I think that the faith based initiative is a bad idea. It was a bad idea when Bush proposed it and it is no better when Obama proposes it. Is it just a giant suck up to the Christain Right? Does he think it will work?

The problem with the faith based initiative is the loose ACLU type definition of what qualifies. Will a terrorist inspiring Jihadi Muslim Priest qualify? Will Louis Farakhan? Would you like Reverend Wright to get your tax dollars to spend on social programs of his choosing?

The effectiveness of many faith based organizations is precisely because they are free of government control and can thus spend as they see fit. Those who want government money may have a hard time getting private donations; there may be a reason for that.

HKO

I just got back from Cincinnati where I went to the Creationist Museum. (Actually it is in Hebron, KY.) I was expecting some hole in the wall attempt to promote the dismissal of evolution. This is a very substantial museum with a full staff, a big parking lot, and it was well attended. I would estimate the construction cost to easily be $5 million.

You can see a display of the ark under construction and see movies about the dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. No I am not kidding. If the earth is only 6,000 years old and man was created in the first week, then dinosaurs must have been around at the time of Adam and Eve, which is also on display.

If you start with the premise that the bible is the word of God and must be taken literally then you end up bending every other discipline to fit that assumption or risk losing your faith.

Faith and science are like math and history; they can coexist without substantiating each other. Science explains the way things work and faith describes who we should be.

The United States has more people who accept creationism that any other industrialized country. Some find this of concern. I guess this is OK as long as there are enough free thinkers to keep scientific progress in play.

I think the museum is available for Bar and Bat Mitzvah receptions, but there are none booked yet.

Tips to David Cassesa for taking me.

Pastor John Hagee was slammed for his comment that God let the Holocaust happen as a means of returning the Jews to Israel. He certainly did not create a new theological concept that God works in mysterious ways, and his purpose is not always obvious. Did not God destroy Sodom and Gamora?

Now I personally have a problem with the concept of God’s will being used to describe such horrors, because it removes man’s repsonsibility both for making it happen and for failing to stop it. The Holocaust was not a plan of God; it was a failure of man.

I heard John Hagee at the AIPAC meeting last year and I have no doubt he is a friend of the Jews and of Israel, though I certainly differ sharply from his theological readings of history’s tragedies.

However, how is Sharon Stone’s claim that the Chinese earthquake was “karma” for their actions in Tibet any different from Hagee’s claim that the Holocaust was a form of God’s will?

We all want a deity to vanquish our enemies and endow us with prosperity. It is a shallow theology that removes justice and righteousness from our own actions.

Be Happy: The American Refusal to Deal with Suffering
by Jude Acosta
in (yet again) American Thinker.

This would make a great sermon in any American church or synagogue. It addresses one of my great reservations about the shallowness of many American theologies.

A few short excerpts:

Where did we ever get the idea that we could petition God for happiness as if we were putting quarters into a candy-dispenser, that if you pray “just so” or tithe “just so” that God will reward you with a new job and a corner office? To my ears this sounds like a Christianity that has been co-opted by corporate interests or, worse, by Hollywood.

We know that suffering is real. We know that the world is filled with it. But we don’t want to deal with it. So we turn it into melodrama and fantasy. We objectify it, minimize it, and depersonalize it. I have seen the same person watch horror show after horror show, play violent video games, but refuse to help care for an elderly relative with incontinence because it was “gross.”