On Twain, James and Churchill
This weekend I marched with Planned Parenthood in the Houston Pride Parade and hosted the Planned Parenthood after party. The entire event was rejuvenating – particularly the march. Planned Parenthood has one of the less visually impressive entries – no float, no flashing lights, no music – just a bunch of people holding a banner and handing out condoms with information on when to come for free HIV testing. I didn’t expect the reception we got...
The women in the audience cheered and screamed so loudly for us, I figured Brad Pitt was standing behind me. I couldn’t figure out why until one of them ran up to me, hugged me and said “thank you for representing us.” It suddenly became very clear how frustrating it must be for women knowing the decisions affecting your reproductive choices are being made by a group of old men who will never be directly affected by their votes. As a protestor-turned-volunteer once put it, “everyone is pro-life until they need an abortion.”
I spent Sunday with J and we had a long, wonderful discussion about the experience. Specifically, she asked my why I seemed to care so much what evangelical Christians believe. She has a point – after all, there are people in this world who staunchly hold that the earth is flat. Compared to them, the idea that a man born of a virgin could perform magic and rise from the dead seems almost logical! But we live in a democracy, and while I couldn’t care less about how they think, I am forced to care about how they vote.
Mark Twain once quipped that a jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. His commentary on the American judicial system applies to democracy as well. When I have just as much say over federal funding for stem-cell research and tax law as do geneticists and economists, a unique situation arises in which questions of policy are decided not by those who know the most but by those who can best summarize their argument into a short, memorable, emotionally-charged sound bite. The situation is only exasperated in the age of the internet when anyone can learn just enough about a subject to be dangerous as evidenced by the sudden surge in experts on evolution, global warming and genetics.
My problem is not with faith – my problem is with dogma. I am a person of great faith, and while most would not call that in which I choose to place my faith a religion, I disagree. I have great faith that if each person serves the greater good to their utmost capacity, society will progress; that there are no bad people, only misguided people; that the path to progress is not in believing that you have the ultimate truth but in admitting that you know very little and proceeding with humility. I have no proof to back up these assertions which are the guiding principles of my life – never attained, always followed. If that’s not a religion, I don’t know what is.
This in mind, my problem is not with those who believe they possess the written word of God – after all, I have no more proof to back up my assertions than they. What bothers me are those who allow others to do the thinking for them. At a wedding recently, the priest gave a homily in which he stated what Paul meant was... I found myself thinking you have no idea what Paul meant – only your interpretation of his intent. Those who read their religious texts and come up with their own interpretation are religious in the healthiest of senses – but I fear they are in the minority. In my experience, the vast majority of the world’s population think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices as William James so eloquently put it.
And so we are left with a choice – play the game and fight sound-bites with sound-bites or sit back and hope that in the end, that which is right will win. Churchill was right - democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
The women in the audience cheered and screamed so loudly for us, I figured Brad Pitt was standing behind me. I couldn’t figure out why until one of them ran up to me, hugged me and said “thank you for representing us.” It suddenly became very clear how frustrating it must be for women knowing the decisions affecting your reproductive choices are being made by a group of old men who will never be directly affected by their votes. As a protestor-turned-volunteer once put it, “everyone is pro-life until they need an abortion.”
I spent Sunday with J and we had a long, wonderful discussion about the experience. Specifically, she asked my why I seemed to care so much what evangelical Christians believe. She has a point – after all, there are people in this world who staunchly hold that the earth is flat. Compared to them, the idea that a man born of a virgin could perform magic and rise from the dead seems almost logical! But we live in a democracy, and while I couldn’t care less about how they think, I am forced to care about how they vote.
Mark Twain once quipped that a jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. His commentary on the American judicial system applies to democracy as well. When I have just as much say over federal funding for stem-cell research and tax law as do geneticists and economists, a unique situation arises in which questions of policy are decided not by those who know the most but by those who can best summarize their argument into a short, memorable, emotionally-charged sound bite. The situation is only exasperated in the age of the internet when anyone can learn just enough about a subject to be dangerous as evidenced by the sudden surge in experts on evolution, global warming and genetics.
My problem is not with faith – my problem is with dogma. I am a person of great faith, and while most would not call that in which I choose to place my faith a religion, I disagree. I have great faith that if each person serves the greater good to their utmost capacity, society will progress; that there are no bad people, only misguided people; that the path to progress is not in believing that you have the ultimate truth but in admitting that you know very little and proceeding with humility. I have no proof to back up these assertions which are the guiding principles of my life – never attained, always followed. If that’s not a religion, I don’t know what is.
This in mind, my problem is not with those who believe they possess the written word of God – after all, I have no more proof to back up my assertions than they. What bothers me are those who allow others to do the thinking for them. At a wedding recently, the priest gave a homily in which he stated what Paul meant was... I found myself thinking you have no idea what Paul meant – only your interpretation of his intent. Those who read their religious texts and come up with their own interpretation are religious in the healthiest of senses – but I fear they are in the minority. In my experience, the vast majority of the world’s population think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices as William James so eloquently put it.
And so we are left with a choice – play the game and fight sound-bites with sound-bites or sit back and hope that in the end, that which is right will win. Churchill was right - democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
posted by Nicholas at 12:47 PM
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