If there had been a governmental shutdown, you could blame it on the right-wing Tea Partiers in Congress. While they may not constitute a majority of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, they carry more weight than their numbers would justify. Leaders like John Boehner are fearful of confrontation with these ideologues who would have no compunction about attacking fellow Republicans. Many of the Tea Party fanatics came to Washington by defeating more moderate Republicans.
Michele Bachmann is a good example of the kind of person produced by the far right. In a speech before anti-abortion demonstrators she made it clear that she has no problem with a governmental shutdown. Like all Tea Party people, she has a hatred for the government and a desire to diminish its power. A total shutdown would not bother her at all.
Bachmann and other Tea Party representatives voted against the continuing resolution that kept the government running when the parties reached a settlement of the budget dispute on April 8. Bachmann voted against an earlier continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown. She said that she did it because it didn’t defund Planned Parenthood and “Obamacare.” She called abortion the “watershed issue of our time” and said she’s prepared to fight “eyeball-to-eyeball” to defund Planned Parenthood in the next continuing resolution. The budget compromise reached on April 8 left the issue of funding Planned Parenthood for another day.
Those who want to defund Planned Parenthood are not doing so because of the budget or the deficit. For them it is a purely ideological issue. They object to Planned Parenthood because offices of Planned Parenthood provide abortions. Under federal law, Planned Parenthood is not allowed to use any federal money to fund abortions, but the Tea Party people hate the organization even though it does a great deal of good by providing other health services to women. The simple fact is that, as Senator Chuck Schumer said, the fanatical right-wingers of the Republican Party would relish a governmental shutdown in order to flex their muscles and demonstrate their ability to force their ultra-conservative agenda on the nation. They ignore the fact that a majority of Americans support the right to choose abortion.
The Tea Partiers are acting like children. If they can’t get their way they will not play at all. They do not seem to understand that in order to get things done in Washington it is often necessary to compromise. In the middle of a financial slowdown with millions of people out of work, they were willing to add to the rolls of the unemployed by laying-off approximately 800,000 government workers. Their unthinking negligence could have had an enormously adverse affect on the economy of America. Not only would many government departments be shut down, but thousands of private companies which depend on government business would be severely damaged.
Defense Secretary Gates said that if there was a government shutdown, troops would receive half a paycheck for the first two weeks. After that, troops wouldn’t be paid until a deal was reached in Washington to fund the government. Considering the fact that most military people do not get very high pay, a shutdown would cause hundreds of thousands of them great hardship. In a shutdown, many thousands of civilian employees of the military would be laid off.
The last time the government was shut down, disability benefits and pension claims were held-up for more than 400,000 veterans. New applicants for Social Security benefits were turned away. Clinical research trials at the National Institutes of Health were halted and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped disease surveillance. Nine million people were turned away from national museums, monuments, forests, and parks. The government suspended cleanup at 600 toxic waste sites.
In a shutdown, all of the government departments that provide federal monitoring and inspection would be closed. This would include mine safety inspections, food and drug inspections, and financial regulation and oversight of financial markets. Many other governmental activities would be suspended including visa and passport services, energy information services, and cleanup at 600 toxic waste sites. The Small Business Administration would not process loans for small companies.
If Tea Party fanatics had been able to buffalo the leadership into their extreme positions, the shutdown might have lasted a long time. This could have thrown the economy back into deep recession with millions more Americans out of work. The Democratic and Republican leadership showed statesmanship. The Tea Party extremists demonstrated juvenile irresponsibility.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Case Against God
My book, "The Case Against God: A Lawyer Examines the Evidence," has now been published by Amazon on Kindle. This means that anybody owning a Kindle or a device with Kindle applications such as iPad, iPhone, PC phone, Mac phone, Blackberry, Android phone, and Windows 7 phone can buy my book for $5.00. The book is a discussion about whether God exists from the point of view of a nonbeliever. In it I have explored The Old Testament, The New Testament, and the teachings of and about Jesus. I have researched all of the leading biblical and theological experts and I present the facts found by them. I also discuss the arguments of philosophers for the existence of God, the dispute between science and religion, the so-called “Intelligent Design” theory, the problem of evil, and the question of why so many people believe in God. Even if you don’t agree with my views about God, I hope that if you have a Kindle-type device, you will get the book and read it. Whether or not you agree, it is very informative and will greatly increase your knowledge of the Bible and religion.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
What if they Repealed the Health Care Law?
I confess that I do not fully understand the reason why Republicans are so fiercely opposed to the health care reform law, more properly known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA). It cannot be denied that it enacted many reforms favorable to the American people. It might be said that the opposition has been fueled by the health insurance industry, or that well-heeled Republicans object to the higher taxes the law imposes on wealthy taxpayers. But that would not explain the widespread fervor of grass root Republicans against the law. There must be something more. Now the House of Representatives has voted along party lines to repeal the law. That vote could not succeed because of Democratic control of the Senate, but who knows? Perhaps at some later date Republicans will gain the strength to carry out their plan to totally repeal all of the provisions of the law. What will happen then?
1. Repealing PPACA would add to $230 billion to the deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, the health care reform law reduces the deficit by $230 billion over the next decade. This is because the law not only provides for government financial support of many reforms but also provides for higher taxes on wealthy taxpayers in order to pay for the reforms. The taxes exceed the amount needed to finance the law by $230 billion.
2. If health care reform is repealed, 32 million fewer people will have insurance than if the bill is left to stand. This is according to the CBO estimate. These millions of people would constitute a burden on the health care system. Many of them would die of their illnesses and many others would go back to using the ER as their first line of medical treatment.
3. Repealing reform would mean higher health insurance premiums. The amount people actually pay for premiums would be much higher under repeal because right now most people will be able to get a subsidy from the government to help pay for the cost of health insurance.
4. If the law is repealed, senior citizens will not get relief from the “doughnut hole.” Senior citizens who are beneficiaries of the Medicare Part D drug program should be aware that the health care reform act has already begun to close the “donut hole.” That is the period during which seniors have to pay the full cost of their prescriptions after they amass $2,700 in drug costs. After $2,700, Medicare does not resume paying for drug expenses until seniors reach $4,350 in out-of-pocket payments, a figure most seniors never reach in one year. The health care reform bill has already cut the donut hole by $500 and has instituted a 50 percent discount in brand-name drugs. It will eventually abolish the donut hole. For many seniors who simply cannot afford to buy their essential medications during the donut hole, that will be life saving. If the law is repealed, the doughnut hole will remain.
5. If the law is repealed, uninsured people or people who have been denied insurance because of preexisting conditions will lose the temporary program enacted to help them buy health insurance. The health care reform bill creates an Insurance Exchange that begins in 2013 and will enable purchasers to search for the best and lowest-cost insurance. Until the Exchange is put in place, however, the bill creates a temporary insurance program to help uninsured people or people who have been denied policies because of preexisting conditions.
6. If the health care law is repealed, the insurance companies will be able to go back to denying health insurance because of preexisting conditions, placing lifetime caps or annual caps on health insurance coverage, or rescinding a patient’s policy when the patient files a claim for benefits.
7. The PPACA allows displaced workers to keep their COBRA coverage until the Exchange is in place and they can access affordable coverage. Repeal would take away that right.
8. The law creates a long-term-care insurance program, financed by voluntary payroll deductions, to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disable. Repeal would remove that program.
9. The law requires that health plans allow young people up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance policies if their parents so choose. Repeal would mean no such coverage for young people.
10. The law eliminates co-payments for preventative services and exempts preventative services from deductibles under the Medicare program. Repeal would mean return of such co-payments and deductibles.
11. The law prohibits Medicare Advantage (the private Medicare insurance program subsidized by the federal government) from charging enrollees higher cost-sharing for services in their private plan than is charged in traditional Medicare. Repeal would take away this protection.
There are a number of other beneficial provisions of the law that are now in effect. Others will take effect in 2013 and 2014. If the Republicans are able at some point to repeal the health care law, it will mean the loss by millions of Americans of reforms that make it easier and less expensive to obtain health care. It will also mean that greedy health insurance companies will be able to go back to gouging the public.
1. Repealing PPACA would add to $230 billion to the deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, the health care reform law reduces the deficit by $230 billion over the next decade. This is because the law not only provides for government financial support of many reforms but also provides for higher taxes on wealthy taxpayers in order to pay for the reforms. The taxes exceed the amount needed to finance the law by $230 billion.
2. If health care reform is repealed, 32 million fewer people will have insurance than if the bill is left to stand. This is according to the CBO estimate. These millions of people would constitute a burden on the health care system. Many of them would die of their illnesses and many others would go back to using the ER as their first line of medical treatment.
3. Repealing reform would mean higher health insurance premiums. The amount people actually pay for premiums would be much higher under repeal because right now most people will be able to get a subsidy from the government to help pay for the cost of health insurance.
4. If the law is repealed, senior citizens will not get relief from the “doughnut hole.” Senior citizens who are beneficiaries of the Medicare Part D drug program should be aware that the health care reform act has already begun to close the “donut hole.” That is the period during which seniors have to pay the full cost of their prescriptions after they amass $2,700 in drug costs. After $2,700, Medicare does not resume paying for drug expenses until seniors reach $4,350 in out-of-pocket payments, a figure most seniors never reach in one year. The health care reform bill has already cut the donut hole by $500 and has instituted a 50 percent discount in brand-name drugs. It will eventually abolish the donut hole. For many seniors who simply cannot afford to buy their essential medications during the donut hole, that will be life saving. If the law is repealed, the doughnut hole will remain.
5. If the law is repealed, uninsured people or people who have been denied insurance because of preexisting conditions will lose the temporary program enacted to help them buy health insurance. The health care reform bill creates an Insurance Exchange that begins in 2013 and will enable purchasers to search for the best and lowest-cost insurance. Until the Exchange is put in place, however, the bill creates a temporary insurance program to help uninsured people or people who have been denied policies because of preexisting conditions.
6. If the health care law is repealed, the insurance companies will be able to go back to denying health insurance because of preexisting conditions, placing lifetime caps or annual caps on health insurance coverage, or rescinding a patient’s policy when the patient files a claim for benefits.
7. The PPACA allows displaced workers to keep their COBRA coverage until the Exchange is in place and they can access affordable coverage. Repeal would take away that right.
8. The law creates a long-term-care insurance program, financed by voluntary payroll deductions, to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disable. Repeal would remove that program.
9. The law requires that health plans allow young people up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance policies if their parents so choose. Repeal would mean no such coverage for young people.
10. The law eliminates co-payments for preventative services and exempts preventative services from deductibles under the Medicare program. Repeal would mean return of such co-payments and deductibles.
11. The law prohibits Medicare Advantage (the private Medicare insurance program subsidized by the federal government) from charging enrollees higher cost-sharing for services in their private plan than is charged in traditional Medicare. Repeal would take away this protection.
There are a number of other beneficial provisions of the law that are now in effect. Others will take effect in 2013 and 2014. If the Republicans are able at some point to repeal the health care law, it will mean the loss by millions of Americans of reforms that make it easier and less expensive to obtain health care. It will also mean that greedy health insurance companies will be able to go back to gouging the public.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Why We Believe--Fear of Death
Religion may not have arisen solely because of the fear of death, but if you ask people today, they will tell you that there has to be some continuing life after death. Religion provides assurance that there is such life.
Death is part of nature. Every living thing dies. All humans die. No matter how long science is able to extend the length of a human life, we will all die. It is inherent in all living things. Why do we fear death? Why is death the most terrible part of life? Why have we surrounded death with such enormous horror and grief? You would think that such a natural, universal event would be stoically accepted by us as inevitable. But it isn’t.
We fear death because fear is part of our survival as a species. Any species that does not develop some type of fear of death is likely to become extinct. Our young species has managed to survive for hundreds of thousands of years in part because of our fear of death. Like other genetically successful species, we have developed evolutionary methods of avoiding death, at least until we have reproduced and spread our genes. Whether we will be as successful a species as the long-lived turtles, sharks, and alligators, remains to be seen.
I believe that one of the many strategies the human race uses to deal with its fear of death is the creation of imaginary beings called “gods.” By creating gods, humans seek to avoid the despair that might accompany a full understanding of their fate. The invention of gods is a tranquilizer that helps man deal with the fact that when we die, we die to eternal oblivion.
Most people realize that the human body does not survive death. What they hope for is the survival of human consciousness and memory. The idea is that our spirit or “soul” survives in an afterlife. It would make little difference if the spirit or soul survived but did not remember living on earth. Most people wish for the survival of our memory. In heaven we would know who we are and remember our lives and family on earth. For most people this includes seeing and getting back together with our loved ones (although Jesus said that in the resurrection there was no marriage, Matt. 22:23-30). For most, the afterlife is an idealized version of life on earth. There is no pain, no misery, no stress, no sin, no evil, only unlimited joy. For Catholics it is the “beatific vision.” For Moslems it is “Paradise,” an eternal feast in a green garden with beautiful virgins serving the faithful. For most people, people in heaven are aware of what is happening on earth, and many believe that the dead can intervene in earthly events.
There is something contradictory about the idea that our consciousness survives our deaths. Death is, ipso facto, the death of consciousness. Consciousness is a function of the brain, and if the brain is dead it does not function. We want to believe that somehow, through the hand of God, our consciousness, our brain, goes on working after death even though for earthly purposes it is finished. We want to believe that the mind is not really part of the body, but rather, a spiritual function. Science knows that the mind is the brain and the nervous system, a purely physical phenomenon, and like the rest of the body, it dies.
Death is part of nature. Every living thing dies. All humans die. No matter how long science is able to extend the length of a human life, we will all die. It is inherent in all living things. Why do we fear death? Why is death the most terrible part of life? Why have we surrounded death with such enormous horror and grief? You would think that such a natural, universal event would be stoically accepted by us as inevitable. But it isn’t.
We fear death because fear is part of our survival as a species. Any species that does not develop some type of fear of death is likely to become extinct. Our young species has managed to survive for hundreds of thousands of years in part because of our fear of death. Like other genetically successful species, we have developed evolutionary methods of avoiding death, at least until we have reproduced and spread our genes. Whether we will be as successful a species as the long-lived turtles, sharks, and alligators, remains to be seen.
I believe that one of the many strategies the human race uses to deal with its fear of death is the creation of imaginary beings called “gods.” By creating gods, humans seek to avoid the despair that might accompany a full understanding of their fate. The invention of gods is a tranquilizer that helps man deal with the fact that when we die, we die to eternal oblivion.
Most people realize that the human body does not survive death. What they hope for is the survival of human consciousness and memory. The idea is that our spirit or “soul” survives in an afterlife. It would make little difference if the spirit or soul survived but did not remember living on earth. Most people wish for the survival of our memory. In heaven we would know who we are and remember our lives and family on earth. For most people this includes seeing and getting back together with our loved ones (although Jesus said that in the resurrection there was no marriage, Matt. 22:23-30). For most, the afterlife is an idealized version of life on earth. There is no pain, no misery, no stress, no sin, no evil, only unlimited joy. For Catholics it is the “beatific vision.” For Moslems it is “Paradise,” an eternal feast in a green garden with beautiful virgins serving the faithful. For most people, people in heaven are aware of what is happening on earth, and many believe that the dead can intervene in earthly events.
There is something contradictory about the idea that our consciousness survives our deaths. Death is, ipso facto, the death of consciousness. Consciousness is a function of the brain, and if the brain is dead it does not function. We want to believe that somehow, through the hand of God, our consciousness, our brain, goes on working after death even though for earthly purposes it is finished. We want to believe that the mind is not really part of the body, but rather, a spiritual function. Science knows that the mind is the brain and the nervous system, a purely physical phenomenon, and like the rest of the body, it dies.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Noah's Ark in Kentucky
The State of Kentucky is subsidizing the construction along U.S. Route 75 of a replica of Noah’s Ark along with other biblical projects in a religious park. The ark is to be built according to the dimensions set-out in the Bible. The state justifies this involvement in religion as a way of creating jobs for construction people and of attracting visitors from around the country to the park. The people behind the project are not doing it to create jobs, but rather, to provide inspiration and belief in the biblical account of Noah’s flood. They are fundamentalist Christians who really believe that there was such a flood and that there was a man named Noah who built an ark and saved his family and the animal kingdom from the flood.
Some time ago ABC News did a story about some Christian archeologists from Texas who claimed to have found the remnants of Noah’s Ark. They apparently found something that looked to them like the Ark on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range rather than on Mount Ararat in Turkey, the site identified in Genesis 8:4. Nevertheless, they believed it was the Ark. "I can't imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark," said Arch Bonnema of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute--a Christian archeology organization dedicated to looking for biblical artifacts.
We have to wonder at the pathetic spectacle of “scientific” teams of grown people going out and climbing mountains to find the remains of Noah’s Ark. It is a little sad. Serious archeologists, geologists, historians, and theologians know that the story of Noah’s Ark is an ancient myth, a fairy tale, not history. It never really happened.
In the first place, there are two flood stories in Genesis. In one, God tells Noah that he is going to destroy sinful mankind with a flood and that Noah is to take his family and two of every kind of animal on board the Ark (Genesis 6:19). In the other, God directs Noah to take seven pairs of clean animals, of every type, and one pair of the unclean (Genesis 7:2). The reason that there are two stories is because there were different people who wrote different stories at different times which were later stitched together into what we now call Genesis. It was not written by Moses as is claimed in the Bible.
According to the Bible, the Ark was 300 cubits (about 450 feet) long. This is considerably longer than the largest wooden vessels ever built in historical times. Shipbuilders know that wooden ships over 300 feet long (the size of a football field) would not be able to float. The schooner Wyoming, launched in 1909, was the largest documented wooden-hulled cargo ship ever built. It measured only 350 feet and needed iron cross-bracing to counter warping and a steam pump to handle a serious leak problem.
Try to imagine fitting all those thousands of animals onto the Ark. There would be two (or seven) of every kind of elephant, rhinoceros, hippo, gorilla, ox, cow, horse, lion, tiger, bear, giraffe, wildabeeste, elk, moose, buffalo, etc. It would have been impossible for many of the animals to come from distant parts of the world. How could kangaroos and koalas get from Australia to the Middle East? How did Noah keep lions, tigers, bears, panthers, and hyenas from attacking deer, elk, antelope, sheep and other kinds of natural prey? How did Noah feed all those animals?
Anthropoligists and paleoanthropoligists have used fossils and DNA to trace the history of man. They know that our species originated in Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago. They recognize that man evolved from lower animals over a period of millions of years. There has been no worldwide flood interfering with human history. Moreover, geologists are unable to find any physical evidence of the kind of worldwide flood spoken about in the Bible.
The story of Noah and the Flood did not originate with the writers of the Hebrew Bible. It was borrowed from ancient Mesopotamian myths that precede the writing of the Bible by thousands of years. The Mesopotamian myths were written about different gods and different people.
The Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis, written over a thousand years before the Hebrew Bible, is an account of a pious hero who is warned by the god Enki to build a great ship and load it with family and selected animals in order to escape the coming deluge. The rains come, and everybody else in the world is drowned. The ship grounds on a mountain in Armenia and the hero releases three birds. The third bird does not return. A sacrifice pleases the god, and the god promises never to send another flood. Sound familiar?
The Sumarian story of Ziusudra, and the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, both written thousands of years before the Bible, have similar stories. In the Babylonian flood myth, the central story is about a fight between the gods Marduk and Tiamat.
Fundamentalist Christians and Jews might argue that the building of the Ark was a miracle and that the whole story must be taken as miraculous. Why then do they expect to find the actual Ark? Surely if it was a miraculous vessel that God created only for that one period of time, it would not still survive today.
Fundamentalist Christians have constructed a “Creation Museum” out near the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. In order to get there from Dayton, Ohio, the one has to drive over bedrock of Ordovician and Silurian rocks that were deposited between about 435 and 445 million years ago. World geography was quite different then. North America straddled the equator and Ohio was located south of the equator. The Ohio River did not exist. From a geological standpoint, the Ohio River is quite young. It was formed on a piecemeal basis beginning between 2.5 and 3 million years ago from north-flowing rivers dammed by the early ice ages.
In late May, 2009, seventy paleontologists took a break from a conference at the University of Cincinnati and drove over Ordovician bedrock to visit the Creation Museum. I’m sure that they were interested in seeing not only the displays at the museum, but also the living fossils of a species that was thought to have become extinct at the time of the European Enlightenment--the irrational, superstitious, religious believers for whom modern science means nothing. Those believers insist that the earth is 6000 years old. They believe this despite the fact that everybody knows that even Dick Clark is more than 6000 years old.
One display at the museum shows two prehistoric children playing while dinosaurs, which became extinct 63 million years before the human species developed, cavort nearby. The scientists visiting the museum were astonished. "I'm speechless," said Derek E.G. Briggs, director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale; "It's rather scary.” Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology, and evolution at University of California, Berkeley, said: “It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?” Lisa Park, a University of Akron professor of paleontology, who is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, called it "bad science and even worse theology -- and the theology is far more offensive to me."
Leaving aside the geological evidence, it doesn’t seem likely that the earth began 6000 years ago. There was already a flourishing civilization in Egypt over 6000 years ago. British archaeologists have found 30 sites rich in art chiseled into rocks up to 6,000 years ago in the desert east of the Nile. The rock drawings show cattle, boats, ostriches, giraffes, hippos and the men and women who lived in the area in 4,000 BC, long before the first pharaohs or the first pyramids.
“Lucy” was the name given to an early ancestor of the human species discovered by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray in 1974 at Hadar in Ethiopia. Its age is about 3.2 million years. Lucy was an adult female of about 25 years and was assigned to the species “Australopithecus Afarensis.” There have been hundreds of discoveries of pre-human fossils going back millions of years.
Fossils of the now extinct species of human called Neanderthals have been found in various places in Europe and the Middle East. The first proto-Neanderthal traits appeared in Europe as early as 600,000–350,000 years ago. Fossils of our ancestors, Cro-Magnon men, date back 40,000 years. Archeologists in Oregon have located an ancient trash dump and latrine which was found to contain human DNA linked directly to modern-day Native Americans with Asian roots. The materials found were radiocarbon dated to 14,300 years ago. It is believed that the ancestors of Native Americans came over the land bridge to Alaska around 20,000 years ago. People who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old don’t want to hear about science or truth. They want to live in their own world of nescience.
Some time ago ABC News did a story about some Christian archeologists from Texas who claimed to have found the remnants of Noah’s Ark. They apparently found something that looked to them like the Ark on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range rather than on Mount Ararat in Turkey, the site identified in Genesis 8:4. Nevertheless, they believed it was the Ark. "I can't imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark," said Arch Bonnema of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute--a Christian archeology organization dedicated to looking for biblical artifacts.
We have to wonder at the pathetic spectacle of “scientific” teams of grown people going out and climbing mountains to find the remains of Noah’s Ark. It is a little sad. Serious archeologists, geologists, historians, and theologians know that the story of Noah’s Ark is an ancient myth, a fairy tale, not history. It never really happened.
In the first place, there are two flood stories in Genesis. In one, God tells Noah that he is going to destroy sinful mankind with a flood and that Noah is to take his family and two of every kind of animal on board the Ark (Genesis 6:19). In the other, God directs Noah to take seven pairs of clean animals, of every type, and one pair of the unclean (Genesis 7:2). The reason that there are two stories is because there were different people who wrote different stories at different times which were later stitched together into what we now call Genesis. It was not written by Moses as is claimed in the Bible.
According to the Bible, the Ark was 300 cubits (about 450 feet) long. This is considerably longer than the largest wooden vessels ever built in historical times. Shipbuilders know that wooden ships over 300 feet long (the size of a football field) would not be able to float. The schooner Wyoming, launched in 1909, was the largest documented wooden-hulled cargo ship ever built. It measured only 350 feet and needed iron cross-bracing to counter warping and a steam pump to handle a serious leak problem.
Try to imagine fitting all those thousands of animals onto the Ark. There would be two (or seven) of every kind of elephant, rhinoceros, hippo, gorilla, ox, cow, horse, lion, tiger, bear, giraffe, wildabeeste, elk, moose, buffalo, etc. It would have been impossible for many of the animals to come from distant parts of the world. How could kangaroos and koalas get from Australia to the Middle East? How did Noah keep lions, tigers, bears, panthers, and hyenas from attacking deer, elk, antelope, sheep and other kinds of natural prey? How did Noah feed all those animals?
Anthropoligists and paleoanthropoligists have used fossils and DNA to trace the history of man. They know that our species originated in Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago. They recognize that man evolved from lower animals over a period of millions of years. There has been no worldwide flood interfering with human history. Moreover, geologists are unable to find any physical evidence of the kind of worldwide flood spoken about in the Bible.
The story of Noah and the Flood did not originate with the writers of the Hebrew Bible. It was borrowed from ancient Mesopotamian myths that precede the writing of the Bible by thousands of years. The Mesopotamian myths were written about different gods and different people.
The Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis, written over a thousand years before the Hebrew Bible, is an account of a pious hero who is warned by the god Enki to build a great ship and load it with family and selected animals in order to escape the coming deluge. The rains come, and everybody else in the world is drowned. The ship grounds on a mountain in Armenia and the hero releases three birds. The third bird does not return. A sacrifice pleases the god, and the god promises never to send another flood. Sound familiar?
The Sumarian story of Ziusudra, and the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, both written thousands of years before the Bible, have similar stories. In the Babylonian flood myth, the central story is about a fight between the gods Marduk and Tiamat.
Fundamentalist Christians and Jews might argue that the building of the Ark was a miracle and that the whole story must be taken as miraculous. Why then do they expect to find the actual Ark? Surely if it was a miraculous vessel that God created only for that one period of time, it would not still survive today.
Fundamentalist Christians have constructed a “Creation Museum” out near the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. In order to get there from Dayton, Ohio, the one has to drive over bedrock of Ordovician and Silurian rocks that were deposited between about 435 and 445 million years ago. World geography was quite different then. North America straddled the equator and Ohio was located south of the equator. The Ohio River did not exist. From a geological standpoint, the Ohio River is quite young. It was formed on a piecemeal basis beginning between 2.5 and 3 million years ago from north-flowing rivers dammed by the early ice ages.
In late May, 2009, seventy paleontologists took a break from a conference at the University of Cincinnati and drove over Ordovician bedrock to visit the Creation Museum. I’m sure that they were interested in seeing not only the displays at the museum, but also the living fossils of a species that was thought to have become extinct at the time of the European Enlightenment--the irrational, superstitious, religious believers for whom modern science means nothing. Those believers insist that the earth is 6000 years old. They believe this despite the fact that everybody knows that even Dick Clark is more than 6000 years old.
One display at the museum shows two prehistoric children playing while dinosaurs, which became extinct 63 million years before the human species developed, cavort nearby. The scientists visiting the museum were astonished. "I'm speechless," said Derek E.G. Briggs, director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale; "It's rather scary.” Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology, and evolution at University of California, Berkeley, said: “It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?” Lisa Park, a University of Akron professor of paleontology, who is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, called it "bad science and even worse theology -- and the theology is far more offensive to me."
Leaving aside the geological evidence, it doesn’t seem likely that the earth began 6000 years ago. There was already a flourishing civilization in Egypt over 6000 years ago. British archaeologists have found 30 sites rich in art chiseled into rocks up to 6,000 years ago in the desert east of the Nile. The rock drawings show cattle, boats, ostriches, giraffes, hippos and the men and women who lived in the area in 4,000 BC, long before the first pharaohs or the first pyramids.
“Lucy” was the name given to an early ancestor of the human species discovered by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray in 1974 at Hadar in Ethiopia. Its age is about 3.2 million years. Lucy was an adult female of about 25 years and was assigned to the species “Australopithecus Afarensis.” There have been hundreds of discoveries of pre-human fossils going back millions of years.
Fossils of the now extinct species of human called Neanderthals have been found in various places in Europe and the Middle East. The first proto-Neanderthal traits appeared in Europe as early as 600,000–350,000 years ago. Fossils of our ancestors, Cro-Magnon men, date back 40,000 years. Archeologists in Oregon have located an ancient trash dump and latrine which was found to contain human DNA linked directly to modern-day Native Americans with Asian roots. The materials found were radiocarbon dated to 14,300 years ago. It is believed that the ancestors of Native Americans came over the land bridge to Alaska around 20,000 years ago. People who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old don’t want to hear about science or truth. They want to live in their own world of nescience.
Monday, November 29, 2010
ARE THE REPUBLICANS GUILTY OF TREASON
What is treason? The dictionary says that it is “Violation of allegiance toward one's country.” To me, this would include aiding in the economic destruction of one’s country and blocking efforts to make one’s country prosperous and safe. Why would anyone engage in such treasonous actions? Perhaps in order to replace those in power and take-over the government. This, I contend, is exactly what the Republicans are trying to do.
You would think that such treasonous actions would be a thing of the past. Control of the government no longer includes attainment of great wealth, castles, and lands. But it does include the acquisition of great power, and this is probably what the Republicans want. They have captured the House of Representatives and now they want to control the Senate and the Presidency. They believe that in order to do this they need to oppose every effort of President Obama and the Democrats to improve the nation’s economy and security.
It may sound harsh to call this kind of Republican political behavior treason, but the effect of their actions could be the continuation of economic stagnation and unemployment, damage to our relationship with Russia, weakening of our national security, and decrease in American prestige abroad. The Republican’s idea, as recently espoused by Senator Mitch McConnell, is to do everything possible to defeat President Obama in the next election. This means that even if Americans have to suffer more unemployment and poor economy, it is worth it to win the presidency. McConnell knows that President Obama will have a much harder time getting reelected if the economy remains lethargic.
You can expect that the Republicans in Congress will oppose and try to block any effort to give further stimulus to the economy. Every economist knows that extending unemployment insurance not only provides desperately needed relief to people out of work but also helps the economy because of the tendency of such people to spend unemployment benefits right away. Every economist knows that providing more stimulus to rebuild American’s infrastructure will improve the economy by creating jobs and enhancing interstate commerce. Nevertheless, Republicans have already blocked the building of a new rail system in Ohio and a new Hudson River tunnel in New Jersey.
The Republicans in the Senate are, apparently, filibustering a bill that would provide health care and economic compensation for tens of thousands of citizens suffering severe effects from the cleanup of the 9/11 collapse of the World Trade Center. Police, firefighters and citizen volunteers suffered various illnesses after their labors amid the toxic fumes and clouds at ground zero. They have not received compensation or health care because they were not part of the original lawsuits that were settled. So far, only one Republican Senator appears willing to support the bill. That is not politics, that is cruelty.
There are certain things that can be done to lower the federal deficit, some of them very hard. But you can be sure that Republicans will not agree to allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire while keeping the tax cuts for the middle class. Despite the fact that economists have warned about the extreme danger of allowing our huge deficits to continue, it is questionable whether the Republicans will be willing to compromise on any genuine deficit-cutting programs. If the Republicans in Congress refuse to agree to increase the spending limit next year the nation could be faced with a critical economic crisis.
In a recent column in The New York Times, Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman, wrote that the Republicans have joined forces with Germany and China in an effort to stop the Federal Reserve from buying governmental bonds and thereby helping American manufacturers compete abroad. The Fed’s activity will lower the dollar, increase exports, narrow the trade deficit, and help fight unemployment. Krugman asks, “So what’s really motivating the GOP attack on the Fed?” He cited the remarks of budget expert, Stan Collender, saying that: “‘With Republican policymakers seeing economic hardship as the path to election glory,’ they would be ‘opposed to any actions taken by the Federal Reserve that would make the economy better.’ In short, their real fear is not that Fed actions will be harmful, it is that they might succeed.”
God forbid that the Democratic President and the Democrats in Congress are able to increase exports and employment! God forbid that the economy of America improves greatly before the next presidential election! God forbid that President Obama gets credit for securing an arms limitation treaty with Russia!
It appears that the Republicans want not only for the economy to remain stagnant, but for it to go into a double-dip recession with more millions out-of-work. They believe, perhaps correctly, that such economic crisis will lead to Republican recapture of the White House and the Senate. They are oblivious to the damage that will be done to the country and to millions of hard-working Americans. It is not that they want power in order to improve things. They have no program to bring-on an economic miracle. They have no plans to vastly reduce unemployment. They have no program to improve the security of America and our relations with Russia. They want power for the sake of power. That is often the reason that traitors want power.
You would think that such treasonous actions would be a thing of the past. Control of the government no longer includes attainment of great wealth, castles, and lands. But it does include the acquisition of great power, and this is probably what the Republicans want. They have captured the House of Representatives and now they want to control the Senate and the Presidency. They believe that in order to do this they need to oppose every effort of President Obama and the Democrats to improve the nation’s economy and security.
It may sound harsh to call this kind of Republican political behavior treason, but the effect of their actions could be the continuation of economic stagnation and unemployment, damage to our relationship with Russia, weakening of our national security, and decrease in American prestige abroad. The Republican’s idea, as recently espoused by Senator Mitch McConnell, is to do everything possible to defeat President Obama in the next election. This means that even if Americans have to suffer more unemployment and poor economy, it is worth it to win the presidency. McConnell knows that President Obama will have a much harder time getting reelected if the economy remains lethargic.
You can expect that the Republicans in Congress will oppose and try to block any effort to give further stimulus to the economy. Every economist knows that extending unemployment insurance not only provides desperately needed relief to people out of work but also helps the economy because of the tendency of such people to spend unemployment benefits right away. Every economist knows that providing more stimulus to rebuild American’s infrastructure will improve the economy by creating jobs and enhancing interstate commerce. Nevertheless, Republicans have already blocked the building of a new rail system in Ohio and a new Hudson River tunnel in New Jersey.
The Republicans in the Senate are, apparently, filibustering a bill that would provide health care and economic compensation for tens of thousands of citizens suffering severe effects from the cleanup of the 9/11 collapse of the World Trade Center. Police, firefighters and citizen volunteers suffered various illnesses after their labors amid the toxic fumes and clouds at ground zero. They have not received compensation or health care because they were not part of the original lawsuits that were settled. So far, only one Republican Senator appears willing to support the bill. That is not politics, that is cruelty.
There are certain things that can be done to lower the federal deficit, some of them very hard. But you can be sure that Republicans will not agree to allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire while keeping the tax cuts for the middle class. Despite the fact that economists have warned about the extreme danger of allowing our huge deficits to continue, it is questionable whether the Republicans will be willing to compromise on any genuine deficit-cutting programs. If the Republicans in Congress refuse to agree to increase the spending limit next year the nation could be faced with a critical economic crisis.
In a recent column in The New York Times, Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman, wrote that the Republicans have joined forces with Germany and China in an effort to stop the Federal Reserve from buying governmental bonds and thereby helping American manufacturers compete abroad. The Fed’s activity will lower the dollar, increase exports, narrow the trade deficit, and help fight unemployment. Krugman asks, “So what’s really motivating the GOP attack on the Fed?” He cited the remarks of budget expert, Stan Collender, saying that: “‘With Republican policymakers seeing economic hardship as the path to election glory,’ they would be ‘opposed to any actions taken by the Federal Reserve that would make the economy better.’ In short, their real fear is not that Fed actions will be harmful, it is that they might succeed.”
God forbid that the Democratic President and the Democrats in Congress are able to increase exports and employment! God forbid that the economy of America improves greatly before the next presidential election! God forbid that President Obama gets credit for securing an arms limitation treaty with Russia!
It appears that the Republicans want not only for the economy to remain stagnant, but for it to go into a double-dip recession with more millions out-of-work. They believe, perhaps correctly, that such economic crisis will lead to Republican recapture of the White House and the Senate. They are oblivious to the damage that will be done to the country and to millions of hard-working Americans. It is not that they want power in order to improve things. They have no program to bring-on an economic miracle. They have no plans to vastly reduce unemployment. They have no program to improve the security of America and our relations with Russia. They want power for the sake of power. That is often the reason that traitors want power.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Should The Democrats Rethink Their Strategy
If the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress feel that recent losses in the House of Representatives and in various state governorships and legislatures require them to rethink their strategy and move more toward the middle, they will be giving the Republicans and Conservatives a victory that they never earned at the polls. After all, the President is still a liberal Democrat. The Democrats are still in charge of the U.S. Senate. There are still plenty of Democratic governors and state legislators. In my opinion as a liberal Democrat, the Democrats should move more to the left, and leave the middle for the Republicans.
The reason why the Republicans won this year was not because the Democrats are liberal and the Republicans are conservative. The Republicans won because of “the economy stupid.” The mass of independent voters, and many Democrats and Republicans, always vote their pocket-books. They do not care about, or know very much about, the big issues. They look at what is happening in the economy and how it is affecting or likely to affect their personal finances. They opposed the stimulus because they resented money going to big banks and stockbrokerages. They did not realize that much of the stimulus money was designed to go to jobs for lower and middle income Americans. They resented the health care reform bill because they believed that it would help only poor people and that it would raise taxes. They didn’t realize that it would benefit all people and that only the wealthy people would pay higher taxes. They also did not realize that the bill would actually lower the deficit.
Thus, it was not their political philosophy that hurt the Democrats. It was the continuation of a sluggish economy and unemployment from a recession started under a Republican administration and caused by Republicans’ anti-regulation policies.
So what should the President Obama and the Democrats do now? Should they retain the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy as well as for the middle-class? Should they abandon all hope of getting legislation to stop global warming? Should they give-up on trying to have a public option attached to the health care legislation? Should they forget about trying to strengthen the Wall Street reforms? I say that, if anything, they should increase their efforts to pass these things and other liberal legislation. The last thing they should do is kowtow to the Conservatives and become more conservative themselves. By moving to the right the Democrats will have truly lost the election and given-in to the Republicans.
It is particularly important that President Obama not believe that the election was a referendum on his popularity. It was a referendum on the economy, which still suffers from high unemployment. Moreover, a large percentage of the people who voted Republican this time voted against Obama when he ran for president. President Obama won the White House by a 52 to 46 percent margin. That means that 46 percent of the electorate was already prepared to vote Republican two years later. All it took was a small shift of independent voters to insure a Republican victory in the midterm elections. There can be no doubt that those independents did so in the hope that it would improve their finances.
Conservatives will point to Bill Clinton who appeared to become more conservative after the Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 midterm election. But Clinton did not become more conservative. Rather, he recognized the necessity of working with a Republican congress in order to get anything done. In that sense, President Obama has it better than Clinton did. At least he has a Democratic Senate to work with. As President Obama has said, he will have to compromise with the Republicans in the House in order to get legislation, but he will not have to go as far as Clinton did. In addition, the Republicans will have to compromise with the President and the Democrats in the Senate if they want to pass any legislation. Otherwise they will revert to the kind of obstructionist party they were before the election.
I hope that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress do not take their eyes off the ball. I hope that they will not surrender their values as a result of this midterm election.
The reason why the Republicans won this year was not because the Democrats are liberal and the Republicans are conservative. The Republicans won because of “the economy stupid.” The mass of independent voters, and many Democrats and Republicans, always vote their pocket-books. They do not care about, or know very much about, the big issues. They look at what is happening in the economy and how it is affecting or likely to affect their personal finances. They opposed the stimulus because they resented money going to big banks and stockbrokerages. They did not realize that much of the stimulus money was designed to go to jobs for lower and middle income Americans. They resented the health care reform bill because they believed that it would help only poor people and that it would raise taxes. They didn’t realize that it would benefit all people and that only the wealthy people would pay higher taxes. They also did not realize that the bill would actually lower the deficit.
Thus, it was not their political philosophy that hurt the Democrats. It was the continuation of a sluggish economy and unemployment from a recession started under a Republican administration and caused by Republicans’ anti-regulation policies.
So what should the President Obama and the Democrats do now? Should they retain the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy as well as for the middle-class? Should they abandon all hope of getting legislation to stop global warming? Should they give-up on trying to have a public option attached to the health care legislation? Should they forget about trying to strengthen the Wall Street reforms? I say that, if anything, they should increase their efforts to pass these things and other liberal legislation. The last thing they should do is kowtow to the Conservatives and become more conservative themselves. By moving to the right the Democrats will have truly lost the election and given-in to the Republicans.
It is particularly important that President Obama not believe that the election was a referendum on his popularity. It was a referendum on the economy, which still suffers from high unemployment. Moreover, a large percentage of the people who voted Republican this time voted against Obama when he ran for president. President Obama won the White House by a 52 to 46 percent margin. That means that 46 percent of the electorate was already prepared to vote Republican two years later. All it took was a small shift of independent voters to insure a Republican victory in the midterm elections. There can be no doubt that those independents did so in the hope that it would improve their finances.
Conservatives will point to Bill Clinton who appeared to become more conservative after the Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 midterm election. But Clinton did not become more conservative. Rather, he recognized the necessity of working with a Republican congress in order to get anything done. In that sense, President Obama has it better than Clinton did. At least he has a Democratic Senate to work with. As President Obama has said, he will have to compromise with the Republicans in the House in order to get legislation, but he will not have to go as far as Clinton did. In addition, the Republicans will have to compromise with the President and the Democrats in the Senate if they want to pass any legislation. Otherwise they will revert to the kind of obstructionist party they were before the election.
I hope that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress do not take their eyes off the ball. I hope that they will not surrender their values as a result of this midterm election.
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