Prevarications, Obfuscations, And The Outright Lies

They lie to us. If not overtly, then through omission. They seek to manipulate us, to drive us to adoration, or to fear, or to desire, or to action, but they do it through manipulation. They act upon the predilections we already harbor, or they pound into us a continuous stream of doubt, or simply repeat the words backed by a seeming surety and sincerity that resonates with us.

But it is all lies.

They want to convince you that they are clean, free of the taint of evildoing. They want you to believe they are right, no matter what the evidence says. They want you to trust them, though their behavior leaves you with a funny feeling in the pit of your stomach.

They are the poltroons, mountebanks, jesters, and megalomaniacs that exist at the edges of society, seeking to use their wiles to manipulate us into giving them what they want: power, money, respect, obedience, obeisance. They flit around us, walk among us, and meander through us, spreading their miasma of incoherence and insensitivity, which clings to us like an unseen coat, poisoning our faculties. We want to believe them, have to believe them, find it difficult to break from their penetrating gaze. We create a veneer of respectability around them that hardens into an armor that deflects even the most pointed queries about those parts of their behavior that trouble us.

We find them in business. We elect them to government, We elevate them in the celebrity parade. We kneel before them in houses of worship. We cheer them in sport. We surrender the natural power of our own intellect in their presence, allowing them to dull our senses and bypass our reason. We want to believe what they say and do is true; oft times, we simply surrender to that belief despite all evidence to the contrary.

Judge not, lest ye be judged, but that does not mean we must suspend all judgment. It means we should not simply place people and things into neat boxes without ascertaining the truth of them. It means we must suspend our innate desire to measure every thing against what we believe and be willing to accept those facts brought before us, irrespective of belief. We must be willing to bend, to narrow the number of absolute codes we carry with us. It means we must not allow ourselves to be so easily led or fooled by those who wrap themselves in the trappings of those things we trust.

The lie is not the thing, for to lie is as easy as telling the truth. It is the intent behind the lie that matters. We call upon the "white" lie to prevent the discovery of a surprise, to spare feelings, to cover a thousand minor infractions in our life, and very rarely can it be said to be harmful. The lie that harms us is the lie told as truth, the lie cloaked in fact, the lie embedded within a web of other lies, the lie built specifically to prevent us from knowing the dark purpose behind the lie. The worst of the lies is that which is coated in officialism, that is "true" because the speakers says it is true. When you have looked to someone as trustworthy, when you have invested in them a tremendous level of respect, when you have marked them as important, the lie they tell breaches your defenses and is deposited in the deeper recesses of your mind, to sit, to fester, to grow, to ensnare reason in the tendrils of deceit. The mind, so swathed, refuses to push back, and reason is choked off.

Not everyone is a liar and not every lie told is intended to do damage, but those that are, when coupled to those figures we deem important, carry tremendous destructive potential for our society. When placed in positions of power, venerated as heroes, imbued with the rank of their office, they can build barriers against the normal forward course of society, attempting to roll it back to beliefs and superstitions and nonsense that previously caused human society to totter on the brink of self-annihilation. Worse, still, they can make it seem that to do as they did or to speak as they spoke carries an air of veracity, that from their lips the words gained truth simply through being said by them.

The lie is perpetuated because it is left unchallenged for those who choose not to apply any discrimination to it. Where facts are rejected out of hand, where belief is stronger than reason, where fame outstrips normality, the lie suffers no damage to many, even where those outside it can support their contention that it is a lie with reason and evidence. There is no comfort in knowing that so many of our fellow human beings in our society choose to simply accept the lie uncritically, content to back in its shadow.

This is the critical point, like so many before now, where we must face down and gear up against the lie. Those in the reasonable, thinking majority of us can no longer stand idly by and let the lies go unchallenged, no longer put up with our fellow citizens and the rank hypocrisy they bathe in. Pull them kicking and screaming we must, out of the dark mists of Middle Age thought and into the 21st Century age of reason. Until we rise up as a mass and proclaim reason a more fit way of providing peace and liberty to all, we will suffer the indignity of ignorance and play with the fire that still threatens to consume us all.

Ashes To Ashes, Stardust To Stardust

Today is the holy Catholic day of Ash Wednesday, marking the opening of Lent, a hearkening back to Jesus' 40-day fast in the desert before beginning his formal ministry. The streets of many nations will be filled with people with a cross drawn in ash upon their forehead as a sign of repentance. It marks an attempt for many Christians to reconnect with the actual teachings of their Savior.

Sadly, it doesn't work in most cases.

Even the most devout, once Easter has passed, suddenly forget the life and death of Jesus Christ, his words and his wisdom. They slip off the cloak of piety and slip on the armor of judgment, of pitilessness, of self-righteousness. They attempt to force the world to conform to their uninspired and often insipid interpretation of The Bible, the words of their Savior to become dust upon the ground. That dust, however, is not devoid of meaning. The dust and dirt that cover our Earth was a gift from the universe, mixed, recombined, forged, broken, and reconstituted millions of times, starting with the beginning of creation itself.

Believe It Or Not

It becomes clear that a great schism wracks human society with spasms of outlandish idiocy, foments titanic battles between groups of otherwise normal people, and leaves the foul stench of hypocrisy lingering on the breeze, like the wisps of Winter wood smoke. On one side, the fervent religious believers, who take their scripture to heart, using the very words to conjure up visions of how secular society will doom humanity to an ignominious fate. On the other, the rationalists, believers in unbelief, clad in the armor of science and pointedly against anything that even hints of human invention, determined to expose the machinations of religious zealotry in committing us all to a hideous fate.

I tire of them both. As usual, the answer to it all lies in between.

Misconceptions

Human law and human beliefs cannot alter physical systems. No decree can change the motion of the Earth's crustal plates as they slide across the face of our world. No amount of determination can bend the Second Law of Thermodynamics to create unlimited energy. No declaration will place the Earth at the center of our solar system. No force of will can alter the motion of the stars through the heavens. No avarice can force chemical processes to turn lead into gold.

So, it is laughable to think that some in our country believe, wholeheartedly, that they can command the very mechanism of the creation of life through law, by declaring a fertilized egg a "person." At its most elementary level, the idea is farcical, and the stolid determination of those who seek to bring this about would be comical if they were not so earnest, and more importantly, if they were not in positions of power in government. The shame in it, is that ignorance cloaked in belief is being used as a yardstick for legality, and reason is being shoved out of the room. Worse still, is that there is no hue and cry from the vast majority of reasonable American, shouting down this travesty of lawmaking.

Let me, then, light the fire of outrage, as we take a little tour of why this execrable legislation and all its kin need to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Morality Is As Morality Does

There are many who would claim a superior morality, owing to personal earnestness, religious certitude, and societal position. They feel it incumbent to tell the rest of us about our moral failings, to attempt to impress upon us their way of thought, as they see us incapable of making the "correct" choices for ourselves. They would, at every turn, attempt to harness us to the yolk of their faith, even though the bedrock principle of individual liberty upon which this nation is built and which is codified within our most sacrosanct document -- The Constitution of the United States -- says they cannot.

Morality is an artifice built of human mien; not a solid, load-bearing construction, but a more amorphous form, cobbled together from the vast swathes of human experience. A time comes at various intervals where the morality of society is tested, found wanting, and modified to excise those bits that no longer have relevance or were, in a new light, found to be barbaric, and to add new parts that modify or strengthen the remains, that we might all be brought closer together as a community without stripping away individuality.

Where morality fails us is when some choose to substitute their own judgement for that of society, attempting to bend the general welfare to their own ends.

What Passes For Conscience These Days

Some nurses in New Jersey are garnering attention for the "stand" they are taking, in refusing to assist in abortion procedures at their hospital, because to do so violates their ethical tenets. Their "heroic" stand against abortion has garnered them the support of notorious women's rights foe Representative Chris Smith, who has come out in full support of their actions, because he has an election coming up and it is time to energize his base constituency: the self-appointed moral guardians of New Jersey.

If you've noticed a particular odor wafting through the air as you read, that is the taint of hypocrisy that clings to the air whenever a government official or some member of the community stands up and claims that to have anything to do with sex, the aftermath of sex, or abortion of a fetus goes against their "principles." I put principles in quotes, because in many cases, their moral and ethical system of values is so fraught with contradictory and confounding rules that it makes no sense. Conscience, as such people define it through their words and actions, involves denying others their rights because something those others do upsets them in ways that are usually tangled up more in belief than reality.

So let's examine this "conscience" these people claim is being so offended.

Love And Marriage

It is a fallacy, a piece of ignorant fluff, that says there can be no love between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Besides the knowledge that sons love fathers and daughters love mothers, the simple fact remains that our essence, our soul if you will, is not a function of the shell we inhabit. Our personality, our fears, our drives, our emotions, may be connected to our physical form through the mechanisms of biology and evolution, but they are not us. If it's true that an immortal soul can be brought into existence with our birth, then how can that self-same soul be made a slave to a physical form it had no knowledge of? No. We are not a product of our gender, any more than we are a product of our skin color, or the God we do -- or do not -- worship. These things are are mere affectations, fleetingly attached to our true selves for the few years we stumble across the stage before the world.

Marriage is another affectation, a convenience and creation of men. It exists to bind together in law and dogma two people, and throughout history it was mostly a man and a woman. It was a means to an end, a justification for and celebration of misogyny, a binding of a woman in subservience to a man, a completion of a deal for passing a woman from one man (her father) to another man (her husband). Called a sacrament and draped in sanctity, it might be celebrated as one of the defining moments of a person's life, and, indeed, there is much to be said for declaring that one person is enough for you for your eternity on Earth, but we can never forget from whence it came, and call into question just how spiritually liberating the practice known as marriage is... until now.

Now, with the pursuit of equality for all Americans, outlined in the continued advance of the right to same-sex marriage, this old, stilted, and somewhat bedraggled ceremony is gaining a new birth of sanctity. For when we declare, triumphantly, that it matters not what form two human beings take, that they love and commit to each other "forever," we breathe new life into vows to love, honor, and cherish, and we admit that our knowledge of the world extends much further than it did when our ancestors first brought the practice into being.

There are those who rail against this new birth, guardians of "sacred" dogma, clinging to a past long surpassed by the forward flow of humanity over the face of this planet and into the black sky above. Our capacity for reason and knowledge tells us that there is no shame in faith, save where that faith seeks to invalidate truth or impose itself on others. In this case, truth is not easily dismissed. To allow the decrepitude of a paternalistic, bigoted past to live within the human milieu is to willingly carry a cancer that will continue to threaten the health of us all. Let no person be denigrated for their belief, save that we hold forth some pity for them, that they cannot see the forest for the trees. In the inevitability of human evolution, there will be those left behind, and they will mark dying branches on our family tree.

They said that a man and a woman of different religions could not marry, that it would destroy us -- they were wrong. They said that a man and a woman of different races could not marry, that it would destroy us -- they were wrong. They say now that a man cannot marry a man, nor woman marry a woman, that it will destroy us -- they are most definitely, wrong.

Belief Versus Biology

Strange to say, it has been my pleasure of late to engage some anti-choice adherents in spirited discussion of the nature of human biology, pregnancy, birth, and the definition of a human being. I use the term "discussion" rather than "debate," for to be a debate, there has to be some agreement upon the basic grounds, and that is where the discussion of abortion breaks down, because both sides have very different definitions of what constitutes a human being, or a baby, or development. This is what hampers any attempt to find common ground. In the end, the discussion is more about biology and belief.

My God Can Beat Up Your God

Faith and religious belief are not as simple as a name, a divinity, or a book. The range and diversity of faith systems -- including denial of faith -- that are extant on this globe is staggering. Even within what are considered "main" religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, et. al.), there is a breadth of belief that encompasses a multitude of variations on the main religion's themes.

The Founding Fathers were well aware of this, and of the strife created where the State imposed a religion upon its people. Therefore, the First Amendment to the Constitution enjoins the U.S. government from establishing a national religion. In doing so, it limited the ability of the government to proselytize for or cater to any one religious belief system, and simultaneously separated religion from government, so that no one religious faith could hold sway over the entire country, save by unanimous acclamation, a situation unlikely to happen given the diversity of the citizenry.

So, each to his or her own. Whatever faith fits your circumstance best is yours; your right to it is assured. That said, this will not stop others from attempting to use their faith as an exemplar of the "right" religion, for you and for everyone else. This leads to some very thin ice.

Faith is individual. Even in relatively homogeneous religions, how you choose to interpret them, how you choose to worship, how you exercise your faith, is entirely up to you. Some will follow the tenets of their religion to the letter; others will pick and choose what suits them. Some will follow religious leaders blindly; others will question what is said in light of what they know. Your faith may fall under the umbrella of a particular religion, but how you choose to worship (or not) is entirely your decision.

This sets up friction, between those who interpret religious teachings more rigorously, and those who do not. In every religion, this leads to some form of fundamentalism, which expresses itself in various fashions, depending on the teachings of that religion. This friction is often expressed in actions, as members of orthodoxy seek to spread their faith outward and impose it on others, sure of its "rightness." Such efforts put a strain on our secular life, imposing conflict and sometimes danger.

This conflict is nothing new, and the secular world and the religious world have done this dance for eons, it seems. That the United States should be founded on the ideal that religious freedom is a right, and religious tolerance is sacrosanct, has proven to be both a bold move and a ramping up of the dance. It is not often easy for some to understand that no matter how fervent their belief or faith, not everyone is willing to share it, and no one is under any obligation to give it consideration. What works for one group, may not work for another.

The constant push-and-pull of religious faith versus secular society could weaken us, not unlike what happens when a spoon is bent repeatedly until it breaks. We need not let this happen, however, for the answer lies within each of us: the belief in liberty. We sometimes take for granted that we can even have such conflict, given the history of humankind is replete with examples of the imposition of religious dogma, or the brutal ransacking and destruction of some faiths by secular oppressors. If we cherish the hard-won liberty that is now ours, then we must see that it is enough that we believe in a thing, and if others believe it, so be it. This is true in so many other arenas, and while this may be difficult to employ in regards to religion, we would do well to consider the consequences if we do not. Liberty has fallen under less.

The Heat Is On

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released the results of a recent poll of 1500 American adults, that says that only 57% of them think that the Earth is getting warmer, a 20-point dip from three years ago. Now, given there is a population 300 million-plus in this country, a sample size of 1500 does not imbue me with confidence that this is a realistic portrayal of American attitudes, even if they have solid statistical evidence that the sample is valid. That is not the issue, anyway.

If we cut past the hyperbole, the hype, and the political nitpicking, we can get to the heart of the matter: the Earth's average temperature is rising. I highlight "average," because the Earth is not a uniform body, the atmosphere is not a uniform covering (the composition and thickness varying from place to place), and the planet is not a closed system. If we go back as far as we have solid records for local temperatures, chart them, and compare the values over time, we see local variations, rises and falls, and overall, like the stock market, a continuous rise.

The planet is slowly getting warmer.

The mechanism by which this occurs has been known since the 1950's. Solar radiation bathes the Earth. Some is reflected back into space, some of it is absorbed by the upper layers of the atmosphere, and much of it penetrates to reach the surface, to be absorbed by land and water. That absorbed energy, mainly in the form of heat, is radiated back into the atmosphere, to worm its way back to space. Much of it escapes from the top of the atmosphere, but some of it is reabsorbed by certain molecules found there, which are greedy for heat energy. These molecules, the most well-known being carbon dioxide, trap the heat and re-radiate it back toward the surface of hold it in the atmosphere. In any event, the result is simple: a certain amount of these molecules holds/maintains a certain amount of heat; fewer molecules, less heat retained -- more molecules, more heat retained.

The amount of these greedy, heat-loving molecules is altered by global processes that we have an incomplete but general understanding of. For carbon dioxide, it is absorbed by plant life and converted into oxygen, or sinks into the deep ocean, or becomes locked up in rocks through many processes. It can also be released, through volcanism, large scale fires, deforestation, and of course, the burning of fossil fuels. The Earth's system for regulating the ecosphere is well-established, being as old as the planet itself. It evolved over millions of years, has survived global catastrophes and alterations, and operates on its own, subject only to the changes in the amounts of molecules in the atmosphere, the amount of solar radiation being intercepted, the amount of vegetation covering the surface, the albedo (shininess) of the surface, and myriad smaller-scale factors, which we are only now beginning to understand. While not a closed system, it is a system nonetheless, operating automatically, behind the scenes, as we go about our daily lives.

Therein lies the crux of the problem, for the system that is our ecosphere, a system governed by the large-scale effects of its constituents and the small-scale effects of the laws of physics and chemistry, is going about its business, day and night, unconcerned with our existence. Natural forces continue to shape and mold the world we live on, oblivious to our wants, desires, or preconceptions.

Belief is not required.

So the question should really be, are the actions of humanity having a measurable effect on the changes we are seeing in the global climate? And the answer must be: unequivocally. How much of an effect, and how quickly that effect is being felt, should be the object of the debate. The constant, fractious, and puerile arguments over "global warming" suffice only to waste time and effort that could be better spent determining a baseline for global climate change that would allow us to measure the significance of our impact, beyond the use of an average. We must study the Earth's systems in finer detail, to try and determine how the shifts in various factors shape the responses of the systems to our machinations. We must also find ways to mitigate our effects on the planet, for even if we determine that we are causing potentially catastrophic harm, it is better to have started to make attempts to reduce our impact on the ecosphere, than to wait until we are at the edge of the precipice.

Whatever choices we make from this moment on, the Earth will continue spinning through the cold void, sweeping through the tendrils of solar particles and waves of energy emitted by the Sun, and its systems will keep on acting and reacting to the changes that occur, a minuet of chemistry and physics. Should we fail to heed our own warnings, should we delay and deny, should we choose to put less than our best efforts into working with our home world -- as opposed to merely existing upon it, rapacious in our desire for resources -- then the Earth will not even shrug. It will simply continue on, carrying on its surface the burnt, collapsed, and abandoned remains of the only intelligent civilization that, so far as we know, ever existed.

Crosses To Bear

The acme of ignorance is to feel that your beliefs are beyond reproach. Nowhere is that represented more fully than in organized religion.

Now, before I am crucified and told what a bad human I am for spouting my blasphemies, let me say that I have nothing against religion and religious conviction, save where such conviction is twisted toward purposes that are against the greater good of humanity. There is a great deal to be said for having faith in something, and I have struggled for many years with my own Catholicism, accepting and rejecting it at various times. I have studied many of the world's major religions, most recently having the good fortune to listen to the Dalai Lama speak of the path of faith in Tibetan Buddhism last summer. I think I got the most from his talks, because he emphasized that Buddhism shares so many commonalities with other religions of the world, and to find the true path, one must start with one's own faith. In other words, the Dalai Lama is not out to make everyone a Buddhist.

My belief is that you must have faith in something. Being a man of science, I have delved into the workings of the universe, from the tiniest atom to the most distant quasar. Einstein's equations have spoken to me of a universe governed by a set of unalterable yet malleable principles, that allow it to function, separated from the need for oversight. Set in motion, the grand cavalcade that is the march of the galaxies has been going on for billions of years, guided by simple equations and knowable forms. My core faith tells me that the universe will continue to work as intended, without the machinations of its creator. Who that creator is, and by that I mean I believe there was one, remains a mystery. The signs are there in the stars.

If you find the strictures of an organized religion more palatable, there is nothing inherently wrong with that... unless you are unwilling to question the tenets the religion is founded on. If the universe teaches us anything, it is that nothing remains static. So too it should be with our beliefs. When the evidence of our senses and our cognition tell us that the tenets of our faith are misaligned with the way of the universe, we must be willing to alter those beliefs. Strict adherence to beliefs in the face of contrary evidence is anathema. Science teaches us that lesson ever day; in fact, it tells us that no matter what we think, we must be able to subject our beliefs to critical testing in order for them to remain strong.

And while the average person can see clear to believe what they need to, in order to live a harmonious life, altering core beliefs to better fit their view of the world, it is the zealotry of some which unfortunately tinges religion with an unsightly pallor. Blind adherence to beliefs, whether religious or scientific, creates the illusion of power over the world. In science, it is too often the case that someone will try to make the universe fit their theory, rather make their theory fir the universe. The course of science is marked with ideas (Terracentrism, the ether, perpetual motion, constant creation, etc.) which held on far longer than they should have, given that scientists were sure they were right, and could not adjust their thinking until the preponderance of evidence made it folly to maintain the belief. Even then, some went to the grave certain their ideas were not incorrect, merely misinterpreted.

Religion, dealing more directly with personal faith in ideas, finds it harder to yield to fact or even to the idea that one faith is not necessarily the faith. While the adherents of a religion are often able to navigate the schisms caused by differences between daily life and religious teaching, far too many people are trying to force daily life to fit their religious beliefs, not just for themselves, but others. The friction caused by this is seen in much of the political debate in the United States over issues such as abortion, sex education, and school prayer. While it is good to see people take their faith seriously, it is disturbing when they take it so seriously that it blinds them to fact or causes them to feel that they must force others to fall in line (either through law or deed).

Now, my beliefs have been shaped over the many years of my life, and while in youth they changed frequently, as I have become older I find them becoming more set, less malleable. I am still able to change them, do not get me wrong, but the level of evidence and discourse required is much greater, and I put a greater premium on how someone approaches me in an attempt to change my mind. I find that a knee-jerk reaction is very off-putting; when I voice a contrary opinion, it is not an attempt to denigrate what someone else is saying, only to stake out the grounds for discussion. Those who cannot stand to hear a contrary view, who leap immediately to an offensive mindset rather than engage in discourse, very rarely will hold any sway with me. I do sometimes wonder if my views of the world have become too rigid, to the point of limiting my flexibility, but finding it hard to step outside myself as I once could, and forced to take my queues from others, I tell myself that I am being as scrupulous in that regard as I can manage. I would like to think my view is right most of the time, but I am the first to admit when I am wrong. Or so I would like to think.

It is my desire to see harmony in the world, and that cannot be approached until we are willing to set aside our differences. There is room enough on this planet for every type of belief (or non-belief), without the need to exhort against any one system, or to attempt to legislate them away. For whatever you or I might feel about any group's beliefs, at the core we owe them the respect that we wish to be accorded for ours. We will disagree, we will see others as perhaps misguided, but in the end we will extend the hand of friendship and goodwill, because it is for the greater good.