God powerless against amputation

**And then give God all the credit while diminishing the role of science and medical skill

Trumpocalypse

**When George W Bush was president, I recoiled each time he was shown on TV. He was my definition of the village idiot or the inmate who took over the asylum. But he seems like a dear distant cutie now that the Bloviator in Chief has ascended his golden throne. I do not want to hear a word from him, look at him, or try to understand his policies. They will all be bad, not necessarily for me, but for the country and the world. One can only hope for something like divine intervention (ha!) or amazing strength on the part of our worldwide allies to tamp him down. The US population needs a remedial course in Civics (and civility) but it will be hard to come by from the educational policies of this idiot and his cronies. 

We need to eliminate the inane Electoral College system, which was established in a time when national statistics could not be easily obtained. We need a national holiday on election day. We need a shortened campaign season. Other countries have done this and they are not down the shithole like we are.

I predict world war, race war, martial law and the overturning of every humane and sensible national policy such as Roe v Wade, Civil rights reforms, and national health care.

I will go on a personal fast from news and commentary and immerse myself in fiction. I need to stop thinking about the world and concentrate on my own feelings. Normally I’d think of this as a waste of time, but time is what I have very little of. And I’m convinced that when my time is up the world will go on, though also down in flames sooner than later. For that I'm grateful though I grieve for my kids and grandkids. Unless they become revolutionary heroes and stop the Trumpocalypse.

Nice and Deplorable

It doesn’t matter how lovely your family, how honorable your work or service, how devout your faith — if you place ideological adherence or economic self interest above the moral imperative to condemn and denounce a demagogue, then you are deplorable. 

Charles Blow NY Times

**When Ebola was going around, when AIDS was rampant, when Polio struck so many people – we didn’t blame the people who got those diseases. We felt sorry for them, tried to help in some way, or just ignored it if it wasn’t in our circle of family or friends. The problem with a significant number of DT supporters is that they’ve caught racism and won’t acknowledge it. Not that it would do them any good: racism is an extremely subtle but publicly deplorable thing in this country. So most people don’t want to be identified as racists. They hide behind other acceptable postures, like "the economy" (even though it's better), gun confiscation (though it hasn't happened), big government (Republicans control the Congress creating gridlock to progress), moral failures (though the Obama administration has been remarkably free compared to previous  administrations), excessive political correctness (another word for protecting minorities from disrespect and oppression), and a whole host of other dogwhistles that allow them to believe what they can't actually say. 

Since DT entered the race I’ve been insisting he’s only a symptom. When his supporters say he “speaks his mind” and “tells it like it is” what they really mean is that he speaks THEIR mind. Their deplorable minds. It's been several years since open racism has been acceptable so a lot of people have felt compelled to disguise it in many ways, to suppress it in their public utterances and behavior and even to delude themselves that they aren't racist. But underneath there has been the same rage that an “inferior” set of people was allowed center stage, to the point of electing, twice, a black president. This watershed moment exposed a cultural rift between what most Boomers grew up with and the new Millennial age. Older people rarely like change, but gut-level reactions to this fundamental change had to be squelched for a long time, which built up a pressure of resentment and justification for revenge.

It pains me, then, that I have to acknowledge this about most of my family – "lovely," "honorable" and "devout"– as they are. I”m not sure how many of them are in the “deplorable” basket that Hillary spoke of, but none of them is in the basket of poor, unemployed white people. I don't see any evidence of a third basket of people who support DT but don't belong in the aforementioned two. I'd like to see some cogent arguments about the existence of this third basket..

If there are only two baskets, they belong in the deplorable one. How did this happen I ask? They were all brought up as Christians, are active–more or less–with church outreach, etc. Does the threat of such a fundamental change occurring again, this time with a woman, rock their world? The fact that they identify with a xenophobe, a racist, a sexist, a lout in so many ways, suggests that this is the nature of their inner convictions, though some may not wish to proclaim it as such, or even realize it. Maybe they just “caught” it, like victims of an epidemic. Nice people all of them, not the Duck Dynasty uglies that parade in front of the media gaze, but their loyalties are obvious – and it’s not with the only choice that will carry on the Obama progressivism. Everything is reversed in their psyches. Back to Jim Crow is forward, women in the home exclusively is progressive, a theocracy where the Christian tradition and institutions are allowed to run public life – these are the gut level issues that motivate them. And of course, the sense that they, as white people, are slowly sinking from their majority status.

I don’t doubt that most of them would deny being in the deplorable basket. It’s not a pretty persona. And yet I wonder how many of them think that 

• President Obama is a Muslin, 
• he was not born in America, 
• Mexicans are rapists, 
• blacks are more violent than whites
• blacks are more lazy than whites
• blacks are less intelligent than whites
• Kim Davis was correct in not issuing marriage licenses to gay couples
• Muslims should be banned from entering the country
• a database of Muslims should be created
• mosques should be shut down
• illegal aliens should be deported (all 11 million of them)
• a physical wall will actually protect America
• the South should have won the Civil War
• homosexuals should be barred from entering the country
• America was founded as a Christian nation

 – and a host of other deplorable ideas as uncovered in this South Carolina poll, among others.  

Clinton also spoke of the other basket, though the media didn’t find it as sexy as the first: 

“But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from.” 

I don't see much nuance between the two baskets. How one can be white, well-off, not a racist/misogynist/bigot and still support DT? How is this not a contradiction, and an indictment? I'm not in either basket. I'd never vote for DT. And yet I’m one of those who feels government has let me down. It matters where change comes from, and where it is resisted. Republican obstructionism has limited the extent of the progressivism that might have developed over the past eight years. But I don’t feel that an ignorant, narcissistic, misogynistic, race-baiting buffoon would fix what’s wrong with government. In fact, to the extent that the Deplorables slither out of their basket and start poisoning public life, things could get worse quickly. I’m pretty old, so a lot of deplorable change wouldn’t affect me much But I’d be heartbroken if my children and grandchildren and much of the rest of my family didn’t stop this last desperate swing toward a dictatorship. 

I was an early Bernie supporter and yet once he was out of the race there was no viable choice in this election other than Clinton. Why so many people don’t see this is a mystery to me. (And a vote for Gary Johnson isn't nuance. It's an abdication of responsibility, an impotent gesture). DT stands for the worst in the American psyche, the deplorable condition of being afflicted with a disease they don’t recognize as such. Even nice, lovely people can unknowingly suffer from it.

Mother T is now Saint T

**I heartily concur with Daniel Dennett's suggestion:

Daniel DennettVerified account‏@danieldennett

Let's celebrate the new saint by turning Hitchens' book on her into a posthumous best-seller. https://www.amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Practice/dp/1455523003/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472930893&sr=1-1&keywords=hitchens+missionary+position …

I've written here several times about various aspects of this fraud, but Hitchens said it best in The Missionary Position.

The only afterlife worth living for

I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me. ― Christopher Hitchens

**Discussing my exercise regimen with X, I was appalled at his insistence that maintaining his own health through careful monitoring of his meds, blood sugar (diabetes) and physical strength was a low priority because he knows that even if he should die from such neglect he’d continue living in the afterlife. He means he’ll be in "heaven," which would, he believes, assure his eternality and happiness. The priorities for such an outcome are to be generous and friendly, and to follow the rules and rituals for being the best kind of church member.

But this unselfishness is bent to the purpose of assuring his own eventual happiness in “the afterlife.” Which seems like a twisted form of egotism – going through the motions of unselfishness for the tightly focused selfishness of being happy forever. (See quote from St. Christopher above)

So taking care of your health in “this life” gets designated as selfishness because it’s all about your own well-being here, instead of delaying that satisfaction for a life after death.

In the meantime, his family already grieves for the damage he and his wife are doing to themselves by purposeful neglect, some even calling them religious fanatics and nuts. But this only seems to reinforce their pride in taking little care of themselves, gorging on biblical passages, theology and church activities, while growing obese and weak and needing more and more support systems.

This carelessness about health issues and a self-satisfied embrace of total inactivity leaves him happy, he claims, but as the best evidence shows, it's making him more vulnerable to an early demise.

What this kind of selfishness ignores is the pain inflicted on his family. To hell with you people, he seems to say, I’m bound for glory and that’s all that matters to me. I’m the hero in this drama and you are the chumps in the unvoiced script behind my sanctimonious disavowal of normal health care.

When I moved from California to Georgia, I had spent the previous year and a half recovering from a couple of cardiac procedures. In addition, the previous six months were stressful because of the great effort, physical and emotional, of this major move. When we settled into our present home about a year ago I was in terrible physical shape. My energy was low, I tired easily, I couldn’t walk two blocks without resting, and of course I was fatter than when I went into the hospital in 2013. After trying, and failing, several workout strategies on my own I concluded that I was just getting old and might as well get comfortable with my slide into old age and death. Just like X, but without the anesthetic delusion of an afterlife.

Yet I longed for the days when I worked out with a trainer. The careful supervision and guidance enabled me to become strong and flexible enough to get around easily, even working 15 hours a week on my feet in a retail store. One day, Joan alerted me to a fitness studio just a mile or so from our house. I joined in late March and have been working out three times a week with good trainers. My recovery is going very slowly, and I sometimes wonder if the high dollar cost is worth it. But I do find that I negotiate stairs much more easily, can walk faster and for longer distances without stopping to rest, and have been getting generally stronger. This still elicits laughs and sarcasm from X because exercise is against his religion.

Yes, religion. His particular brand, in the extreme and fundamentalist form he practices, encourages patience with pain and decrepitude in “this life” in exchange for a totally selfish longevity and happiness in the afterlife. I don’t mind the ridicule, considering the source, but I realize that I’m not doing all of this just to be able to climb stairs and hoist suitcases into overhead bins on planes, etc. 

At my age, I often contemplate the inevitable descent into death. The only pain I feel is, empathetically, the pain of my family, whose love for and interaction with me is a large part of their lives, and theirs with mine. Their lives are the only “after” that I care about. My efforts to remain healthy, though meager and too slow to show results, are my investment in their present lives, our mutual companionship and happiness. Not my own in an “afterlife,” that surely doesn’t exist, but even if it did, has no relationship to the only life I can do anything about: this one.

Why prayer sucks as a healing method

Via wonkette.com     

The Future

**Just finished Kevin Kelly's "The Inevitable" wherein he waxes ecstatic about the:

12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

He doesn't hesitate or hedge. He's fully in on the inexorable forces that he claims will determine our future. Determine them, not MAY determine them. Why is this important to me? If you believe in the actuarial tables I will most likely not see much of that glorious future. What a bummer! I want to live longer, not just to enjoy family and friends, which I do, but to be in the world that is coming faster and faster, sooner and sooner, more and more. I believe in the onward and upward expansion of evolution. Sure, there are naysayers with good reasons for pause, but I don't think they will prevail.  

Disasters can happen, but in the broad stretch of history they are usually just a blip. The vectors of the past point to a future that is an advance over the past, not a reversion to it. If there are any universal laws I think they can be summarized by the tendency of things that survive to become part of increasing complexification, wherein things connect and combine until a seemingly magic moment, when they flip irreversibly up into a whole new reality.

This coincides with a new project I'm working on with my friend DRJ where we are working to articulate a new vision of life that includes this inexorable development process. I'm finding that in order to appreciate the value of this change, I needs to break out of an egocentric view of the world and accept the fact that no individual is more important than the general sweep toward the complexification of the universe.

It all started with hot inanimate plasma, from which developed clumps of quarks, called protons, which cooled the overall plasma gas so that more protons could develop. From protons, through the same process, atoms developed then molecules and from molecules organisms and from organisms, homo sapiens, and from homo sapiens came artificial intelligence which morphed into the internet which continues to morph into a planetary mind and so on to unimaginable developments. I don't need religion to believe in this kind of future, I only need a sense of history, an appreciation for the developments of real science and a hope that I can see some of it.

In the meantime, I will try to appreciate my part in the overall development of life.

My music allergy

“The problem is that the deeper you go into your own [music] writing, the harder it becomes to enter someone else’s. If pursued seriously, [music] writing demands a kind of obsessive concentration that came, at least for me, to preclude reading [listening].”

**The above is adapted from the New York Times Book Review “Bookends” section: “Is it harder to be transported by a book as you get older?” It’s by Benjamin Moser, one of the writers offering their perspective on the above topic. While the topic itself was only mildly interesting to me, those words sounded a responsive chord. 

It’s not about reading vs writing per se. But about listening to music vs writing it. While I was an avid listener in my youth, I also began writing music. As the years, and the songs, went by, I gradually developed an unexpected quirk: I found it almost impossible to simply listen to music for enjoyment, especially popular music in all its phases and forms though the years.  

Recently in an effort to get more fit I realized that fast music tends to rev up my cardio workouts. After a brief flirtation with Eminem (sparked by curiosity about that form for a project I’m working on), I fell back to Oldies. But in spite of the salutary effects of listening to music while I strained to raise my heart rate, I still found it more tolerable to listen to podcasts, especially long interviews.  (And my heart rate probably suffers)

Until Moser’s statement above, articulating the reason for my music phobia has been difficult. I’ve usually attributed it to guilt and shame that I hadn’t developed into a proper musician when young. There were seemingly good reasons at the time – family to support, relationships to maintain, available jobs that could be turned into careers, a long religious captivity and knowing the statistical odds against success. I still consider them valid reasons for drifting away from listening to music. But not my discomfort when listening.

Music is like a drug for me. I’m drawn to it like addicts to chemicals in their bloodstream. Background music is the worst. It feels like an assault. Distracts me, makes it hard to concentrate on people and tasks in front of me. I feel myself being drawn into a vortex where every detail – musical, lyrical, production – attempts to grab me by the brain and lead me away. The ensuing struggle to stay present tends to upset and confuse me until I wrest control. Sounds kind of psycho doesn’t it? But maybe not. Maybe I can be proud of it! Maybe it’s just an “occupational” hazard, a temperamental quirk that some creative people share.

For half of the time I lived in California I had the opportunity to work with a partner, Rick Martinez, to produce a few dozen of my earlier songs. We worked under the name of Ramona StGeorge (the names of our respective streets) and dragooned his musician friends into recording with us. Though I wasn’t always pleased with the way the vocals turned out, I’m grateful they’ve been preserved in some recorded form. And yet, even they stay outside my cone of musical silence.

The only musical exercise I get these days is banging on the piano or guitar while singing with my granddaughter, something I greatly enjoy. The songs are easy and my primitive playing abilities are adequate for us both to have a good time. If I ever finish writing the extended rap I’ve been working on for a while I may get back into music creation, although it may be just a simplistic building of “beats” behind a chattering vocalist. For the time being it's the likes of "Clementine" and podcasts that will substitute for music.

Why Trump is Scary

**Received this link with the subject: Scary

Democracy is So 2005

Middle classes around the world seem weary of free politics and are open to strongmen like Trump.

In my reply, I generally agreed. Good article, loaded with useful info. But a slightly different slant:

Yes, indeedy. I've been thinking all along that the problem isn't the candidate, it's the electorate. Although I don't know much about the Asian autocrats, I think Berlusconi is the closest we have to Trump. Where Trump has done him one better is that he got all his publicity for free while Berlusconi had to buy up a lot of media outlets to get his message across. 

I don't quite agree with the closeness of the Mussolini comparison. Hitler's rise seems more relevant. Shirer notes that after two failed coups, and prison, Hitler realized that the route to power was through a media-manipulated democratic process. The German electorate is also more comparable to today's Establishment weariness. The Weimar Republic formed after WW1 was an economic disaster made even worse by public humiliation because of harsh sanctions and reparations imposed by the victors. It became identified with democracy because the US was an important part of the settlement at Versailles. Hitler capitalized on this widespread discontent and made democracy (and minorities) the convenient scapegoat for his argument that the country needed a strong leader.

What Hillary needs to learn from Bernie is that the movement he represents is very close to the movement that Trump represents. Neither constituency cares much about a candidate's gender – nearly everyone expects that a female president will eventually happen. They also don't care about their age. Bernie's backers are mostly young, but they rally behind this grandfatherly figure because he seems to be a future version of what they could be. And because he addresses their deeply felt concerns. Hillary needs to find a way to address both camps with a message and a posture that promises real determination to steer the basic structure of the government toward their interests. 

But even if she doesn't, I think she needs to keep hammering away at Trump's mentality, the unstable condition he seems helpless to correct cosmetically. "Never Trump" should resonate with the same legitimacy as "Never Hitler."

Bernie's continuing relevance

**Leaderless movements seldom get far. Occupy and BLM are examples. While they make important statements in the national conversation, their influence seems to be mostly on those who already like the kool-ade. The Bernie movement is – or can be – different. A grandfatherly, quirky politician might not become the leader of a political party, or a country, but he can still be a leader of an important movement that can and should survive the election. 

The mood of the country as a whole favors this moment. (It also favors DT but that’s a different story.) Bernie’s movement hasn't really been about him. It’s about the millions of mostly young people who see through the artifice of politics and government as it has been practiced in their lifetimes. They want it to change into something resembling the promise of democracy. Many, but not all, of them may not be able to articulate it to themselves or the general public but they feel the yearning deeply. Bernie’s role has been to articulate it for them on a world-wide stage. He has done so in a way that gains respect and attention from much of the country, especially millennials. It’s long been well known that this class of the populace (those born between around 1980 and 2000) is taking over as a principle force in the cultural and political life of the US. And yet, the cultural and political life of the previous generation (boomers) still has momentum and has become “the establishment.” Hillary best represents that momentum, which is why she will probably (and certainly must)  win the presidency. 

The Corner

And yet, the pendulum is swinging the millennial’s way. If there is going to be a real revolution, where the establishment is gradually replaced by the Bernie revolutionaries, the revolutionaries (millennials) will still need a spokesperson AND a leader. Bernie can take on that role, at least for a while. His prominence and energy will keep the gadfly function active and visible and part of the national conversation. Sure, someone else may come along and represent it better, but until then Bernie’s continuing role is to be the leader of an important emerging constituency

.

Infinite Challenge

**Well, it’s taken several weeks and several odd strategies but I managed to get through Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace on my third attempt. 

One strategy was to get the Audible version of the book (free to new members, which you can immediately opt out of). I played it back at 1.5x speed. But I also had the text version that I could read in a browser on a large display. Because of this I was both audibly and visually kept on track. While I was at it, by using an earphone with a pause control, I could stop and mark the many, many instances where the narration differed from the text. These marked places are easily condensed into a document that I can send to the publisher or Audible.com, which will probably not initiate any re-aediting, but at least it’s on record. Oh, and I did this only while walking on my desk treadmill with the keyboard and display on the versa desk. 

Reading the book is a tedious task, and without multiple inputs the reader could easily get lost, or lose much of the writing. There’s hardly any plot but the text explodes like a firehose of words describing in minutest detail things that are not essential to understanding what’s going on, hence the tediousness. On the positive side, there are engaging descriptions of addiction, addiction therapy (mostly AA), depression, suicide and family relationships. Its often funny, both in the action or in the premise or description. Read the Wikipedia entry on it and you’ll see that the whole thing has a gigantic tension between reality and hyper reality.

I read this book mostly because it’s been praised so much, especially on its 20th anniversary. But frankly, I don’t think I’m up to its challenges. And don’t know who could be. I think I understand addiction better, depression better and even suicide. But reading the book is like having a large neurotic pet that is physically ill. A lot of work, and you’ve gotta love it. Or else, like me, take it on as a challenge for private reasons.

Reply to comment on previous post

**I’m always impressed when someone notices this blog, which I write mostly for my own amusement. Once in a while there comes a courteous, thoughtful comment that I appreciate. This is one that came through, anonymously, recently. It’s worth a complete post and not just a reply in the comment section. I’ve included the commenter’s text in italics. 

This is your blog. Your space. Your MT space. So if others come here to read & comment, hopefully it's out of respect & consideration.

Yes, it’s my space but it’s a public place. Anyone can come and read and make comments. It’s the way blogs work. But I wish all commenters were as gracious as you. Thanks.

You being a former CS teacher/lecturer, you're bound to be remembered by some in the small-world CS community where you were known by many. 

Yes, I met many good-hearted people during that trek through the desert. Only a few of them have stayed friends with me since I left, and I value them. 

Being that CS is a practice of mental grappling & reasoning, out of the spirit of respectful consideration, you may have some here who are innately different from your current perspective, making comment.

Yes, I expect such.

Regarding your comments that "There is no spiritual healing," and "the CS movement is coming to a grinding halt," how could you possibly know? These claims are as unscientific & unsubstantiated as what you are claiming to be unscientific & unsubstantiated!

I beg to differ. Thirty five years in the religion and half of that as a practitioner and teacher never showed me an actual healing that could be verified by the same kinds of rigorous standards used in medicine or in public health. In fact, as noted in the post, during those years I saw lots of people encouraged to wear their failures on their bodies for all the world to see. And if you follow the link, you can see where I starred in one of the most painful tragedies imaginable: encouraging a mother not to seek the simple medical treatment that would have kept her child alive. I can never forget that, though for several years I tried. 

As the post noted (and as others of my posts have also) a reasonable person would “follow the money.” It’s a pretty good indicator of what people think will do them some good. The money isn’t going into spiritual healing. And not just because Big Pharma has a lot of influence. It’s because nobody is coming forward submitting a physical healing that can be reliably tested. Everything is still in the realm of the anecdotal. Even the CS pubs don’t ask that "healings" be verified by professionals. The only requirement is that the testifier and “witnesses” have good reputations, which smacks of collusion.

If even one CS healing would pass an objective, professional examination, and if the result could be replicated over a wide range of conditions and time, there might be serious interest in what produced it. In that case CS healing could become a big BUSINESS, because people would flock to a method that resulted in such convincing proof of healing. It isn’t happening.

How many practitioners are actually making a living solely from the work they do as pracs? I could never make it, and I was somewhat popular. And most of the pracs would not be in the business if not for wealth outside of income from the practice. Many have spouses who work. Many are just plain wealthy, making their practice more a hobby than real work. And a few, mostly young people, are willing to live at a subsistence level for a time. Pracs may be busy, but it’s mostly because (mostly elderly) people call for inspiration and support as they struggle with the inevitable physical and mental issues associated with aging. Either that or if they’re teachers, they have a ready-made pool of starstruck customers willing and eager to sustain them.

Bedside manner is actually the most potent element of a successful CS practice. People can be talked out of psychosomatic problems, talked into feeling more hopeful and less stressed (stress being a major component of many problems), or given little busywork assignments that help them ignore the fact that physically they aren’t getting better and in most cases are getting worse. I’ve been in the same room with pracs on the phone troweling on platitudes to people who call them, often every day. This is not spiritual healing. It is a consensual con game. Somewhat useful, but not marketable to a public that simply wants to be cured, and not just schmoozed. 

As for the “movement,” it is hardly moving, growing gelatinous as it wanes. I used to work in the 26-story “Administration” building on the CS campus. Even then there were some floors only sparsely populated. But now the whole building is leased out to non-church occupants. It's a pretty clear sign of less “administration” to do. The former Colonnade building is now named for its address and is occupied by Northeastern University. Obviously the church is on life-support from its property holdings and other investments, and not from the bequests and contributions of its increasingly expiring members.

It’s even gotten to the point that today when a case of child abuse based on spiritual healing practice makes the news, Christian Science is hardly ever mentioned, other than as an historical reference. CS parents are now too smart (or afraid) to rely on spiritual healing for their kids, because they don’t want to be arrested and have their lives and faces plastered across the news media for being guilty of child abuse. And they’re also patronizing medical practitioners and pharmacies like everyone else, but more or less sub rosa. 

To a certain logic, all may appear to be one thing, but what if the framework of that logic only represents a level or layer of comprehension that is infinitesimally small? What if there is way more going on underneath that is just not known or understood to that logic? What if there IS a lot more to a man than the physical body?

You can go as low or as high as you want, but in the end people want actual healing in their lives. Practical results. Not just a good feeling, or patience with their pain and disabilities. Or even a satisfying theory. They don’t want some intellectual abstraction, some fondly wished for reality. They have a pain, or a functional failure or a deformity and they want to get back to normal. Normal as in humanly normal. Until CS can deliver that kind of result, it will remain a mind game and a conspiracy, won’t generate much interest and will continue to diminish as an influence in the world. My post was ultimately about being in step with reality vs. simply being theoretical. You can be logical within a theory but if you start off wrong you will end wrong (even MBE said something like  that). 

The shoes of CS do not fit everyone. 

Because most people don't want to contort themselves to fit a rigid, fruitless mold. MBE claimed that physical healing would verify the validity of CS. We have yet to see that evidence.

That is to be expected in our big world. One would not expect a ballet dancer to moon-light as a logger. Different shoes. In those two worlds, one could not be the expert of the other's field. 

The "field" we're talking about isn't a specialty. It's normal human life. 

A non-believer cannot claim to be an expert of the beliver's field - it simply cannot be. Different realms & different focuses of thought.

Whoa! I AM an expert in this field. For too much of my lifetime I studied it, practiced it, taught it, lectured about it, wrote about it and went to jail for it. Don't tell me I'm not an expert.

The post you’ve commented on was exactly on your point. One can be completely  consistent with a theory but ultimately wrong because one's premise was wrong. Intellectual consistency and logic just don’t matter to someone with a cancerous organ, or a cataract, or a blocked artery. The ONLY thing that matters is that the diseased condition is reversed and normalcy re-established. Whatever your “realms or focuses of thought,” the pain, the malfunction, the contagion, the deformity and so forth inhabit the only real dimension of interest to a sick person. Make a conclusive demonstration in that realm and you will get the millions to investigate and take up your belief.

Otherwise slide into history like the Shakers, who at least made something useful.

Right sequence, wrong foot

**In order to get out of marching around on an October's cold, muddy field in Buffalo, I volunteered for the ROTC band. It didn’t seem to matter that I said I played piano, they needed drummers and so I was handed a drum. I can keep a beat pretty well, though I don’t do all the flourishes real drummers can do. I enjoyed rehearsing with the band up in a nice, warm third floor lecture hall that overlooked the frozen sleety grounds where my less fortunate comrades slogged around hefting icy rifles and soggy boots. The band practiced all winter for the big spring parade, which of course occurred outdoors in a still-cold Buffalo spring, like March or April, maybe even May. One of my first impressions on reaching the street was that the drum was damn heavy to walk with, and had sharp hardware that bashed against my thigh with every step. Never having been fleet of foot, and concentrating so much on dodging the pain of marching with a drum on my hip, I lost track of the “left-right-left-right” cadence bellowing from the drum major ahead. While everyone was stepping with their left foot, I was stepping with my right, and vice versa. So while I was perfectly in time step to step, I was completely out of step with my group. Of course I was soon made aware of this mistake and skipped around to reverse it - with corresponding extra jabs to my thigh.

A current luminary in the Christian Science movement, is also an astrophysicist. So he’s not only a scientist who happens to be Christian, he’s a Christian who also claims to be scientific about Christianity. About the only thing these two disciplines have in common is that their arguments follow in logical progression. But like my faulty marching, CS starts on the wrong foot. Which pretty much invalidates all of its conclusions. And results in pain. I recently read the text of a talk he’d given in which he made many unsubstantiated claims, using the same quotes and cadences I used to make when I was on the same lecture circuit. 

I was once impressed with that tight logic. Until I discovered that the starting assumption — that there is a divine entity managing everything in perfect harmony— was bogus. It had previously, over many years, been an unchallenged assumption, I having been brought up with that assumption and participating in all the religious activities that sprang from it. So, while the CS arguments stemming from that assumption are in time with each other, they are totally out of step with reality.

Another kind of theist might find the logic of CS convincing, if they were free enough from parochial influence. But in the end they’d wind up just as disappointed and frustrated as I was. While some may argue that the existence of God cannot be proved, or unproved, the claim of CS to be true is defeated by its own measure. All through its literature is the claim that the truth of its assumptions are demonstrated by physical healing. Not just feeling better, or bearing up optimistically or becoming a nicer person. Physical healing. The kind of healing that millions (billions?) of people seek and find without resort to prayer of any sort, least of all “Christianly scientific prayer.”

No matter how strenuously Christian Scientists claim to be healed, there have been no convincing instances of it in my experience. Just the opposite. I’ve seen people so sick and unhealed through prayer that they let growths develop on their face or body; who put up with days of migraine pain; who even let helpless children endure suffering, sometimes to the point of death. Despite all kinds of rationalizations, it is not the patient but the practice that is at fault. 

If “spiritual healing” were effective, people would seek it, pay dearly for it. It would be so popular that whole industries would spring out of it, and educational institutions would teach it. And there’d be no bad press. Believers say that such can’t happen because of the perversity of humanity, its materialism and false education. But a healing practice based on the principle that there is an infinite, omnipotent and readily available divine source cannot have such conclusive and consistent failures. At least there should be some spectacular successes! And those successes would drive further interest and patronage. But what do we have instead? An increasingly inward-looking church, members and publications quietly congratulating themselves that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, real physical healing is going on and therefore they are in step with the truth. 

The CS “movement” is quietly grinding to a halt. The decline is aided, of course, by the fact that a large segment of its (lucky) membership is aging and dying. The righteous claims of younger, more robust members are being shredded as they age by the ailments typical of a human body that is exceeding its evolutionary design. Many secretly use medical services. Most parents are compelled by community laws to have their sick children treated by real medical doctors, cutting down on the most egregious of their practices. Many of their kids, not brainwashed by parents and grandparents, don’t join churches and thus don’t make up for the deceasing membership. 

Whatever can be said about the sound logic of Christian Science, it does not deliver on its promises. There is no spiritual healing. None. And if there is no such healing then the logic that would predict it is totally internal, and its practice is out of step with reality.   

Intelligence and theism

** For a long time it was a mystery to me why intelligent people stay religious once they encounter and contemplate the powerful arguments against theism, especially when they've been victims of its inconsistencies and failures. Something has captured the core of their identity and won't let go, as the following video shows (thanks to DarkMatter2525 via Matt at SouthernSkeptic.)

Birth of atheism

Newborn babies are naturally atheistic and need prolonged systematic indoctrination by parents and/or religious institutions to overwrite this natural state. I have intelligent friends and family who no longer practice their religion but still indulge in bits and pieces of it. Some go to church now and then. Others still revere and study the Bible. Others claim they still believe in the essential truth of a religion but don't get involved with its church. As the above video suggests, these die-hards were "carefully taught" from an early age, making it so hard to break out of those primordial brain grooves. 

Why didn't it work with me? 

I'm clean. God-free. Spirit-Free. Holy book-free. Church-free. I'm probably not even that good a humanist -- though I try. What I've just figured out is that I didn't receive my indoctrination from a personal source. It came mainly from institutions, which is a few clicks weaker than personal imprinting. It came from early church involvement and all levels of Catholic schooling including college, where I was taught by the "Defenders of the Faith," the Jesuits. 

Top of the slide 

Ironically, that Catholic college was my gateway to atheism. In the last half of my senior year, a young Jesuit brother, whose name I've forgotten, introduced a new class called "Existential Phenomenology." I don't remember much from that class but its impact was immediate and radical anyway, beyond its content. Imagine having been immersed for twenty years in the ideas of Thomas Aquinas and their spinoffs and implementations, and then suddenly you behold a vast field populated with more than Catholic philosophers. Of course I was naive, made that way on purpose by a system that scorned heterodoxy. In that class I learned of Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Hussrl, Camus, Sartre and a pantheon of other philosophers who not only propounded views divergent from each other, but also from the only philosophy I'd ever known, one that supported the Catholic religion with which I'd so identified. That expanded view started a process of doubt and questioning that led in a couple of years to my disengagement from the church and its doctrines.

Down, and out

But that awakening wasn't enough. Though for ten years I wandered agnostically through the intriguing landscapes of philosophy, I never found a home in any of them. Until Christian Science. For complex reasons detailed here many times, this quirky Victorian relic had convinced me it held the true view of reality I’d been searching for. I set out to make a spiritual home there, and even tried to eke out a living practicing its brand of "spiritual" healing. I never could make a living charging people for my prayers but somehow I hung on for over thirty-five years. (Second degree indoctrination is weaker, but still damned strong.)

But THAT didn't work out either! Hence, this blog since 2005.

What finally broke the spell

After much reading and thinking and time, came the realization that the problem wasn't with any particular religion – that was just brand dissatisfaction. It was a categorical error: my blind acceptance of the very existence of a god, the grand assumption beneath all the brands, theism. In all my searching I hadn't noticed this, focussing only on finding one right explanation and practice. With the removal of this central pillar of belief the whole superstructure of religion collapsed around me, leaving hardly a scratch from the debris.

Degrees of imprinting

One of the reasons I'm so against religious indoctrination of children by their parents is that its crazy-making influence works too well. I've been able to turn so completely from theism and its by-products because I wasn't imprinted as deeply as those with a more conventional upbringing. If anything, I have been at heart an anti-authoritarian. Since the root of religious imprinting is parental indoctrination, deference to a strong leader (parent) underlies religiosity and conservatism. In my own case, indoctrination didn't come mainly from parents. My father, in addition to being strong to the point of violence, was anti-religious, the opposite of my mother. Since institutions were more influential than personal indoctrination in grafting theism onto my psyche, maybe the failure of an institution to help me in my great need cleared the last mile to my atheism

Why do I care?

Religious conviction in itself wouldn’t be very dangerous, except perhaps to the believer. It's supposedly a free country and people are entitled to whatever private fantasies get them through the night. Proselytizing is odious enough, but too often religious convictions and right-wing political ideologies coalesce, which has widely disastrous effects in the public sphere. For example, Georgia, where I now live, has been kicking around several pieces of legislation that would breach the wall of separation between religion and the State. Whether these efforts make it into law isn't as galling to me as the continuous pressure to do so. This depressingly reflects the desperation and power of religious constituencies fighting against the inevitable trend of American society away from theism.

Daddy issues

Why do the two so easily go together? Consider the "strong father" complex, the need of frightened people to be approved of and commanded by a superior entity, whether a supernatural Creator, a parent, a religious leader, or an ideology – anything with the power to punish and reward, create and destroy. Today's conservatism seems to be an example of this, characterized as it is by a resistance to change, reluctance to take risks, to explore territory that might revise one's views and behavior, a need to be certain, to be a winner, to be reactionary, etc. This resonates with a recent Vox article citing a survey that suggests authoritarianism is the fundamental characteristic of the conservative voter, and the explanation for the Trump phenomenon (he poses as the strong father and supporters expect he'll beat up the people they fear.) I've also written about it here.

Hope and fear

I continue to hope in the slow attrition of religious influence through generational dilution (none-sense). If we can avoid some apocalyptic event (most likely religion-based), reason will do its work and elevate the human race to where intelligence and theism will universally be acknowledged as polar opposites.

Atheism is not a religion

**Thanks to Matt from SouthernSkeptic

The Bible as bad writing

**When I was a Bible student, reading it every day, reading about it often, interpreting it for various audiences I would deal with the obvious mess that the Bible is by explaining that the message got so polluted by various political, mental, technical and cultural influences that the REAL meaning, the SPIRITUAL meaning became obscured.

This is how Mary Baker Eddy explained it. She of course set herself up —as so many have —as someone who had the unique divine inspiration to comb through it and discern the SPIRITUAL meaning that others mostly missed. But in the end she did what just about every Bible thumper does: cherry-pick passages here and there and weave them into support for a particular thesis. (Her "proof" that she was indeed this inspired scribe was that the system of "spiritual healing" that she invented based on it worked. But it doesn't.)

I didn’t grasp this at the time because I, too, was working under the assumption — delusion — that there is a divine Agent active in the universe who is trying to get through to us but for some never-explained reason has to use these woefully inadequate scribes to do it. As I studied more about the history of what we today call the Bible, I learned that it was a particular compilation of various myths, rumors, cultic rituals and other so-called doctrines of christianity, which freely circulated within that halcyon land mass we today call the middle east. Which stories got compiled into the present Bible depended on the opinions and political clout of various church authorities and scholars at the time. The Emperor Constantine, knowing that nothing unites like a common delusion — diverse people holding to the same religious precepts — decided that there should be one religion, and therefore one religious document that everyone would have to take as the final statement on the truth of Christianity. So he commanded that it be created. Yes, the Bible was created at a certain time and place. Those texts that became the canonical “winners” excluded many — most — of the “gospels” floating around in the 4th century and earlier. With the discovery of the Nag Hammadi, an ancient library, biblical scholars had to deal with some of those contemporaneous texts: The gospel of Thomas, of Mary Magdalene, and a slew of other luminaries that would have been quite well known to the average person in the 4th century but who got obliterated by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Not that those other pieces of oral tradition were much clearer or more “inspired” than what got canonized but they illustrate the arbitrariness of what so many people consider a finished, divine work. And reading them was one of the reasons why my faith eventually crumbled.

From Southern Skeptic article

Recently, it was refreshing to encounter a blog called Southern Skeptic, since I now live in the middle of the Bible belt where the State legislature is currently working on six or seven bills about “religious freedom,” which obviously is only about freedom for the mainline christian religion, preferably of the evangelical variety, and oppression for everybody else. (You can imagine what atrocities they will try to push through.)

The writer, known only as “Matt,” explores his journey from fundamentalism to skepticism. His article, 7 Reasons God is a Terrible Writer does a good job of filleting this revered mashup that has been directly responsible for so much evil in human history. He asks: 

“So what would we expect to find in a book that was written by God (or “divinely inspired”)? Here are seven suggestions.

 (I’ll just quote the top line items and encourage you to read the details:)

1. It would be well-organized.
2. It would be more specific.
3. It would be easy to understand.
4. It would be perfectly consistent.
5. It would have specific, verifiable prophecies
6. It would contain knowledge that humans couldn’t have had.
7. It would have beautiful, heart-rending poetry and stories 

While many would object to that last feature, he makes a convincing case that most of the stories are strange, pointless and/or disgusting. He prefers hundreds of other, human writers. As do I.

Ask a believer why the Bible is inspired and the answer you get is, the Bible says it is. That's known as a tautology. But even if you accept that it could be inspired and absolutely true and an unerring guide to righteous human living, that acceptance would most likely crumble once you start reading it Because the writing is so bad.

Maintenance or Revolution?

**The following is response to a FB post made by a friend:

___, I’ve appreciated your posts on FB and have wanted to chime in on the conversations about the campaigns, but I really don’t want to get into scraps with the likes of ___, who rails against a polarized nation and then goes to show why it’s so polarized. A one-issue voter is a failed voter, one who doesn’t/won’t understand that governance is complex. The Tea Partiers in Congress are a good example of what happens — and doesn’t happen — when these narrow thinkers get power. Worrying about unborn, non-viable “babies” is an effective distraction/excuse for not dealing with the general realities of life. Some of these realities concern actually born babies — most of whom are black or brown, poor and extra susceptible to poisoning — who have to suffer the consequences of such blinkered thinking, 

There is an important distinction between the two Democratic candidates. As Robert Reich has said:

I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have.

But Bernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because he’s leading a political movement for change.

I just turned 75. I will feel no effects from the outcome of this election. My Social Security will continue. So will my Medicare. I live in a comfortable home with all the gadgets and amenities I could desire (thanks Apple discount). I even live now in a Red State but don’t expect to be persecuted much for being a Liberal/Progressive. Rednecks tend to leave old farts alone. 

BUT, my kids and grandkids and people of your generation will have to live with the consequences of this election for a long time. And those consequences could be quite severe, — sometimes I think even apocalyptic: voting rights curtailed, police violence unrestrained, mass incarcerations, more medical bankruptcies, and other kinds of right-wing destructive lunacy rampant.

Despite being actuarially insulated from its consequences, I’m really concerned about how this election goes. It’s different from elections of recent times, even 2008’s watershed. That moment gave the first hint of the stakes on today’s table. Obama’s election wasn’t just about a black man being elected president. It was an indication that the public wants to be involved in the political process. Another word for that is “revolution.” 

With all the trumpeting of personalities in the campaigns, the media is missing the point — maybe not missing it but attempting to distract from it: the choice is between maintenance and revolution. If a Democrat is elected the people either will get more power or they will stay unempowered. If a Republican, it’ll be the end of democracy, religious fanaticism will lead to the western version of sharia law, segregation, inequality and poverty will increase, and we’ll probably invade somewhere and lose.

I’m often tempted by Hillary’s “competence” and political savvy. She may maintain Obama’s management of government, but that would not be an entirely good thing. Obama has disappointed progressives by being a left-centrist. I understand that political realities may dictate that, and one person can hardly do what has needed to be done since the 2000 election debacle. No, it wouldn’t be as bad as a Republican victory in November. But that isn’t the only choice this season. Hillary would be maintenance. Bernie would be revolution.

No, Bernie can’t do it all by himself. But as a seasoned member of Congress he certainly knows the ropes when it comes to bipartisanship — after all, he’s had to work with both parties most of his career! But just as Obama’s inexperience was mitigated by his choice of advisors and Cabinet, so Sanders will lead in concert with like-minded people. And let’s not forget the importance of Supreme Court posts that will likely be filled during the next president’s term. A Democrat will help steer the court leftward, whereas a Republican will steer it toward more Citizens United, etc.

So, this year I will “waste” my vote on the prospect of revolution. I will vote for Bernie in the Primary and the Democrat in November. 

I’m heartened by your activism and hope you will increase and extend it.