Reflections on the inauguration

     After experiencing the politically charged arena for the last four years I thought it would be refreshing to watch the inauguration of our next president, something I hadn't done before. As it happened I turned on Youtube just as Kamala Harris was finishing her oath to office. What happened was interesting to say the least, and it underscores what I believe is the root of a lot of problems in our country today, as I will explain further in this post.

    First, for what I have been told is supposed to be a "secular" nation there were things that to me seemed like they should have no place in a political ceremony for the swearing in of the leaders of our country. From presidents and vice-presidents swearing in on a Bible or Bibles to Garth Brooks singing Amazing Grace and a reverend performing a lengthy, clearly Christian prayer, there was a very strong religious tone for the ceremony. To be clear, I believe individuals should absolutely have the right to practice whatever religion they want to practice, because trying to force individuals to practice a certain religion or only practice approved religions or no religions at all would lead to a kind of tyranny that would be bad for everyone. I just simply believe that given how our country is supposed to be a secular country this overtone is not appropriate for a political ceremony. Religion is not supposed to drive our government, hence what I mean by a secular nation, but clearly it has an undue influence simply by watching the inauguration alone. Christianity should not be shown favoritism in the inauguration ceremony for that reason alone. Some might argue that the president should have the right to swear in on a Bible if he chooses to, and fair enough I could grant that, but even that could be done without inculcating the entire ceremony with a religious overtone.

   I do find it ironic however that given the history of violence and racism in our country our leaders have traditionally sword in on a book that is full of racism and violence. What I suppose though bothers me about the religious overtone, and overlapping with the fact that religion is not supposed to have undue influence our government, is that it would clear make it extremely difficult for someone that is not a Christian, be it a Muslim, Jew or atheist, to ever become president because that it would cut against the grain of the favoritism that is shown to the Christian religion. Further, if a Muslim ever did get elected and wanted to swear in on a Quran and sing a song of praise to Allah and have a Muslim prayer toward Mecca Christians would be besides themselves, which actually leads to my next reflection from the inauguration.

    After seeing how much favoritism is shown to Christianity in the inauguration it's not surprising why Christians have such an entitlement attitude in our country. It's actually understandable why they think they can dictate things like same-sex marriage and abortion, that everyone should be forced to operate according to their personal convictions, and why they threw a fit when the Ten Commandments were taken down from public court houses. This is why if most Christians got what they really wanted their religion would be running the country and everyone would have to live according to their religious values, hence the swath of support from Christians to Donald Trump because he seemed to them like the person that would make that happen. Their religion HAS been shown favoritism and so now they are upset when the playing field is being evened out, and like a child that has been spoiled rotten and is throwing a tantrum when the parent finally puts their foot down, you actually want to blame the parents more than the child. 

    On a more refreshing reflection, however, it was refreshing to see Trump's successor swearing in and the last of Trump's circus officially coming to a close. Some vindication was felt in the fact that Trump's manipulation did not work and this country can get a fresh start for at least the next four years. Unfortunately it seems inevitable that at some point in the future the same situation will happen again since people are people, but we can all breathe for at least the next four years. I WANT to think better of humanity, but unfortunately I am too unrealistic for such an endeavor, and people will always be easily manipulated by political leaders. As I said, however, at least we can breathe for the next four yeas and get a break from the Trump circus.

Of Course It's In The Bible...Or Not

     One might be surprised to find out how many moral issues are not actually addressed directly or even indirectly in the Bible, given how it is touted as such a moral standard that individuals should live by. Many hot top issues today are not even mentioned, or passages are misused / taken out of context in an attempt to control peoples' behavior when Christians don't approve of what they are doing, or the references used to show something is a sin are vague and not nearly as clear as one would expect given how fervent Christians are on certain moral issues. Or an issue is prevalent throughout the Bible but it is never condemned as evil as Christians say it is.

    Sex before marriage. I found this out personally as a believer when I questioned where in the Bible it actually the issue of having sex before marriage. It was such a given in our culture and was so heavily taught to be a sin to have sex before one is officially "married" to another that it seemed like a given that it would be very clearly wrong in the Bible. I was surprised to find that there was no specific proscription given regarding this issue for Christians in the New Testament, with the only references I could find upon an internet search being whenever the New Testament epistles condemn "sexual immorality". While this certainly could possibly include sex before marriage, it seems odd the issue is never directly addressed at all and it has to be inferred from a word that it may or may not apply to. One single sentence making it clear that having sex before a man and woman are joined together as one would have sufficed. The only time the issue of having sex before marriage is directly addressed is in the Old Testament Law, one law being that a woman that is betrothed is to be stoned to death if she has sex with another man, and another being that if a virgin (that is a woman that has not been promised to another man) has sex the man who has sex with her must marry her and cannot divorce her. It's also implied this man has raped the virgin as well. One is referring to a woman that is already promised to another man, and the other forces the man and woman who have sex to stay married the rest of their lives. Regardless, these rules were rules for Israel in the Old Testament and do not apply to Christians in any case. Lastly, it was also interesting when I found out there were people that didn't even believe in the sin of having sex before marriage; rather, there are Christians that believe sex is what actually marries two people  by making them one flesh and if two people have sex and stay together and committed to one another they are not sinning because they are faithfully married to one another. At the end of the day the Bible seems much more concerned about people who are already married having sex outside of marriage rather than people who are not married having sex with other unmarried people, and the Bible does not give any specific directions for what even makes two people married, let alone if two people who are committed to one another are sinning by having sex, or if they are technically married by the act of having sex with one another.

 Pedophalia. The Bible does not mention sexual molestation of children. Not even one time, not even in the the laws of the Old Testament. I can't even cite any verse that are misused or taken out of context because there aren't any. This seems like a very important moral law to forget, especially in the Old Testament when God is giving His people Israel His rules for holy living and for how the Israelites are to treat one another. Gathering sticks on the Sabbath can get you stoned to death in a hot minute, committing adultery can get you stoned to death in a hot minute, but there is absolutely no punishment for raping or molesting a child. A child however can be stoned to death for being unruly toward his parents. Personally it seems like the God of the Old Testament's moral priorities are a bit skewed. There isn't much else to say because the Bible, well, doesn't say anything.

Living together before marriage. A certain hot topic of the day that Christians love to try and apply to the Bible even though the Bible never addresses the issue, likely because the issue wasn't an issue during the time the Bible was written. It's not addressed, not hinted at, and is never treated as an issue in any way shape or form. Only one verse is typically taken out of context and misused to try and apply to this issue (1 Thessalonians 5:22), and the idea of the interpretation, "Avoid all appearance of evil" is so vague and impractical one couldn't even live by it because just about anything could appear evil to anyone. "Avoid every form of evil" is a much more likely correct interpretation. Again, there isn't much else to say on this issue because, well, the Bible doesn't say anything.

Abortion. Another hot topic of the day that is not mentioned in the Bible, and for how big of an issue this is among the Christian community one would have thought there would have been enough foresight to specifically address it for Christians in the Bible. Oddly enough, throughout the Old Testament God Himself does not seem to particularly care about the life that is developing in the womb. He blesses a man for running a spear through a woman who just had sex and could very well have conceived, and He does not even give any laws in the Old Testament for Israel that condemns abortion. The closest thing to abortion is a law where if two men are fighting and one man strikes a pregnant woman in the stomach and she gives birth prematurely and injury occurs (either to the woman only or either her or the child depending on the interpretation) the man must pay according to the seriousness of the injury (Exodus 21:22-25). Even if this is referring to the idea of the man paying for causing a fatal premature birth, it may simply be because the man caused it to happen which was a violation of the husband's property (hence he could be fined the amount the husband determines). If God was actually concerned with fetal life He would have created a specific law for Israel banning abortions under any circumstance, not just one law covering one specific situation that wasn't even likely to happen. There's not much else to say on this topic because the Bible doesn't say anything else.

Slavery. Although slavery is of course mentioned repeatedly throughout the Bible, even with rules governing how it is to work in the Old Testament, slavery as an institution is never condemned in the entire Bible. In fact, not only is it not condemned in the New Testament but slaves are told how to act toward their masters. Perhaps that was because slaves couldn't change their status so they were told how to act under a situation they couldn't change? That would actually be a very plausible and sensible explanation, however Christian "Masters" are also taught how to treat their slaves (Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1)! In the book of Philemon the Apostle Paul is sending back a runaway slave that has converted to Christianity, and when he writes to the slave's Christian master he does not write to educate the master that owning slaves is an immoral things for a Christian to do. Don't let Christians fool you, the Bible does not condemn slavery; Christians that fought to end slavery did so in spite of what their book actually teaches not because of what it teaches, whether they realized that or not. If they had been consistent with their holy book they could not have justified fighting to end slavery.

Although I'm sure there are many more, these were just a few of the issues that are either not mentioned in the Bible or are not condemned in the Bible explicitly. The next time a Christian attempts to correct your morality in any of these issues simply ask them where in the Bible it actually says that behavior is wrong. The answer may be interesting...

Critical Thinking In A Busy World

     We live in a world where things are always pulling us in one direction or another, telling us to believe one thing or not believe another. Whether it's politics, religion, tradition, or just our brains contemplating the truth of something, it can seem overwhelming and burdensome to come to the correct conclusion about many claims when there are so many around us vying for our belief, and this isn't even taking into consideration the hectic and busy lives many individuals live as is. In such a hectic and already busy world where we have so many different things pulling us in so many directions, how do we practically have the time to know everything that is true, or everything that is false that we are told to believe? 

    I believe people can generally go in one of two opposite extremes with the previous question; they can either throw their hands in the air and not bother to care about most of the things they are told to believe, or they can believe everything they are told. The first extreme is unsatisfactory because people could be missing out on vital information that could improve their lives, or they could be setting themselves up to believe something dangerously false at a later point because they are never trained to think rationally and critically. The other extreme is unsatisfactory because someone who believes nearly everything they are told is like a boat being tossed to and fro by the waves with no direction whatsoever. My goal in this post is to give people some helpful guidelines for making rational conclusions toward subjects in their midst of their hectic and busy lives, so they can neither fall into serious and dangerous error in belief nor feel they have to be complacent and never know what they even truly believe about different important topics. The following are general guidelines and principals to help with rational thinking in the midst of a busy and hectic life.

    The first guideline is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you are faced with a claim that is extraordinary in nature, if it defies everything we know about how the world and the universe works, for example the claim that a man walked on water or the claim that a man rose from the dead after being dead for three days, this claim should be held with extreme critical scrutiny because of the unlikelihood of it being true. The more far-fetched a claim is the more skeptical you should be of its truth, and the stronger evidence you should require for believing it.

    KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Otherwise known as Occom's razor, this principal states that when choosing between multiple explanations for an event the most rational choice is the explanation that requires the fewest amount of assumptions. In other words, keep things simple and stick with the explanation that is most consistent with the known and proven data and requires the least amount of assumption in things that aren't proven or verifiable. An example would be the current debate about whether or not the election was rigged - it is a much simpler explanation that a wealthy multi-millionaire who has always gotten what he wants and has made clear he doesn't like losing is simply trying to do whatever he can to win the election or make himself and his supporters believe he did, versus having to assume somehow a person or a group of persons was able to pull of a widespread massive conspiracy theory which there is no evidence for, and that spanned multiple states and was so well performed that it fooled even Republican judges, the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, and even some of the most staunch Trump supporters. When in doubt, go with the simples explanation.

    You do not always have to have an answer. It is ok to sometimes say you simply don't know an explanation for something, or whether or not something is true. Sometimes the only option you may have is to simply withhold belief in a claim or explanation even if you don't know what the actual truth is. It is better to withhold belief than to believe something that is false. In this regard strive to be informed, not perfect in knowledge; perfect knowledge is impossible, no one can know everything that is everywhere 100% of the time. Even if you can't be everywhere all the time to know 100% that ghosts don't exist, you are still rationally justified in withholding belief in the claim that ghosts exist until you would be given convincing evidence that they do. Be ok with simply saying you don't hold to the belief in a claim even if you can't prove that the claim is false.

    Pick your battles wisely. Some issues and claims just aren't worth fussing over. They are time wasters and they aren't issues that are going to have any kind of impact on your day to day living or even your long-term living. Knowing and understanding this can help keep you from getting caught up in these unnecessary webs that could stress you out mentally and/or emotionally.