific religious affiliation.

Then your not reading my comments very closely. 

Apparently, it is not Roman Catholic, as you deprecated both some Catholic saints as well as an encyclical by a Pope I happen to feel exemplifies many virtues.

If its convenient for you now, very well. 

The areas in which you seem to suggest one can be moral appear to be ever more narrowly defined.

Howard, you're twisting my arguments into something unrecognizable for your own use, or, you are simply erring in the above. Another wrote something I responded to in that distinction, and I think you've forgotten what it is. That tends to happen when you defend someone whose comments you didn't write in the first place.

If a person makes what appear to be derogatory comments toward another human being, simply because they are not explicitly directed at me, should I deny the empathy that suggests that my fellow human is under attack?

Interesting how many derogatory things said of others by folks who kiss your petoot you pass over without this grandiose empathy of tonight's soapbox.

I can tell you that I've not seen you come to the aid of some who are not popular here when they were attacked for their ideas nearly as indignantly as you seem to have done here again' me for someone else. I'll take that as a compliment.

I like to believe that had I been one of Stanley Milgram's subjects, when ordered by the man in the white coat to increase the pain, I would have immobilized the authority figure and, with the resources as hand, done my best to smash his little torture machine.

Good. Who here ever said you wouldn't? Not me.

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Social Democrats, and I didn’t speak up, for I was not a Social Democrat.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left
to speak up for me

It was exactly atheists with respect to Jesus Christ who led the Crusades and Inquisition, because Christ told Peter to put down the sword.

It was exactly atheists as to Christ who burned an ddrowned women for being unattractive or sharp-tongued (if indeed it happened as you say) because Christ told the one who is sinless to throw the first stone.

It was exactly atheists as to Christ who burned crosses and humans in the South, because no one who ever heard Christ could do such things to others...

It was definitely atheists who rammed the planes into the World Trade Center because they did not trust their God to take care of the injustices of the world.

In every instance you speak of, you are blaming the passengers for the hijackings my projecting friend.

Yeah. This is one of those common memes that really drives me nuts, because you see it all the time and it manages to miss the point.

Studies show that quality of life declines with the onset of addiction to porn.

Studies show that quality of life declines with the onset of addiction to video games.

Studies show that quality of life declines with the onset of addiction to drugs.

Studies show that quality of life declines with the onset of addiction to alcohol.

Studies show that quality of life declines with the onset of addiction to tobacco.

Uhm... how about:

Studies show that quality of life declines with the onset of addiction.

We are programmed from a young age to be consumers. To want more of what's out there. To keep up with the Joneses. We are taught to seek to get as much as we can of whatever we can.

We are taught to be addicts. Addictive behavior, dependency on 'reassuring' repetition and consistency in routine and minutae, are all being fed into us through popular culture and through an increasing sense that the problems facing us all are too big for any one person to make a dent in.

Perhaps it's not the substance of the addiction, but the addictive behavior itself that is doing the damage. Stop teaching children to be sheep, and maybe we'll stop seeing people burying themselves in whatever they can get their hands on in a desperate, subconscious attempt to hide from a world full of problems they don't think they can help solve.

The problem is not the porn.
The problem is what drives us to the porn.

This is even less sensible than your usual drivel, equivalent to saying that no politician who ever heard of James Madison could ever violate the Constitution, my unthinking, superstitious friend.

Why would someone want to look at porn--why not just sleep with someone?
Why in the world would you care? And, BTW, are you claiming you have never masturbated? If so, you really ought to try it!

I do agree with Tom that some porn (not all) represents a corruption of the spirit
...as do some folks' drinking habits, eating habits, social relationships, and religious worship. Anything can be corrupted. Why do you single out this particular private (by definition!) activity to denigrate?

there are other kinds of porn that involve brutality that's way beyond titillating S&M.
There are also people who abandon new-born babies in dumpsters. Shall we therefore outlaw childbirth?

I have tried to make it clear that I make every attempt to believe exactly nothing. Unhealthy, messy, counterproductive.

Re: Hostility to religion as a political strategy, I unhappily agree with you, although -- as in your example -- the reverse seems to have been spectacularly successful.

I agree with you that both real trust, and also a need to not to have to be in control as one might have to be as part of real-world responsibilities, are potential reasons why people in committed relationships, or at least established relationships, might want activities that involve consensual dominance and submission. It would be incredibly unsafe behavior to engage in "casual" dominance and submission, as the trust cannot rationally exist.

While dominance and submission behavior may involve consensual restraint (a little broader than bondage) or erotic pain, neither have to be present. The human psyche is complex, and "pain" is actually an imprecise term. Physiologically, the sensory nerves that detect what may be perceived, in the higher brain functions, as "pain", are defined as nociceptive. This is not the place to get into the neurophysiology of response to nociceptive sensation, and the automatic (i.e., spine and "lower brain"), autonomic, and conscious brain functions, but these all interact in far more than sexual contents. Consider, for example, that a deep muscle massage may hurt while being administered, but tense and sore muscles may be comfortable afterwards. There is the well-known phenomenon of "runner's high" as well as exhilarating sensations from other athletic activities, and the underlying neurophysiology does involve nociception and the body's response to it.

Were this thread on healthcare, I'd go a lot further, as far too many healthcare professionals, as well as patients, do not understand the mechanisms of pain and how to manage them. Acute and chronic pain, for example, are physiologically different; there are different ways to deal with a sprained ankle and a chronic pain of a damaged nerve.

As you point out, the submissive, in a safe and consensual relationship, is really in charge. Using a governmental metaphor, the submissive sets policy that the dominant executes. In government, the policymaker may indeed later be constrained by the decisions made, under established policy, by the staff she or he directs.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Life is so short. There are so many pseudo-pious non sequiturs to utter, yet so little time.

Robert Brown... I enjoy looking at nude or scantily clad women and I do my best to avoid paying taxes. Are you suggesting that it the government prevents me from observing nude women that I will be more willing to pay more taxes?

So you admit to being a tax cheat and a pervert?

I think the idea is to pay more taxes and all look at porn for free. That's socialism!

There may not be value in point-by-point response to Mike Woodson, so I'd like to clarify a few positions of mine, in a proactive mode.

There are those that have said their soul, and/or their religious morality & training, make them who they are. I honestly respect that. I believe there are many paths to reaching one's greatest potential. Indeed, while I don't agree with some of the theological aspects, I find one of the finest models for life to be that suggested by the Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard du Chardin, in The Phenomenon of Man.

From Teilhard, I take it that a drive to improve, to become more capable, to become more creative, is essentially programmed into our genetics, but that's only the starter. Volition is necessary to make use of that programming. Some find that volition assisted by religion, and some do not. My opinion is when one find something that helps you walk that journey, make use of it.

My key point, however, is that different individuals have different ways of taking that journey. The "drive", if you will, to growth, to skill, is the foundation of viable society. Things that interfere with one's journey are detrimental both to individuals and to society.

Where Mike and I seem to disagree most is when I say things along the (paraphrased) lines of "if your belief in Christ, and your belief in a soul, help you progress, I'm delighted!" When I hear him tell me"Howard, you have a soul, and you need to accept God to be a useful part of society, and you need to reject what my morality disapproves of," and not indicate that I might be searching, let alone be right for me I get a bit peeved. When I hear anyone suggest that such morality should be the motivation of government, and I hear some of that from Tom, I get very nervous about it. When I get nervous, I try to be proactive about dealing with threats.

I have a very close friend who identifies as a conservative, and his fundamentalist Christian religion is a very basic part of who he is. Nevertheless, we found our friendship deepened immensely when he stopped quoting Scripture at me, and I stopped arguing religion to him. We focused, instead, on what we saw to be desirable in society. We found ways in which we both acted to serve society, some of which overlapped, and some of which didn't, mostly because of different skill sets. Over time, I've noticed him becoming less and less insistent on government enforcing morality, and more and more insistent on voluntary cooperation in pursuit of common goals.

Were he in these threads, I suspect he actually might be thought of the faith-based left, although if anyone actively said that to Chris, I'd hope to be there to catch him as he collapsed, put him on the gurney, and provide life support until he recovered from the shock. :-).

One of the things he calls a ministry is working with incarcerated prisoners. He does start from a religious base. He's also very pragmatic about the con games played in prisons, and the realities of recidivism. If he does no more than help someone adapt to his daily life, he considers that a success. If someone seems interested in reform, Chris will support appropriately, but realistically. He is ecstatic when someone he met in prison returns to the outside and becomes a happy and productive member of society, and Chris doesn't even insist -- although he'd prefer -- that individual participate in what Chris sees as religion.

I have some very close Muslim friends, with whom I've talked much about life, and our personal thoughts about right action. Now and again, one might say something along the lines that they saw I was searching for meaning. If, along that search, Allah was willing to open my eyes to His truths, my friends would be delighted to be witness to my saying the Shahada. In the meantime, however, they regarded our friendship as simply one of the things that God wills, and we don't try to convert one another. Especially with my friends who are naturalized US citizens from Africa, I get fascinating perspectives on society. It's interesting to me that I believe it's far more likely then they do that we could, at any time, have a black President. I can observe that one of the second-generation teenagers is gifted in so many ways that everything is open to him, and, as much as one can say that a 15-year old is showing the glimmerings of great leadership and great wisdom, Ibrahim continues to do so, and I'm delighted for the world if I'm correct about his potential. He happens to be a Muslim. He also is a genuinely patriotic American, and has no emotional connection to Islamic radicals -- it doesn't strike him as important to be vocal in condemning them, but instead to work on self-improvement, many kinds of support to his family, and increasingly service to the community. His greatest skill that manifests itself now is that he's a natural peacemaker, whether it is adults or children arguing.

As far as Tom, I want to hear proposals for what they want done, which includes a vision of society (and the role of government, public sphere, and private sphere). I don't really care about his general motivations, although I find it useful when candidates express the experiences that led them to a position.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

    Robert Brown wrote: "This is a very naïve comment. Male sexual nature is to be easily aroused by the sight of young females with perfect figures and they would happily engage in casual sex with as many physically attractive women as possible. Most mature men realize that satisfying this drive is not practical and really would not make them happy in the long run. Porn allows men to engage this fantasy  . . ."

 You seem to be suggesting to that men lack the imagination to fatasize without visual aids (porn.) . . .

But you asked why anyone would look at pornography.

Men are visually aroused by the sight of a nude female, that’s why. Perhaps I should have said it HELPS them fantasize about having the casual sex that their nature compels them to have but they realize is not practical.

Roberte Brown wrote:

"This is a very naïve comment.Male sexual nature is to be easily aroused by the sight of young females with perfect figures and they would happily engage in casual sex with as many physically attractive women as possible. Most mature men realize that satisfying this drive is not practical and really would not make them happy in the long run. Porn allows men to engage this fantasy  . . . "

This seems to suggest that men lack the imagination to fantasize without visual aids (i.e. porn). . .   How disappointing.

(I can see how this would be true of an teen-ager who has never had a sex life but "mature men"?)

Your patience with this [snip a whole bunch of epithets] person has qualified you for sainthood in any sensible religion*, Howard.

* Defined as one whose adherents believe in peaceful war, celebate sex, and Ugly Beauty.**

** One of my favorite Thelonious Monk tunes.

By your definition:

Preemption, with good reason an attack is imminent, is generally accepted to be within the laws of land warfare, and would be defensible under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Preventive war involves a completely different ethical and theoretical basis.

The Iraq war was certainly SOLD as preemptive.  The evidence of skewed intelligence makes a better case for the LACK of imminent threat than any amount of rhetoric (including 911, AlQaeda in Iraq, and Saddam's non-existent WMD's).  Even if we accept that other countries were concerned (or even convinced of WMD's), they had the good sense not to invade, our "Coalition of the Intimidated"  notwithstanding.

The only way we could have prevented it would have been to

1.  Make the person who won the 2000 election President, or

2.  Have a Congress that is committed to oversite and actually reads up on what they are voting for ahead of time, or

3.  For Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell/et al to have told the truth.

The only hope of preventing an Iranian invastion is for #2 to suddenly happen -- not to damn likely, unfortunately.

Jan

George Bush says nuclear as nooklear, but it doesn't change the definition of the war. The media, and indeed many others, have been casual about treating "preemption" and "prevention" as synonyms, but they are not.

While there was much fearmongering by GWB about Iraqi WMD potential, much as I dislike the man, I cannot remember him suggesting an imminent WMD attack by the Iraqis on American interests. The flavor I heard was that it was of sufficient potential that it needed to be prevented. I'm happy to be wrong if he actually said "preemptive", but I don't remember it.

With respect to using "prevention" with respect to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, or of threatened action against Iran, I certainly would not use that word. There is enough ideological and soundbite casual meanings given to well-defined words that I won't contribute to the practice.

How about the ways we could have stopped the 2003 invasion? Given preventive war has a specific meaning, for which attempts are being made to find prohibition in international law, I'd rather not confuse the word by generalizing it simply for wordplay. There are perfectly good synonyms for this purpose.

The Kellogg-Briand pact was far more explicit than the UN Charter in outlawing war other then in self-defence or by international consensus, but leaders have paid equal attention to both.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I cannot remember him suggesting an imminent WMD attack by the Iraqis  

George Bush AND Condi Rice:

"We don't want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroon cloud."

Come on, Howard:  if that doesn't suggest imminent attack, what does?  I would give more examples, but I am afraid I just ate some tainted hamburger and am not feeling so great.  (I'm serious)  I'm sure other posters can supply YOUTUBE or other quotes by Cheney, or how about Powell's "boo!" speech to the UN?

The war was started based on the successful neocon disinformation propaganda that Saddam was in cahoots with BinLadin and was gunning for the US with WMD's.  Oh!  And that we had to get HIM before he got US!  Remember "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here?"   I don't know what your definition of "Imminent" is, but it doesn't matter.  They convinced enough dopes to believe that we would all be having yellow-cake at our children's birthday parties if they didn't attack -- oh!  Right after Dubya kicked the WMD inspectors out since they weren't finding anything (bad for the neo-con agenda, you know).

If not, what was the justification?  Did I miss something? 

Jan

Because the failure to find WMD weakened the justification for pre-emptive war the WH started using the term "preventive." Saddam was a "threat" that we prevented from becoming a Hitler, according to the president.

Jan is right that it was not called that at first, but it was brought out, with many discussions about "what if we could have stopped--[fill in the blank]" after the first arguments failed.

Tom, you're being much too kind to the Bush Administration and its supporters. When the WH started rationalising the War Upon Iraq using a predicate of preventative war instead of preemptive war, they more than just weakened the justification for the war, they eliminated all justification for the war.

It is immoral for an aggressor state in a war to revise the stated causes that impelled it into conflict after it has begun. War revisionists provide the rope for their own gallows. Do not dance around what is self-evident. The Nation wages immoral war, while the citizenry refuses to step-up and assume the duties and responsibilities that are inherent in a government of, by and for the people.

Understand clearly what is the true underlying danger. It is not just the Bush Administration. It is The Dreamtime at threat. I am not trying to say that The U.S. has acted always out of good intentions in the past; not trying to deny what has been done, but this time is far different. The people acquiesce when face to face with the government's overt acts of evil, and its revisionary rationalisations for the necessity of the evil. With arrogant naiveté, the people turn away pretending not to see our defaced icons left face down in the mud, and the spray painted graffiti on the walls of America's soul.

black tarred concrete, pine for me,
lying dormant for you and country
hardened surface cracked within,
catch the sweat from off the chin
of men and women senior and child
who look to you and your sterile miles
and in their stares is bald dismay
for what you fucking promised
when you led them astray

just a little tale from the streets of America
sparkled promises paved with pathos and hysteria
trenchant, weary native sons
step back and see the damage done
meander to the horizon
the streets of America...

Greg Graffin, "The Streets of America"
Bad Religion, "The Gray Race"
1996, Atlantic Records

Although some of your complaint is justified here, I'd advise that you take it in the context of the Virginia 5th congressional District voters, who actually believe that Virgil Goode is an upstanding Christian, and loyal American patriot.

• Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Renae Merle-Washington Post, "Lawmaker's links with contractor raise questions", Boston Globe, June 19, 2005
• Marcus Stern-Copley News Service, "Workers say MZM founder pressed them to give to PAC", San Diego Union-Tribune, June 22, 2005
• Matt Kelley and Jim Drinkard, "Secret military spending gets little oversight", USA Today, November 11, 2005
• Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, November 28, 2005
• Laurence Hammack, "Goode’s ties with MZM put cloud over Martinsville deal", The Roanoke Times, July 04, 2006
• Lindsey Nair, "Goode's war chest turns up new MZM donor", The Roanoke Times, July 4, 2006
• Justin Rood, "In Rural VA, MZM Center To Shut Its Doors", TPM Muckraker, July 27, 2006
• Editorial, "Virgil Goode's macaca moment: Rep. Goode is mistaken. Not all of his constituents are narrow-minded bigots", The Roanoke Times, December 23, 2006
• Open Secrets, "Virgil Goode's Top Contributors, 2004 election cycle"

Are you claiming Goode as one of yours Mike?

Here's a clip of Virgil Goode on the House Floor February 15, 2007, from TPMs YouTube account. Pay special attention to his fine elocution skills when he says, "In Moo-Ham-Med we trust":

Virgil Goode On The Surge Resolution And Muslims

Is ignorance and racism excused when it is spoken by politicians and the persons who vote for him/her, because they claim to be Christian? Stay focused on America's future. Goode is an embarrassment to All of America.

" primordial male sexual nature"???

Yes... we rose from the slime...

Sexily.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

all twisting of grammatic pretzels aside, i don't think i and only i find suggesting people 'keep it to themselves' falls within any workable definition of respect for liberties. begrudging tolerance for liberties maybe. but only maybe.

since you seem to be keen on splitting hairs, let me unsplit a hair about distinguishing so-called 'porn' as something separate from healthy, consensual human sexual relationships. the production, distribution and consumption of so-called 'porn' is itself a consensual and healthy human sexual relationship. i do not trust anyone with my liberties who does not agree with that basic premise.

Can you provide philosophical evidence that empirical evidence gives more than a statement of observed phenomena subject to reversal, change and revolutionary science?

If all empirical evidence passes through human thought-processes or cognition, which is it that defines the empirical evidence and renders it into an explanation: the human mind, or the empirical evidence?

Last time I read about it, there was empirical evidence of brainwave hyperactivity in a specific brain location that was simultaneous with spiritual experience or stimulus of religious nature consistent with the subjects' belief / faith / discipline. See Ramachandran, Vilayanur et al. Some suggested spiritual experience was brain-bio-determined, and others suggested that the brain was hardwired to channel / host / participate in spiritual activity.

As science discovers more multi-organism cooperation within what once was considered one organism, and in physics there are phantom sub-nuclear particles which express themselves out of nowhere and into nowhere again from within the nuclei, it occurs to me that:

a. some of what we call particles may not be physical at all, or may be physical only in part, energetic in part, and that their relationship with known and unknown fields, forces and objects is itself a phenomenon that may well be more important than the component parts...i.e. the soul is the overall relationship of the systems and content of our total and developing or degrading human beingness;

b. what we call something doesn't necessarily tell us what it is and this suggests that a great deal of scientific explanation entails ever-greater and more detailed explanations of our ignorance;

c. what you look at and call physical and I look at and call energetic may be both, neither, or much more;

d. if you define something by an observable function, it begs the question of our capacity to observe more and other non-physical functions and should open our minds not to foreclose same;

e. the brains we have conceptualize both physical phenomena and spiritual faith / experience / action, and the answer as to why the concepts are not real merely because they are concepts seems simple: these are real on certain levels which are not fully understood; (i.e. we know of Bertrand Russell's orbiting teapot but we don't fully understand the nature and promise of it as a conceptual reality that started as a whim...i.e. is what we think creative & changing as well?)

f. the human brain with which one person concludes limit believes in the unlimited and the infinity in another, and sometimes in one person; infinity, whether spatially envisioned via limits continually breached by discovery of new limits, or cyclical and or geometric concepts...and philosophical concepts...and religious concepts...and prayer...all in the same brain; the conceptualizer is the perceiver is the judge...the question arises in the brain that may have inherent ...and it yearns to go on living to answer such ultimate questions or learn more.

g. what does the brain "know" that we don't know it knows? what is the brain at its most essential particles / waves?

 Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I...

Good one. But you criticize me for using the pronoun "we" as presumptive when you consider yourself part of the whole with universal agency to defend others from windmills? Isn't that the same as saying "we"?

Let me try this slowly. Certainly in areas where I have professional competence, such as computer networking, medicine, or intelligence analysis, the nature of a professional is that they accept uncertainty, and that they may not have complete information. I make a point, here, of knowing I do not know all, and seek information.

When another expresses an opinion, or a conviction, you seem to assume it is out of arrogance instead of a perspective. When I question your assertion, I'm slow. When I use "we" prescriptively, as in stating opinions about what ought to be private consensus for the common good, I am coercing with public policy.

Many of my comments to you have addressed what appears your utter certainty that you know what is correct in relationships, conscience, sexuality, and a host of other items.

Because no one can have their convictions? There seems a polemic tactic at work here. When disagreeing with an opinion or conviction, attack the speaker for daring speak it as proving their arrogance.

Convictions about right norms for relationships, such as the golden rule, the ten commandments, modesty, non-exploitation and so on are not "my correctness" they are me talking about norms that I believe are good. Never said I'd invented or mastered them.

My position, in many of those areas, is much like the Victorian who didn't terribly care as long as "they don't do it in the streets and scare the horses."

Good one. Reminds me of a scene in "Young Frankenstein." In any case, in the above you assume a code of correctness with a condition.

Yes, I have my ethical beliefs. Some happen to coincide with certain religious views, but not because I find them revelatory, merely self-consistent and well-formed. Thomas Aquinas phrased the essential issues of the Principle of Double Effect so well that they are useful in medical ethical discussions centuries later.

I believe you do have your own ethical beliefs. Never argued otherwise.

The heart and intelligence and transcendantly undefinable Infinity is a United Being in which we live and which lives in us, and not only that, but empathetically as us, in Christ.

I am willing to accept that you have had an experience of Christ and that statement is true for you. I have not had such an experience, am not actively searching for it, and merely ask not to be included in the "us" of which you speak.

OK: Howard C. Berkowitz is not included in the meaning of the word "us" as used in the above italicized paragraph. How's that?

In like manner, I have had what I can reasonably describe as transcendent or numinous experience, but I had no experience of a deity, at least as you describe it, on such occasions. I felt no limitations in them.

Elective questions (of course): Did you have the sense of presence, being or personality within the numinous and transcendent? If you felt no limitations, how did you interpret that, if at all?

I've had experiences of the numinous, not at my near death experiences, however, from sleep to waking and beyond the waking. 

Again, I will treat, with all respect, your statements that something transcendent is true for you.

Thanks for the respect and I hope I do not manage to destroy your belief that I return it because of my own egotism.

Howard, the transcendent was true to me before I came to the Christian faith because I found that I could not see it as other than true. The transcendant-must-be I could only conceive of when looking into the stars and at the mountains. These weren't men's essays. These were other kinds of communication to me.

In them was a message that despite the out-of-control nature of people, a greater and higher and eternal reality of goodwill awaited those who would at some time acknowledge their need. At that time in my childhood, the world of adults had already proved to be a false solution. The world was self-defeating, and I later found self-consistency and formative truth in what I call sacred scripture.

When you start saying it is only possible through Christ, and also make statements about judging assorted religions correct or not, that I become, as a person of non-Abrahamist beliefs, very nervous about the constant pressure to deem Christians first-class citizens, Jews perhaps on standby for a seat-available upgrade, and other beliefs not sure if they'll get a middle seat.

Howard, of all the possible meanings of "it is only possible through Christ," I submit that there are non-chauvanist ones.

On judging assorted religions, I don't think I've done that. I recall quoting some Christian verses that do the opposite.

It is well-accepted that anyone reading my comment may not agree to my terminology, however, they can translate for themselves if desired, or skip. I have said that as to the Christian faith, I am not one who believes in papal supremacy. That doesn't mean I judge Roman Catholics not to be in Christ.

I do see apostolic community as the early Christian way; first among equals is supposed to be the way of the apostolic successors, sort of like the Arthurian round table. We must all try judge what is a correct path, whoever we are. Papal supremacy (i.e. Supreme Pontiff) is actually being reconsidered in Rome's self-titling.

I am honestly happy that you had such experience. I have not, and I simply want the freedom to walk my own path.

Thanks, but aren't you giving me too much power to think that by my expression or sharing faith it will commandeer yours? We both know that Howard Berkowitz or anyone else at TPMCafe are not going to snap and believe something merely because another has written it. Think about it...factor it...weigh and consider...maybe. But zombie-out over it? Doubtful.

While waiting for an angioplasty, I had an especially pompous cardiology fellow make an appearance, with an entourage of residents and students. He inquired "and how are we today, Mr. Berkowitz?"

"We" is used prescriptively in talking about morality in the culture. We as a culture, however diverse, is what I've spoken to; am I free to dream or posit about a world that seeks with their hearts to imitate Christ? Of course I am. It controls no one. It states an ideal I see as a good one. For all to live for everyone else, not for self.

When I am visited by a security investigator, asking questions about a friend going through a clearance, I do not accept a mere flash of credentials.

Standing orders for a sentry?

In like manner, should a Mr. God wish me to accept his services, I expect He can provide incontrovertible evidence of His identity, and engage in meaningful dialogue. I shall not start with the presumption of an omnipotent deity, and place myself in an autosuggestive state to accept such messages.

"Test the spirits..." sounds pretty New Testament. Yet one could also test their own to see if their conditions on hospitality are too much.

God is love. The thing I'd suggest for consideration: the sense that love knows what to do...that there is intelligence in love not arrived at via detached reason; that is a beginning of 'hearing' God.

Finally, the propensity to not compromise one's faith in discussions may sound dogmatic or assumptive but that isn't the intent.

To the best of my knowledge, I have never attacked a religious document, unless someone is insistent that I should submit to its rules.

What is the specific problem in your view; the insistence, submission, or the rules?

I have never attacked the Christian faith, but I have and will attack Christians who order me to accept Christian doctrine. Isn't humility part of your beliefs?

I understand the "order" part, yet who has tried or advocated that? That hasn't happened, I've not argued it, and I don't see sharing my views, faith or vision as forcing. We can ignore any comments or posts we wish. I've no Svengali talent of hyposis.

We do much better when you recognize that I am not attacking your own experience, but I may well attack your prescriptions for me, or when you make statements on matters where it is fairly apparent you have no direct knowledge.

Attacks on my prescriptions are part of robust debate, discussion or vetting of ideas. Inferring coercion from prescription is what I object to. Your attacks on my thinking that don't deal with direct knowledge (or don't seem to) are also part of this forum's intellectual activity. All have spoken speculatively from time to time. When we do that, it is always subject to challenge, correction, or confirmation. However, sometimes we act on hunches. That should not be a violation of thinking for those of faith to do what everyone else does too.

Again, I can't relate to such a "somehow". Should there be a deity interested in an I-thou dialogue with me, he could, I suppose, show up in George Burns mode, but without the cigar, and enter into dialogue. I am going to accept a personal, conscious deity, only if I encounter such in a dialogue, not a transcendence. I can have such experiences without something coming from a "place in the heart", and certainly not from a place where a pacemaker electrode is attched.

Is it likely that our language is unnecessary and prohibitive in communicating with God as the God who is Love? Love is best communicated in action. God likely speaks through action or through others. Can you confirm? If God wished to be empirically known, I suppose.

Suppose you arrived to a friend's with a gift and written sentiment and left them both there. You return a week later and these come up. Your friend asks you to prove that it was you who sent the card and gift. You say you did. Your friend doesn't believe it. He wants empirical evidence that you sent the card and gift. Don't you think that if your friend persists, he's kind of missed the point of your gift?

Can you have the humility to understand that I'm not going to buy into a deity just because another human being says I should do so? This is Howard to Mike here, not bringing up any political issues.

Howard, I'm certain I don't have that sort of humility, yet with God's help I may one day. I believe I have a long (unmeasurable) way to go toward being truly humble. In part, I write boldly on some things which seem too imperative to wait to write. I don't claim humility in them. Some who have written or told me some wise things from our faith I consider to have such humility.

I may have an easy time understanding that you are not the sort of person to be easily led, but that doesn't mean I'm humble. It could mean I'm tactical in my thinking only, because I go only on knowledge and analysis, not on faith. I'd have to trust that you're in good faith before I could accept that you were sincere in weighing and considering what someone with different experiences had to say. 

The political issues of the intrusion of dominant religion, into my personal search for meaning, is quite a separate matter.

Right: politicization of majority religion is a sin; as is attempted political or governmental destruction of the majority religious faith because of fear of its politicization.

I consider the combinaton of (1) separation of Church and State with (2) Big Government...to be an indirect route to outlawing religion in the public and private squares to the extent that federal funds / contractors do business with the biggest economic actor in the country...the USG. The tentacles of such bureaucracies can reach out like tree roots to dissolve the presence of religious spirituality wherever it expands into to take over society's jobs in said sector

A beginning of an answer to your questions about self-discipline as I referred to it: it begins in the relational and participatory realities of Christian spirituality within God and among others. Relational self-discipline is motivated by God as Love in the highest wisdom, by fear of God at the beginning of wisdom. This is a believer who also obeys God and/or Love. This is about servanthood, service to others and the eschewing passions of pride. It is about seeking simplicity in serving God and mankind made in His image, in the image of Love.

I've seen both parties in that, and you could belong to either one in that spirit and do as much damage in different ways.

Mike7Woodson,

I'm talking about cultural replacement of these indulgences with healthy living pursuits which do not require an exploitation market that damages the human soul.

The damage is still debatable from what I can tell.  How strong were the relationships studied to begin with?  There are virtually infinite factors in the world that are able to weaken relationships.  Availability to adult content is one, but the fact that many feel a need to keep their tastes a secret tells me more about the lack of trust and communication in a given relationship having more to do with the erosion of a relationship than sexual curiosity.  In other words, in many of these cases I have to believe that the damage was already done.

I am aware that you had not discussed regulation.  It is precisely my suggestion that adult entertainment can and ought to be addressed reasonably, as is any pursuit of happiness that requires maturity and sensitivity, and in the context of the greater public interest (or, "common good").  We can and ought to reduce the exploitative tendencies of certain adult tastes even as we respect a healthy soul's inevitable thirst for forbidden fruits.

Let me rephrase the question and ask it again, perhaps more directly. Is it your belief that a person, not participating in Christian spirituality, can discipline themselves to be consistently ethical and contributing to the social good? Is anyone who does not "serve God" incapable of being rationally self-disciplined?

This is not an atheism vs. deism question. There are major religions that do not have the concept of serving the deity. There are others that do; I'd be hard-pressed to look at Muslim theology dealing with Greater Jihad (the struggle to submit to God) and say that Muslim theologians do not say one can be disciplined only by submission. After all, Muslim itself can be translated as "one who submit to Allah."

Since this is not an Islamist country, and it is majority Christian, I'd imagine that a fair number of we non-Christians would wonder if there is an assumption that only Christians, or perhaps Abrahamic believers that have the concept of serving a personal god (a little vague in Judaism), can be ethical members of the community.

Former Judge Roy Moore, I feel safe to say, would answer "no". What about you?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

The pleasure is all mine.

LOL...apropos of forbidden fruit, please see the PS to my second sort-of-autobiographical partial braindump to Mike. Hopefully, Heathcliffe would be happy to provide fruit, forbidden or not.

Seriously, in this case, I'd want to see the detailed survey design done by a news organization, how they selected their sample, and other assorted statistical things. Somehow, I think of CNN's self-selecting surveys and wonder. I know what can go into a really well designed survey -- and also I don't think polls are quite the thing to measure the quality of relationships, or lack thereof.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Let's just look at the engineering aspect of it for a moment. Relatively recently in history have we marked the rise of virtual visual experience, i.e. television, PC...

The fact that these were invented so recently has changed how may folks have related to each other. I sometimes think of the movie "The gods must be crazy" as an illustration of how a simple Coke bottle could cause havoc in a society that had never seen one.

What we see is millions of households with blue flashing lights inside, and no doubt a significant number of those in which watching the box distracts from communication, attention, bonding, rebonding and other things. It harms listening. And listening is a quencher of a great thirst which leaves so many millions dehydrated.

Now add an image, not real to the person watching, of what the blue flashing box is substituting to help shove out of the way...the bonding with the real person the watcher promised to love. The substitutionary images have the same effect on many men that seeing thinner women has on anorexic / bulemic women...there is temptation to loathe the one who can't keep up with the airbrushed / made-up or waif-like ideal. 9/10 times it is the woman who suffers the ill-turn of the mind in both of these scenarios.

It is a tendency for folks to minimize damages to people they don't wish to face. And I'm pretty sure by your words above, you are euphemizing the toxicity of the industry and suggesting that mature folks can handle the toxicity. This becomes a rationalization over time, and it is used to dodge what I think in the moral faculties of persons, in the consciences of people, is a healthy sorrow and desire to fight back against the erosion of the promises of ther youth.

It is always this way with any struggle in life, and the characters set out to see the Wizard are great symbols of this. People are tormented by different things that they feel they do not have, and it is often the substitutes they seek out that are the most lethal response to the initial problem. And frequently they really do already have what they think they lack.

It is pretty clear that the tiresome industry responsible for this tiresome topic is not only cynical about things that have to do with morality, honor, relationships, purity and innocence, they are cynical because they envy with hatred that which gets in the way of the delusions and fantasies that make them so much money. Now we're back to the greed topic Tom initially raised.

To your first question, yes. There may be differences over what the social good is, however, as to those we already share, yes.

To the second question: In their subjective sphere, no, they are not incapable. They're capable. In the objective, if they're doing the same things that God asks and can't believe there is God, they may be serving God anyhow on the merits. The scope of what is considered rational may differ here, just as some may on the scope of what is the social good.

Third: Can only Christians and Abrahamic believers in God be ethical members of the community? Answer: no. The Bible texts sometimes identify people not baptized into Christ as righteous, just or pleasing to God. In the case of a centurion asking Christ's help to heal his servant, Christ rewarded the man's faith.

I know you have identified yourself as a non-Christian. It is possible for a non-Christian to read the Bible and if you have not read the New Testament lately, it could be a positive experience for anyone, if read with the expectation or belief of finding wisdom there. I've noticed that some on this board have heard references to scripture and supposed they're correct than have actually read the scriptures themselves.

One good reference: www.biblegateway.com

It depends how close you are sitting to your wife while reading the love poems. 

All of the efficiencies you expect from God are rooted in ephemeral concerns: it'd make it easier on your eyes not to squint; it would make it easier on your mind's regular mode of communication to have direct discourse; it would make it easier for me to believe if God would do something godly (miracle). It would make it more acceptable to your logic if God chose the most direct routes to communication with you.

All of this presupposes that the purpose of God for you is to reinforce your expectations and ephemeral attachment to certainties you can talk about or avail yourself of.

If that isn't even close to God's purposes for you, then you may be insisting on the intuitive thing when often it is the counter-intuitive thing that helps us do things well or right.

Am I off base concerning your approach? How so if so? Would you consider a different approach? Whose duty is it, God's, or yours, to seek?

Re: why miracles way back when and not in the modern age?

John 20:29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Why? I sometimes think of this as akin to the eastern teachings in which a master or teacher may say they cannot teach a disciple if he/she has a full cup already. All full of ideas and presuppositions, and lacking room for spiritual feeding.

Here's another aspect of emptying, or as our hymns before Holy Communion melodiously say, "Let us lay aside all earthly cares..."

Matthew 6:34 (King James Version) 34"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

And:

1 Peter 5: "Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."[a] 6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

A missionary, Dan Everett, took on the job of bringing scriptural enlightenment to the Piraha tribe of the Amazon. Thoroughly trained at the Summer Institute of Linguistics, he tried to learn their language enough to teach them the Bible.

He came to the conclusion that their language, which features no recursion and essentially no tense except present, would not allow them to be taught the Word of God. His conclusion led him to abandon his faith. The translation challenge, which was apparently much more basic than presenting Shakespeare in pidgin ("Is be, or is not be, is one big damn puzzler.")

And should we have tried to teach the Bible to Washoe? (R.I.P.)

Full article available here at New Yorker.

Do you realize the circularity of giving me more verses to prove God's existence, yet those verses can be believed only if one believes the words are divinely inspired?

I didn't say there was no God. I won't say there wasn't something that created the singularity that went big bang.

What I do see as irrational, and have since I was 10 or so -- this isn't a knock on Christianity since I made exactly the same point about the Torah -- is that I won't buy into circular arguments, about a personal deity, if this omnipotent deity, who apparently wants me to have a relationship to it, can't produce any more evidence than a circular argument.

I can get along spiritually much better with a neopagan tradition that uses archetypes as a focus for what is inside -- and allows the possibility of a group consciousness. I can deal with animism. I can deal with a Buddhist or Confucianist or Taoist model, none of which expect me to buy into a circular model.

Now, can you offer evidence that doesn't depend on biblical verses?

Why "give you over to" a deeper delusion of pride?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

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religious sect may degenerate into a political faction,' wrote James Madison, but the new American nation would nevertheless be protected against the ungovernable combination of religious fervor and political power as long as the Constitution prohibited the federal government from establishing any particular creed as preeminent.
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