Swine flu and Perez Hilton (a cultural disease)

I have a friend who, in turn, has a friend that is a Bible literalist, and who never believed in evolution. Until, that is (as my friend relates the story to me), the gentleman and his wife got a dog. In thinking about the wide variety of canine breeds out there, said Bible literalist opened his mind to the logic behind the process of evolution.

I'm reminded of this story because of the potential swine flu crisis taking shape. If someone doesn't believe in evolution, a little simple reading about the nature of viruses and bacteria, and the rapidity with which they can mutate, develop resistance to antibiotics and other treatments, and strike down human populations in large swaths (think 1918 especially) should be enough to give them pause to re-evaluate their stance.

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My thoughts on the ridiculousness stemming from the recent Miss America pageant, in which Miss California 2009 was the target of judge Perez Hilton's ire after she said she was opposed to gay marriage when asked her opinion on the topic. On his video blog afterword, Hilton said her answer cost her the pageant (confirmed later by Donald Trump in a television interview) and referred to her as a "dumb bitch."

For the record, I support gay marriage. But to publically condemn someone in a foul-mouthed fashion for their beliefs, whether liberal, conservative, moderate or what-have-you, does nothing to advance the dialogue in this country and only gives fuel to the fire of people like Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com and SaveAmerica.com. In a press release issued by the Christian Newswire (their releases are always a delight to read when going through e-mail at work), he's quoted as saying: "Perez Hilton is showing the ugly face of the intolerant homosexual agenda, squashing everyone else who won't bow down to immorality."

The irony, of course, is that in the quest for tolerance, homosexuals can now be labeled intolerant.

A local news anchor who writes a weekly column published in the newspaper for which I wrote put it nicely this week:

One of the judges, a clown named Perez Hilton, asked Ms. Prejean her opinion on gay marriage. Notice the key word in that sentence, “opinion.” She gave it, saying she doesn’t support it.

What’s the controversy? People are entitled to their opinions and just because you don’t agree doesn’t mean they should be chastised. I also don’t think people should say her answer is why she lost. It probably didn’t help, but I’m guessing swimsuit, evening gown and the talent portion of the show may have played a role, too. I think, for the most part, these kinds of pageants have become irrelevant. Need proof? They invited Perez Hilton to be a judge.

Read the full column here.

Birkat HaChamah welcomes me back

Excuse the dust that's accumulated over the first three posts here, published in February. This blog is clearly a work in progress, but consider this the grand unveiling of sorts (for those that followed the link from my work blog, Tangled in Wires). I figure if I'm going to be motivated to write anything here (and I've meant to write lots), the only thing that might do so is the thought that people are tuning in.

For those stumbling across this blog from any other source: I'm employed as the Web editor (et. al) at The Saratogian newspaper in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. I mention that for disclosure purposes.

Why? Because one of my colleagues was up early this morning to write a story about a local celebration of Birkat HaChamah, the Jewish observance/blessing of the sun and Creation that occurs once every 28 years (read it here). As the headline suggests, the ancient tradition has taken on a modern significance:

From a modern perspective, Rubenstein said the tradition of observing Birkat HaChamah also relates to environmental movements within Judaism.

“The holiday is an opportunity to fuel the drive to green practices,” said [Ruhi] Rubenstein.

Interestingly, and as a bit of background, according to the information about the tradition provided by the JewFAQ:

In 2009, Birkat Hachamah happens to fall on Erev Pesach, the day before Passover. In other words, the blessing is recited on the morning immediately before seder night. This timing is very rare: according to an Orthodox Union article, it last occurred in 1925, but the last time it occurred before that was 1309! A Star-K article indicates that the last time this occurred before 1309 was 693 and 609.

A respected Chasidic rabbi, Rabbi Meir Yechiel HaLevi of Ostrovtza (known as the Ostrovster Rebbe), said that the Exodus from Egypt and the events behind Purim occurred after a Birkat Hachamah on Erev Pesach. The Rebbe suggested that the final redemption would occur after a Birkat Hachamah on Erev Pesach that was coming soon. Of course, he said this before the 1925 Birkat Hachamah on Erev Pesach, so most people assumed he was talking about that one, and that he was wrong.

The observance of this tradition and the article seemed as good a reason as any to dive back into this blog.

New definition in GWOT?

In an era when the news cycle incessantly forges ahead and pushes older stories out of our collective thoughts, it was good to come across Thomas Friedman's column about the Mumbai terrorists still stranded in a morgue in that city.

It was an interesting and heartening followup to the November 2008 tragedy, especially for someone like me who would like to see more positive stories about Islam reach a wider audience.

"People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim," Hanif Nalkhande, a spokesman for the [Muslim Jama Masjid] trust, told The Times of London. Eventually, one assumes, they will have to be buried, but the Mumbai Muslims remain defiant.

Friedman goes on to quote M.J. Akbar, the Indian-Muslim editor of Covert, an Indian investigative journal, who called the actions of those who lay in the morgue a war against both India and Islam:

"Terrorism has no place in Islamic doctrine. The Koranic term for the killing of innocents is ‘fasad.’ Terrorists are fasadis, not jihadis. In a beautiful verse, the Koran says that the killing of an innocent is akin to slaying the whole community. Since the ... terrorists were neither Indian nor true Muslims, they had no right to an Islamic burial in an Indian Muslim cemetery."

That's an interesting term. Perhaps the Muslim community should make a concerted push to have "fasadis" enter the mainstream language as a way of counteracting how these self-described "jihadis" are tarnishing their faith? Both liberals and conservatives in this country have utilized such subtle manipulations of the language to great effect.

As an aside: "GWOT" stands for "Global War on Terror." I borrowed the term from a Newsweek article about David Cohen, the "spymaster" of the NYPD. In the fourth paragraph of the story, writer Christopher Dickey says Cohen gives the acronym an almost obscene inflection.

Beheading in Buffalo

Another tragedy out of Buffalo last week got lost among all the headlines about Flight 3407.

According to the Buffalo News, an area businessman by the name of Muzzammil Hassan allegedly beheaded his wife, Aasiya Z. Hassan, when she served him divorce papers. The irony is that Mr. Hassan founded a TV station in 2004 meant to promote a positive image of Islam. Full story here.

As noted in the article, Khalid J. Qazi, the president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York said it would be a mistake to link this act of "domestic violence" to the Hassans' Islamic faith.

“There is no place for domestic violence in our religion — none. Islam would 100 percent condemn it,” he is quoted as saying in the article.

My understanding of Islamic law is minimal at best, so I leave that up to practitioners of the faith to better educate me.

The National Organization for Women - New York State, on the other hand, was not shy about placing blame on the larger scale. From a press release sent via readMedia Newswire:

"...Why is this horrendous story not all over the news? Is a Muslim woman's life not worth a five-minute report? This was, apparently, a terroristic version of 'honor killing,' a murder rooted in cultural notions about women's subordination to men. Are we now so respectful of the Muslim religion that we soft-peddle atrocities committed in it's name? Millions of women in this country are maimed and killed by their husbands or partners. Had this awful murder been perpetrated by a [sic] African American, a Latino, a Jew, or a Catholic, the story would be flooding the airwaves. What is this deafening silence?"

NOW also took exception to public officials and media's use of the term "domestic violence" to describe such an act (and on that, I have to readily agree):

"What is 'domestic' about this violence? NOW NYS President Marcia Pappas says 'it is high time we stop regarding assaults and murders as a lover's quarrels gone bad. We further demand of lawmakers that punishments fit crimes. We of NOW decry the selective enforcement of assault laws and call for judicial enforcement of our mandatory arrest policy, even when the axe-wielder is known by his victim.'"

More details of this case weren't available from the Buffalo News yet, but I have a hunch that as they emerge, the story will become more Shakespearan than it already is.

Update (Feb. 17, 12:09 p.m.):

I noticed last night CNN finally became aware of the story (read here), though the Buffalo News is naturally more on top.

Also, when writing about Islamic law (shari'a) yesterday, I was aware of a proposal being discussed for the Swat Valley in Pakistan that would allow and officially recognize the Taliban's strict interpretation of the law in the region. Looks like it's taken effect.

Mission statement

Simply put, this blog is about science and religion.

Or reason and faith, if you prefer.

More specifically, it's about how the two are often at odds — or made to be at odds — by opposite sides of the culture wars. My fascination with this topic was forged in large part during the crucible that was the Bush 43 years; the idea to examine it in blog form specifically, however, only came in the waning months of that administration. My purpose for this blog is both personal and professional: as a means to explore these themes for my own education and self development, and to use it as a launch pad for future writing projects.

Today, the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (and Abraham Lincoln) seems like an auspicious day to officially start this blog up (it's sat languishing for several weeks after I created it). This post is meant to delineate my focus here, which will be useful for me as much as the reader (and since I have no readers just yet, especially useful to me).

So at the outset, here's what I think is important to know about me: I consider myself a man of both science and faith. Even as a child, I never felt the two to be mutually exclusive; never thought the two must inherently be at odds with each other. If God created the universe and life here on earth, it seemed natural that he would be the one to set in motion all these natural processes by which the natural world operates.

Of course, I never could explain the idea of Adam and Eve, but I never worried about it because I never bought into such strict interpretations of the Bible.

In fact, I never really bought into much of organized religion. As I got older, I became interested in Eastern religions (Zen Buddhism, Shinto, Hinduism) and philosophies, and like many Westerners, began to incorporate the aspects of those religions and ways of thinking that made the most sense to me into my own, very nebulous belief system. In high school, and again in college, as I learned about Islam, I also grew an interest in that religion and the myriad cultures that practice(d) it.

I gradually began to refer to myself as "nominally Catholic." Given the wide variety of belief systems I saw in the world, and the thousands of years behind many of them, I reasoned that no one religion could possibly have it ALL right. I started looking at them as different paths toward the same goals.

In high school I started getting interested in archaeology, and when I entered college, that was the course of study I pursued (along with the requisite courses in cultural and biological anthropology and linguistics). It's this education that most shapes the way I look at the world: through the lense of evolution and human culture. Through that lense, religion began to take on a fascinating new aspect: as a vital component of human cultures, in which social mores were codified and transmitted.

However, during my coursework, I was also struck by a point made by one of my adjunct professors: That "Science" (yes, with the big "s"), like "Religion," was a human construct, a way of looking at the world and seeking out answers. Like religion, it could turn dogmatic and seek to supress those things which went against established convention. That lesson has stuck with me ever since.

During all these years, though, I never lost the sense that there was something greather out there, something behind the veil in front of our eyes that we call "reality"; I never lost the sense that I was connected to it, that it flowed through me and everything around me.

Being nominally Catholic, it's most easy to refer to it as God, but I also like to think of it as a life force. Yes, this concept is no doubt influenced by the one made famous in "Star Wars," but for me it more directly comes from the concept of ki (in Japanese; chi in Chinese), which I'd become familiar with through my training in traditional karate.

Eventually my eduction rolled into a career in archaeology, and my co-workers, like many in the field, I think, were a particularly atheistic lot. My sense of connection with that greater-whatever waned a bit, in hindsight, but was never lost. In the nearly three years since I left that job, it's gradually begun to strengthen (for a number of reasons).

All of this brings me to the foundational motivation for this blog, an argument in the culture wars that most rankles me: that to believe in a religion is to be somehow "unevoloved." That faith in something other than reason and science is the sign of a weak mind. That a world without religion would be a world ruled by sanity and peace.

So this is my counter argument: Belief is an inherent part of the human condition; that to abolish religion is to deny a fundamental nature of our being; that any hope of abolishing it is, in fact, impossible.

To blame religion for all the world's ills, especially war, is near sighted. As a concept, religion sounds just as good on paper as capitalism, democracy, socialism, communism or any other human construct. In practice, all of those systems can, and have, been corrupted and bent to the will of humans. And whether the motivation is religious, economic or political, science has often served as the tool to do terrible things to other humans and our planet.

That's not to say I'm comfortable with unquestioning adherence to a religious faith, though. To cling to a belief system with a mind shut of from knowledge and insight accumulated through observation, research, experimentation, reason, deduction and reevaluation — the scientific method — is just as near sighted.

"Zealot" is a dirty word to me. I consider "hypocrite" to by one of its synonyms. I've found both religion and science inspire some to zealousy.

So again: This blog is meant to mediate the scientific and religious. My goal is to learn more about the natural and social sciences and the many faiths of the world, and how they all contribute to our quest as humans: To seek and know. I hope it inspires good dialogue and debate. I'm looking forward to the journey.