What the Frock?

I have little respect for Southern Baptist pastors.

Tarot card readers have better credentials.

But when they preach the kind of abject hate Pastor Dillon Awes preached last Sunday, my disrespect turns into contempt.

Marking the start of Pride Month, Awes told his flock that every single gay "should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head."

Hitler-like, he called the mass executions "the solution for the homosexual in 2022."

Realizing his solution might sound a tad harsh, Awes deferred to Scripture.

"That’s what God teaches," he said. "That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word."

I never realized the Ancient Israelites had guns, or shot sinners in the back of the head. 

You learn something every day.

Awe's boss, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, backed his underling's bloodthirsty solution, insisting, "This is not murder but capital punishment."

In case you're wondering, Pastor Awes' Stedfast Baptist Church occupies a strip mall in Watauga, Texas, a suburb of Forth Worth. 

The pastor, of course, doth protest too much.

His obsession is no doubt an instance of reaction formation. 

We'll soon hear, in the manner of so many clergymen, that Awes has been arrested on charges of pedophilia, a crime that, in Texas, earns you a 99-year sentence. 

Fine with me.

As Hunter S. Thompson said, "Anybody who wanders around the world saying, 'Hell yes, I'm from Texas,' deserves whatever happens to him."

Pastor Jonathan Shelley further justified Ames' venomous sermon by claiming all gays molest children.

"It is our duty," he said, "to warn families of a real threat that exists in our society."

Therein lies my concern. 

Were these two morons not influential, they'd be irrelevant—nothing more than two out-of-touch Texas snake charmers.

But they are influential.  

My fear is that scapegoating gays for all of society's problems will become a core GOP tenet; and Pastor Ames' "solution," a GOP policy.

Magical Thinking

Magical thinking is typical of children up to five,
after which reality begins to predominate.

— American Psychological Association Dictionary

Every day I encounter magical thinking.

It makes me cringe.

Here are three examples I encountered in only the past 24 hours:

• An executive coach told a young realtor, "If you just go to networking events, you'll be a millionaire." That's malarkey. 
  
  
• A keynote speaker at a conference told businesspeople, "When followers love what you love to do, the money will follow." That's also bull.
  
  
• A woman angry about last week's Supreme Court decision Tweeted, "Since women have no contractual rights, I need no longer pay my student loans." That's foolishness.

Our society is hip deep in magical thinking—the kind that ruins people's lives (remember when Trump said household bleach could cure you of Covid?).

We've always been surrounded by magical thinking—witness the 1990s' Beanie Babies Investment Craze—but things seem to have worsened of recent.

Magical thinking—the belief that your thoughts, words, or actions can shape events—assumes a causal link between the subjective and objective.

Of course, sometimes your words and actions do shape events. (Just tell your boss his hair plugs are obvious; or cross the street without looking.)

But most of the time events have a mind of their own.

Since the advent of science in the 16th century, we've tended to associate magical thinking with infants, religions, and "primitive" cultures. 

But magical thinking pervades popular culture, too.

Freud blamed magical thinking on the Id, which seeks favorable outcomes without regard to the "reality principle."

Reality aside, maybe magical thinking isn't magic at all, but only an instance of wishful thinking—the error in judgement known to philosophers as the "ought-is fallacy."

The ought-is fallacy assumes that the way you want things to be is the way they are, no matter the evidence.

Examples of the ought-is fallacy include the belief in angels and the healing power of crystals; the belief that trickle-down economics works; the belief that Trump actually won the 2020 election; the belief that hard work pays off; and the belief that no one is evil.

The next time you're confronted by someone's wishful thinking, ask him, do you believe in magic?

Hieronymo Girolamo

If we look to the saints, this great luminous wake with which
God has passed through history, we truly see
that here is a force for good.

— Pope Benedict XVI

Despite being raised a Roman Catholic, I struggle—as most Americans do—with believers.

Believers who practice what they preach have my admiration; but far too often your garden-variety believer turns out to have worse moral failings than the rest of us. He just doesn't know it.

I'm also not sanguine about church leaders; the opaque and bizarre organizations they run; or about the wily ways they exploit weakness and ressentiment.

More than most Americans, when it comes to religion's role in society, I tend to agree with Napoleon: "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."

Saints, nonetheless, captivate me.

The Catholic Church recognizes over 10,000 of them.

Saints are venerated by the church for "heroic sanctity." They're history's first responders, only with missals. 

And saints are often "patrons"—sponsors of causes and cities and professions, and guardians of individuals when they're caught in a bind.

Catholics celebrate saints' feast days, take their names at confirmation, and pray to them when they're wanting. 

Saints' life stories are generally fascinating.

One of the 10,000 saints I just discovered is Hieronymo Girolamo, St. Francis of Jerome.

A Jesuit in the 17th century, Hieronymo spent 40 years of his life preaching in the rural areas surrounding Naples, where his sermons would draw as many as 15,000 listeners.

His followers said he had god's gift on the soapbox and would often drag sinners before him, so they could hear his outdoor sermons. He spoke of the wickedness of sins, the need for repentance, the suddenness of death, the tortures of hell, and the salvation in Jesus.

Hieronymo spoke 40 times a day, always choosing streets and crossroads where recent crimes had been committed. Whenever he concluded, the crowd would crush forward to kiss his hand or touch his garments and beg forgiveness of their sins. 

"He is a lamb when he talks, but a lion when he preaches," listeners said, "not a mere mortal, but an angel expressly sent to save souls."

Hieronymo also earned a reputation for miracle-working—a requirement for sainthood.

He was said to have received communion directly from Jesus Christ. He was also witnessed asking a prostitute's corpse where its inhabitant was and receiving the answer, "I'm in Hell!"

Hieronymo preached in the streets until the age of 73. "As long as I keep a breath of life I will go on," he said. "Even if dragged through the streets, I will thank God. A pack animal must die under its bundle."

He died in 1716 and was canonized 123 years later.

By my count, Hieronymo delivered well over 670,000 sermons during his lifetime.

Apologies

We are so busy winning we can't concede our mistakes.

— Aaron Lazare

To err is human.

But to apologize—?

“Never apologize, mister" John Wayne said. "It’s a sign of weakness.”

That seems to be the code of most men. (Women, on the other hand, "live lives of continual apology," as Germane Greer said.)

An apology, according to psychiatrist Aaron Lazare, is really a reparation: you've wronged someone, and you owe them your admission of guilt.

Apology is a 15th-century word borrowed from the Greek apologia, literally "sprung from divine speech" (apo + logia). An apology was the pronouncement of a god, channeled through an oracle. 

To the Ancient Greeks, an apology wasn't just manly; an apology was godly.  

The English word apology first meant a "defense" or "self-excuse." Samuel Johnson defined it as such in his dictionary, adding "Apology generally signifies excuse rather than vindication, and tends to extenuate the fault, rather than prove innocence."

It gradually came to mean an "an admission of error." In other words, a guilty plea.

Like John Wayne, a lot of Americans feel no urge to apologize.

And they're sick of other Americans apologizing: apologizing for genocide and slavery and imperialism; for witch trials and lynch mobs and McCarthyism; for redlining and segregation and the caging of immigrant children; for strip-mining and gas-guzzlers and deforestation.

Apologies aren't manly.

Apologies are for losers.

But one form of apology worth considering is the apologetic.

An apologetic was an early Christian's defense of his faith.

Apologetics—short essays—were published at a time when the Romans would execute a Christian merely for refusing to worship the pagan gods (a lot were executed, and often in grisly ways).

Of the hundreds of written apologetics, On the Testimony of the Soul, penned in 198 AD by Quintus Septimius Tertullian, stands out as an especially persuasive one (Tertullian was a lawyer).

In the apologetic, he argues that there's little difference between Christians and pagans, when you consider that both believe in God, demons and souls.

Both, Tertullian says, admit expressions like "God help us," "God bless you," and "God wills it." 

Both, moreover, admit that souls can become corrupt—that demons exist who can capture and bend souls to their will.

And both admit, finally, that souls experience an afterlife; some a pleasant one; some an unpleasant one.

Given these common beliefs, Tertullian says, it's easy to see that Christians and pagans are bound by their humanity, and that their differing faiths are inborn and don't derive from religious discourse, but from the "testimony of the soul."

"Every race has its own discourse, but the content is universal," Tertullian says.

"God is everywhere and the goodness of God is everywhere. The demons are everywhere and the curse of the demons is everywhere. The summons of God's judgment is everywhere. The awareness of death is everywhere and the testimony of the soul is everywhere."

The testimony of the soul provides the evidence clinching Tertullian's case: pagans shouldn't execute Christians; for, in doing so, they only snuff themselves.

We'd be wise to remember with Tertullian that we're all one people, united by the fact that we all have a soul; and that, sometimes, apologies are due.

"When you forgive, you free your soul," says the writer Donald Hicks. "But when you say 'I’m sorry,' you free two souls."

Gossip

He who never says anything cannot keep silent.

― Martin Heidegger

Facebook's outage this week—a form of compulsory digital minimalism—reminded me that the world's religions advise you to avoid gossip, "in the sight of God an awful thing."

Gossip is an awful thing, even if you're not god-fearing.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger explained why in his magnum opus, Being and Time.

Gossip tranquilizes—sparing us the job of discovering our life's purpose. Every minute spent engaged with it is one less minute spent in contemplation of our inevitable death.. And that escape from the thought of our own death Is comforting, even anesthetizing.

In Heidegger's view, gossip delivers us over to prepackaged ways of interpreting life's meaning. 

Like a cranky letter, gossip has already been "deposited" before ever reaching us, denying us the chance to decide for ourselves whether its malignant interpretation of life is really useful. 

Worse yet, gossip conforms us to the role of an average listener in a superficial conversation. Gossip dictates what's worth discussing—what's appropriate and intelligible talk—and what isn't.

By listening to gossip, "we already are listening only to what is said-in-the-talk." We already are allowing that we're unthinking, uncaring and unoriginal people. "Hearing and understanding," Heidegger says, "have attached themselves beforehand to what is said-in-the-talk."

Gossip in that sense is deafening: it doesn't communicate, but merely "passes the word along" ("shares," in Facebook-speak). "What is said-in-the-talk spreads in ever-wider circles and takes on an authoritative character." Things are so because one says so—even when what is said is groundless hearsay.

And gossip is irresponsible twaddle. 

"Gossip is the possibility of understanding everything without previously making the thing one's own," Heidegger says. Gossip is something anyone can rake up; you need not be an "influencer."

Gossip discourages fresh thinking, originality, and genuine attempts to understand the meaning of things, because it so dominates the public forum as to "prescribe one's state-of-mind."

By prescribing your state-of-mind, gossip also makes you rootless—cutting you off from reality, so that you "drift unattached" to life and the world around you.

That from a man who chose to spend most of his time in a secluded mountain hut in Bavaria warning the world of the dangers of technology.

This weekend, take a long, soulful break from Facebook. 

You'll be glad you did.

Above: The Wave by Corran Brownlee. Oil on canvas. 47 x 60 inches.

A Catholic Conundrum Cleared Up At Last

Faith may be defined as an illogical belief in
the occurrence of the improbable.

— H. L. Mencken

As Whole Woman's Health v. Austin Jackson proves, right-wing Catholics on the Supreme Court are a clear and present danger—to women. 

By recriminalizing abortion, they will increase women's misery beyond calculation.

Believe what you will about fetuses; that's your right.

But recognize the Roman Catholic Church, following Aristotle, for nearly two millennia held that a fetus had no soul until it was six months old—and therefore couldn't be murdered.

Early-stage abortions weren't sinful.  

Only a modern bit of dogmatic gymnastics changed the Church's position on abortion.

And the change came about ass-backwards.

Before 1854, Catholic canonists had struggled with a thorny riddle: how could Jesus have be born of a woman stained by Original Sin?

It's uncanny! 

To solve the riddle, Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti (Pope Pius IX) declared that Jesus' conception was "immaculate" because Mary was born without sin.

Problem solved!

But Mastai-Ferretti's solution also led him to declare all abortions a mortal sin.

Why? 

Because Mary's sin-free life began not at viability, but conception.

Logically speaking, it had to.

Or so said the infallible Mastai-Ferretti.

So we've arrived at the bottom line:

Because an Italian decided 150 years ago that a Jewish woman was born without sin 2,000 years ago, no 21st century Texan can have an abortion without exposing her accomplices to fines and criminal penalties.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Thanks Amy, Brett and Neil, for clearing that up!

We look forward to your future legal decisions.

NOTE: Just so you know, I single out Catholics and exclude Evangelicals from blame for recriminalizing abortion for a simple reason: no Evangelical is intelligent enough to receive a Supreme Court appointment.

UPDATE: Amy, Brett and Neil didn't dawdle. We learned in May 2022 that they plan to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Above: Judging Amy by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas board. 10 x 8 inches. Not available in Texas. 

Messiahs

It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all.

— William James

To empower them, our prehistoric ancestors anointed their leaders with fat from dead animals. When, thank goodness, animal sacrifice later became taboo, fat was replaced with olive oil.

For as long as there have been tribes, messiahs (Hebrew for "the anointed") have walked among us.

Some have been annointed; some, self-appointed.

As an example of the latter, take Cyrus Teed.

A medical corpsman in the Civil War, Teed earned a medical degree after the war and began to experiment with electricity, a hobby of his since childhood.

One experiment gave Teed such a jolt he was knocked unconscious. While out, he was visited by a shapely angel. She told Teed he was on a mission from God.

Once awake, Teed changed his name to Koresh and promptly announced to everyone he was the messiah. He also joined the Shakers.

Over the next two decades, Teed managed to persuade 4,000 people to join religious communes he had founded in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

Not content with a far-flung flock, however, in 1893 Teed led 300 of his followers to Fort Myers, Florida, which he calculated to be the center of the universe. 

Outside Fort Myers, Teed directed his followers to build a tropical utopia he named "New Jerusalem." The small town soon had its own general store, bakery, restaurant, post office, saw mill, boat works, power plant, mattress factory, college, playhouse and newspaper, The Flaming Sword.

Like the Shakers, Teed's followers believed in celibacy. 

They also believed in reincarnation, alchemy, and "Cellular Cosmogony," a metaphysical system Teed had concocted based on his study of electricity. 

Cellular Cosmogony held that the universe exists within a gargantuan womb and that Earth is the "great cosmogonic egg.”

If that's not whacky enough for you, Teed's followers also believed in gender equality, socialism, and farm to table. 

Teed was said by a Chicago newspaper to have "a mesmerizing influence over his converts.” But he was also shrewd, raising money by claiming he was Christ reincarnated and starting his own political party to avoid paying Florida taxes.

When Teed died in 1908, his followers refused to bury his body, insisting he'd rise from the dead. The Fort Myers coroner finally ordered that the pungent body be removed from the bathtub it was being kept in and buried. 

Teed's failure to reappear led to the dwindling of his followers and the eventual abandonment of New Jerusalem. 

Today, the abandoned town is a state park.

If Cyrus Teed's chosen name sounds familiar, you might recall another self-appointed messiah, Teed-follower David Koresh.

But that's a story for another day.

Attractive Nusiance

I count religion but a childish toy and
hold there is no sin but ignorance.

— Christopher Marlowe

After his arrest this week, Atlanta gunman Robert Long told police he merely wanted to wipe out temptation.

His vicar has said Long's actions were "the result of a sinful heart and depraved mind" and "completely unacceptable."

Bull.

While liberals ballyhoo about pistols and prejudice, I don't hear an outcry against the real culprit: Christianity.

It's time to outlaw it.

"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad," Friedrich Nietzsche aptly said.

Long found the world ugly and bad, and merely tried to better it. 

His only real crime was childishness.

Fortunately, there is solid ground upon which to ban Christianity: the doctrine of “attractive nuisance."

Dating to 1841, the doctrine holds a property owner responsible for a child's injuries when the owner fails to eliminate a "nuisance" that lures the child to trespass.

Attractive nuisances typically include swimming pools; artificial ponds and water fountains; trampolines; treehouses; merry-go-rounds; building equipment and debris; discarded appliances and cars; and unsecured animals.

In the case of Victims v. Long, the vicar of Crabapple First Baptist Church (as well as Long) should be found guilty. 

Long pulled the trigger, yes; but the vicar lured him into doing so, by dangling the "attractive nuisance" known in his trade as "eternal salvation." 

The Crabapple First Baptist Church should be shuttered and demolished, and the congregation's assets awarded to the plaintiffs.

For once, let's get to the root of things.

The Peril of Positive Thinking

Disease is an impudent opinion.

— Phineas Quimby 

Superspreader-in-chief Donald Trump can't take all the heat for the 4.5 million coronavirus cases in the US. He shares the blame with Phineas Quimby.

Quimby was a New England watch-repairman who in the Gilded Age spread the gospel of "New Thought" (also known as "Christian Science").

Told by a country doctor he had incurable TB, Quimby decided "doctors sow the seed of disease, which they nurse 'til it grows to a belief." Determined to heal himself, Quimby set out to study animal magnetism, concluding from his readings that the mind is all-powerful and alone can cure any ill. It can also make you rich.

Quimby's New Thought is still with us; today, we call it "Positive Thinking."

And Trump is Positive Thinking's poobah. 

Like many a wealthy American, he grew up imbibing this swill at the dinner table (Positive Thinking was rich Republicans' rejoinder to FDR's New Deal). He also imbibed Positive Thinking at church: the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, author of the best-selling The Power of Positive Thinking, was the Trump family's pastor. Peale even officiated at Trump's first wedding.

Despite warnings by scientists, Trump continues to call the virus' effects "fake news," flouting facts most intelligent people accept.

He's deep in the grip of Phineas Quimby.