IM
(an American citizen with an inquiring mind):
Gentlemen, yesterday morning I read an article where Bishop
Tutu
proclaimed, “I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply
I feel about this. . . . I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much
rather go to the other place.”
AM: (an American seasoned combat aviator with an
inquiring mind): I may have read the
same article. Tutu was speaking in connection with the United Nations’ global campaign
to advance gay rights.
IM: Yes, and I also came across a headline, “‘Pope
Francis Apologies to LGBT Youth at World Youth Day Event:’ My Prayer for the
Church.” The headline, which was
imagined, and its corresponding article were written by a Catholic
priest.
AM: I think what is disappointing about the LGBT
issue is that there are many who disagree with the morality of LGBT behaviors,
yet still have love and compassion for those who engage in such behaviors. Labeling these people as homophobic is
disingenuous and pejorative. But, by
using such terms, there is a deliberate effort to change the values we
internalize. We talked about this in our
last discussion on the end
of truth. There seems to be a contest between secular and religious faith
systems.
IM: Ironically, I recently learned that an Air
Force Chaplain assigned to Joint Based Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) has been
censored for posting an article
entitled, “No Atheists in Foxholes:
Chaplains Gave All in World War II.”
Within five hours of receiving a complaint from the Military Religious
Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the base commander had the essay taken down. Remember,
MRFF is headed up by Mikey Weinstein.
AM: What was it in the essay that offended readers?
IM: The essay’s theme was about faith. Before it is completely censored, here is the
original essay that I was able to recover from Fox
News:
Chaplain’s
Corner: No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II”
By Lt. Col.
Kenneth Reyes
Many have heard
the familiar phrase, “There is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole.”
Where did this
come from?
Research I
verified in an interview with former World War II prisoner of war Roy Bodine
(my friend) indicates the phrase has been credited to Father William Cummings.
As the story
goes, Father Cummings was a civilian missionary Catholic priest in the
Philippines.
The phrase was
coined during the Japanese attack at Corregidor.
During the
siege, Cummings had noticed non-Catholics were attending his services.
Some he knew
were not Catholic, some were not religious and some were even known atheists.
Life-and-death
experiences prompt a reality check.
Even the strongest
of beliefs can change, and, I may add, can go both ways – people can be drawn
to or away from “faith.”
With the
pending surrender of allied forces to the Japanese, Cummings uttered the famous
phrase “There is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole.”
In one of my
many discussions with Roy, he distinctly remembered a period on the “Hell
Ships” – these were ships the Japanese used to bring POWs from the Philippines
back to Japan.
They were
unmarked and thus ‘fair game’ for attacks from the allies from the air and sea.
Of the
3,000-plus POWs listed on the ships, only 180 survived the journey.
“When our own
planes were attacking us,” Roy said, “I remember Father Cummings calming us
down by reciting the Lord’s Prayer and offering up prayers on our behalf.
For a brief
moment I did not hear the yells and screams of dying men as our boat was
attacked by our own men.”
He went on to
say, “There was a peaceful quiet during the attack that I cannot explain nor
have experienced since.”
Later on during
the trip to Japan, Cummings, after giving his food to others who needed it
more, succumbed to his own need and died of starvation.
Everyone
expresses some form of faith every day, whether it is religious or secular.
Some express
faith by believing when they get up in the morning they will arrive at work in
one piece, thankful they have been given another opportunity to enjoy the
majesty of the day; or express relief the doctor’s results were negative.
The real
question is, “Is it important to have faith in ‘faith’ itself or is it more
important to ask, ‘What is the object of my faith?’”
Roy never
affirmed or expressed whether his faith was rooted in religion or not, but for
a moment in time on the “Hell Ships,” he believed in Cummings’ faith.
What is the
root or object of your faith?
Is it something
you can count on in times of plenty or loss; peace or chaos; joy or sorrow;
success or failure?
Is it something
you can count on in times of plenty or loss; peace or chaos; joy or sorrow;
success or failure?
What is ‘faith’
to you?
AM: The essay is brilliantly written. The chaplain gave interested readers
encouragement to reflect upon the source of their faith, whether religious or
secular.
· Referring to the term “atheists” the letter claimed the essay included a
“bigoted, religious supremacist phrase which defiles the dignity of service
members.”
· The letter goes on to say, “I do not have faith. Several
of the 42 clients currently assigned to JBER who requested the MRFF intercede
in this instance do not have faith, and they still proudly defend their country
in uniform. Lt. Col. Reyes has both violated that fundamental level of respect
and current Air Force regulation. As the current commander of JBER, as the
officer appointed to care for the 42 service members who have reached out to us,
it is your duty to see to it that this behavior is corrected. Lt. Col. Reyes
must be appropriately reprimanded, and his 'No atheists in foxholes' article
must be removed from the post website.”
Old
Gadfly: What is the definition of faith?
IM: Let me look it up on my Smart phone . . .
According to Dictionary.
Reference.com,
there are five definitions in this order: (1)
confidence or trust in a person or thing; (2) belief that is not based on proof; (3) belief
in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion; (4) belief in anything, as
a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.; and (5) a system of religious
belief.
Old
Gadfly: I have three points to make
based on these definitions. First, a
close reading of Reyes’s essay clearly reveals that he pays respect to all five
definitions. Second, notice that in the
definition of faith, God and religion are listed after two other
definitions. Secularism is a form of
religion. Obama clearly wants 99% of
Americans to have faith in him and his hope and change agenda. Recall our discussion on Prog:
The god of Progressivism.
Finally, the bulk of what we understand as science is based on the
second definition. For example, physics
is a scientific domain. Most of physics
is based on units of time. Can you prove
time? Of course not. Time is considered a priori knowledge. We infer the phenomenon of time based on
abduction, a combination of inductive and deductive reasoning. Yet, we have faith in the system of science
that requires time for a meaningful understanding of the world in which we live.
AM: So, do you think Weinstein has faith?
Old
Gadfly: Unless, we deliberately redefine
what “faith” means, of course Weinstein has faith. Unfortunately, his faith is similar to Al
Sharpton’s.
AM: Wow . . . how did Sharpton enter the picture?
Old
Gadfly: What we see playing out in Weinstein
and Sharpton campaigns is opportunism, whether it is for power or greed. Consider Sharpton’s behavior—that is, the so
called Reverend Sharpton.
Without apparent racism, he has no role.
He would be like a doctor without sick people. Is Sharpton’s behavior that different from
the African tribal chief’s behavior during the era of transatlantic slave
trade? Tribal chiefs exploited the
well-being of their own people to profit from the Dutch who needed cheap labor.[1] Why would not the Reverend Sharpton be
interested in eliminating the apparent causes for the adversities of blacks in
America: violence and poverty most of
all? He is an angry, irritated, and irascible
man—routinely complaining, accusing, condemning. He agitates and organizes the Saul Alinsky
way. Alinsky, another angry, irritated,
and irascible man, dedicated his Rules
for Radicals to Lucifer.
IM: Weinstein also seems opportunistic in
exploiting the Zeitgeist of humanistic secularism. This might explain why he had no interest in
criticizing the openly gay Acting Secretary of the Air Force who proselytized gay behavior in
Afghanistan. It appears that
proselytizing secular faith values by senior government leaders is allowed. To add insult to injury, “hate speech”
against Christian faith values is acceptable and encouraged.
Old
Gadfly: Hannah Arendt’s account of the
Eichmann trial in the 1960s captures the essence of what our discussion is
about. The subtitle of Arendt’s book
about this account included the expression, the “banality of evil.” Last year, we talked about this concept in
IM’s dream involving “dry,
parched lips.” IM,
see if you can find definitions for these words, banal and evil.
IM: Dictionary.Reference.com defines banal as
“devoid of freshness or originality; hackneyed; trite.” Hackneyed
means “made commonplace or trite; stale; banal.” Trite
means “lacking in freshness or effectiveness because of constant use or
excessive repetition.” Now, let’s see
how evil is
defined. Three of the five definitions are
of particular relevance to our discussion:
(1) morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked (e.g. evil deeds; and evil life); (2) harmful; injurious (e.g., evil laws); and (5) marked by anger,
irritability, irascibility, etc. (e.g., he
is known for his evil disposition).
Old
Gadfly: I wanted us to take the time to
define some key words because they apply to what we see happening in the
stories involving Bishop Tutu, the Catholic priest, the attack on the JBER
chaplain, and the Acting Secretary of the Air Force. Amos Elon provided a penetrating introduction
to Hannah Arendt’s book, Eichmann in
Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of
Evil. Here is a key observation:
In The Origins of
Totalitarianism [Arendt] held on to a Kantian notion of radical evil, the
evil that, under the Nazis, corrupted the basis of moral law, exploded legal
categories, and defied human judgment.
In Eichmann in Jerusalem, and
in the bitter controversies about it that followed, she insisted that only good
had depth. Good can be radical; evil can
never be radical, it can only be extreme, for it possesses neither depth nor
any demonic dimension yet—and this is its horror!—it can spread like a fungus
over the surface of the earth and lay waste the entire world. Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought
tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from
which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.[2]
Old
Gadfly: Think about the banality of evil
in the stories we just discussed. Tutu
assigns privilege to a class of people, even expressing a judgment that he
acknowledges might be contrary to the God in which he purports to serve. He even uses the emotionally-charged word,
“homophobia,” to diminish and disrespect the views of the non-privileged class.
AM: Gadfly, let me interrupt you just for a quick
observation. Hayek, in his foreword to
the 1956 American paperback edition to The
Road to Serfdom astutely observed that true liberals tend to describe
themselves as conservatives, and that there is great danger in this
misunderstanding.[3] He said, “A conservative movement, by its
very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege and to lean on
the power of the government for the protection of privilege.”[4] Those who fight for the privileged, whether they
represent crony capitalism, labor unions, claims for reproductive rights, gay rights, same-sex
marriage rights, illegal immigrant rights, minority rights, and so forth, claim
to be liberal. Progressive is probably a
more precise label.
Old
Gadfly: Excellent point, AM. It clearly sharpens our analysis and understanding of the issues we're discussing. Let’s continue. The Catholic priest admits to being gay. He wants to be Catholic and gay. This is like Lucifer, who chose evil in
defiance of God’s will, yet would still want to remain God’s greatest angel. The attack on the JBER chaplain is exactly
what we talked about in our last discussion about the end
of truth. The chaplain’s essay was
actually very thoughtful. Angry,
irritated, and irascible people like Weinstein and Sharpton cannot allow
thoughtful “examination of the premises and principles from which [evil]
originates.” Finally, the Acting
Secretary of the Air Force faced no apparent pushback for secular
proselytizing—his behavior is sanctioned by the religious tenets
of progressivism.
AM: Doesn’t Obama come across as angry,
irritated, and irascible?
IM: Absolutely.
In my mind, Obama’s evil disposition started with his opposition to
waterboarding and NSA surveillance under the Bush Administration. He called waterboarding torture and the NSA surveillance
an encroachment upon domestic civil liberties.
Now, he speaks of “phony
scandals,” trying to diminish a “thoughtful” examination of serious issues
that threaten our viability as a Constitutional Republic: the circumstances surrounding Benghazi; the
IRS suppression of the Tea Party and other nonprogressive groups during
national elections; Department of Justice incompetence in the Fast and Furious
case, its bullying of journalists and various state players, and so forth. If I were to write a 21st Century
American version of Orwell’s Animal Farm,
it would look like today’s American progressive politics.
AM: Yet, for a man who wanted to establish a superior
moral foundation before becoming President, Obama took credit for the
battlefield execution of bin Laden in direct violation of the Geneva
Conventions and had no moral reservation about the assassination of American
citizens through drone attacks. And, in
terms of civil liberties, he insisted upon a provision in the National Defense
Authorization Act of 2012 that gives him the authority to arrest American
citizens and to detain them indefinitely without legal representation. Combine all this with the looming impact of
Obamacare and we have examples of the definitions of evil.
Old
Gadfly: Remember, banality involves a
characteristic of triteness: “lacking in
freshness or effectiveness because of constant use or excessive
repetition.” Obama is already into his
fifth year of blaming others for the economic situation and others for denying
privilege to protected classes, while repetitiously boasting of stimulus
policies that are improving the economy with no evidence to support such a
claim. Obama and those who thoughtlessly
follow him are the very essence of the banality of evil.
IM: When will the remaining “good” Americans wake
up and speak out against the evil that is spreading like a fungus?
Old
Gadfly: How many Americans are fully
aware of the tyranny of the 20th Century? The numbers are rapidly shrinking. How would the growing majority be sensitive
to the tyranny that is unfolding before them?
Copernican
drones lack the capacity to think for themselves, let alone
think for others. History is replete
with this kind of behavior.
IM: The wisdom literature of the Bible’s Old
Testament captured a great deal of this behavior. One of my favorites is Proverbs 26:11.
AM: I remember that one: fools return to folly.
Old
Gadfly: And they don’t even know it.
AM: Do you mean that they are fools or that they
are returning to folly?
Old
Gadfly: Yes.
[1] James A. Rawley (with Stephen
Behrendt), The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History, (rev. ed.), (Lincoln, NE: The University of Nebraska Press, 2009).
[2] Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report
on the Banality of Evil, (New York, NY:
Penguin Books, 2006 [originally published 1963), pp. xiii-xiv.
[3] Old Gadfly is grateful to his fellow
critical thinker who pointed out Hayek’s privilege distinction during a
breakfast meeting earlier this week.
[4] F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, (the definitive ed.), (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp.
45-46.
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