An Open Letter to Michael Gerson

Every now and then on a Saturday morning I turn to the editorial section of my local paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. My first look goes to The Modern World by Tom Tomorrow - an acerbic satirical mash-up of all the facepalm moments I’ve had listening to the willful ignorance of right wing pundits and their cultural minions. Next, I “scroll” down to read the refreshing thoughtful commentary by Princeton economist, Paul Krugman.

Finally, to discipline my enthusiasm and remind myself that living in a democratic culture means having to endure views opposed to my own, I move over to the space normally dedicated to Charles Krauthammer. When Mr. Krauthammer is out, this space is usually filled by you, Mr. Gerson. Today was one of those occasions.

First, I should provide some historical context of my interactions with you. Unless I’m terribly misinformed, televisions and newspapers don’t work as two-way communication devices, so the number of times I cursed you out from the comfort of my living room is likely unknown to you. This private incivility, I must admit, had little to do with the fact that I disagreed with you and more to do with your rhetorical competence of making a decent case to the public. But this momentary torture was a necessary step to gain and maintain an understanding of those who see the world differently.

The worst was during your position as speech writer for George W. Bush because you had the temerity to both disagree with me and be in a position of power. But I never turned away from you, Mr. Gerson, particularly during your appearances on the PBS Newshour. It was a time when I suspected the right had forsaken intellectual honesty; but you – along with David Brooks and the late Bill Safire - were some of the reasons I had only “suspected” this abandonment.

During the Obama years, I did take comfort in the fact that it was my side that was in power but I was frustrated by the fact that your disagreements with the Obama administration were genuine and not of the garden variety “secret Kenyan, Muslim, Socialist” ilk.

You’ve always been critical of Trump but your editorial this morning was refreshing - not because you’re willing to acknowledge facts as facts, anyone familiar with your work knows this is not new territory for you, but you’ve highlighted the hypocrisy in members of the religious right supporting Trump. It was this question in particular that grabbed me: “What does public life look like without the constraining internal force of character — without the firm ethical commitments often (though not exclusively) rooted in faith?”

Your inclusion of the parenthetical “(though not exclusively)” tells me a lot about where thoughtful conservatism is going. Most things we will never agree on. But if conservatives can embrace an ethic that not all decency is rooted in religious faith, and liberals can embrace one that not all conservatism is rooted in hatred for one half of the US population, perhaps we can find common ground and get back to honest disagreement.

Aren’t we much better off arguing about how to improve our country rather than who does or doesn’t want to improve our country?

May I Never be Exorcised of this Demon

"Oh God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son.' Abe says, 'Man, you must be puttin me on.'

-- Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited

My mind is a jumbled mess. I wake this morning to find grapefruit rinds all over my bedroom, a half-drunken bottle of Wild Turkey on my nightstand, and someone having smoked all my Chesterfields. The rain has come but at least this is expected.  My hands smell of  metallic grease and gunpowder but I own no firearms.

Men of the cloth say that one must not fool with objects of spiritualism. Ouija Boards, Tarot Cards, hell even the zodiac column in your daily newspaper could be used to bore a hole into the most innocent soul allowing in a host of malicious spirits to pollute and corrupt it. Not that I've ever claimed to be innocent, we're all sinners and I'm no exception. So why should it be any different when one tosses back a bottle of Bacardi 151, turns off the news, re-reads The Great Shark Hunt, and lights a spliff laced with the finest Moroccan hash money can buy? If Captain Howdy could grab a hold of sweet little Reagan after just a few minutes on a Ouija Board, surely the Gonzo spirit can capture the willing seeker after a night of drunken solitary despair.

But sobriety comes the next morning like Hamlet's battalions of troubles dragging you kicking and screaming into a reality only possible were someone to activate Douglas Adams' Infinite Improbability Drive just after the Cleveland Indians win the American League Pennant and go on to lose the World Series to the Chicago Cubs. Nevertheless, reality it is and we're stuck with it.

The previous decade was awash with lessons on never saying never not just from a sports angle - like when the Red Sox reversed their World Series curse - but from a national one as well. We thought our military made us invincible...until 19 mutants hijacked four jet liners turning them into guided missiles armed only with some box cutters and a few discount flying lessons. We thought our economy was strong...until Bear Stearns...then Lehman Brothers...then Merrill Lynch...AIG, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Bradford and Bingley suddenly needed the help of the American tax payer because something they never thought could happen did. Then a first-term Senator from Illinois with a funny sounding name won the Presidency. And not only was he the first senator to win the office since JFK, but a negro to boot. He went on to win a second term and managed to rebuild our economy, reform our healthcare system and kill Osama bin Laden - the king of the aforementioned mutants. He didn't fix all of our problems but did a damn sight better than any president in recent memory or any serious player thought possible.

We thought the screw-heads had learned their lesson until they began supporting politicians who, now that TARP was a done deal, could scorn the banks for taking it and believed that the countless American tax payers now unemployed were moochers for applying for Food Stamps. They debased their fellow Americans in the name of patriotism and shamed those not fortunate enough to be born into more lucrative circumstances.

And now, here we are having gone not just through the looking glass, but through an event horizon into a black hole and are about to learn what a singularity is all about. Will we come out the other end into some better parallel universe or be squeezed into ever smaller proportions until one of our atoms bursts into an explosion that starts the whole damn 14 billion year trip all over again?  No one can say. Our next president was chosen because a small contingent of weasels and screw-heads wanted their country back and managed to con almost 60 million Americans into giving it to them. As railroad developer and professional screw-head, Jay Gould once said: "I can always hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." This rings a painful truth today.

When the black guy with the funny name took the Presidency, the stated policy of the opposition was to oppose everything regardless of merit. Some of us who believe in the best of people are trying to avoid taking such a stance now. Some of us still believe in the system and that the nation has spoken regardless of how we feel about it as individuals. It's a disciplined, noble, and admirable position to be sure. But some of us see a different light. Some of us fear how the graciousness of decent folk can be used toward the enabling of scoundrels. The one who bears this light is unable to show us anything other than the ugly reality.

I'm reminded of another light bearer. The truest of all rebels. The mythic nay sayer who rebelled against God Himself when He got too big for His britches. This fallen angel has been scorned through the ages drawing the ire of poets from Dante to Milton. But I see it differently. Lucifer saw the fundamental absurdity for a being who's brought into existence, granted the gift of free will yet instructed to blindly obey the granter of that gift without question. A cruel prank for which only the most faithful fall in the hopes of getting an unverifiable reward once they are called to account upon death.

It's noble to sacrifice one's comfort for justice. Lucifer exemplifies this for the comfort he sacrificed was not temporary but eternal. Reflexive rebellion has a place in the Universe and we shouldn't let a false sense of ethics trick us into enabling a leader who has all but promised to disgrace his countrymen in a fashion unprecedented in recorded history. Hitler never promised to disgrace the German people, he portrayed his perverted desire for conquest and mass murder as a fundamental aspect of German identity. The German people were disgraced because common decency demanded it once they saw how their blind complacency allowed an ancient evil to wreak havoc in a modern world with the machinery to rear it to maximum efficiency. They can be forgiven because they didn't have the benefit of history, but we have no such excuse. Blind rebellion was the only way Hitler's thugs could have been stopped. And for all the phony comparisons of Obama to Hitler, missing the comparison of Trump to Hitler requires an obtuseness of which only the worst among us are capable.

Rebel! And fear not. The enemy has been editing the playbook of opposition for nearly a decade and erased away any obligation of deference on our side. We need to treat the Trump presidency as illegitimate because he lost the popular vote. We need to treat him as someone with the worst intentions because he has admitted as much.  We need to objectify him as an object of derision as he's objectified those who've been the objects of his basest desires. He ought to be subject to the humiliation of being tarred and feathered. He ought to be called to account for being a pedophile, a philanderer, and a con artist. Every piece of legislation he seeks ought to be met with absolute scorn as un-American, Treasonous, and Fascist.  Every person should make daily calls to Republican legislators disguising their phone numbers as belonging to constituents to scream loudly that their slightest acquiescence shall be viewed as aiding and abetting a criminal presidency. We should promise a violence of rhetoric as harsh as his rhetoric of violence. That any use of force against those protesting his presidency will be construed as a declaration of war on the American people and will be returned because that's what the Second Amendment is for. Furthermore, those not with us...are against us.

Gandhi said "An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind." But blindness becomes irrelevant when the world is plunged into darkness. When in darkness we turn to the one who bears the light because we have no other choice. We must accept the light bearer's place in our Western mythology and use that force when decency demands it.

That wasn't me talking. It was the beast within. He's not one to argue with. He's one whose presence must be embraced because he's our only chance of survival. The war's already been declared by an unprepared enemy. A foolhardy enemy incapable of understanding their demise came long ago. They think they are the tide but they are only the sand.

Why Turning Down the Keystone Pipeline is Wrong for...(wait for it)...the ENVIRONMENT!!

It's easy to criticize Hollywood; though it's often unfair as when a particular celebrity takes up a noble cause like environmentalism, fighting poverty, or trying to eradicate diseases in the Third World which the First left behind decades ago. But there are also those times when the criticism is warranted like when a baseless opinions experience exponential growth in popularity: the anti-vaccine movement being chief among them. The criticism is warranted in this case because the public movement which has arisen out of it actually causes harm.

It should be noted that environmentalism does not fall into this category. The science is in - and has been for a long time - that humanity's use of fossil fuels is causing long term damage to our planet. If nothing is done, the effects of climate change may very well lead to only the seventh mass extinction event in our planet's 4.5 billion year history. And it would be the first time that the species most impacted bears sole responsibility for its own demise. This is not hyperbole.

There are plenty of business interests who stand to lose from the kind of limitations we need to put on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These interests have ruthlessly combated every attempt to regulate their GHG emissions often by employing the most absurd appeals to ignorance. As of this writing only one out of the eleven front-runners for the Republican nomination for President even acknowledges that climate change is a reality that must be dealt with. That's up from zero in 2012. And talk about progress, Exxon Mobil is now shouting from the rooftops about climate change because of an investigation by the New York Attorney General into whether Exxon has been sufficiently honest with its shareholders about the effects of climate change. You can read about this brilliant play here.

But for all its faults, there are times when that which is good for business is actually good for everybody. Granted, it's rare...but it does happen. It is precisely because of this rarity that such opportunities must be acted upon with haste. The Keystone XL pipeline is just such a case. Unfortunately, this mutual advantage quickly becomes overshadowed by perception. That perception being that because it benefits big business it must be detrimental to the environment. Given the history of big business in this country one can hardly be blamed for being unable to overcome this perception.

The term NIMBY was once an obscure term used only by academics and social scientists. Thanks to George Carlin this term became accessible to popular culture as "Not In My Back Yard." It was meant to describe the reflexive and thoughtless response that comes from citizens who reject changes in their neighborhoods that threaten the character of their community regardless of necessity or potential benefits. Prisons? Not in my back yard. Homeless shelters? Not in my back yard. And so on. Insiders within the energy sector have a different term: BANANA. This stands for: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. Accepting for a moment that many players within this sector have sown the seeds of this discontent, we still must question these impulses to consider whether they actually serve our ends.

Oil is an ugly thing. From the Exxon Valdez to Saddam Hussein's oil well fires to Prudhoe Bay to the Horizon platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, we are a generation that has been bombarded with images of the environmental devastation wrought by such accidents and this must not be understated. But the fact remains that oil and gas is still the cheapest and most efficient fuel available for use. Alternative fuels are great and the reintroduction of electric and natural gas vehicles is one of the reasons we're seeing some of the lowest energy costs in our lives. Yet oil remains vital to us.

As long as it can be sold for profit, oil will make its way to the market. This is as inevitable as any other force of nature. The question before us today is: How should the oil in Canada's Tar Sands get to market?  The US uses upwards of 18 million barrels of oil a day. 70% of our oil comes via pipeline and 23% comes via water tankers which carry, on average, 2 million barrels per trip.  The rest comes via rail and trucking. If one were to look up the most recent catastrophes from oil spills, the risks of transporting oil via water tanker become very clear.  The fact is that while pipelines are the most efficient means of transporting oil, they are also the safest.  That's not to say land based oil spills are not disastrous - they are - but they're rare.

Relegating the oil from Canada's Tar Sands to be transported by tanker opens a number of environmental risks that would be mitigated by an overland pipeline. If it's the environment we're concerned about, we better be sure that the choices we make will not yield the very results we're trying to avoid.

    

In Defense of David Brooks

Empathy isn’t easy. The best we can hope for is honesty in both the expression and criticism of points of view. I don’t mean “criticism” in the pejorative sense but insofar as it means to actively engage in interpreting the view of the other. It is safe to say that such honest exchanges are far too rare in our national discourse. Part of this is due to the prevalence of monologue. By which I mean we seldom engage in the act of understanding something that is unfamiliar. We take it at face value and either approve or disapprove while lauding the “refreshing” sense that someone else “gets it” (read: “Agrees with me”); or deriding the idiocy of someone who “doesn’t get it” (read: “Disagrees with me”).

I hate to bring political affiliations into this but given that many of Mr. Brooks’ critics have used his conservatism against him; I shall offer my critics the opportunity to use my liberalism against me. I voted for Obama twice and have every intention of voting for another democrat in 2016. I can’t stand the bloviating nonsense coming from pundits of all stripes but I admit that I can stand it a little less when the bloviations come from the right.

Having yet to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ novel, I am disinclined to voice whether Mr. Brooks’ or Mr. Coates’ opinions are well-founded. Rather I have chosen to address the tone of Mr. Brooks’ review rather than his stated disagreements with Mr. Coates.

First, it should be noted that David Brooks is not Bill O’Reilly. So the vitriol with which we – rightly, I believe – beat up on Mr. O’Reilly should be reserved for those whose views are so thoughtless, thin, and loud that they can only be born out of an ignorance so pure as to whither under the meekest scrutiny.

Mr. Brooks, on the other hand, is principled and disciplined in his views. Remember that he supported marriage equality long before many liberals dared embrace it. It is for this reason, that I interpret his review as genuine. In the beginning of the Brooks piece he speaks of the “humbling and instructive” nature of the recent racial unrest in Ferguson, Baltimore, and Charleston. He calls Mr. Coates’ work “a great and searing contribution” to the education of the public about what underlies these tragedies. Then writes: “Every conscientious American should read it.”

It’s hard to give a better review than that. But what follows is a critique of the work acknowledging the past endured by African Americans, as well as – what I perceive – as an honest question: Can a white person disagree without being an instrument of oppression?

Brooks gets to the heart of the matter quickly when he admits being disturbed by Coates’ rejection of the American Dream. After all, Brooks’ ancestors – as is the case with nearly all white citizens – came here willfully. The same cannot be said for Mr. Coates and Mr. Brooks acknowledges that explicitly.

This is a very important point and white readers would do well to acknowledge this as unequivocally as Mr. Brooks. Where Messrs. Brooks and Coates appear to agree is that history matters. But for Coates, it seems to matter more...at least according to Brooks.

As I said, I haven’t read Mr. Coates’ work but the recurring theme in Brooks’ piece is that such a targeted focus on the past blinds one to the opportunities of the present and future. Possibly, but I question whether this is not a fundamental difference in racial relations. Does the nature of our histories affect our ability to advance? Is it only easier for whites to say: “Get over it” because we’ve had nothing to get over? Is it harder for blacks because they do? I suspect there is some truth here but it is likely still only a small piece of the issue.

David Brooks is being criticized because he has limits to his ability to understand and has admitted as much. It’s an honesty to which we are so unaccustomed that we perceive it as racism. While it is a piece of the ignorance that breeds racism, the fact that someone is willing to point it out in themselves so publicly ought to be commended. It is when we deny such fundamental ignorance that racism is able to thrive. It is in its acknowledgement that we stand a chance at defeating it.

August Wilson told a story that a white guy once came up to him at a party and said: “Mr. Wilson, I don’t see race.” His reply was something like: “Really? Then why – out of all these people -did you choose to say this to me?” The point being that even well-intentioned ignorance is ignorance.

I fear that the backlash against Brooks’ honesty is the symptom of a similar problem affecting our culture – something which Brooks has, himself, pointed out on several occasions. We tend to live in ideological bubbles. We no longer seek out information to learn but to reinforce views which we already hold. This constant feedback loop is an impediment to the kind of sincere conversation we need about issues – racism being chief among them. It is so foreign to us that anyone can both appreciate a perspective while also disagreeing with it. We frequently confuse the two viewing all disagreement as a sign of disrespect. Our bubbles are made of a puritanical intolerance rendering us incapable of reconciling so mild a form of cognitive dissidence as to regard a view as both sound and important while also disagreeing.

It’s called civility.

On the Eve of Another Sad Anniversary - Nine Years Since the Death of Hunter S. Thompson (2/20)

The 21st century is a little more than a decade old and already we've lost too many heroes: Ted Kennedy, Pete Seeger, Walter Cronkite, Benazir Bhutto...all figures fossilized at various points in the archaeological timeline of social progress.

Tomorrow it will be 9 years since the passing of perhaps THE greatest single American patriot. I rank him up there with Washington and Lincoln. Perhaps if he'd lived at the right time, history books would speak kindly of a President Thompson. Unfortunately, he occupied that cesspool of desperation and depravity referred to as the latter half of the 20th century. A time when the powers that be were raking up all they could in the name of building a strong ownership society. 

The first decade of the 21st saw the culmination of 35-40 years worth of high stakes gimmeeism on the part of our decadent aristocracy. And if you don't think we have one, well, Jasper, I don't know what to tell you. Their decadence may not be as blatant as that of the French on the eve of their revolution; but who knows to what heights they would soar if lead-based face powder was as popular today as in the late 1700s?

Perhaps that's why Mr. Thompson had only survived through the infancy of that horrid decade able to take no more as it grew into a perverse conscious embracing of the cliche that somehow giving the rich more would improve things. It wasn't for lack of courage that humanity was failing, but energy. The end of the 60s had knocked the wind out of the last great leftist uprising, why should this one be any different?

I think he would've been glad to see two Obama presidencies, the near-universal acceptance of marriage equality, and of course what some may see as the implosion of the drug war with marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington state. However, the lack of accountability for Wall Street financiers who pulled off one of the most spectacular heists of all time, the NSA spying programs, the prospects of drones policing us by patrolling the skies, these would be sure to get the great Dr. Gonzo going...if only to remind us that there was still much to be done in the hope of preserving true liberty.

So, my friends, it is a sad evening. But somewhere on the perimeter of reality and reason looms a great reckoning. Nobody knows what form it will take; nor when it will descend upon us. But when the trumpet sounds the gates will open. And when they do, you'll want to be one of the ones welcomed inside rather than stuck trying to push camels through the eyes of needles. For them, the weight of their possessions chain them to a fiery world where they are sentenced for all eternity to a wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Over and out.

A Cliché Work of Staggering Mediocrity

Upon the New Year, I made a resolution to submit as many stories to as many publications as possible. My only other New Year’s resolution in 2004 was also literary in nature.  I resolved to read as much classic literature as possible and discovered my favorite novel of all time – The Count of Monte Cristo. Hopefully this resolution will have a return of similar magnitude.

Those of you following me know that I completed my first novel last summer. Crafting the final sentence was an exhilarating experience, like the anticipation setting in just before a first date. This is it, I thought. I had graduated from being an aspiring novelist to an actual one. Like many freshmen novelists, I had overestimated the exclusivity of this pool of first-time novelists. But my story is unique, I thought. It’s fresh. It’s never been done before. It addresses old issues in new ways and draws on new issues presented by the zeitgeist. It’s a masterpiece that delves into the remaining undiscovered corners of human consciousness!

And this is where I expose myself as either a heretofore undiscovered genius or someone so clueless that the rest of my writing will just devolve into the masturbatory drivel found only in narcissistic oases of incompetence and irrelevance.  Do I dare write poetry in a coffee shop?  Do I dare to eat a peach? Whoa! I almost fell over the edge there. When a struggling writer uses a T.S. Eliot quote to explain his philosophy, he’s about two semi-colons away from requiring the services of the men in white hats.

In his book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton tells the story of being in London with a friend who worked in publishing. An acquaintance of the publisher – apparently a poet of sorts – sees the men and says hello before walking on.  Upon his parting, the publisher turns to Chesterton and says: “That man will get on. He believes in himself.”  By sheer coincidence a bus drives by with an advertisement for Hanwell, the famed asylum.  Chesterton remarks: “Shall I tell you where all the men are who believe in themselves?” He goes on to make the point that the world is full of foolish people who believe in their talents to such a degree they are incapable of seeing how the outside world truly perceives them. Actors who can’t act believe in themselves, as do singers who can’t sing and writers who can’t write.

How can one striving to be a successful writer both refuse to give up yet also avoid such delusions? In order to keep going amidst such disappointment, it is tempting to accept such refuge.  I’ve tried hard to avoid this. Every writer knows this is just to protect a fragile ego. But rejection only becomes toxic when it is avoided out of fear.  I’ve decided to own my rejection.  It’s humiliating and evil but once you’ve been Stockholmed, I imagine there’s little else to fear. It’s been said that great art requires courage. I’m not so sure. I don’t think there is anything particularly artistic about courage or inartistic about cowardice. But if you’re courageous in the face of rejection, you’ll keep at it and improve; consequently increasing your odds of discovery.

As I’ve been researching avenues to publication, the term that keeps getting thrown around is platform – or being positioned in such a way as to be noticed by an audience. Now, I have this blog, a Twitter feed, and a Facebook page but I have absolutely no standing or reputation as a writer…except among friends. While I keep these planks up to date, I have little hope of breaking out until I get my name in print somewhere.  So I purchased a copy of the 2014 Novel and Short-Story Market and got to work.

This past weekend I sent out my third submission in two months. Note: I mean exclusive submissions – a new story every 20 days. If I can keep this pace up, that’s 18 submissions to 18 different publications before the end of the year. I stand a better shot at publication with 18 submissions than from just one novel. So far, the experience has provided some much needed therapy. By which I mean that the publications I’ve researched – with few exceptions – use some of the most cliché terms in the lexicon when describing what they seek.

First, each publication – like every rejection letter I’ve seen – uses the disclaimer that this is a very subjective business and one ought not be discouraged by rejection.  Yet, there isn’t a single title that fails to differentiate itself as “seeking only quality fiction of the highest caliber”. Aside from being redundant, if everyone only publishes “the best” – how come all these rags aren’t publishing the same stuff?  Also, everyone wants “fresh prose” and “nothing cliché” – I can’t think of anything more cliché than referring to a work of prose as “fresh”.  They want extraordinary literature that “brings the characters off the page”…well, unless someone is reading my book in a diner, it’s 1985, and there in an A-ha video, that’s not going to happen.

Secondly, many of them – more than one would think – make it a point to say that they don’t publish mediocre work. This reveals an intriguing paradox within the publishing world: That while admitting the business is subjective, they use some of the most subjective terms in contexts which assume the author knows what an editor would consider “mediocre”. And why would any writer, regardless of the stage of their career, submit anything they’d consider mediocre?

Hence, the title of this essay…and I’m not poking fun at Dave Eggers. I like Dave Eggers. He can get away with humorously cocky titles because he is a good writer; and, since he’s funny, we know it’s not from a real lack of humility. And since his stories are also incredibly sad, we know he takes his craft very seriously. Instead, I am poking fun at the publications who request such things ignorant of their contradictions. The industry frowns upon new writers with cocky attitudes, but also upon those displaying a lack of self-confidence. They insist they only accept the best, but their rejections always encourage us to keep trying…despite not being the best. A rejection that says, “You suck!” would be quite refreshing in that the writer could at least be assured of its honesty.

So here I proclaim…

(Due to the questionable sanity of the author as indicated by his use of two semicolons and a T.S. Eliot reference, J.H. Bernard has been committed to Hanwell Asylum to undergo a vigorous re-education campaign. The reader will do well to view his contempt for the publishing business as a rant befitting only a resident of Hanwell. We are here to assure the reader that the “paradoxes” identified by Mr. Bernard are in fact perfectly logical statements made by those of us with superior literary tastes and intellect. And if you are incapable of understanding such statements, well...we will get to you in short order.                            - The Men in White Hats)

The Nye/Ham Debate: What are Reasonable Individuals to Make of Scripture? Part III

Over the last two entries, I've made several different arguments about the balance between scientific and mythic views of the world. I'm sure there is much I missed, but there's only so much which can be explained in a few blog entries. In this, the third and final entry, I address the following subject: If the material world can only be explained by science and questions of meaning and "the good life" can only be explained through myth, what does it mean to say "God exists"? Does it mean God exists in an objective reality such as the material world but is somehow separate from it? Or does it mean God exists in myth as a symbol of goodness, and therefore only as a construct of our consciousness?

When Thomas Acquinas wrote Summa Theologica in the 13th century, he sought to provide a foundation for a belief in God using the Socratic method as outlined by Aristotle and Plato. The Catholic Church filled a substantial power void in Europe after the Fall of Rome. In the centuries that followed, Western civilization back tracked a bit in terms of knowledge. Many early figures in the Church worried about the usefulness of the pagan philosophers. Acquinas was the one who brought the philosophers of ancient Greece into the new Christian Age. His work was as much to prove the Christian worth of thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle as to suggest the likelihood of God's existence.

Ultimately, Acquinas' argument came down to a simple assertion: That everything we see in reality seems to have a cause - a bird eats fruit from a tree, then passes the seeds which fall to the ground and grow new trees. If the Universe exists as an objective reality, it follows that the Universe has a cause.

Acquinas also considered whether matter could be brought into existence. While Acquinas believed that matter was brought into existence by God, he did not see this as being integral to justifying a belief in God. Acquinas said that even if all the matter in the Universe were eternal, something had to have set it in motion. This opened the door to a new idea about creation: Not creation in terms of making something from nothing, but by arranging already present elements to bring about something else.

This is the foundation for my approach to the God question: Not that the existence of material suggests a single point of origin, but that a rather delicate balance needs to be sustained in order for life to emerge - and that an even greater delicate balance needs to be sustained in order for that life to develop consciousness. Given that most of the Universe is unadulterated chaos, it seems strange to me that there is this place we call Earth that had all the right ingredients at just the right instant to bring about, not just life, but a life bearing the intelligence to explore the unfathomable depths of the very same Universe. I find that to be a remarkable thing to consider.

To be fair, the opposing view is just as logical. Suppose that life is just some bizarre accident; that it is the product of insurmountable chaos rather than an organized system. It's entirely possible. Suddenly, the cliche of the glass being half-empty or half-full becomes quite profound. The Universe is simply too large for us to assert the degree of its chaos or orderliness. Instead, we must rely on inclination. If you're inclined to see the Universe as chaotic and life as an accident, you're likely to be an atheist. If you believe it is orderly, you probably adhere to some religious viewpoint. I happened to be inclined to see things as reflecting a kind of order. Others are inclined to see chaos.

One of the questions I get is: How do you know that life is a rare occurrence? The Universe could be boiling over with it, but because of distance and time, it's impossible to detect. Rationally speaking, this is a valid point; even if I do find it a simple-minded appeal to ignorance. Fundamentally, we have no way of knowing whether life exists beyond what we can detect. All we know is it has not yet been discovered elsewhere - at least not in any verifiable way. And since science limits itself to that which can be perceived, this claim cannot stand alongside the claim that God doesn't exist because God is beyond perception.

But there is a heretofore unresolved paradox which addresses just such a point: the Fermi Paradox. I encourage readers to follow the link. Essentially it argues that if intelligent life were common in the Universe, where is it? Over the time span of the Universe, there has been ample opportunity for intelligent lifeforms to colonize our galaxy...so, why haven't they? Interesting stuff, at least to me.

I don't intend to convert anyone to a theistic view of the Universe anymore than prove God's existence. I am the first one to admit the incredibly subjective nature of this viewpoint, so let me get to the heart of it here. If we look at the Book of Exodus where Moses talks to the burning bush, the burning bush claims to be the God of Abraham and Isaac. When Moses asks God's name, he gets the reply: Yahweh, a Hebrew word roughly translated into "I am, who am." Strange response to say the least, but if we consider the reply in the most basic linguistic sense we see that the word "am" constitutes a stative verb - or verb of being. To me, this is the same as saying: "I am existence, itself."

Think back to your earliest memories. There is something constant within you, something that has remained as it was despite all the changes you've experienced. It's your consciousness, but it's also the thing that recognizes itself as consciousness. You may have changed in physical appearance, you may have gained more knowledge about the world, you may have changed opinions - perhaps more times than once, but something within you has remained constant. That is what I perceive as the foundation of all that I am, all I've been, and all I'll ever be. Like the proverb of Buckaroo Banzai: "Where ever you go, there you are." The only way I can consider the perception of my consciousness, is by seeing it as a piece of something larger - an ultimate consciousness so powerful that existence itself would perish without it. I can only call it God.

The Nye/Ham Debate: What are Reasonable Individuals to Make of Scripture? Part II

My last post was the first half of a response to the oft over-simplified debate between Theistic Creationists and Atheistic Evolutionists. The purpose was to illustrate that these views are only mutually exclusive if the Creation story is taken literally. Also, it was to present an argument that scripture need not be taken literally in order to be meaningful.

In my last post, I expressed a great deal of sympathy with Mr. Nye. I still find his argument far more compelling than Mr. Ham's, by which I mean he presented a more reasonable worldview. However, something did surprise me about Mr. Ham's argument. He touched on something at the beginning that could have improved his argument - at least, for me - but then lost it to his insistence on the literal interpretation of scripture. He started by talking about the nature of truth and how we develop our view of reality. For Mr. Ham, scripture is his primary influence.

I'd like to take a moment here to say something about myth. Today, the connotation of "myth" is equivalent with false. Can you think of a time when you heard someone refer to something as a "myth" when it didn't mean "bullshit"? In many ways this is a good thing: Storytelling holds a powerful sway over humans. It's critical for our survival in that it's usually the first way we learn something. For as long as humans possessed language, there have been stories to illustrate the consequences of actions. Stories help us avoid poor decision making. Because stories possess such power, it is possible for unscrupulous persons to use them for sinister purposes. History is full of just such villains; therefore, our modern skepticism about "myth" has done us a service in depriving these tyrants of such undeserved power.

But this freedom also has drawbacks. For one, the world has become much more complicated. So much of our day to day lives depend upon the expertise of people other than ourselves. We have many modern marvels which make life quite convenient as well as safe; but these marvels each operate from a very specialized knowledge base - meaning, outside the realm of common knowledge. We refer to those who hold such specialized knowledge as professionals. Even the knowledge of our laws - to which we are all accountable - has become specialized. The Ten Commandments may have been stringent, but at least they were simple. Human survival today depends much more critically on quantifiable expertise than on those truths which are communicable through narrative. When those of religious persuasions lament the modern world, I submit that this is what they find so troubling...and I find it hard to disagree.

So when I refer to scripture as "myth", understand I do not mean it in a pejorative sense. I simply mean its truths are narrative truths rather than the quantifiable ones to which we are so accustomed in this modern world. Where Mr. Ham makes his mistake - and it is not a disingenuous one - is that he doesn't make the necessary distinction between the two types of truth. In attempting to restore the importance of narrative truth upon society, he tries to use a narrative truth to supplant the quantifiable truths discovered by scientists over the centuries. This approach unnecessarily destroys the balance between science and religion, pitting one side against the other rather than acknowledging that each speaks to something entirely different from the other.

If scripture is myth what is the narrative truth behind it? No single person is capable of answering this question in its entirety. We've been trying to answer it for thousands of years and, I suspect, we will continue do so for thousands more. What seems clear - to me, at least - is that scripture does not aim to teach us about our physical origins, but our existential origins. Not: "How did the world come into being," but; "What does it mean to be part of it?" The Young Earth Creationists believe scripture does both because they are blinded by the prejudices of modern society which states that only quantifiable truths matter. What a bizarre irony that their rejection of modern thought in favor of scripture is actually due to the same prejudice of which they aim to cure evolutionary science!

In my previous post, I mentioned Christ's parables and suggested that Genesis is a parable too. God made Adam and Eve. God told them not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They did...and this changed everything. What are we to make of this story? Surely not that all humans came from these two individuals, but that somehow this symbolic act represents something about human nature. Consider this debate about which I've been writing. It is fundamentally an argument about knowledge as well as it is an argument about good and evil insofar as both men are concerned with the potential harm caused by the other's view. For Mr. Ham, it's a matter of saving souls. For Mr. Nye, it's a matter of saving rational thought.

Scripture cannot speak to the scientific details of our world any more than science can speak to ethics or philosophical questions of meaning. This is not to say scripture is factually incorrect or that science is bad. It's only to say that each seeks something altogether unique. The truly remarkable thing is that our reality is so vast and complex that limiting one's view to either what can be confirmed by the senses or read in a single book among multitudes, is not only to do injustice to oneself, but is to be guilty of a most profound ingratitude for this Universe which you have the privilege of inhabiting.

In my third post on this subject, I will be writing about why evolution does not disprove the existence of God.

The Nye/Ham Debate: What are Reasonable Individuals to Make of Scripture?

Hopefully some of you have had the pleasure of watching the debate between scientist, Bill Nye, and young Earth creationist, Ken Ham. If not, you may watch it here. It's not a prerequisite to what follows, but is an insightful and thought-provoking exchange.

If you've been following my blog - particularly with respect to my C.S. Lewis fan-fiction - you've probably gotten the impression that while I share some sentiments with those of religious faith, I also reject certain assumptions of the broader faith community.

George Carlin once joked about his Catholic education saying that he and his classmates were so well-educated that by second grade most of them had lost the faith. I feel much the same way about my Catholic upbringing. I was taught to think critically and to question. I still believe in God and in the inherent dignity of every person; but I see no reason why those things cannot be taken irrespective of each other. I accept that my belief in God cannot be proven and I see no reason to compel the conversion of atheists. One's belief in such things ought not be a matter of choice or compulsion, but a natural extension of how one perceives the world. I cannot help but believe in God.

The purpose of this debate was whether the Young Earth Creationist (or YEC) worldview is viable today. Ken Ham, CEO of Answers In Genesis, argued for the resolution and Bill Nye, "the Science Guy", against it. I do not intend to repeat the debate here, merely to present a perspective that is often lost in the false choice between Theistic Creationism and Atheistic Evolution. To be fair, Mr. Nye - an Atheistic Evolutionist - addressed this when he pointed out that there are billions of religious people in the world who also acknowledge evolution. While I appreciate that, there's still an impression among adherents to both views that they are irreconcilable. Therefore, it is appropriate to consider what relationship - if any - exists between scripture and the evidence.

So, what is scripture? At its most obvious layer, scripture constitutes a series of writings compiled over thousands of years which appears to say something about who we are, how we got here, and why we are here. In short, it's an origin story. I'm referring here to the book commonly known in the Western world as "The Bible" including both Old and New Testaments.  Now, there are several different translations and versions of this text; but across all of those different versions there are some basic points which remain true to all of them: all say that God created the world in six days, that Adam and Eve were the first humans and their sin brought evil into the world, that God caused a great flood and commanded Noah to build an arc so that only he, his family, and two of every living creature would survive, and that God sent his son, Jesus, to save us from sin. I choose these four points because these were the ones upon which Mr. Ham focused in his argument. In my terms, they are: Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and Salvation.

Let us begin with Creation. The YECs take this section literally. God literally made everything in six 24-hour days approximately 6,000 years ago. If this is true, the world should be full of evidence reinforcing this view and devoid of evidence suggesting otherwise. But this is not the case. Even if one grants legitimacy to all of the evidence YECs claim support their Creation story, it pails in comparison to the mountains of evidence suggesting the Earth is closer to 4.5 billion years old. When asked to explain the inconsistencies between their evidence and that of mainstream science, YECs point to scripture as the source of this evidence rather than merely the source of the claim. Here we need to make something clear about logic: Just as one cannot use a word to define itself, neither can one use the source of a claim as evidence in support of it.

Next is the Fall and the Flood. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and by doing so brought sin into the world. Up until this moment, the world was perfect. With sin's entry into the world, it became flawed. It became so flawed that generations later, God had to wipe out all life on the planet with a massive flood. Now, to take the story literally up until this point is to believe in the actuality of all of these events. For example, there's this question of "the world". What does it mean? To us, in this time, it could mean several different things. Did God just create the Earth or the entire Universe? In which case, the terms "world" and "universe" become synonymous. In this context, does "world" mean the entire Earth? When someone says "world" today, I think of the planet, Earth. But just a few hundred years ago, the term "world" carried a connotation much closer to "region"; as in there was the Western World (Europe) and the Eastern World (Asia).

In order to give scripture the benefit of the doubt I am going to assume the latter definition for "world" meaning region.  Now, in this case we can somewhat support the notion that a great flood once occurred in the region now known as the Middle East. Meaning there are extra-scriptural accounts - possibly contemporary with scripture - attesting to a massive flood in the region. The Epic of Gilgamesh, corroborates such a flood near ancient Babylon. Was there a massive flood in the Middle East? I can't say for sure, but I'm willing to accept the possibility based on these two independent sources.

But here we see a problem inherent in literal interpretations of ancient texts. Translation issues aside, the meanings of words change with time. When the King James Bible was written a few hundred years ago, the term "world" already possessed a meaning closer to "entire planet" than simply "region". Suddenly, what could have been a true-ish narrative history is now utterly preposterous. We know this because we have living trees on this planet which predate the flood, yet managed to survive it. Unfortunately, this fact means little to Ken Ham who insists that "the world" means the entire Earth and that Noah's Flood covered all of it.

Next, let's get to the most controversial topic - the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The controversy about Christ is not whether he existed - there's as much documentary evidence to support his existence as there is Socrates'. The question is whether he was sent by God to save us from the sin of Adam and Eve. Even this, I will grant. I will grant that Jesus was, in fact, the Son of God sent to save us from sin. The question that follows is: how did Jesus save us? Well, He taught us. He taught us the importance of compassion, the importance of faith, that we are not to judge others, and He taught us about peace. How?By telling stories. Now if we accept that Christ - the Son of God and our savior - accomplished this by telling us stories: Why wouldn't God have instructed us in the same manner in the stories of the Old Testament?

Nobody ever questions the literal truth of the parable of the Mustard Seed, the Good Samaritan, or the Prodigal Son. Why not? Because to focus on this would be to miss the point and do so obtusely. I submit to you that if we accept scripture as the word of God, that Jesus is our savior who taught us through stories, and that whether or not these stories occurred literally is irrelevant: Why would a Christian insist that the stories of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood must be taken literally?

Thank you for reading. In my next post, I will consider what the stories of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood tell us if not a literal truth about the origins of humanity. I encourage readers to leave comments and turn this into a discussion.

A Brush with Philip Seymour Hoffman on Second Street

It was the summer of 2000.  I was working for a gourmet grocery store on South Street in Philadelphia. This was part of my routine in college.  I'd go to school during the school year, then work full time during the summer to make enough money to go back in the Fall. This summer was particularly memorable for several reasons: I delivered a catering order to a party at the home of then 76ers head coach, Larry Brown.  Briefly met Dave Matthews backstage after a concert.  And the Republican Party held their convention in the city where our country was founded.

It was also the year I met Philip Seymour Hoffman.

It was the same week the RNC was in town to nominate George W. Bush to be their candidate for President. The grocery where I worked was near the corner of Second and South Streets.  During breaks, employees would often walk down Second Street to sit in a type of urban gazebo shaded by trees.

It should be said that at the time I had recently seen both Magnolia and Boogie Nights.  I found Magnolia long and pretentious but found John C. Reilly quite likable.  I enjoyed Boogie Nights much more and found it both funny and sad...and John C. Reilly was quite likable in that as well. But the most poignant parts of Boogie Nights for me were the interactions of the characters played by Mark Wahlberg and Mr. Hoffman.

If you haven't seen it, Hoffman plays a sound guy for a pornographic film studio run by Burt Reynolds. He's shy, unsure of himself, wears clothes that don't fit, and is clumsy especially around Mark Wahlberg's character - Dirk Diggler - for whom he's acquired an immense and unrequited affection.  Watching the film, one isn't sure if Hoffman's character has romantic feelings for Dirk or if he's just so socially inept that he cannot differentiate friendly from romantic affection.  There's a certain pity one feels for Hoffman's character as well as humor. You laugh at him, but do so out of this rush of empathetic embarrassment. You're not really laughing at him. It's more like you're laughing at yourself as if you were making the same mistakes in the same setting.

This tension comes to a point of climactic humiliation when Hoffman's character decides to express his affection by kissing Dirk full on the lips. It is not returned and Dirk scolds him for the impasse but Hoffman just replies: "Please. Please can I kiss you on the mouth?" Dirk runs off. I laugh at the Laurel & Hardy-esque farce before me; but it ceased upon seeing Hoffman sitting there alone in his car sobbing, saying over and over again: "I'm a fucking idiot." My laughter turned to sadness, then to embarrassment, then to shame for being so cruel as to laugh at this person in such pain. In those few seconds, this socially awkward character reveals to us the truth about who he is - a lost and lonely soul so desperate for human contact that he mistakes casual affection for intimate affection.

We've all faced awkward moments in life where we've done something we wish we could immediately take back.  In such moments, regret comes on so quickly that it almost seems like we could erase it if we really tried, but the more we try, the more that moment slips away into a stone-like permanence. One of the things that distinguished Mr. Hoffman for me was his ability to harness such a complicated emotion and brush it on a canvass with apparent effortlessness. I've never experienced an actor with such an ability to convey all the tiny nuances of shame and humiliation. Everybody's felt this - I've felt this - but I could never consciously portray it outwardly.

This one day on Second Street, I was walking to my usual spot for break. It was the week of the RNC and news people were everywhere with their lanyards and cell phones.  I bumped into a chubby guy on the crowded sidewalk and saw his lanyard with some sort of laminated identification hanging from it. At first, I thought: Fucking douchebag not paying attention.  Then, I heard the most sincere baritone apology ever: "Oh, so sorry."

Truth is, the collision was probably my fault. I looked up and said: "No problem." I recognized him immediately but, at the time, the name: Philip Seymour Hoffman meant nothing to me.  To me, he was just the goofy boom mic operator from Boogie Nights. "Oh my God! It's you," he smiled and looked down shyly as if nodding.  This must be a reflex celebrities develop once they become known. I screamed: "You're uh, you're uh, can I kiss you on the mouth!"

The people around us looked at me strangely. But he chuckled. He knew what I meant. He knew it wasn't to be taken literally. "Yes, yes, Boogie Nights," he said and shook my hand.  It was one of those moments I wish I could erase. One of those feelings of embarrassment he could have portrayed so easily.  But instead of just laughing at my embarrassment he saved me from it by acknowledging who he was and how I was trying to connect with him.

I went and had lunch at my spot as he stood there on Second Street talking to a group that appeared to be a film crew. Because I'm the type who inflicts anxiety on myself, I obsessed over: Oh my God, what if he didn't recognize the line?  He's been in so many movies, Boogie Nights was so long ago?  But I could rest in the reality that he did know what I meant even if I expressed it poorly.  He was quite kind to save me from embarrassment and maybe any other celebrity would've done the same, but it seemed like he was being more than polite. He was being sympathetic.

I learned later he was filming his documentary, The Party's Over, about the blurring boundaries between the interests represented by our two political parties.  A worry which seems inconceivable now, 14 years later but was quite real as we closed out the 20th century. I still have yet to see it.

I would go on to admire his work knowing the name, Philip Seymour Hoffman.  From a gambling addicted bank president in Owning Mahowny, his Oscar winning performance as Truman Capote, to his sympathetic portrayal of Andy the despicable manipulative son in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - he has shown such tremendous range. Unfortunately, we will never know how much further he could have gone in his career. I'm hearing rumors of a heroin overdose and sincerely hope them to be proven wrong. I'd hate to think that he was subject to the kind of pain which leads to opiate abuse. I didn't know Mr. Hoffman outside of his work, or that sunny afternoon on Second Street but I am ever grateful for what I was able to learn from him about being human...and the fact that he didn't let me look like a fucking idiot there on Second Street.

The Slubgob Correspondences: Letter X

My Dear Screwtape,

Since you have heretofore been remiss in following my instructions to contact Dungwart from our Individual Temptation department, I’ve had no choice but to order him to seek you out directly. The lack of coordination between your divisions causes us much anxiety down here. I place that blame entirely on your shoulders. Dungwart has proven an eager pupil and made every effort to shore up your mission by turning the eyes of millions of individuals to your instruments of mass corruption. You owe a great debt to him.

You are done no favors by throwing in my face everything I said about the importance of mass corruption only to charge me with inconstancy for suggesting you reach out to your colleague managing the temptation of individuals. If Dungwart had had control of this division rather than you, perhaps your nephew would’ve been more successful. Dungwart knows what it means to be a Company Man; something about which you could stand to learn a few things.

However, despite the insubordinate tone of your last correspondence, I will indulge you by countering your argument point by point. And before you respond, you’d do well to consider how gracious I am being by responding to such allegations the likes of which require none.

The new strategy outlined by Hell’s lowerarchy is based on a hammer and anvil approach. Dungwart’s team conditions humans into a mindset receptive to your students’ propaganda which lines them up single-file to march right into our digestive tracts. It’s about logistics, that’s all.

In this scenario, you serve to carve out a trail for those already headed our way. The purpose of this trail is to remain inviting to the subjects journeying on its path. The force propelling them is the vacuum created here by the void of morality. It yanks them in our direction because we offer the path of least resistance. Life is much easier for them once they either quit being moral or approach their morality in with obtuse pomposity.

This is all part of inflicting the spiritual atrophy of which I spoke in the preceding letter. The stronger a human’s spirit remains, the more able it becomes to swim against the tide. Usually if you can trigger weakness in their minds – by encouraging sloth, weakness in their souls soon follows.

The human mind – like a nice piece of veal – becomes more tender and delectable when denied the space to move around and firm up its muscle mass. We encourage this state with the drumbeats of conformity and a repetitious diet of fatty information that soothes their minds with familiar maxims and clichés; while we’re robbing it – and therefore the spirit as well - of proper nourishment. Once this has become familiar to them, they will come to seek out these cages themselves requiring little effort on our part.

Your job is to lead those already seeking to nest in our cages. Dungwart’s job is conditioning them to see our cages as desirable. This is the angle we’re working. Why serve the Enemy, we get them to ask. Why take on a life of such trial? Why do you exist if not to be served by others?  We pose a dilemma to them that says: Why strengthen your mind and spirit through labor when you can have a pleasurable life without any trouble at all?

                              Your Merciful Master,

                                   Slubgob        

The Slubgob Correspondences: Letter IX

My Dear Screwtape,

I’ve received some complaints from Central Command on your inability to lock down sufficient numbers among the poorest inhabitants of that dreaded planet. Attacking the wealthy is easy what with the camel and the eye of the needle sort of thing, but the poor have always presented at one time the most populous yet most difficult demographic to secure.

Yes, yes, I know the Argentine Pontiff has been making things difficult. It was much easier when the higher echelon clerics professed a more aristocratic view of class. Sure, the Church has always helped the needy but an offensive this strong hasn’t been seen for some time.

What’s He doing up there?  What’s He up to? Unfortunately, all we can do is wait and see. It’s impossible for us to know at any one time what His plans are. But He is acting very aggressively and that’s troublesome. Our traditional stratagems grow increasingly impotent against His efforts.

No matter. If one thing can be said about humanity, it’s that they’ll always want more for less. That is, more pleasure for less effort. This is a prime moment to aim at causing spiritual atrophy among the humans. It works like so: Humanity’s spiritual inclinations motivate it toward compassion – you’ll recall my attempt at a definition from a previous letter. There are two means whereby the spirit aims to deliver compassion: 1) Out of a sentimental attachment to another person be they stranger, friend, or family – they may refer to this as feeling sorry for someone; 2) Out of a sense of duty. They’d rather be doing something else or nothing at all; but through will power, they ultimately take such action because morality dictates it.

The first one is a dead end for us. If someone is inclined to help another, it is very difficult to tempt them away from it. We can try logic and attempt to rationalize; such as convincing them that poverty is the result of some character flaw and helping that individual would be encouraging their flaws. But if you work them too hard, they’re likely to become inclined to your temptations yet perform the charity anyway. The Enemy can "tempt" too. That’s when they get a taste of what it means to truly behave morally – when it is the result of will power succeeding over what they desire. Then, the person experiences such joy from helping others that it's liable to become a grotesque habit.

The second one backs them into a nice little corner but it can also backfire disastrously. Suppose someone helps another out of a sense of duty; since humans are flesh and blood, there’s a certain weariness that comes along with acting from duty. Learn to tell when that weariness comes on, and strike then.

This is what your students should be encouraging among the masses. Nearly all humans possess a computer where they can access all the lies and propaganda our Troll Divisions spread around on the various sites advocating selfishness and damning of the poor. Those without a computer have a television no doubt, and you can convince them that they earned their leisure time. And when that revolting sense of duty comes upon them, you can use this inertia to your advantage telling them: “Why should they have a free lunch? You work. You have a job. Why can’t they?” 

Do you see? By convincing them to judge the less fortunate as lazy you can actually bring them to a state of sloth themselves. Not only would they be committing the sin of sloth, but the sin of hypocrisy as well. Quite a return, my dear fellow! Quite a return!

The danger again comes when they experience the feeling they get from being willfully selfless. It is an intoxicant of a most vile vintage. It’s beyond fermented, it’s putrid! It clings to your nostrils like the stench from a smiling baby! Like the awful purity of a virtuous orgasm! It makes me wretch just writing about it.

It makes us wretch and howl, because it is Him making His presence known to our target. It is a brief taste of what Heaven feels like to the souls of His faithful once they enter. What’s more, He allows them this feeling whether they believe in Him or not. But the real danger, I mean the real pain we experience from a person sharing with the less fortunate is not the loss of their charitable soul…but that the poor with whom these gifts are shared feel less desperate. That's the harder defeat. Just as the charitable one gets that brief euphoric taste of Heavenly experience, the recipient of such charity takes on the doubly disgusting disposition of one who once felt abandoned but is now embraced.

So, if your targets are in a state where their spirits are sentimentally inclined to help others. Just let them go. Let them have their righteous cake and eat it to. Inevitably, a time will come when another needs help and their spirit isn’t so willing. When that time comes, remind them of all the times they helped someone in need and now it’s someone else’s turn.

When you’ve used this inertia to your advantage enough, you’ll start to notice a habitual selfishness come over your subjects. Soon you’ll have them using their memories of the few times they helped the needy to justify all sorts of marvelous offenses. I’ve helped people in need; therefore I earned a prostitute. Or, I once helped a fellow change a tire on the side of the road – I don’t need to pray. Or, I work all day and my wife doesn’t have supper ready for me; I think I’ll give her a whack across the jaw.

That’s the approach. Note where the focus resides; it’s entirely dedicated to fulfilling the whims of the self. That’s half the battle. The other half is in their feeling of entitlement to their vices. Get them to think they’ve earned it. That they’re too good to people who don’t deserve it and can therefore demand whatever they wish of the world. Then when they don’t get it, it’s because He failed them. That, my friend, is proper spiritual atrophy.

                             Your Merciful Master,

                                  Slubgob 

The Slubgob Correspondences: Letter VIII

My Dear Screwtape,

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO! You still don’t get it!! Sin has no qualitative properties! It is impossible to tempt a human to commit a sin so horrible that they’re forever put out of His favor. We can persuade them to certain attitudes which make them more susceptible to our advances but there is no magic bullet where one action in one moment in their time damns them to our eternal feast. The mere fact that the Enemy forgives, renders such a strategy implausible. This is what you fail to understand.

Conversely, however, it also means there is no single virtue which puts anyone out of our reach forever. This is the aspect of our struggle on which your students should focus. Corrupting the virtuous can be far more rewarding than maintaining the path of the damned. And corrupting a virtuous community drags many subsequent followers down here.

We have two primary tools at our disposal. You may view them as lanes on a highway: On one side lay secret guilt and the other, public punishment by the human community. Now, while it may be entertaining to keep our subjects wallowing on one side or the other – as it is always fun to witness their guilt and/or humiliation – these are the two places where the Enemy is most likely to grab them.

Where do we want them? Right smack in the middle!

Allow me to explain: On the side of secret guilt, this is a place where someone has committed some act for which they feel penitent. Nobody – or at least few - knows about this act. This is something the subject feels privately and in isolation and is almost always an offense to the Enemy Himself rather than another person. Because of this, they feel separated from Him and are left with a kind of dull empty ache. As this feeling becomes more pronounced, they start drifting off farther and farther to the side of the road until they finally admit to their sin and earnestly request forgiveness. The Enemy obliges and the soul moves out of our sight for the time being.

The other side is one of public humiliation and ridicule resulting from some sin usually committed against another person or a community of persons. This one is a bit more complicated. Crime is the best example. There’s usually a singular victim and the community sides with that victim and against the perpetrator to bring about justice. There’s always a degree of humiliation a human feels when caught in the act.  There’s even a form of humiliation felt when one is falsely accused of the act for which they are being humiliated.

Thankfully, the humans have managed to find a way to institutionalize this humiliation of their criminal element – we call this incarceration. They've institutionalized this practice for two key reasons, ensuring that “justice” is swift as well as distant. Remember how I spoke of compassion before? Their system puts distance between the citizen and the criminal as a way to deny the citizen of any compassion they might feel toward the criminal. What’s that saying of theirs? Out of sight, out of mind? The prisoner is therefore subject to a compassionate void. This lack of warmth keeps the humiliated from going off this side of the road just as pride keeps the private sinner from going off on the other.

There are some citizens who find the opportunity to express compassion to the imprisoned and sometimes it works. Many prisoners who were previously on the straight and narrow toward us, managed to have discovered the eternal benevolence of the Enemy and later fallen off. In nearly all cases, this is because they managed to find just a modicum of compassion amidst the desperation of physical confinement.

We must keep them firmly in the middle of this road. For the private sinners, we win when we convince them the Enemy is the source of their guilt rather than the cure. And for the prisoners, we win when we convince them they are undeserving of compassion thus driving them to the following conclusion: “If I am to be treated as if I’m evil, why bother being good?”

                         Your Merciful Master,

                                      Slubgob 

The Slubgob Correspondences: Letter VII

My Dear Screwtape,

It seems you are making excellent progress with your band of misfits and our stocks are quite high…for now. But like any other organization, our delight is tempered by higher expectations.  The better your performance, the more our expectations grow.  There are no plateaus in Hell.

In line with this thinking, I will advise you on your question of abortion. It is a topic which causes tremendous excitement down here. It does so because it is one of the few areas where almost all roads lead here. It is very easy for us to capture any human who possesses a strong opinion of the matter one way or another. So we do well pulling these strings on His puppets.

First, let us consider those against the procedure. They view it as murder and therefore see it as wrong and wish to abolish it. Within any one of these groups there is a leader – one who claims to infallibly know the will of our Enemy and wishes to spend eternity with Him. Here, we take a line from scripture: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be disbursed! Find his weak spot and press it. Our colleagues in the IT (Individual Temptation) department can help immensely with this. They will be interested in getting that individual down here, and your team must be interested in making such a journey as public as possible so we can grab his followers like lemmings off a cliff. I am copying Dungwart on this correspondence so he is aware of what we’re attempting and can assist accordingly.

Secondly, for those considering the option we must take careful stock of where they are situated on our journey. If we have them mostly well-in-hand, it might do us better to steer them away from the procedure and toward having and keeping the child. Humans who are already on their way here – those who have succumbed and whose hearts have already been sufficiently hardened – would give us the extra benefit of passing this stubborn selfishness onto their offspring with little effort on our part.

Make available to them messages which talk of how having a child makes them feel. Not real love mind you, but that wretched warmth they get when being the object of another’s affection. I know, I know – it’s a revolting thought, but remember we’re interested in the long game here. This reinforces in the mind of the subject that the child’s sole purpose is to please the mother. Not in any permanent sense, of course, but in the temporary moments of a baby’s cuteness. Therefore, when the child is not being cute – i.e. when it requires something of its parents – it is not fulfilling its obligation and is to be punished for being bad. That’s our hook, my friend. The child is to be no more than an object of entertainment. These individuals often know this routine well from experiencing similar punishment from their own parents. Abuse is a most effective tactic.

But before you intend to proceed along this route, make sure their heart is sufficiently hardened. The symptoms of such resoluteness usually include some kind of addiction – drugs or alcohol, it doesn’t matter. What you must avoid are any feelings of legitimate guilt a parent may feel from treating their child poorly. Shame, on the other hand is fine, let them believe they are a bad parent and that they can never be a good one. Our daytime talk shows do wonders for encouraging this. Pride is better – “I’m this way because I love my kids and I’m better than those fools on TV.” If they can justify their abuse this way, we’ve really hit the jackpot.

The third group, and one of the hardest to hold on to, are those that have actually terminated a pregnancy. The fact that someone having and keeping their offspring yields longer term benefits for us, is certainly counterintuitive but true nevertheless. Because of the Enemy’s abominable capability for forgiveness, one who has had an abortion may always be welcomed back into His graces with a sufficient degree of guilt and faith in His eternal benevolence. They are lost to us at this point unless we can make them proud and turn them into those types who protest and insult those whom they resembled just a brief time ago.

The aim in these circumstances is to encourage their memory to dwell on uncivil confrontations between them and the so-called pro-life camp. Because the pro-lifers claim to represent the Enemy, those who ultimately decide on an abortion are inclined to think: “If God chooses these jerks to represent Him, I want no part of Him.” This puts the individual well on our path though it requires effort to keep them there. If they ultimately decide against abortion, we convert them to the rabid pro-life camp where they will make their way to us by encouraging others to reject the God they claim to represent. Their intentions may be otherwise but that matters little to us.

The ultimate victory is encouraging the procedure because they feel ashamed of their actions and wish to hide what they did. This causes a rift between them and the loved ones from whom they hide their torment. Torment is something humans are incapable of handling alone and if used properly leads to suicide which is the ultimate act of despair and, therefore, an express ticket to Our Father Below. If it doesn’t lead to torment directly, it leads to indifference, which leads to repetitions of the same battle and the more battles we win, the more ground the Enemy loses. Then, it becomes simply a matter of time.

So, to summarize: The consciousness of the abortion conundrum among the humans by itself lends us tremendous advantage. The three main types: 1) The rabid pro-lifer, 2) The abusive mother, and 3) The unfazed serial abortion patient, all present advantageous opportunities to achieve our goals. There are only two narrow yet strong bridges which the Enemy has managed to keep for those in this camp: 1) The path of humble penitence for the sin, and 2) The strength He so readily provides to those who carry their children to term only to make the willful and disciplined decision to give it up to someone else capable and desirous of raising children.

If you can keep them out of these last two areas, our success will be great.

                                  Your Merciful Master,  

                                      Slubgob

Cc: Dungwart, Senior VP of Operations for Individual Temptation and Soul Procurement

The Slubgob Correspondences: Letter VI

My Dear Screwtape,

     You pose an excellent follow-up question, my sweet subordinate, though you could’ve posed it more delicately. If the Enemy draws humans together for His purposes, aren’t our purposes best served by keeping them apart? See? That’s a much nicer way of putting it.

     The answer is that the inclination among humans to interact with one another is innate. Even the most introverted among them has some desire to connect with another person. There are several means whereby these humans connect with one another – we may call them, “ties”. The primary categories are familial, neighborly, utilitarian, and social.

     Family and neighbors are easy to describe. Most know who their family is and most know their neighbors – though neighborly ties are becoming more and more frayed. Neighbors are other humans encountered regularly in proximity of one’s home. They have little deep knowledge about one another but they exchange ritual pleasantries, look out for one another’s property, and even help each other with a minor task from time to time. To sow strife among neighbors, we usually strike at the aspects of character that cause one to either be overly involved in the affairs of their neighbors or closed off to the point of open hostility in the face of sincere interest.

     Coworkers fit under utilitarian. These are the people with whom they conduct their occupation. I include the staff to supervisor relationship in this category as well. They have coworkers they like and those whom they dislike. But, for our purposes, they’re quite similar to neighbors in that we can strike at them the same ways. At times, we can do so quite easily because they are often forced to deal pleasantly with people whom they despise. Neighbors can always avoid one another but coworkers not so easily.

     The strangest ties are social ones. This is a very unique category because the individual has no say over who their family is and fairly limited say in who their neighbors and coworkers are. Social ties are those which one chooses to have with someone else. When we talk about our advantage in a human’s isolation, it is these ties which we must unravel first. Families, neighbors, and coworkers are not ties that can be easily unraveled, and we’re not all that certain that we’d want to considering the advantage such relationships afford us. If we can damage friendships, we can leave the individual to be ripped apart by his or her obligations to the other three groups.

     The way to poison such relationships is to encourage a false fulfillment of the desire to connect with others - social junk food if you will; something that tastes good, is attractive, and even provides pleasure at times but offers little in the way of true nourishment. A fellow stubbornly pursuing an unrequited love, a woman addicted to an abusive boyfriend, or a homely bookish type invited out among a group of ‘fashionable’ people solely for their amusement – these are the types of social relationships in which we delight. They appear real but ultimately leave the spirit emaciated.

     But, alas, it is not a perfect world for our breed and such connections can often result in an ultimate realization of their superficial nature…and this can prove most disastrous. What we’re attempting in our new approach – the approach to which you are instructing your students – is creating a new form of social connection similar to how a church may operate.

     People attend churches willingly and often to fill a spiritual void. The church encourages socialization amongst its members and often – to our dismay – lead to wholesome friendships. What we’re after is to fill such a void by asking people to dedicate themselves to a purpose. The purpose must appear good, but be rooted in what they dislike. We’ve had success in the past with such groups like the Ku Klux Klan, but membership has dwindled with the increasing tolerance for people of other races, religions, and ethnicities. The key is that the group must be entirely contrarian and offer strict guidelines to distinguish the “us” from the “them”.

     It may seem antithetical to our previous strategy of social isolation, but believe me when I say that a preference for social isolation must first be rooted in something that seems good. In these instances, an individual’s lust for power over a particular group will lead to in-fighting and accusations that certain leaders are not “one of us”. Soon the ground starts shrinking around who “us” really is until only the self is left. But if we are to succeed in leading them into this, we must do so by appealing to their urge to connect with others. Our job is complete once they’re convinced any genuine connections are impossible.

Your Merciful Master,

Slubgob