Lack of Peace on Earth

Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth (1)

Peace on earth. No trouble with being overwhelmed with that this year. Wars, rumors of wars, fear of economic collapse. It seems that nearly everyone has something to lose this year, or fears losing something. Indeed, just the normal rush to buy presents, decorate the house, visit relatives, and look like you’re having fun, can be trying by itself.

So Christmas with its message of peace and joy rings hollow to many. Why should we expect this time of year to be more peaceful and joyful than any other day of the year? All the giving, getting, and going just doesn’t seem to get us there.

Some Thoughts on Hell

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today - John Lennon (1)

John Lennon asked us to imagine there’s no heaven. I’ve tried, but all I come up with is hell. 

Many things occur on this planet that demand judgment and punishment, but many go unpunished.  If there is no certainty of punishment, there is no reason not to play the system to get as much an advantage as you can.  That is not to say that you can get away with everything but rather that not everything will be punished.  So, if you can get away with it, go ahead.  You might respond that our moral standards will keep us in line, and while I certainly hold to the reality of objective moral standards, the problem is that if detours from these moral rules are not punished, there is no justice.

 Moreover, experience and history tells us that humanity doesn’t keep to an honor code.  We may know that certain acts are wrong but we are also plagued by the thought that some people get away with it.  If everyone else is doing it why can’t we?

Reflections on Nobel Peace Prize for the E.U.

It was announced today that the E.U. is the recipient of this years' Nobel Peace Prize.  As a European living in the U.S., I'm not sure how I can claim my share, but peace in post-war Western Europe is indeed a great achievement.  However, the European project, founded on the idea of the mutual surrender of certain powers to a supranational authority in exchange for peace, is perhaps now more in doubt than ever.  The timing might therefore feel strange, but the Nobel committee likely wishes to remind Europeans of the big picture.  I think the idea of surrendering power to a greater authority that can guarantee peace is a very wise idea.  However, how do we find an authority that all will respect?  Here are some thoughts from an earlier post:

After the Second World War, an attempt was made to bring balance to Europe by establishing a supranational authority, run by Europe’s best and brightest, that would override national and ethnic enmities that had bloodied the continent for millennia. First, France and Germany ceded control over coal and steel production to the European Coal and Steel Community. In the following decades, closer and closer union was pursued, and Brussels was populated by brilliant minds seeking the best for Europe – peace and prosperity.

But, as things stand, national differences threaten to tear the EU asunder. National interests it seems cannot be trumped by bureaucrats in Brussels, however visionary and well-intentioned. Europe is still very much a group of sovereign nation states unwilling to surrender authority to a supranational body.

So, it appears that the European project has failed to produce balance. Moreover, any human authority that tries to settle disputes between nations is likely to be accused of bias by one or more parties to the dispute, and may even become the target of wrath. So, even if we were to find a very wise and virtuous person, who held humanity’s best interests at heart, no one would follow him or her.

We need someone with unquestioned authority to settle the disputes of humanity. This is the picture we find in Isaiah Chapter Two.

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob.  He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”  The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.  He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples.  They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.  Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Isaiah 2:3-5 (New International Version).

Only a supremely wise, just, and unbiased being could convince disputing nations to beat their swords into plowshares. No more wild experimentation. No sincere appeals that it will be different this time. No more claims to have learned the lessons of history, when at the darkest times it becomes painfully clear that the lesson that we always forget is that history repeats itself.

Humanity clings desperately to the hope that one day swords will be beaten into plowshares. However, it seems, that the biblically-inspired hope of perpetual peace and justice cannot be established without the biblical-described source of such peace – God’s kingdom of justice established on earth as it is in heaven.

 You can read the entire post here.

Leaving It All Behind

You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme... – U2 “Walk On” (1)

We must leave everything to those who follow.  Our greatest treasures are the following generation’s junk.  Stuff they have to clear away.  If they have attachment to something it is because it reminds them of someone who has passed.   They have no attachment to the thing itself.

If you have ever gone through the stuff of someone who has passed away, you will probably have wondered why they kept some things, and then concluded that those things must have been valuable or useful in their time. 

Similarly, if you have ever been in the market for a house, and started looking at potential properties you will have seen things that make you wonder what the previous owners were thinking.  Home renovations are never in my experience undertaken lightly, so some thinking went into that floral wallpaper or wood paneling.

But we don’t take this truth about the temporary worth of goods to heart.  We treasure our shiny, usually slimmer than yesteryear, treasures.

The recent launch of the new iPhone caused thousands to line up for days to be the first to have what in a few years will be obsolete and in thirty years – junk.  But they were willing to spend so much time for this ephemeral object, that in years to come will be perhaps found as a curiosity in an attic, similar to four-track players I found in my parent’s attic when I was a kid.  

It is exciting to have the latest first; to be an early adopter.  Some now cite this as an achievement.  And if you can keep getting the newest first, perhaps you can keep yourself satisfied.  But if you reflect, you will realize that you are paying a premium to own tomorrow’s junk first.

Injected the Wrong Way

"Because you have the cursed Jesuit strain in you, only it’s injected the wrong way.” James Joyce – Ulysses. 

James Joyce’s celebrated novel Ulysses opens with a tense early morning exchange between two friends - Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan.  Dedalus is offended with Mulligan because on an earlier occasion Dedalus heard Mulligan refer to Dedalus’ mother as “beastly dead.” (1)  Mulligan pushes back criticizing Dedalus for refusing his mother’s request to pray with her at her death bed.  Mulligan, a young doctor responds:

And what is death, he asked, your mother’s or yours or my own?  You saw only your mother die.  I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmond and cut them into tripes in the dissecting room.  It’s a beastly thing and nothing else.  It simply doesn’t matter.  You wouldn’t kneel down and pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you.  Why?  Because you have the cursed Jesuit strain in you, only it’s injected the wrong way.  To me it’s all a mockery and beastly.  Her cerebral lobes are not functioning…Humour her till it’s over. (2)

Mulligan doesn’t believe in God and prayer, but is fine with humoring the wishes of one who does.  Dedalus, on the other hand, can’t bring himself to pray, even at his dying mother’s request.  He won’t compromise his belief in the non-existence of God.  Mulligan’s reference to the “Jesuit strain” is a dig at Dedalus’ education by Jesuit priests at Gonzaga College (a secondary school Joyce also attended).  The implication is that even though Dedalus doesn’t believe in God, he acts in other ways like one who does – and not just any believer – a Jesuit priest – a member of an order known for their tenacious intellectual defense of theism. 

Can one actually keep their beliefs or lack thereof private as Buck Mulligan?  One of our greatest needs is for truth, to know why.  The answer to that question is so precious that we will defend it fiercely.   Mulligan represents the cynic not willing to fight for truth. However, it seems that many atheists are not willing, like Buck Mulligan, to hold their worldview privately.

For example, there is outreach to encourage others to embrace non-belief – look at the clergy project an attempt to reach out to Christian ministers who no longer believe. (3)  Community gatherings and celebration of shared worldview – witness the Reason Rally in Washington D.C. last spring. (4) And, more controversially, the suggestion of the need for atheism to create communal contemplation spaces.  Alain de Botton plans to build such a structure in London. (5) De Botton’s plan has not been welcomed by many atheists, but it could be argued that the ideas behind the London building are found in the Clergy Project and the Reason Rally. 

Another example is a lawsuit by American Atheists seeking to prohibit a cross from ground zero being displayed at the 9/11 memorial yet to be completed in New York City. (6) The arguments advanced in favor of displaying the cross are that it was a symbol of comfort to many and is a historical artifact related to 9/11.  If this is a symbol of comfort, that atheists consider to be without meaning, letting the matter lie without protect would be the Buck Mulligan approach.  Let them have their crosses if it makes them happy.  But, to kick up a storm about the 9/11 cross seems to open up atheism to Joyce’s charge that they have the religious strain just injected the wrong way.

But, is this a bad thing?  First, it shows that atheists care about finding truth, and second, that they agree there is a truth out there to be found.  Caring about the truth, and being willing to go to great lengths to defend it is only bad if we base our arguments on bad evidence and tie them together with faulty logic, or if we abandon reasonable argument and try to make others accept our arguments through force.

It is best for everyone to put their cards on the table to put forward what they believe in a respectful manner. 

I say let the truth win.  Let the best arguments win out.  Let’s approach with open minds, not afraid to confront issues where we clash but with gentleness and respect as well.  Let us also recognize that atheists and theists alike are injected with the “Jesuit strain” – the search to find and defend truth – there are worse things.

(1)            James Joyce, Ulysses, Vintage International, New York, 1990; 8.

(2)            Ibid.

(3)            See, “From Bible-Belt Pastor to Atheist Leader”, N.Y. Times, Aug. 22, 2012, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/from-bible-belt-pastor-to-atheist-leader.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1 (accessed Sep. 19, 2012).

(4)            See, http://reasonrally.org/ (accessed Sep. 19, 2012).

(5)             See, “Alain de Botton reveals plans for 'temple to atheism' in heart of London”, The Guardain, Jan. 26, 2012, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/26/alain-de-botton-temple-atheism (accessed Sep. 19, 2012).

(6)            See “Atheists continue battle against World Trade Center cross at memorial”, CNN Belief Blog, Sep. 10, 2012, available at http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/atheists-continue-battle-against-world-trade-center-cross-at-memorial/ (accessed Sep. 19, 2012).

Back To School

September sneaks up on me every year - the silent assassin of the summer.  It’s true that it’s been a while since September marked the start of a new year for me personally, but now the time to buy back to school supplies for my kids, brings with it the sense of time quickening, a total lack of preparedness, and the amazement that my kids are a year older.  Living in the U.S., as I now do, I appreciate the timing of Labor Day, a quick pause before the madness of the first day of school, which in a couple of weeks will be mere mundane reality.

However, September is not wholly unwelcome as many welcome the chance to reconnect with school friends, but also to learn.

As humans we have a thirst for learning.  Which is in essence a desire to know how things work. To understand the world around us.  We may have hated homework and being stuck in the classroom but it wasn’t because we didn’t want to learn.

Of course not everyone has pleasant memories of school or learning, but I don’t think there are any of us without curiosity of how things work.  You may not be a great fan of “book learning” but there are many types of knowledge and as many ways to acquire it.  Some may be more interested in cultivating the earth or fixing cars, but all of these endeavors lead naturally to a desire to figure the how.

This pursuit of the how assumes that there is a how to be discovered.  For example, there is a way to fix a car, a way to grow plants that survive for more than a month (still a mystery to me), a way to solve a quadratic equation.

Our desire to learn more about the how of the world around us is insatiable.  Look at the Mars Rover, the confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson, we want to explain the how.  But that leads to a deeper question – is there a why? 

A car can be fixed in a certain manner because it was designed in a certain fashion. 

Is the same true of the how behind growing a plant?  Or the Higgs boson? The more information we learn about the how of the universe, the larger these questions will loom.  Is there a why behind the how?  A purpose to it all?

To read an insightful article about the the Higgs boson, see this article from Oxford professor John Lennox.

Thoughts From a Boat on Lake Erie

Staring at the horizon on water is very different to staring at the horizon on land.  If you are on a large body of water facing away from the shore, whatever is over the horizon is hidden.  Of course we know that the water must at some point give way to some form of land mass but it might be very different from the land at our backs - different language, terrain, temperature. 

A long car journey does not pose the same sort of mystery.  We can drive from rural to urban areas but the changes in scenery are gradual and marked out for us.  Watch out ahead.  We are provided with signs telling us the distance to our destination. On the water the horizon is mysterious.  The time of arrival is unknown, perhaps closer than we think.  The water has no marks that can be read, at least by the likes of me. Perhaps this is a perpetual journey without end.

Staring at water relaxes us.  Refreshes us.  Inspires us to create, to reconsider ourselves and our choices anew.  Water is constantly moving reminding us of renewal and change.  As Heraclitus put it we never step into the same river twice. No matter how bad a situation we find ourselves in, there is the potential to change?  On a stormy day we marvel at its natural power on a calm day we wonder at the restraint of such power.

The ancient Greeks thought of the journey from this life to the afterlife as crossing a river.  Looking at the horizon I can imagine that hidden on the other side of the flowing blue mass is a better place – a good country, connected to our present existence but separated.

We long for that shore.  The possibility of its existence makes life worth living.

The Ethical Life

Ethics is a wide topic that touches every facet of our individual lives and our society.  I want to talk about a very small slice.  The fact that ethics has, in certain cases, been boiled down to one concern – environmental ethics or how we interact with the natural world.  In particular, reducing one’s carbon footprint.

Let me explain.  The BBC recently appointed Justin Rowlett as “Ethical Man”, his task was for him, along with his family, to live ethically for one year.  Something we should all aspire to, right?  However, his ethical duties were not to help old ladies across the road, to treat others with respect, but to live in such a way so that he and his family would minimize their carbon footprint and consequently their impact on the environment.  (1)

There is a clothing line in New York City called the “The Ethical Man” that manufactures and sells clothing made with a minimal impact on the environment. (2)

I’m not claiming that thinking about how we use natural resources is not part of what we call ethics.  I’m saying that environmental ethics are a part and not the whole of living the ethical life. 

I simply have a concern that by portraying one aspect of our existence as living the ethical life, we may stunt truly ethical behavior.  We can tell people it is better to ride a bike to work than drive, but if they ride in a reckless manner so that they run an old lady over on their way, can we say they are acting ethically in a holistic sense?

Moreover, if we tell people that they can be ethical solely by bike riding and recycling that may provide some with an easy way out.  Throughout human history, we have tried to boil down the ethical life to rules that we can follow.  Jesus confronted Jewish religious leaders who claimed living the “ethical life” could be accomplished by following an increasingly elaborate system of religious rules but did not truly behave ethically.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. (3)

And

Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. (4)

He instead stated that only by changing one’s character can one truly act ethically.  He contended that it was not just our actions that determine whether or not we act ethically but our underlying thoughts and attitudes.

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. (5)

How to act ethically, to live the “good life”, is a problem that many have wrestled with throughout history, and one that all thinking people should carefully examine.  We should not let ourselves or others off the hook by pretending that following rules in a certain area of life, we are truly and completely ethical. 

For more on this topic please see this post – Good.

(1)  See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/ethical_man/default.stm.

(2)  See http://www.theethicalman.com/.

(3)  Matthew 23:3 (New International Version).

(4)  Luke 11:46 (New International Version).

(5)  Matthew 5:21-22 (New International Version).

Intersection

Being a little late

He was a little quick

He looked in the mirror

But didn’t see anyone else

A murderous intersection

With no intent at all

The victim drove away

No liability

No responsibility

Summer

The sun was out the other day. It’s not something that can be counted on every day. Growing up in Ireland I learned quickly to be skeptical that the sun schedule was in anyway linked to the calendar. As many Irish people will tell you it seems more closely tied to exam schedules. But when it does appear it causes a change in mood – an elevation of happiness. 

I now live in Buffalo, New York. Not the place to go to chase the sun, but summer days in Buffalo can be almost perfect. 

There is something that seems natural about having a cold on a wintery, November day, or the flu on a frozen, February day, but being sick on a bright, hot summer day, seems a little unnatural - a contradiction of the natural order. 

Even death seems more appropriate in winter. Patrick Kavanagh, the Irish poet, wrote of how “October-coloured weather” reminded him of his dead father. (i)  Perhaps, it is because my father passed in November that summer seems to be correlated with life and not death. 

The aliveness of a perfect June day, when inside is as good as out, makes everywhere a comfortable place. This is the time to enjoy. A day it feels painful to be stuck in the office while the whole world is out playing. Is this a holdover from school holidays or vacations (divided by a common language and all that) that conditions us to want time off?