God, guns, and guts

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (US Constitution, Amendment II)

I wonder if the founders of this great democratic republic new what future problems that one sentence would cause. It certainly caused a few problems when it was debated and originally added, and the debates, name-calling, threats, and intimidation haven't stopped since.

We've heard a lot of sound bites as arguments intended to support this amendment, and we've heard a lot of statistics from individuals and groups intending to shed light on the 'gun issue'. It would be unfair of me to characterize people on any side of the debate with phrases such as 'pro-gun', 'pro-freedom', 'pro-regulation', or 'anti-American'. Most reasonable people have some combination of feelings about "Arms" that are not easily separated into neat little boxes.

For example, if we define "Arms" as a hunting rifle or shotgun, then few people would argue against the ownership of such a firearm. If, however, we define "Arms" as a nuclear bomb those same people may have a different opinion. The text, as you can see above, is unclear because it makes no such distinction. Well, you might say, the authors didn't know about nuclear weapons so it obviously doesn't apply to those. Perhaps, but then it also should not apply to tanks, submarines, jet fighters, drones, missiles, and automatic weapons of any kind. As one can clearly see, the issue is murky.

It also doesn't help that the text might as well have said "because slave rebellions and escaped slaves are dangerous, slave-holding states shall not be prevented from hunting them down and protecting themselves (from the murderous savages)", for that was clearly the intent of the 200+ year-old text.

But, rhetoric is a self-reinforcing cycle, so I'm going to try to avoid/ignore all the "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" and "guns don't kill people, people kill people" sound bites and focus on data and good old-fashioned critical thought.

The problem with this approach is that the data really isn't clear, except on this one point: more firearms means more deaths by firearms. Thank you, Captain Obvious, now there's a shock! As Eddie Izzard has been reported on the Internet as saying, "They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people."¹

One note before I go on -  in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I am not against people owning firearms, in fact, I belong to that rather non-exclusive American club. However, that does not prevent me from reasoning and it doesn't even prevent me from being a pacifist² even though that's not how I was raised. Even so, here's where the situation stands: people are tired of innocent people getting killed. That sentiment belongs to no one side of the debate, even though there are many sides. That sentiment does not even belong solely to Americans. Even people uninvolved with this debate tire of innocent people being killed, no matter how they are killed.

To attempt to stop innocent people from being killed, people all over the world enact laws to curb driving under the influence of all sorts of drugs, alcohol included. They enact laws to curb hitting pedestrians with cars. They enact laws to curb the introduction of dangerous products by merchants (other than firearm merchants in America) - everything from requiring safety restraint systems in cars to eliminating lead paint from child toys. They enact laws to keep people safe in all sorts of ways, except this one way in America, because in America the ability to possess "arms" is sacrosanct.

Except it's not.


As noted above, there are all sorts of "arms" an individual cannot own, and there is an entire class of people (those convicted of a felony, generally known as "felons") that are prohibited from owning "arms" - specifically firearms. So, what we Americans are really saying when we argue for Amendment II is not really that different. Instead of slaves, however, it's other people (i.e. not us)...which plays really well in politics, especially politics that consider those other people as less worthy of the same life.

Here is where we get back into the rhetoric, because although it's generally been distasteful, the use of firearms against women who have been victims of domestic violence has been weighed against the freedom of the people and found wanting. Of course we need to be clear here, when we say the people, we really mean those who fear those other people so strongly that the only solution is to arm themselves. The general public only raises its voice when the victims of those other people, who are, by the definition of the people, criminals, are children.

But...those are criminals - are we to punish the innocent for the actions of the guilty? Well, if you want to reduce "gun violence", there is only one sure way to do it - reduce the number of guns. But...that's un-American. Really? Is it "American" to say that one individual's freedom trumps another individual's safety? No, that's chaos, but that's really what we're saying - it's just that no one has the guts to commit to the one course of action that the data and reason itself say is the only sure course.

Thought can change and amendments can be repealed, but Americans would have to hold true to the other things the Constitution says, not just a single, out-dated statement. We would have to hold true to the principles that ordained and established our great republic. Those principles that identify a "more perfect union" as one with justice and domestic tranquility that provides for common defense and promotes general welfare. Until we return to those principles, I really cannot take seriously an argument that attempts to amend the details of how those principles are implemented.

Notes

1. Here's the snippet from one of his concerts on youtube - the actual quote is a little different.
2. Pacifism is  the "opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes" - it says nothing about hunting.

Agnosticism

I know it's been a while since I've posted on this blog, but, life. That is not intended to

People often put agnosticism on a continuum between theism and atheism, but that really isn't where it belongs.

First, we can be 'agnostic' about several things; for example, in the technology industry people talk about something be 'device agnostic'. While I may disagree about what it means when something is 'device agnostic', I think we can all agree that the users of that particular phrase do not intend to imply that the something that is device agnostic doesn't know whether there is a device or not...and they certainly aren't implying that the device is unable to determine whether or not there is a god.

Second, to place agnosticism on a continuum between theism (there is a god) and atheism (there is not a god) misunderstands the term. This misunderstanding probably stems from the Hellenistic era (approximately 330 BC to 30 BC) mystery cults use of the term. Part of the misunderstanding probably also stems from the idea that the word comes from a •· gnosis (knowledge) - which would indicate that something is unknown. In this case then, while the denotation of the word is a lack of knowledge, the connotation is that one does not know whether or not there is a god.

Neither of these, however, prove the posit above - if proof is even possible. Let me, therefore, offer another explanation. Agnoticism comes from a •· gnostikos and is an adjective that describes not only something that is unknown but something that is unknowable; something outside of the realm of the intellectual and cognitive, just as something that is amoral is outside of the realm of morality and eternal is outside of the realm of time (in contrast to everlasting...which is another discussion).

How does this apply in the theistically-specialized sense? Certainly better than a •· gnosis - let me explain.

If we look at most languages, there are what I like to call companion words. We can, perhaps, see this in Greek more readily than most other languages. For example, we might look at rhema and logos - both can be translated as 'word', but that's an inadequate translation, for one is related to the spoken word and one is related to the written word. Likewise, if we look at gnosis, its companion is episteme - both can be translated as 'knowledge' but that's an inadequate translation, for one is related to experiential knowledge and one is related to theoretical knowledge. If we were to follow this line and attempt to relate it to god-knowledge on a continuum between theism and atheism, we would need to use the negation of episteme, not the negation of gnosis.

So, is being agnostic (in this theological sense), as the theists and atheists claim, simply yielding to superior arguments and figuratively throwing our hands in the air in despair? No, I do not believe so.

First, we readily admit that there are things that are unknowable (present quantum state is a good example). It appears that it does not matter which tools we apply or how much more research we do, some information simply cannot be known. The statement that a present quantum state is not knowable is not physicists the world over taking a middle road between those who say that we can know the present quantum state and those that say we cannot.

Second, if we are to speak in theological terms, it is more coherent to speak of something that is inherently unknowable. In fact, to speak of "god" as something knowable in any fashion seems nonsensical, for we define god, at the very least, as beyond nature (supernatural)...and often in terms of infinity, and it makes little difference if that infinitude is mathematical or simply logical.

Humanity is such a wondrous entrant to the cosmos that I would argue that little for us should be described as agnostic, and yet we readily accept that some things are - why would we resist the idea that whatever gods there may be are not as unknowable as the smallest particles we can see?

Pandemonium

When I was working in Louisville (that's pronounced lou-ah-vul to the uninitiated), I had the opportunity to work with several people who had pronounced southern accents. While I generally like southern accents, not everyone does; in fact, some people find them annoying. One gentleman went so far as to say he purposely practiced with a northern accent because of the prejudices associated with his native southern speech. He claimed that every time he spoke with a southern accent, people believed he was ignorant and mentally challenged. Unfortunately, his experience was not uncommon.

How did we, as a society, travel so far down a road to nowhere? Since I can't find anyone else to blame, I'm going to blame "the media", that amorphous group that no one really seems to be a part of but is at the same time the bane of our existence.

Why would I blame the media? Because any time there's a disaster in the southern US the media finds the first slack-jawed yokel with 3 teeth who proclaims "it was pandemonium." While there are jokes about all the slack-jawed yokels and how easy it is to find them in the south, those folks are no more representative in the south than in anywhere else in the country. Reporters (and I'm using that term very loosely here) used to take the time to find people who could actually answer their questions rather than those who would make for an entertaining soundbite.

Of course it's not entirely the fault of those reporters...we who listen to them bear a share of the blame. We look at these poor folks, who are often in shock, and think that they should be as "together" as we are -- that they should know something more -- that they should be better able to cope with the events that they've described as "pandemonium". All too often our conclusion reinforces our prejudices without merit.

I've decided that I'm going to listen a little less to the dialect in which a message is delivered -- which, given the atrocious state of grammar in general use, is not going to be easy. After all, those New Yorkers are really annoying, and when a recent victim of a catastrophe in Arizona proclaimed that "it was 'pandamania'", he did so in a northern dialect and I thought "somehow I completely missed the rampaging pandas, and that makes me sad".

Love

I've always wondered about something. One of Nietzsche's saying is that things we do out of "love" are beyond good and evil...but just what did he mean? It's a little difficult, because it looks, to this untrained eye, that the word that Nietzsche used, "liebe," could mean a number of things that we typically think of as "love." That, of course, led me to think...well, what did the philosophers have to say, and thanks to what I consider bad interpretation of the most famous book in Western literature most everyone knows about the common Koine words for love: agapé, phileo, and eros.

Why do I say "bad interpretation"? Well, because most interpretations have become what we think the author means, based upon our theology, rather than what we know of other literature at the time. Now, to someone into Comparative Literature, or pretty much Comparative anything knows that's not how it's done.

So, what do the words mean? Well, first of all, eros isn't limited to sex...it does mean sex, but it's more sensual and less limited than that. I call it love that is "object" oriented. Second, is phileo -- which isn't really friendship, it's the love that's loyal...like the love you might feel for your country or other group, what I call "us" oriented, as in us-vs-them. So that leaves agapé...which is what the Greeks used for everything else...and is what I call "you" oriented (more on that later).

What little there is written about familial love uses agape...and the whole idea that the gods, or God, "loves" people was pretty much a foreign concept. That's not to say that there weren't times that the gods loved people (wink, wink)...after all, that's how many of the Greek heroes, like Hercules, were born.

Of course that doesn't even address the concept of romantic love...which is a pretty modern concept. The idea that there is another love that somehow encompasses the sensual and loyal and everything else is strange, and definitely not Biblical.

Now, back to the you-love. By that I mean that it is, in a sense, selfless...or what we would typically refer to as selfless. It's not really selfless...because the idea that you perceive an "other" implies that there is something that perceives "other" as different...and that's what we usually call "self". There simply must a self in order for there to be acts that we refer to as "selfless". Of course what we mean is that those acts de-emphasize the needs/hopes/desires of the "self" in favor of another. It's also important to note that one can be "selfless" in relation to country or group...but I would argue that ultimately what we are really referring to in that case is a greater degree of loyalty.

So, where does that leave me, or Nietzsche rather? Pretty much back where we started. Given that Nietzsche was a philologist, I think if he'd meant a more sensual love he would have used desire, and had he meant loyalty he would have used brotherhood. I think what he truly meant is you-love (or agape, if you wish)...of course there's nothing in the aphorism that tells me that. For the ultimate interpretation, I must go back to Nietzsche...a man who saw the ability to really show mercy to be superhuman. (I won't go into a discussion of Nietzsche's superman other than to say that Stan Lee found him in Wolverine.)

So, are the things that we do out of love really beyond good and evil? I think so, especially for Nietzsche. Of course he would probably disagree with us about whether or not something was truly done "out of love".

Kingdom of Heaven

So I was watching a movie and I began to wonder...what would the Kingdom of Heaven really be like?

For some people, it seems like the kingdom would be one in which they (through God, of course) are in control...but I'm a firm believer in the old cliché that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Of course one only need to look to the current American government to find this rule lived out. It doesn't matter if those striving for "the Kingdom of God" are Jews, Muslims, or Christians...it all turns out the same. The people just trying to live right and stay out of the way get blown to bits by those who are sure they're fighting for God.

I guess if you think about it, this is one of the subtexts of the Christian stories about the life of Jesus...as the mystics say, "the white fire burns as brightly as the black." If Jesus were truly considered the messiah by his followers, then he would have been seen as a military leader...he would have been one of the terrorists the Romans were fighting...one of the sicari, and a bit of a revolutionary war hero...like Che Guevara or Michael Collins. Maybe that's why he's associated with men carrying swords (one of the few stories in 3 of the gospels...Mt 26, Mk 14, & Jn 18) and men who are even identified as a sicari (Judas and those he was crucified with).

So I guess I'm wondering...do I really want to see the Kingdom of Heaven? I guess that all depends on who the Hand of the King is.

Sheep

I was watching Down from the Mountain again last night. As a kid, I heard more bluegrass than rock-n-roll, and I guess that's probably what makes it sort of a "comfort" music, kind of like fried chicken and mashed potatoes are my comfort food (even more so than chocolate -- which is part of the reason I give up meat every year for Lent). So, anyway...it struck me how many religious songs, and sermons for that matter, focus on us being "sheep". (Ok, I must confess that I giggle every time I hear Handel's Messiah and hear the men sing "we like sheep" over and over.)

I know you're probably thinking, "but it's in the Bible"...and it is. But if the Bible is, as I believe, a collection of documents that were written to tell us about God, then wouldn't it stand to reason that the analogy, even the part where it describes us as sheep, isn't about us? Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people I would describe as both sheepish and sheep-ish (can I get an amen from the language hounds for making the distinction?)...but in the words of the cliché, "it's not about you."

So, I guess what I'm proposing is that all the references, both the images of God as shepherd and us as sheep, describe God as being like a shepherd and really don't say much about us.

So, what does it mean to be a shepherd? Most of us today are pretty separated from such pastoral lifestyles, so I'm not sure the image really means much to us. I, growing up behind the back of God, knew a few kids in school that were shepherds...or at least the modern day American equivalent...so I guess I might have some insight.

A shepherd is someone who cares for sheep. They protect them as best they can, but they know that there are all sorts of problems they can't prevent or remedy...but they bind the wounds as best they can, and sit with their animals. They're a little like a parent should be to a child...leading them while giving them the freedom to explore on their own to find the greener grass and caring for them always.

So, remember, in those times when you're feeling sheep-ish, and even those times when you're not, this image...one of care-taker...is the most powerful image of God that we were given. It's much more powerful than that of sovereign...or even that which Tillich referred to as the gound of being, because while their might be, in the words of that old hymn, "power in the blood of the lamb", their is much more power in the love of the shepherd.

The Question of Evil

This is part of a series of blog entries...I'm just feeling as if I only have the time and attention for short posts right now, but read all of the posts so you can get what I mean. Of course, I'll need to start from a beginning...now which beginning will it be???

So let's begin at the beginning of the previous entry in this series...the neo-orthodoxy triumvirate.

First, the traditional view of omniscience and omnipotence is that they are infinite the way we've been taught to understand inifinity, which is mathematically; however, mathematical infinity is a very poor concept to associate with God. This becomes crystal clear when we talk about the concepts we refer to here (omniscience and omnipotence), because Inifinity is, by definition, omni-directional; however Knowledge and Power each have their antithesis...and while neo-orthodoxy would want to claim infinite Knowledge and infinite Power they would not want to claim infinite Ignorance and infinite Weakness, to say nothing of infinite Malficience.

A clear understanding of Infinity, combined with what it seems to me the Bible says about God (of course this relies on my interpretations) indicates that any reference to the infinity of God must refer to a logical infinity rather than mathematical. It seems to me that this makes sense if you think about it...the most powerful being in existence would seem to be "all-powerful" even though they may not necessarily have infinite power...which would make them relatively versus absolutely infinite.

Let's think about this another way. The first passage in the John's gospel, it says that Logos was the very first thing that existed and then tries to equate Logos and God. Assuming that John was correct, there are few options...and none that reinforce the notion of absolute infinity, because absolute infinity and Logos are diametrically opposed.

[wooop...wooop...TANGENT alert]
Now, I will grant that Logos runs counter to the description of God the Torah tells us God gave Moses. If we translate that passage as I AM WHO I AM that sounds more like an excuse than a name or even an idea...and more than a little like Popeye. If we translate that passage as I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE sounds a little like a power trip...like how dare you question, I'll be good or evil as I will puny human. But, who knows, maybe it was really supposed to be I WILL BE WHAT I AM, and the writer was drawing a contrast between the God of Abraham with the gods of Mesopotamia who were anthropomorphized down to the almost hourly changes in attitudes. (Ok, I'll get back to the topic at hand now.)

So if we remove the concept of mathematical infinity from our understanding of God how does that affect the Question of Evil? Well, suddenly the question is not really a question. It may be that God does not know actuality, but rather possibility and therefore won't prevent an event lest it actually be good. It may be that God does not have the power to change things willy-nilly. It may be that there is some unknown limit to possibility that makes "the good" a choice of the lesser of evils.

In any case, the question established by the classic definition of God is erased by the lack of Infinity.