THE GROWTH OF ATHEISM

THE GROWTH OF ATHEISM

            What ever happened to the worship of Zeus, Hera, and Apollo by the Greeks? What happened to the Egyptian worship of Osiris, Isis, and Amun? The answer is, of course, that they were replaced by the religions of Christianity and Islam. Although those new religions honored different gods, they adopted many of the practices and observances of the ones they replaced. For example, scholars say that the ancient Black Stone (probably a meteorite) worshipped by Moslems at the Kaaba in Mecca was part of the worship of an earlier pagan god, perhaps the goddess Allat, long before the time of Mohammed. The celebration of Easter by Christians is reminiscent of the ancient Greek “Agapes” in which Greek people celebrated the resurrection of gods such as Mithras, Attis, and Dionysus, before the time of Jesus.

            Christianity and Islam are still going strong after 2000 and 1395 years respectively, but they have not remained stagnant. Over the centuries both religions have experienced the splitting-up and growth of divergent orthodoxies and conflicting sects. Today we see the decline of traditional Christian churches and the growth of high-demand sects such as Charismatics and Pentecostals. Traditional Islam, which split into Shia, Sunni, and other sects, seems to be challenged today by the growth of intense and often violent branches such as al Qaeda, and ISIS.

            In the last few centuries there has been another significant change in the religious universe. It is the growth of Atheism. Throughout the Dark and Middle Ages Atheism was virtually unknown. Open declaration of non-belief could find one tied to a stake sniffing smoke. During the “Enlightenment,” however, philosophers such as Voltaire, Hume, and D’Holbach, began to question the dogmas of all religion. Later, thinkers such as Feuerbach, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche proclaimed the absence of any god.

          The most serious challenge to established religions came, however, with the growth and expansion of Science. Copernicus and Galileo attacked the Christian belief that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Darwin showed that the human race evolved from lower forms of life by means of natural selection.

         According to a 2012 WIN-Gallup International Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism, the number of Atheists is on the rise across the world, with religiosity generally on the decline. The poll found that 23% of people around the world consider themselves “non-religious,” and 13% think of themselves as convinced Atheists. Between the years 2005 and 2012 the number of people claiming to be Atheist rose by 3% while the number of people claiming to be religious fell by 9%.

In the United States the number of people describing themselves as Atheist or Agnostic doubled from 2001 to 2009. Among adult Americans, 23% profess no faith affiliation. Moreover, the trend toward Atheism is accelerating. According to a Pew Research study released on May 12, 2015, one-third of all millennials (ages 18-34, approximately 75.3 million) now say they are unaffiliated with any faith.

 The Win-Gallup poll found that religiosity is higher among the poor--people in the bottom income groups are 17% more religious than those in the top income groups. The poll also found that Atheism is highest among the most educated people in the world. A survey of scientists in the illustrious National Academy of Sciences found that 72% were Atheists and another 20% were agnostic or had doubts. 

            If Atheism continues to grow at these rates and religiosity continues to decline, one has to wonder whether there will come a time when Atheism will pass religiosity and all of today’s gods and religions will go the way of Zeus, Hera, and Apollo, etc.. 

THE LIFE OF THE MIND

People have often told me that I should not just sit around reading books. I should get out. My former wife used to criticize me for not having any outside activities. She said that I needed to get a life. I told her that I had a life of the mind. She would stare at me in mute incomprehension. My brother told me that I needed to join some outside organization. I asked, “Should I become a member of the Kiwanis Club?”

When you immerse yourself in books, you go through a door into a different world. It not only gives a kind of pleasure, it gives a life. I cannot say that reading has brought me great happiness. By chemistry and disposition I am a less than cheerful person. I would like to be happier, but I would not give up reading to gain that end. Perhaps reading has deepened my melancholy. Profound research into the absence of God and the meaninglessness of life has not cheered my soul. But knowledge is its own reward.

Stanley Fish, a college professor, literary critic, and columnist for the New York Times, wrote a column on the question of whether the humanities do anything to help humanity. His conclusion was—“No.” He said: “To the question ‘of what use are the humanities?’ the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said ….diminishes the object of its supposed praise.”

I agree.

I have spent much of my life reading. It has given me knowledge of literature, history, philosophy, theology, psychology, art, science, and other fields of learning. I do not have a brilliant mind. What I have that the average person does not have is a passion for learning. Since I graduated from college I have never stopped reading books. I am not a fast reader, but I am a constant reader. I am an autodidact, a self-educated person. I spent most of my high school years studying the parabolas of girls’ chests and most of my college education studying the trajectories of basketballs. When I graduated, I realized that I did not know very much. For some reason, I wanted to learn, so that is when I started reading in earnest.

Many years ago I wanted to understand the reason why civilizations, nations, and cultures developed the way they did. I decided to read history and other subjects in the humanities. I read many multi-volume books on the history of civilization. After a lifetime of reading, I still do not have the answers. But I do have some ideas, and I can converse about them. I have tried to learn about subjects beyond literature, history, philosophy, and theology; subjects like music, art, and science. I have only a layman’s knowledge of these fields, but I probably know more than most people. As I’ve gotten older I find that I love listening to beautiful classical music. I also love reading books about art and looking up artists’ works on the computer.

I discovered early in my marriage that my wife did not appreciate it if I went into the bedroom in the evening and started reading. She wanted me to watch television with her. This bothered me and probably contributed to the eventual downfall of our marriage. I looked upon the watching of television as a waste of time. We sat and stared blankly at the screen without engaging in any conversation. The material on television was pathetic. I hated watching, but felt that it was the only way to appease my wife. Now that I am older, I like looking at some of the shows on television. But I still read a lot.

When children came along, they wanted their daddy to play with them. I loved playing with my children but it was impossible to read after coming home from work. In addition, my work was demanding and I often did not get home until later. By the time I got home I would be tired, too tired to read.

I started getting up very early in the morning. I discovered that if I arose around 5:30 a.m. I would be able to read for several hours without interference. Moreover, I would be awake and alert. I could read and understand the more difficult books without developing that sleepiness that accompanies most attempts to read recondite material.

Each morning I would get up and go make coffee. I would sit and luxuriate over the coffee while I began reading some book of history, philosophy, theology, literature or such. Sometimes I could not understand a word of what I was reading, but I did not give up. I would read and reread pages until I began to comprehend what the writer was saying. As I read more and more books, I understood more and more.

Sometimes I would be struck by what I was reading. Some writer would connect with my mind so deeply that chills would run down my spine. I have had the same experience with music and art.  When I first saw Velazquez’s painting, the “Water seller of Seville,” I was deeply moved and tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t comprehend the genius it must have taken to paint such a masterpiece! I have had the same experience when hearing some pieces of music. “Unto Us a Child is Born” from Handel’s Messiah.

I would have liked to have had a consistently happy life. But I realize that for some people, like me, happiness consists of fleeting moments when we are somehow introduced to something sublime. Sometimes it is just a beautiful day, or beautiful scenery, or magnificent music, or wonderful art, or a glorious poem, or a penetrating thought. It is through such things that I have experienced much of the happiness in my life.

EASTER AND THE HOLY EUCHARIST

         It is Christian doctrine that Jesus died as a sacrifice for man. The idea is that “Original    Sin” was committed by Adam and Eve, and that the stain of that sin was upon every human being born thereafter. Thus, even though subsequent humans did not commit the original sin, they were guilty of it as well as other sins. Christ came to save man from original sin and all other sin, and to provide a means for man to achieve everlasting life in heaven. In order to save man, Christ had to perform a sacrifice. Jesus was God, so he performed a sacrifice to himself. The sacrifice was a human sacrifice of the most bestial and agonizing kind, a painfully slow death by suffocation on a cross.
           One has to wonder why this omnipotent, all-loving, almighty God couldn’t have simply forgiven all men of sin without this orgy of torment? Why did he have to be the scapegoat for all human beings and go through this horrendous nightmare of torture in order to provide salvation? The answer is that the writers of the Bible lived in a benighted and barbaric time when this was thought to be the right way for the gods to behave.
             The resurrection of Jesus from the dead has been called the basis for all Christianity. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:13-14: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” The celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the most important date on the Catholics’ liturgical calendar. It is also the concoction of Paul and other writers who came long after Jesus died.
            Scholars use various methods of textual criticism, including language and style, to determine if text is authentic or was added to the original gospel at a later time. There are many things on which they agree. Scholars agree that Jesus did not predict his own resurrection from the dead or his second coming. The quotations in the Bible in which he makes such a prediction (e.g. Mark 8:31) are considered to be later additions.
             Moreover, the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are so contradictory and improbable that the whole story has to be dismissed as fiction. Matthew says that the day following Jesus crucifixion Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb (Matt 28:2), but Mark says that the two Marys and Salome went (Mark 16:1). Luke writes that Mary Magdalene went with Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and other women (Luke 24:10). Matthew says that the stone was removed by an angel at the time the women arrived at Jesus’ tomb (Matt. 28:2), but Mark and Luke say it had already been removed (Mark 16:2-4, Luke 24:1-2). Matthew says that when the women arrived, the angel was outside the tomb (Matt 28:2), but Mark says the angel was inside the tomb (Mark 16:5) and Luke says there were two men inside the tomb (Luke 24:4).
             In Matthew the two women rush from the tomb to tell the disciples (Matt 28:8-9), but Mark says that they said nothing to anyone (Mark 16:8). Luke says that they reported the story to the disciples (Luke 24:9-11). John tells a very different story from the others (John 20:1-18). Later post-resurrection stories are also in conflict (compare Matt 28:16-20 with Luke 24:13-53, and John 20:19).
            The first Gospel written was the Gospel of Mark. Scholars can tell that the whole story of the resurrection of Jesus in Mark was added to the Gospel by somebody else long after the original version was written. Originally, the Gospel of Mark ended at Chapter 16:8. That is the part where the women find the empty tomb and are told by a “young man” that Jesus has risen. The part of the Gospel after that, in which Jesus appears to various people, was added by later writers who wanted to supply authenticity to the myth of Jesus’ resurrection. As Professor Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina says: “These verses [Mark 16:9-20] are absent from our two oldest and best manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel, along with other important witnesses; the transition between this passage and the one preceding it is hard to understand….and there are a large number of words and phrases in the passage that are not found elsewhere in Mark.”
             If you consider the fact that the Gospels of Mathew and Luke were based on the gospel of Mark, then it becomes clear that the Gospels’ story of Jesus’ resurrection is pure myth that was made-up long after the Gospels were written. The earliest Christian scriptures were the Epistles of Paul, yet Paul does not give any details about Jesus’ resurrection other than referring to it (See Rom. 6:5, 1 Cor. 15:13).
                 The idea of resurrection by a god did not begin with Jesus. Lots of gods arose from the dead in ancient times. Among them are Mithra, Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, Tammuz, Ishtar, Adonis, Persephone, Semele, Heracles (or Herakles), and Melqart. Some claim Buddah was resurrected from the dead.
               Roman Catholics around the world celebrate Easter by partaking of the Holy Eucharist. It is a wafer of unleavened bread and liturgical wine. The wafer is placed in the recipient’s hand or mouth, and the wine is usually sipped out of a common chalice ( a somewhat unsanitary practice). According to Church dogma, the bread and wine are not just symbolic commemoration of the body and blood of Jesus. They are the actual body and blood of Jesus. It is believed that by consuming the body and blood of Jesus you take into your body part of his divine grace.

            It seems that for thousands of years nobody has ever stepped back and examined this holy practice. A little thinking about it should, however, make us wonder where it came from and why we do it. Why eat a human body and drink human blood. Isn’t that a little cannibalistic? How did the Catholic Church ever decide to ordain this as the most profound way of worshipping Jesus. Obviously, it is taken from an ancient time when men performed human sacrifice. It is well known that following a human sacrifice, ancient men frequently ate the body and drank the blood of the sacrificial victim. The sacrificial victim was often an enemy defeated in battle. It was believed that by doing so the eater took into himself the courage and strength of the victim. Even in more modern times headhunters would eat the bodies of their victims in the belief that the valor and fighting ability of the victim would come into the victor. Thus, as the practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism decreased, religions continued the practice by substituting bread, wine, and other food for the bodies of sacrificial victims.

The rite of the Last Supper, which the early Christian Church adopted as its Holy Eucharist, clearly was borrowed from the ritual meal practiced by more ancient religions. In The Roman Cult of Mithras, Manfred Clauss says: “The offering of bread and wine is known in virtually all ancient cultures, and the meal as a means of binding the faithful together and uniting them to the deity was a feature common to many religions. It represented one of the oldest means of manifesting unification with the spiritual, and the appropriation of spiritual qualities.” Claus describes how the worshippers of the god Mithra engaged in a ritual meal similar to the Christian Eucharist.

In the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the Last Supper is a Passover meal. In the Gospel of John, it takes place the day before Passover.     It is possible that Jesus asked his followers to eat bread and drink wine in his memory. It is highly unlikely that he horrified his disciples by recommending anything so cannibalistic as having bread and wine represent his body and blood. Such ideas were abhorrent to the Jews. Even the blood of an animal was forbidden at a Jewish meal by biblical law (Leviticus 7:26). Geza Vermes, Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford University, in The Religion of Jesus the Jew, says, “...the imagery of eating a man’s body, and especially drinking his blood...even after allowance is made for metaphorical language, strikes a totally foreign note in a Palestinian Jewish cultural setting...With their profoundly rooted blood taboo, Jesus’ listeners would have been overcome with nausea at hearing such words.” The idea that the eating of bread and wine was a consumption of the body and blood of Jesus is a later Greek development, taken from the Mystery Religions such as the cult of Mithra. The biblical version of the Last Supper was obviously added long after the original gospels were written.

 In the Mystery Religions, the cult “agapes” were “love feasts” in which the communicants achieved “mystical identification with the divinity.” The cults of Mithra and Attis had sacramental use of bread and wine as a means of communing with the gods. The early Eucharistic feasts of the Christians came to be called “agapes” by the Greeks. It was the Greeks who substituted bread and wine for the body and blood of sacrificial victims. If one goes back far enough, one can see the history of human sacrifice in Greece and how it affected the liturgy of the modern Church. 

Should We Thank God on Thanksgiving?

On Thanksgiving people often voice thanks for the many benefits of life. But whom do they thank? God? Should we really thank God for the good things in life, or should we condemn him for the horrors and terrors of life?

The primary reason for the existence of religion is to relieve people of fear. Marx called religion the “Opiate of the Masses.” This was a perfect explanation of the religious impulse. We live in a world filled with pain, sorrow, depression, and horror, but the religions tell us that there is a God out there who loves us and loves the world. This God will take care of us and, after death, will provide us with a paradise of joy and happiness.

I was speaking to someone and I proposed that if there really was a God, we should not worship or love or adore him, but rather, we should hate him. The person responded that we should worship him because “life is beautiful.” I replied that although life has moments of beauty and happiness, there is far too much sorrow and unhappiness to say that life is beautiful.

Consider the following: The great majority of people in the world live in abject poverty. Most of those people suffer from hunger, disease, famine, tsunamis, cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, plagues, infestations, and war. When one looks at the continents of Africa, Asia, and South America, one wonders how there could be a loving God looking over those people. Hundreds of millions of the people on those continents are subjected to widespread diseases such as cholera, malaria, sleeping sickness, AIDS, Dengue Fever, and Yellow Fever. They have insufficient clothing, shelter, and medical care. They are ruled-over by tyrants and dictators.

Millions of women throughout the world are treated as chattels without civil rights. They are beaten, raped, stoned, and subject to genital castration designed to eradicate their sexual pleasure. It is hard to imagine that such people are happy.

Hundreds of thousands of women, young girls, and boys are abducted each year by sex-crazed men who imprison and often torture them, using them as sexual toys for repeated rape. Many thousands of them are sold into sexual slavery, often to be bought by so-called upstanding members of the community.

What about the lucky people in America and the more affluent countries of Europe? One would think that they have many reasons to thank God. But we need to ask, are the lives of Americans so blessed and happy? Let’s start with health. Practically everybody in America has somebody in their family suffering from some serious illness. Millions of Americans have children with serious congenital diseases and infirmities such as autism, blindness, deafness, physical deformity, Down Syndrome, mental retardation, mental illnesses, muscular dystrophy, diabetes, epilepsy, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, cancer, and hundreds of other less common syndromes and disorders. The parents of such children often live lives of great sorrow.

Millions of adult Americans also suffer from terrible diseases. Heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, liver disease, Emphysema, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), AIDS, Crohn’s Disease, chronic pain, and hundreds of other conditions beset the happiness of their lives. Millions of Americans suffer from mental problems, depression, anxiety, fatigue, lonliness, phobias, panic attacks, disabling shyness, and stress throughout their lives. Millions of Americans suffer from the effects of terrible automobile accidents and other injuries. They go through life as cripples with disabled or missing limbs, internal organs, and other essential parts of their bodies, or suffering from terrible pain.

As people get older, they greet a host of problems afflicting older Americans such as strokes, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, hearing and seeing defects, prostate problems, osteoporosis, erectile dysfunction, sleep disorders, Alzheimer’s and dementia, and hundreds of other medical and psychological problems that impair their happiness. As people age their bodies breaks-down, their skin wrinkles, their hair disappears or turns white, their energy fails, and they lose their sexual ability and attraction.

Millions of Americans are addicted to alcohol, pain medication, and illegal drugs. Almost all of them are living in terrible misery, unable to shake the imprisonment of their addictions. There are millions of homeless people living on the streets, in tents, under bridges, and in shelters. Millions of other Americans are addicted to behavior patterns such as gambling, fetishism, sexual addiction, frigidity, obsessive-compulsive behavior, dependency, and other forms of addiction. There are millions of people with sexual deviations including the need to molest children or rape women. Millions of people engage in abusive behavior, physically beating or verbally berating their spouses, companions, and children. Millions of spouses, companions, and children are victims of such abuse. Such people cannot possibly be happy.

Millions of Americans live in poverty surrounded by a land of plenty. They eke-out a living in slums, tenements, housing projects, trailer parks, and rural shacks. They often go hungry in this land of plenty. Many go without decent clothing, shelter, ordinary medical care, and live in places without heat, cooling, electricity, telephone service, computers, sanitation, or even running water.

Millions of Americans are the victims of discrimination. People of all minorities suffer from bigotry. Millions of homosexuals, transvestites, transsexuals, and other trans-gender people are the objects of prejudice and condemnation by millions of other people.

Every day one reads in the paper about people who commit crimes. There are thousands of kinds of crimes committed every day by millions of people. It is difficult to guess what percent of the populace is dishonest, violent, dangerous, fraudulent, and deceitful, but judging from the constant news of crimes, schemes, scams, and corruptions, the number must run well into the tens of millions. There are millions of people engaged in serious and not-so-serious crime, including robbery, larceny, drug offenses, burglary, mugging, assault and battery, murder, and thousands of other kinds of crime. One constantly hears about violent massacres by crazed gunmen in schools, theaters, and public places. In addition to the victims of such killings, the families, friends, and communities of the victims are also victims. Millions of Americans are incarcerated in prisons and jails. There are millions of wives, children, parents, and other close relatives of prison inmates. These people must suffer having their loved ones in jail. There are millions of victims of crimes whose lives have been ruined by the crimes of others.

Throughout the world there are fanatic terrorists driven by religious hatred who make it their business to kill others who do not share their beliefs. I cannot imagine how many people are killed each year by these zealots but it must be in the thousands. It seems that every day one reads about a bomb going off in the Middle East or some other place, killing innocent people. The fanatics of ISIS feel compelled by their hate to murder and behead their enemies. If we consider the minds of the terrorists, they must be angry, tormented, unhappy people who have a lust for blood.

Millions of Americans are in unhappy marriages or relationships. Millions of Americans are suffering from the breakdown of their marriages or the breakup of relationships in which they were very much in love. Half of all marriages end in divorce. A majority of those who do not get divorced go on living in unhappy marriages. Millions of people are engaged in illicit sexual entanglements that cause them emotional pain and guilt. Millions of people are almost suicidal because of the infidelity of a spouse or loved one. Millions of people suffer from feelings of inferiority or lack of self-worth. Millions of people suffer from the feeling that they are too fat, too thin, or unattractive.

Millions of Americans hate their jobs or suffer under cruel, tyrannical, or sadistic bosses. There are millions of people with sour, nasty, cruel, vicious, malicious, and evil personalities who make it their business in life to damage, spoil, and injure the lives of other people. Millions of people live lives consumed with envy, jealousy, and hatred of others whom they perceive to be more fortunate than they.

Millions of families have children with serious behavior problems. Many of these children may grow up in middle class homes with respectable parents, yet such children are constantly in trouble with school, neighbors, the police, and others. Thousands of such children run away every year only to wind-up on the streets caught-up in drug addiction, prostitution, and crime.

For every Bernard Madoff carrying-out a giant stock swindle, there are thousands of businessmen, brokers, hedge fund managers, and others engaged in insider trading and other blatant violations of the rules of business law and ethics. Millions of Americans cheat others in smaller ways for smaller amounts of money. If one were able to calculate the amount of money embezzled from businesses, organizations, and charities each year it would probably be up in the billions if not trillions. I have known several embezzlers in my lifetime. I’m sure everybody has.

Although one would expect great probity from the wealthiest and most successful people, it is simply not there. Doctors routinely over-bill for services. I have had personal experience with dishonest doctors. One doctor who came in and handed my wife a card while our son was being treated for a broken bone at the hospital, later billed for services even though he did not examine or treat my son at all. Doctors frequently bill for services never rendered. Medicare and Medicaid pay tens of billions for fraudulent claims by physicians who are wealthy by any standard.

Eventually, we die. Death is not a simple leaf dropping off a tree. Death is usually painful. Often, it is horrible. It is usually accompanied by the grief of loved ones.

Yes, life does have its moments of happiness and beauty. There are some wonderful things in life, and some people do live very happy, prosperous, safe, healthy lives. Those people can be thankful for all they have, but they probably represent a small fraction of the people on earth. If you stop and consider all of the unhappiness, pain, disease, grief, and guilt suffered by the vast majority of people in the world, it can hardly be said that life is beautiful.

While many people suffering from the terrible things listed here may not think life is bad, that is because of the human ability to cope with the things that make us unhappy. It is a wonderful thing that people going through the most extreme torments will often try to look on the bright side of life. But if we stop and look at all of the problems faced by humans and listed here, we can hardly say that life is beautiful. We can hardly find reason to thank that mythical being called God.

Surely, if there was a God, and he was a good and loving God like the one worshipped by most religions, life would not be filled with such misery. There would not be millions of starving, diseased, oppressed people in Africa and other parts of the world. There would not be so much tragedy, horror, injury, illness, poverty, hunger, anger, war, and death. We would not have to wait for some mythical afterlife to experience a better life. Life on earth would really be beautiful for everyone.

THE ELECTIONS

            Despite the fact that a majority of Americans indicate that they distrust and dislike Congress, and that they object to the obstructionist tactics of Republicans in Congress, polls say that they are likely to give control of Congress to the Republicans this year. Why? I would think that people would become so disgusted with Republican obstruction that they would vote Democratic so that Congress could finally do something about the nation’s problems.

            First and most important is the economy. Under President Obama and the Democrats the economy has been lifted out of the worst recession in modern times and is well on its way to a boom. One of the factors in the improvement of the economy has been the bond-buying program carried out by the Federal Reserve. In the past few years the Fed has bought over $4.5 trillion worth of bonds. The bond-buying program helped reduce long-term interest rates and stimulated bank-lending and other aspects of the economy. The Dayton Daily News reported that Doug Handler, chief economist at HIS Global Insight, has asserted that the greatest impact of the bond-buying program “was instilling confidence in consumers and the business community that Fed officials were determined to do everything they could to stimulate growth.”

            Most people do not realize that the Republicans opposed the Fed’s bond-buying program and opposed much else of the Obama Administration’s efforts to stimulate the economy. Mitch McConnell, Republican minority leader in the Senate, made it clear that the main Republican effort these past six years was to unseat President Obama, not to help improve the economy. He led the effort to block virtually all of the President’s programs to get the economy moving. As a result, Americans continued to suffer long after the actual recession was over. Now that the economy is recovering without Republican help, they want to take-over Congress and deal with the economic issues about which they were so wrong.

            Somehow, Republican leaders have succeeded in getting many people to dislike President Obama. One issue that they have seized upon is the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I admit that I do not understand their opposition to this law. Under it millions of people who did not have health insurance are now covered. By expanding Medicaid, the law makes it possible for poor people to have something which many consider a natural right. The law does not drive the nation into bankruptcy. It is financed by revenue provided for in the law and that revenue could actually lead to a governmental surplus.

Many other aspects of the ACA help people other than the poor, for example: it allows young people to remain covered under their parent’s insurance until age 26; it prohibits health insurance companies from denying coverage on account of pre-existing conditions; it provides for the elimination of the “Doughnut Hole”--That is the period during which seniors have to pay the full cost of their prescriptions; it eliminates co-payments for preventative services and exempts preventative services from deductibles under the Medicare program. It does many other things that benefit both the poor and the middle class. Yet, for some reason, Republican lies have succeeded in making the law unpopular.

            I think I understand some of the dynamics of Republican anger against President Obama and the Democrats. Let’s face it, Republicans despise and resent poor people, especially Black people. They feel that these people are a cause of too much crime in America and a drain on the public purse due to welfare programs and other programs that help the poor. They also resent Black demands for justice, particularly in cases such as those involving O.J. Simpson, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown. They hate President Obama because they believe that as a Black man he will give-in to all of the demands of African Americans and empty the federal coffers to help them out.

            With all of these things in mind, people who vote Republican will ignore the actions of Republican Congressmen in obstructing legislation that would benefit all Americans, will ignore the improving economy, will ignore the benefits of the ACA to everybody, and will vote their prejudices.

            

THE LIFE OF THE MIND

People have often told me that I should not just sit around reading books. I should get out. My former wife used to criticize me for not having any outside activities. She said that I needed to get a life. I told her that I had a life of the mind. She would stare at me in mute incomprehension. My brother told me that I needed to join some outside organization. I asked, “should I become a member of the Kiwanis Club?”

When you immerse yourself in books, you go through a door into a different world. It not only gives a kind of pleasure, it gives a life. I cannot say that reading has brought me great happiness. By chemistry and disposition I am a less than cheerful person. I would like to be happier, but I would not give up reading to gain that end. Perhaps reading has deepened my melancholy. Profound research into the absence of God and the meaninglessness of life has not cheered my soul. But knowledge is its own reward.

Stanley Fish, a college professor, literary critic, and columnist for the New York Times, wrote a column on the question of whether the humanities do anything to help humanity. His conclusion was—“No.” He said: “To the question ‘of what use are the humanities?’ the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said ….diminishes the object of its supposed praise.”

I agree.

I have spent much of my life reading. It has given me knowledge of literature, history, philosophy, theology, psychology, art, science, and other fields of learning. I do not have a brilliant mind. What I have that the average person does not have is a passion for learning. Since I graduated from college I have never stopped reading books. I am not a fast reader, but I am a constant reader. I am an autodidact, a self-educated person. I spent most of my high school years studying the parabolas of girls’ chests and most of my college education studying the trajectories of basketballs. When I graduated, I realized that I did not know very much. For some reason, I wanted to learn, so that is when I started reading in earnest.

Many years ago I wanted to understand the reason why civilizations, nations, and cultures developed the way they did. I decided to read history and other subjects in the humanities. I read many multi-volume books on the history of civilization. After a lifetime of reading, I still do not have the answers. But I do have some ideas, and I can converse about them. I have tried to learn about subjects beyond literature, history, philosophy, and theology; subjects like music, art, and science. I have only a layman’s knowledge of these fields, but I probably know more than most people. As I’ve gotten older I find that I love listening to beautiful classical music. I also love reading books about art and looking up artists’ works on the computer.

I discovered early in my marriage that my wife did not appreciate it if I went into the bedroom in the evening and started reading. She wanted me to watch television with her. This bothered me and probably contributed to the eventual downfall of our marriage. I looked upon the watching of television as a waste of time. We sat and stared blankly at the screen without engaging in any conversation. The material on television was pathetic. I hated watching, but felt that it was the only way to appease my wife. Now that I am older, I like looking at some of the shows on television. But I still read a lot.

When children came along, they wanted their daddy to play with them. I loved playing with my children but it was impossible to read after coming home from work. In addition, my work was demanding and I often did not get home until later. By the time I got home I would be tired, too tired to read.

I started getting up very early in the morning. I discovered that if I arose around 5:30 a.m. I would be able to read for several hours without interference. Moreover, I would be awake and alert. I could read and understand the more difficult books without developing that sleepiness that accompanies most attempts to read recondite material.

Each morning I would get up and go make coffee. I would sit and luxuriate over the coffee while I began reading some book of history, philosophy, theology, literature or such. Sometimes I could not understand a word of what I was reading, but I did not give up. I would read and reread pages until I began to comprehend what the writer was saying. As I read more and more books, I understood more and more.

Sometimes I would be struck by what I was reading. Some writer would connect with my mind so deeply that chills would run down my spine. I have had the same experience with music and art.  When I first saw Velazquez’s painting, the “Water Seller of Seville,” I was deeply moved and tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t comprehend the genius it must have taken to paint such a masterpiece! I have had the same experience when hearing some pieces of music. I was almost moved to tears when I first heard the slow movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. 

I would have liked to have had a consistently happy life. But I realize that for some people, like me, happiness consists of fleeting moments when we are somehow introduced to something sublime. Sometimes it is just a beautiful day, or beautiful scenery, or magnificent music, or wonderful art, or a glorious poem, or a penetrating thought. It is through such things that I have experienced much of the happiness in my life.

FERGUSON AND THE RACIAL DIVIDE

            One of the tragic results of the incidents in Ferguson Missouri is that more of the White People of America have turned against African Americans. I am not speaking only of right-wing people who never liked Blacks.  I’m talking about all whites, including White liberals who always thought of themselves as civil rights advocates.

            Black people might say that white liberals never really supported them, and that they never needed the support of white liberals. But they would be very wrong. In a nation where white people are a majority of the population, and where whites represent an overwhelming majority of the political and business power structure, African Americans simply cannot progress and succeed if the white people are hostile to them.

            White liberals have spent many decades fighting for civil rights. Many white liberals went South during the civil rights struggles where they were freedom riders, and where they conducted voter registration drives and other activities in support of civil rights. Now, after the O.J. Simpson case, the Trayvon Martin case, and the Michael Brown fiasco, a large proportion of the white liberals are alienated and disgusted. I would wager that today Blacks have very few friends left among white liberals. I believe that this is a real tragedy for African Americans.

            It is not the dispute about the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown that have alienated the white people. It is the subsequent rioting and looting. White people cannot understand how Blacks can protest the Brown shooting by rioting and looting. It is very upsetting for people who have spent their lives fighting for the rights of Blacks to see them turn this protest into an ugly circus.

            The decline in white liberal support for African American aspirations began with the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1994-1995. Whites had greatly admired Simpson for his heroics on the football field and his humorous movie rolls. Nevertheless, when they heard the evidence for Simpson’s murder of his wife and her lover, they were convinced that he was guilty. Whites were astonished to find that Black people did not share this view. Virtually all African Americans wanted Simpson to be acquitted and, despite all of the evidence, insisted that Simpson was innocent. Moreover, even high level Black commentators joined in the collective Black denial of Simpson’s guilt. When Simpson was acquitted by a largely Black jury, the media showed Blacks at an elite collage cheering. Whites had never realized how different Black attitudes were from those of white people.

            Nevertheless, by 2008 the Simpson case had been virtually forgotten and many whites were able to vote for Barack Obama for president. Then came the Trayvon Martin case. When a community watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, shot Martin, whites saw this as a legitimate use of self-defense against a young man who had attacked the Zimmerman. African Americans had a totally different view. They were incensed that a white man would profile and follow a Black youth walking through a private community. Blacks believed that regardless of whether or not Zimmerman shot Martin in self –defense, he should be convicted of murder on account of his racial profiling. Again, as in the O.J. Simpson case, the Black view was adopted by all of the Black commentators. Whites were very disturbed by the fact that Blacks saw something so differently from them.

            The final straw was the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson Missouri. Whites had no shared opinion about the circumstances of Brown’s death, but were horrified that Black people engaged in rioting and looting of stores. Police put forth an explanation of the shooting which Blacks refused to accept. Some people who claimed to be witnesses said that there was no justification for the killing. Whites were alarmed to see that Black people would loot stores in their own community to express their outrage at the killing. Whites pointed out that they never rioted or looted in any similar circumstances.

            Now, as a result of Whites’ disillusion there is a greater racial divide in America than there has been in a long time. Ultimately, this will hurt the fortunes of African Americans. They will find it harder to get jobs, harder to earn money, harder to get into good collages, and harder to get along with the whites who represent the power structure. The disparities that now place Blacks at the bottom of the social scale will be exacerbated and extended.