Religion & Politics - Part 1

A religious leader once told me God was a conservative. I think what he might have meant was that he's a libertarian. From his study of the Scriptures, he concluded the teachings on self-reliance and individual liberty were clear: the government doesn't belong in our lives because we must be free to choose for ourselves and to succeed or fail based on the merits of our own decisions and work ethic. A government's role, therefore, need not extend beyond securing these basic rights for the governed.

In my personal study of Christ's teachings, I have been most struck by his example of blessing the lives of the sick and poor. I am also struck by his reaching out to people of underprivileged classes, as well as by his teachings on economic and social justice. If we're all equal in the eyes of God, how would God have us treat others? The golden rule comes to mind.

So to me, Christ teaches a responsibility to our neighbor. This goes beyond simply succeeding or failing on our own merits. (After all, am I not my neighbor's neighbor?) Moreover, if the government is truly providing an opportunity for us to succeed or fail based on our merits, it needs to provide us the opportunity to do so. What does that mean? Well, it means children are entitled to a fair shot, which includes sufficient education to take that shot, health care, food, and the other necessities of life, whether their parents provide them or not. It means they need an opportunity to actually succeed or fail based on their merits, which implies an equality of opportunity. In other words, it means they need a real equality of opportunity, not just the platitude-version we profess but don't even bother trying to achieve.

At least that's my take. To my Christian friends out there, or to anyone else familiar with Christ's teachings, what do you see as the government's role in society? Is it merely to provide protection and liberty, or does it extend to providing a safety net and true equality of opportunity to all people where we have historically failed to do so voluntarily?

Life and Death

Since humans became capable of abstract thought, we've been grappling with the questions of life, death, and finding some sort of meaning to our existence. We need look no further than the existence of religion for evidence. I've often ponder the fragility of life. A human's sustained living is contingent on many factors. The environment in which we live can be suddenly altered by both individual and collective choices to such an extent as to end human life. We are dependent on food, shelter, and other necessities, without which we couldn't sustain our lives. We are also dependent on the continued stability of our physical environment. All things considered, it's amazing human life has survived as long as it has largely uninhibited.

Despite such tenuous conditions, humans are now routinely passing 80, 90, and sometimes 100 years of age before succumbing to the frailties of mortality. It's a miracle that such longevity is possible given our circumstances. Truly this is a testimony of human resilience. And yet it would take so little to end it all....

Which has always brought me back to my own mortality. I'll try to avoid morbidity, but the fact remains that none of us knows how many years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes or seconds we have to live. We just have to live each moment we have like it could be our last. Could we say that we're ready to die at any time?

Existentially, I've often wondered why life has to come to an end. While I won't claim to have all the answers, I've concluded that, without a terminus, our lives might lack the meaning they have. Or perhaps we'd just assign meaning differently. But if you never had to worry about leaving this existence, you might not value your time much.

Anyway, now I'm just waxing philosophical.

The Hollywood-blockbuster machine

Admittedly, the label of #WorstMovieEver is probably an excessive description of the recently released film, the Avengers. In fairness to the new flick, it should be noted that my concerns noted below might more accurately be directed at the Hollywood-blockbuster machine more than at any one film in particular.

However, that admission does not exonerate this film of its grievances. Here are a few of the things I found troubling:

1. The roles of women in the film. In a list of the film's 11 stars, there's only one woman, and she isn't even a real super hero. As a society, are we comfortable admitting that for every 10 important men, there's one important woman?

Moreover, what role does she play? She's eye-candy for the film's predominantly male viewership. I'm not sure I heard a single word of dialogue between two female characters in this film. The female characters' importance is only evident in their interactions/relationships with male characters, who are in every case in this film their superiors. 

While I'm grateful this film spared us the proverbial cheesy romance between the one female lead and any/all of the film's many male protagonists, and while I acknowledge some strides made in casting women in prominent positions in society ("Pepper" (Gwyneth Paltrow) heads Stark's empire, the woman XO on the flying super-carrier), Hollywood has a long way to go before it treats men's and women's roles fairly. 

2. The lack of minorities. Outside "Nick Fury" (Samuel L. Jackson), the 11-person leading cast contains no minorities. And while I'm glad to see him portrayed as the team's leader, a single minority star in a cast of 11 is not representative of American demographics, and particularly not of the demographics of the city where it takes place. (According to some rankings, New York City is the most-diverse city on Earth.) This cast only further promulgates a society of predominantly white, predominantly male role models and leaders.

While I realize this film is an adaptation of a series of comics from a bygone era where white male supremacy and chauvinism were the norm, given the artistic license already taken in the screenplay, what would it have hurt to re-imagine some of the characters as minorities?

3. The "us-vs.-them" rhetoric and shameless pro-America propaganda. Hollywood has this funny way of serially portraying the fate of the world as resting completely in the hands of a few benevolent Americans. Are we really so egocentric as to believe America alone is capable of saving the world from impending doom, or that it would be wise for us to attempt such a task without the cooperation and participation of the remaining 95.7% of the world’s population? Moreover, where are the mediation and negotiation? Is armed conflict the only means of problem resolution?

When the Avengers discover that Nick Fury is planning to harness the power of the Tesseract to create new weapons for the American arsenal, they’re incensed. This is particularly troubling for Stark/Ironman, given his mission of disarmament. Fury argues, however, that greater weapons are needed, just to be prepared in the case of foreign/alien invasion.

This arms-race foreign policy is something we’ve seen before. Did we learn nothing from the Cold War or post-WWI Germany about the perils of weapons proliferation? Moreover, Joseph F. Smith taught:

“One thing is certain, the doctrine of peace by armed force, held to so long and tenaciously by czars, kings, and emperors, is a failure, and should without question forever be abandoned. It has been wrong from the beginning. That we get what we prepare for is literally true in this case. For years it has been held that peace comes only by preparation for war; the present conflict [World War I] should prove that peace comes only by preparing for peace” (The Improvement Era, Vol. 17, p. 1074, 1914).

The message is clear: if we want peace, we have to prepare for it and live like we want it. Arming ourselves to the teeth is a backwards approach to the issue and will only require more complicated disarmament negotiations in the end.

(Coincidentally, these historical observations and prophetic counsel on weapons proliferation and making preparations for war also form a compelling argument against gun ownership and the current interpretation of the 2^nd Amendment, but that discussion is for another post.)

And I suppose it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that Thor serendipitously landed somewhere in the United States  (1.9% of Earth’s surface area) instead of the 98.1% chance he’d land anywhere else. (Superman, I suppose, had the same luck?)

Disappointingly, this film's record-shattering box-office debut only confirms that as a society, Americans (and ostensibly, humans everywhere) not only accept these Hollywood-bestowed values as our culture, we’re willing to subsidize an industry that will continue to perpetuate all this egocentric backward American propaganda thinking. For as liberal as many actors and filmmakers are, the Hollywood-propaganda machine continues to do what it always has done best: give the people what they want. 

Before We Prescribe Health Care

A few weeks ago, Republican Scott Brown won Massachusetts's midterm US Senate election to fill the seat vacated at late Senator Ted Kennedy's passing. Many considered the race a referendum on the Obama administration and the Democratic Party in general.

Assuming all the hype about what the outcome of this race means is true, I'm not surprised a Republican won it. Whether Democrats and their liberal-biased media are willing to admit it or not, Obama's approval rating has been plummeting. Obama's perceived lack of action on issues that matter most on Main Street (as the political rhetoric goes), particularly on the economy and health care, has translated into understandable dissatisfaction about his administration. For someone who made so many campaign promises, he might rightly be accused of over-promising and under-delivering.

Truly, Scott Brown's victory in a state as blue as Massachusetts is something for Republicans everywhere to celebrate. Senator-elect Brown has promised, among other things, to be the 41st vote against the proposed Health Care Reform bill, thus subjecting it to filibuster and likely mitigating Democrats' ambitions to deliver their much-anticipated and highly-scrutinized government-option and coverage-for-all legislation. The conservative right has successfully persuaded Americans they stand to lose quality of care by providing basic care to the uncovered and under-insured.

In fact, the conservative right has successfully persuaded many Americans that Obama's change-bandwagon on which the whole country so enthusiastically hopped 14 months ago might be leading us down the wrong path yet. Moreover, they've been so successful in their moral crusade against all forms of lascivious Obamanation that siding with the president on anything... well, they might as well be siding with the devil in their conservative base's eyes.

The president pointed this out to Republicans at a retreat that House GOP leaders held the day after the recent State of the Union address. This tendency to oppose everything that could be perceived as coming from any source outside the Republican Party has paralyzed the political process. To be fair, Democrats haven't exactly been earnestly seeking Republican support for their ideas in recent months. Perhaps Senator Brown's election will open their eyes. But the notion that "if we can bring down the president on health care reform, we can defeat him" or that "this will be his Waterloo" isn't helping the situation. More recently, Republicans' continued obstinacy in the face of President Obama's outreach for discussion and compromise on health care is further evidence of their unwillingness to work with anything from outside their camp. The ensuing political gridlock isn't serving anyone, especially not the people we elect our officials to represent. Shouldn't we (and they) all be rooting for the Patriots rather than the Elephants or the Donkeys?

Our Declaration of Independence states that "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" are "unalienable Rights" "endowed by [our] Creator," and that "Governments are instituted among Men" "to secure [them]." These words are planted carefully in the hearts of children and rooted firmly in the minds of adults across our country. It's what we stand for.

Ironically, despite our nation's status as the birthplace of modern democracy, we are alone among our first-world peers in not understanding that it's hard to experience any of the three aforementioned unalienable rights when plagued by a chronic but curable disease or when worrying about how to pay for a desperately-needed but unaffordable life-saving medical procedure.

Our first-world counterparts in nations around the globe have made a choice we Americans have not yet been willing to make. To paraphrase a British friend of mine, Brits decided years ago that no one would die because he couldn't afford medical coverage. Not on their watch. There, citizens have decided that health care is a question of dignity, not one of dollars and cents or pounds and pence.

Is it really that far of a stretch to expand our understanding of unalienable, God-given rights to expecting that in the richest country in the world, no one should die or suffer unnecessarily when the technology and trained professionals are available to save and to heal? Are we so depraved?

How introducing the public sector into a previously private market will affect the competition in providing health care remains to be seen. This competition, after all, is what ensures options and second opinions as well as the research that develops the cutting edge treatments for which America has become renowned.

Or is it?

In looking around us, other countries, including Mexico, have successful public and private options for health care. In the UK, despite a fully-developed public option, many employers also offer successful private insurance plans. Furthermore, medical research and discovery continue at a healthy rate in the UK, despite public-sector health care coverage. In America, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have neither destroyed nor crippled private-sector health care, despite the sentiment and arguments to the contrary at the time of their approval. These same arguments against a public option in today's debate are without precedent in this country or abroad.

The statistics on the issue of the uninsured are staggering. If 15% of America's population is uninsured, that's 45,000,000 of us. Even if you take the conservative estimate of 10% (which is the current unemployment rate, so it's hard to imagine an uninsured rate less than that), that's 30,000,000 Americans.

According to these conservative estimates, on average, between one in seven and one in ten of our friends and family members does not have health insurance. In certain parts of the country, the numbers are much worse. To which of our friends or family members would we choose to deny coverage? Which of our children does not deserve health care?

While we might not be aware of it, many of our immediate connections are uninsured. It's surprising how many of us fit the description. As a child of successful, self-employed parents, my family and I were members of this demographic all throughout my childhood. More obviously uninsured are the unemployed, but in these woeful economic times, who among us hasn't either been without a job or had an immediate family member lose a job? Will we choose to deny our families coverage?

Many of the uninsured are the very people who are trying to pursue the American dream. Their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit drive our economy. For them, this dream is just out of reach. With nearly 50% of American households involved in home-based business opportunities, we all know someone who works from home. When both parents work from home or for a small business, there's no affordable solution for health insurance.

Even university graduates can't afford health insurance. It is only now that I have found a job with a large employer that I am beginning to understand what it seems the insured 255,000,000 - 270,000,000 citizens of our country take for granted: the peace of mind that comes from knowing that if something terrible happens, I'm covered. For the last 6 months since graduation, however, I've been uninsured.

So why are so many Americans not insured? Is there any reason health insurance can't be purchased like car or homeowner's insurance? I don't have to work for a large corporation to purchase either of these latter forms of insurance at affordable rates, so why not health insurance?

The truth is, the only thing standing between the uninsured and affordable insurance is a corrupt health insurance industry and perverse incentives governing the health care delivery system.

But before we simply insure everyone in this country, let's consider the incentives involved and how their consequences will impact us taxpayers who are footing the bill and supposedly benefiting from it.

In our country, private firms have historically delivered health care as a business service. Like all businesses, health insurers and doctors' offices respond to economic incentives to maximize profits. To this end, these businesses must either increase their net income or decrease their expenses. And so in this, America's current health care delivery system, we shouldn't be surprised to see both health insurers and doctors' offices extracting every penny possible from us and each other to compete and get ahead. Moreover, we should expect insurers to raise premiums (increasing net income) and find loopholes in coverage policies to avoid paying out (decreasing expenses) to the extent they can get away with it. As covered as we feel as insured Americans, our private health care providers are still more motivated by maximizing profits than by paying out benefits.

In addition to insurance companies' incentive not to pay out, doctors and their practices bill--either through reimbursement from insurance companies or out of the uninsured's pocket--based on the number and types of procedures and tests they perform. What incentive do they have not to perform the most expensive procedures as frequently as possible, even when they're unnecessary and repetitive? What incentive do they have not to up-sell us on procedures we don't need?

Unfortunately, America's health care delivery system has reduced health care to responding to such economic incentives as these. If we are to demand the best, most-appropriate care for our medical condition, we must remove money from the decision equation. We need doctors who provide what is needed, not what costs the least or earns the most. When doctors' decisions regarding procedures and care are tainted by financial incentives, that is when we lose quality of care. Likewise, we need patients who aren't worried about price tags when they enter doctors' offices and ask about available treatments. Should we not exhaust all resources in a reasonable attempt to preserve human life? Doctors and their offices need the freedom to do what is appropriate and decent rather than what is fiscally prudent. Only then will we experience true quality of care.

And so we stand at a crossroads in our history: will America, the birthplace of modern democracy, continue to be the only first-world nation not to offer health care to its citizens? Will health care in this country continue to be a question of money and status, or will we finally grant to all our citizens the human dignity and unalienable rights our Declaration of Independence claims we endear?

The suspense is killing me.

The attainability of true happiness in Gospel-centered living

As you might have noticed over the past few months, in an attempt to better understand my own motivations for living the way I do, I have addressed several topics relating to the practice—or perhaps, malpractice—of religion. I’d like to try to address an issue that I feel greatly impeded my understanding of both the Gospel and what some would deem “true happiness.” And so before we get started, I’d like to attempt to define a few terms. “Gospel-centered living” is a term I’ve developed to try to explain my lifestyle. It’s a life where I’m trying to do what I feel is right, but where that right is defined or at least guided by what the religious school of thought to which I subscribe proclaims. In this discussion, “true happiness” refers to a happiness devoid of feelings of culpability and regret, uninhibited by what might be if we do or had done more.


Some of the faithful would suggest that by leading a Gospel-centered life we will be happy, as though there were some formula for creating happiness. For many, there is a series of hoops which, if jumped through in the proper order and with the right frequency, will ultimately lead to happiness.

I hear comments like the following so often I’m growing weary of them: “And I know that living this Gospel is the only way we can find happiness in this life.” If this statement is true, then why is it that the same faithful individuals claiming Gospel-centered living to be the key to happiness are so unhappy in living what they’re preaching? Depression runs rampant among the faithful, and yet the Gospel-centered life is supposed to bring happiness.

I think in some cases, people are sincerely trying to convince themselves that the way they’re living and thinking about themselves and the world will one day lead to happiness, at the expense of feeling there’s something wrong with them if they’re not happy living what they think is the Gospel’s proscribed way. Somehow, by repeating what they’ve heard other unhappy individuals say about what they believed would lead them to happiness, they’re one step closer to believing it for themselves.

Evidently, there’s a disconnect here. These faithful are mislead (which many atheists and agnostics will argue), they’re misinformed (as many faithful from the world’s religions aside from your own will tell you), or they’re misunderstanding the truth they profess to believe in. As a man who believes to have found truth, I am inclined to believe the third among my fellow faithful.

We will only ever be as happy as we allow ourselves to be. If we impose upon ourselves an unattainable goal, our never attaining it will ultimately lead to our unhappiness. Just as we avoid disappointment by managing our expectations, we must avoid unhappiness by managing our reality. It is here I feel so many faithful err. Somehow we think we’ll be happy by following some nonexistent or inefficacious formula to a t, while there’s really no formula to follow. When I share an experience that promoted my faith, my hope is that it will edify others. However, I cannot expect a personal experience to play out in the life of anyone who seeks to repeat it. Rather, I would hope that those listening would apply the principles surrounding the events that lead to my faith-promoting experience.

Just as an artist will not succeed by recreating someone else’s masterpiece, we must paint the canvas of our own lives with our own colors and in our own way. Only then will the experiences that promote our faith also lead to our happiness.

"...waiting on the world to change."

Admittedly, I'm a bit perturbed.

Or perhaps disappointed is a better word. When considering the political atmosphere, there's plenty of cause for disappointment. As politicians continue to make promises they evidently aren't keeping, I'm disappointed. When politics becomes a game where parties and players are more concerned with keeping score and jockeying for position than they are with representing people, I'm disappointed. But we aren't doing much to encourage good behavior.

It seems almost all political commentary, whether via mass media, Facebook note, or blog, is centered on what candidates aren't doing for us. Now, don't get me wrong, we need to hold our politicians to as many of their promises as possible, but why do we not hear about the promises politicians are keeping? Surely they're keeping some of them, and probably as many as they realistically can. It's so easy to focus on the negative, especially when we're searching for ammunition against the opposing team.

As the result of a process I still don't understand, I was selected to represent my high school to go to Boys' State in my home State. The experience was more than just informative, it was enlightening. I was disgusted by the amount of backbiting, lying, maneuvering, and manipulation used to gain support for a candidate or cause in such inconsequential policy-making. Based on this experience with high school juniors, I can only imagine what's going on in Washington with PhDs, JDs, MAs, MSs, and MBAs.

Wouldn't it be refreshing to see an honest politician? I hesitate to put those two words next to each other. I guess that's why I'm still, in the words of John Mayer, "waiting on the world to change." I know how ideological it sounds to think there's such a thing as an honest politician, but it sure would be a breath of fresh air.

Why can't we focus on the good? Should politics be as intrinsically pessimistic as we make it out to be? If we ever want to get anything done, we need to stop pointing fingers.

Gandhi said we need to be the change we want to see in the world. Maybe we could start by encouraging politicians when they're doing things right, rather than criticizing them (as we're so wont to do) when they're doing things wrong. "One day my generation is going to rule the population" (thanks again, JM). I just hope we'll be better about all this than the current critics. Unfortunately, I guess I have my doubts.

Qualifying the goodness of others

One of my least favorite expressions, which I hear at church all the time, goes something like this: "He/She's not a member [of our church], but...." The commentator then goes on to say what a wonderful or Christlike person the individual is or what a good example he/she is, and the comment is usually pronounced in a tone implying, "I was surprised to find a good example of any Gospel principle outside the membership of our church, and you should be as surprised too!" So why do we always have to qualify or justify people outside our church?

The word "but" is a loaded word, charged with more meaning than its measly three letters might suggest. Essentially, when we say "but," we are emphasizing an implied contradiction between what we said in the first clause and in the second clause of the sentence. For example, "He's not a doctor, but he knows a lot about micro pathogens." Or even sarcastically, "I'm no rocket scientist, but that looks like it should work." So when we say, "He/She's not a member [of our church], but..." we imply that our friends of other faiths should not be expected to be good people. Am I truly to believe that? I won't!

It only makes sense that each faith believes it is teaching the truth. (If it weren't, why not belong to the faith that was?) A belief system is based on the belief that it is correct. So we should expect our friends to believe they believe the truth, regardless of whether we believe what they believe. It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that I feel I really have found a great source of truth in my church. In fact, I haven't found a better one anywhere.

Accepting this belief, however, I accept that others likely feel the same way about their faith. They believe they're doing what's right, and quite frankly, many of them are likely doing as good a job or better of living right as I am. To assume less would be presumptuous. So why should I be surprised when I hear an inspiring story about a friend or prominent figure of another faith?

In addition, asking whether someone "is a member [of the Church]" creates several unwanted consequences. Are we to have our friends of other faiths feel alienated every time we refer to them as "non-members?" Not members of what? Is the Church some kind of exclusive club, where you're either in or out, or should the Church be a place where all feel welcome? Besides, if a visiting member of another faith is questioned about his membership, will he even know to which membership we're referring? "Of the health club? The yacht club? Sure, sure, I'm a member."

Another undesirable consequence of such thoughtless language is the alienation and distance it creates. Many faiths--including the majority of Christian faiths, I would argue--are openly evangelical. Recruiting the new faithful is essential. If it is our goal to increase our church's membership, should we not be referring to visitors inclusively rather than exclusively?

Moreover, our church activities should be designed in such a way that those of all faiths feel comfortable attending and participating. Now don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing for Unitarianism, just an open exchange of ideas. Should church not be a forum where our questions are answered? If we want to be better at answering people's questions, some practice might not hurt. Why not host such practice in our church meetings?

When I look at the violence around the world, much of which many attribute to religious differences, I see this exclusionary attitude on both sides of the arguments. If we want to put an end to religious discrimination and violence, crusades and jihad, we might start by including and inviting others in our speech about them rather than self-segregating and alienating ourselves. These attitudes lead to isolationism, a key ingredient to ignorance.

How ironic that it is perhaps in our places of worship, where we preach tolerance and love, that the root of our divisiveness lies!