Moral sleight of hand

Magicians excel at misdirection and sleight of hand.  They can seemingly do the impossible, when in fact their shtick is simply a combination of manual dexterity and the ability to get you to look somewhere else besides the place where the actual trickery is happening.  No criticism intended; to be an excellent magician takes years of practice.  But the whole thing boils down to drawing your attention away from where you should be looking.

There are a lot of religious leaders who excel at the same thing.

We're seeing it in bucket loads at the moment, due to the Ashley Madison hack, wherein a site dedicated to finding married people partners to cheat with was broken into, and thousands of names and addresses made public.  The ones who hit the news were, of course, the public figures, but the hypocrisy factor made the religious ones stand out even more.  To no one's particular surprise, alleged pedophile and general lowlife Josh Duggar had an Ashley Madison account, and he and his family are now scrambling to do damage control despite his having a reputation by this point that is probably past salvaging.  

But no sidestepping was quite as comical as the dance done by British Islamist leader Hamza Tzortzis, whose name was also released in the leak.  Confronted by his having a paid subscription to the infidelity site despite his constantly preaching about the evils of sexual immorality, Tzortzis had what may be the weakest defense I've ever seen.

Tzortzis was lambasted by a follower on his Facebook page who wrote, "So Hamza, you are claiming that some guy knew all of your private information and wanted to screw with you so he created a fake account on Ashley Madison.  This guy then paid hundreds of dollars to maintain the account for 9 months.  This account was then used to make transactions at locations where you were also present at the time.  Then the ultimate plan was to hack the Ashley Madison database and release 40 million users so you could be exposed.  Am I getting this right?"

And Tzortzis replied, in toto, "You’re an idiot. Read the post before you write.  The amount was 15 pounds a month, not hundreds."

So okay, maybe not all of 'em are skilled at misdirection.

But not all of the sleight of hand has to do with infidelity.  Recently Mehmet Görmez, the head of the Diyanet (the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs), called on Islamic religious authorities throughout the Middle East to unite to fight ISIS.

Such a move, of course, would be deeply controversial in a region where sect loyalty and arguments about the interpretation of religious texts routinely lead to violence.  So in response to Görmez's statement, Bilal Yorulmaz, professor of religion at Marmara University, said that what the Islamic world really needs to be worried about is...

... the Jedi.

"Jediism … is spreading today in Christian societies," Yorulmaz said.  "Around 70,000 people in Australia and 390,000 people in England currently define themselves as Jedis."

He then went on to describe how Hollywood is the real problem, presumably because the movie industry so frequently blows up priceless archeological sites and beheads researchers who are trying to protect them.

Okay, I know confronting your personal failings isn't easy, and it must be even more devastating to own up to the evils committed in the name of your deeply-held ideology.  But setting up straw men as a way of deflecting blame only makes your own culpability in things that much clearer.

You have to wonder, however, how long people will go on defending a position that is, at its basis, indefensible.  Are they hoping that sooner or later, the short attention span of their followers will kick in, and all will be forgiven and/or forgotten?  Hell, it worked for Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard --  both of whom were caught in ongoing infidelity despite their continual harping on sexual purity.  Haggard, in fact, was not only caught cheating, but caught cheating with a male prostitute.  And both are now back to preaching the gospel to standing-room-only crowds, and making money hand over fist doing it.

Funny what time and pious misdirection can do.

I've always felt that honesty and integrity were about the most important character traits out there, so the whole thing is pretty repulsive.  To be able to stand up in front of a crowd and make utterances that are deliberately designed to steer people away from your own failings, indiscretions, and immorality is as dishonest as simply lying about it.

The sad thing is that for some reason, it works.  Just like with stage magic, people get fooled, again and again.  But far from entertaining, this sleight of hand just leaves me feeling a little sick.

Failures of compassion

If I was asked, "What is the most important rule to follow in every situation in which you interact with your fellow humans?", I would respond, "Always be more compassionate than you think you need to be."

The inward emotion of empathy, and its outward expression of compassion, are what keep us from acting on our baser instincts -- anger, envy, lust, greed.  And compassion starts with "what would I feel in his/her place?"

However I rail against the religious at times, this principle is foundational to most of the world's religions.  Consider the passage from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12:

And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?  And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.  And the second is like, namely this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  There is none other commandment greater than these.

Which is pretty unequivocal.  And while I (understandably) question the first part, I think the second is spot on.  The Muslim tradition says likewise, in the hadith (collected stories of Mohammed).  Check out this passage from Kitab al-Kafi, volume 2:

A Bedouin came to the prophet, grabbed the stirrup of his camel and said: O the messenger of God!  Teach me something to go to heaven with it.  Prophet said: “As you would have people do to you, do to them; and what you dislike to be done to you, don't do to them.  Now let the stirrup go!  This maxim is enough for you; go and act in accordance with it!”

I find it curious how so many of the hyperreligious remember the first bit -- about loving god -- and conveniently forget about the second.  In Islam, it is that spirit that drives the homicidal madmen in ISIS, who in Iraq are currently butchering anyone who doesn't meet their standards of holiness.  Likewise Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Nearer to home, the inability to feel empathy and act with compassion takes a different and subtler guise, but still often cloaked under a veneer of piety.  Take, for example, what Rick Wiles, host of End Times Radio, said about the Ebola epidemic:

Now this Ebola epidemic can become a global pandemic and that’s another name for plague.  It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming.  Ebola could solve America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion. 

If Ebola becomes a global plague, you better make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you, you better make sure you have been marked by the angels so that you are protected by God.  If not, you may be a candidate to meet the Grim Reaper.

Really?  Your God of Mercy is going to visit a plague upon us, wherein we die in agony while bleeding from every orifice, just to teach us a lesson about sexual purity?

And lest you think that this is just one lone voice with no credibility, Wiles said this immediately before interviewing Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA).

Then there's John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, who says that it's "god's position" that if you don't work, you should starve to death:

To those of you who are sick, to those of you who are elderly, to those of you who are disabled, we gladly support you.  To the healthy who can work but won’t work, get your nasty self off the couch and go get a job! 

America has rewarded laziness and we’ve called it welfare.  God’s position is that the man who does not work shall not eat.

Interesting.  I thought it was "god's position" that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it was for a rich man to enter heaven (Matthew 19:24).  Oh, and there's the whole "give everything you have to the poor and follow me" thing, too.  (Luke 12:33).

Inconvenient, that.  Much easier to cherry-pick passages you'd rather rant about, such as the ones about homosexuality, and forget about the ones that might force you to change your lifestyle.  (Hagee's net worth, by the way, is estimated at five million dollars.)

It doesn't stop there, however.  Ultra-religious Texas Representative Louie Gohmert, who self-righteously shoves his Christian beliefs down people's throats at every turn, showed his true colors with regards to the refugee children from Central America now in camps on the US/Mexico border:

I’m hoping that my governor will utilize Article 1, Section 10, that allows a state that is being invaded — in our case more than twice as many just in recent months, more than twice as many than invaded France on D-Day with a doubling of that coming en route, on their way here now under Article 1, Section 10, the state of Texas would appear to have the right, not only to use whatever means, whether it’s troops, even using ships of war... they’d be entitled in order to stop the invasion... 

Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles... we don't know what diseases they could be bringing in.

And that brings up yet another bible quote, from Matthew Chapter 25, which these people also conveniently forget:

Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’  Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’  Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.

I try not to be self-righteous myself.  I know I'm not as compassionate as I could be, that I fail, like all human beings fail, to reach the standards I set for myself.  And I need no god to tell me how to act, nor to let me know when I've fallen short.  But I do know that I am not a hypocrite, wielding a Bible or a Qu'ran in one hand and using the other to strike out at minorities, refugees, the oppressed, and people who don't believe as I do.

The whole thing brings to mind another quote, this time from Stephen Colbert, and it seems a fitting way to end:

Lies, evangelicals, and girly hats

Is it just me, or do others find it weird how much the Religious Right focuses on issues of sexuality, and ignore the other biblical rules?

And I'm not just talking, here, about the oft-quoted bits in Leviticus that are just plain weird, such as the prohibition against wearing cotton-polyester blends (Leviticus 19:19).  I'm talking about much bigger stuff.

The whole thing comes up because of Gordon Klingenschmitt, the outspoken evangelical Navy chaplain who has been increasingly in the news because of his vitriolic opposition to anything approaching LGBT equal rights.  Most recently, he weighed in on the story that President Obama was changing the United States Marine Corps dress uniform code to require unisex hats, which an article in the New York Post described as "so 'girly' that they would make the French blush."

I'll ignore the Post's obnoxious characterization of the French, which I would have thought would be beneath any reputable news source, because that snide little remark was minor compared to the outcry from conservatives that erupted when the story hit.  The howls from Fox News alone were enough to bring down the walls of Jericho.  And then Klingenschmitt and other members of the Religious Right took up the thread, claiming that the whole thing was part of an evil plot to turn the members of the military gay.

"You can't have men in the United States Marines wearing clothing that's designed for women," Klingenschmitt said, on his weekly show Pray in Jesus' Name. "So you know what President Obama's solution is?  To make all the uniforms the same.  And this is going to usher in the possibility of transgender, cross-dressing men who want to look like women, they'll be able to wear a women's uniform.  This is not just a fashion stunt, it's setting the stage for transgender cross-dressing men to enter the military.  This decision came down from on high, I guarantee it, and that's a demonic spirit."

Righty-o, Reverend Klingenschmitt.  The only problem is, the entire story is false.  There was no command from President Obama, no plan to change the design of the Marine Corps' dress hats, no evil desire to turn everyone in the military gay.  And worse still, Gordo, you knew that, didn't you?  Because immediately after the story hit the Post (and launched into Fox News), the Marine Corps' own news source -- Stars & Stripes -- ran a story debunking the whole thing.  "The president in no way, shape or form directed the Marine Corps to change our uniform cover," said an official statement from the Marine Corps headquarters.  "We are looking for a new cover for our female Marines for one overriding reason: The former manufacturer went out of business. … The Marine Corps has zero intention of changing the male cover."

That's right; given that the story from the Marine Corps headquarters predated both Klingenschmitt's screed, and most of the hoopla on Fox News (and that it took me a thirty-second Google search to find the story debunking the claim), it's not too far-fetched a surmise that Klingenschmitt, and the reporters on Fox News, weren't just wrong; they were lying.

So it's all very well for Klingenschmitt and his pals to indulge in their peculiar obsessions about what people might be doing in their bedrooms, and claiming biblical justification for their stance.  The problem is, doesn't the bible have a few things to say about lying?

Oh, yeah, like the Eighth Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."  And Leviticus 19:11, "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie to one another."  And Psalms 101:7, "He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." And Proverbs 19:9, "A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish." And Jeremiah 9:3, "And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord."  Oh, and my favorite one: Zechariah 13:3, "...Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord."

Hmm.  A few more lying-related verses to fret about, there in the bible, than there are ones defining what people are allowed to do with their naughty bits.  A bit worrisome, that.

It's funny to me, in a wry sort of way, how the evangelicals claim the moral high ground over atheists like myself, and yet so many of them are perfectly happy to twist the truth into knots to support whatever political position they prefer.   And they will stand there and declare, with no apparent sense of cognitive dissonance, that because my general attitude is that I don't give a rat's ass what two consenting adults do in their bedrooms (and, if they're having fun, more power to 'em), that I'm the one who is somehow evil and depraved.

On that count, Klingenschmitt et al. might want to refresh their memories about another biblical verse that comes to mind, namely Matthew 7:1-5: "Judge not, that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?  Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?  Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."